Stronghold

Important to note that this venue is not responsible for the Caterer or the service. This venue is booked from Stronghold Inc., Sugarloaf Mountain. This private non profit provides a venue coordinator (not a wedding planner), day of facilitator and a parking attendant for your event. Reading the contract on line from the web site
will detail the venue rules, regulations and lessee’s responsibility.

I was recently in a wedding at Stronghold. I have attended over 2 dozen weddings on both coasts, and this venue is by far the most beautiful, intimate, and impressive wedding space I have been to.
I see many negative comments below about the coordinator Chris, who must now be gone. The coordinator we dealt with is named Amy, and she was lovely. The grounds are extremely well maintained, yet feel inviting and not stuffy-​formal. They had ample space for catering to remain quite behind the scenes and the largest spaces I have ever seen for the bride and her entourage, as well as for the groom and his, to get ready. There were lots of spaces to use for the cake table, gifts, photo booth, plus plenty of room to wander, relax, and lounge, all while remaining in the immediate wedding area.
The area garden areas surrounding the mansion have lots of little nooks, stairways, and grassy lands. I can imagine numerous ways to set up a ceremony, cocktails, dinner, and dancing here. There is great lighting and so much natural beauty, you have to invest very little in the way of decorations.
The wedding I attended was on a Sunday evening. I don’t know if that is all they had available or if it is a discounted rate (it was not a Jewish wedding). But, it was absolutely a perfect.
The inside of the tent looked different than pictured here. I don’t know if that is because the venue changed the tent or if the bride and groom rented extras — there was beautiful fabric inside so you could not see all the metal cross bars. And lovely chandeliers hanging too. I would have considered renting a dance floor.

My wife and I actually changed our wedding date just to have our wedding here. We called them up and they said they just had a cancellation, we quickly scheduled the tour and shortly thereafter sent the check to reserve it.
This place is amazing! Our guests could not stop talking about how wonderful this place was. So beautiful and the grounds are well kept. If you see something during the week that concerns you, don’t worry as it will be taken care of before your day.
We had a very bad swarm of bugs when we did our walk-​thru on Wednesday, but come Saturday, there was not a bug in sight.
I admit that Kris is not the most personable host, but she is extremely busy with the upkeep. She is very direct and completely honest. When we saw the bugs, she told us that they would spray and do everything they could to get rid of them but she could not guarantee anything as this was natures issue. Whatever they did, took care of them and our day was the most wonderful experience we or any of our guests could have had.

I wish I could say more about this venue, but it’s hard since I haven’t even seen the venue. After talking with Kris, the event coordinator, I have removed them from my list of venues. She was cold, short, and not friendly. I think she’s in the wrong field, and should consider a career change.
She wanted to know my wedding date before arranging a tour. I told her, we are «looking» at Spring 2013, but we are open to other times/​seasons. She said there is only one date available, but didn’t provide me with the actual date. She then asked if I was still interested in a tour since they don’t have any dates available. On the voicemail she left, she mentioned there were other appt scheduled for this coming Saturday. Apparently, all those appointments must be for 2014 and beyond, because they only have 1 Spring date available in 2013. Seriously, don’t flatter yourself! It’s Strong Mansion, not the WHITE HOUSE, or Ritz Carlton!!!
Not only am I a bride, but I am also an event planner with MANY MANY contacts and vendor friends. I will definitely pass along my experience. Please REMOVE from your potential sites. It’s Chris way, or the highway!!!

Strong Mansion and the surrounding grounds are gorgeous. If you have your wedding here, you won’t be disappointed.
We had the ceremony on the steps which back up to a reflecting pool. There are lots of flowers and green plants, so you don’t need to bring any ceremony decorations. We had dinner and dancing under the tent, and took a lot of our pictures down the hill in their garden. It’s really an incredible spot for photos.
The rental fee is only for 7 hours and you have to add additional hours for set up and clean up. The rental fee does include a lighted tent, which was a huge bonus. That makes it quite comparable in cost to the county rental properties in VA and MD (which are relatively *cheap* compared to other venues), but it’s such a nicer place! And it’s much cheaper than other beautiful venues in the area — I did a lot of comparing.
Patsy, the day of help (she’s not really your Day of Coordinator, but helps with keeping things on schedule, lining people up, etc.) was great. She did an awesome job talking us through our rehearsal, which we had to do under the tent because it was pouring rain the day before the wedding.
It’s best to call them to get a response — email communication was sporadic. And book early — we booked 13 months in advance and there was only 1 Saturday slot in September left!