Love, family, dedication and a true passion for farming make this wedding venue an authentic rustic experience for engaged couples!
This weeks Wedding Venue Story features The Barn at Cottonwood. For more than 100 years, and four generations, Siegel’s Cottonwood Farm in Lockport, IL has been the place where memories are created. Not just by the Siegel family, but also by families and individuals across the region. Today, it is still a working farm run by Paul and Sue Siegel, third generation, and has become one of the most desired wedding and private event locations in Illinois. “With our roots and our hearts dug deep into this land, we felt it was important to stay true to a quality and craft that would complement the history and natural beauty of our farm.” Siegel’s quote.
Kaity Siegel-Grimmenga, Event Manager at The BARN at Cottonwood was kind enough to share this family legacy and venue story. Please read the interview Q & A below to see how their farm has evolved over the 100 years their family has owned the property! LEAVE COMMENTS!!
Venue Owners, if you would like to have your venue featured in an upcoming Wedding Venue Stories, please contact didi@vawenetwork.com or join our wedding venue owners & managers community.
Why did you decide to start a wedding venue?
“We had many of our guests interested in having their special day on our family farm. I was married in out of state barn and we thought it would be a great addition to our farm to add a wedding barn that we could witness the love between two people.”
How long have you been operating?
“We have been on our family farm since 1909; I am the 4th generation. We started weddings using tents around 10 years ago. Our new barn was built in 2017, but we didn’t officially start doing weddings until 2019.”
Please share your experience about how much effort & cost goes into running a venue.
“Things that couples and start up venues may not be aware of.
It can be stressful with long hours and it’s not an inexpensive venture to operate. We wish it could be easy, but it is not just about building a barn and bam the money starts to flow in. There are many factors that go into providing a venue that has to meet the couples’ high expectations. The bride-to-be has a “fairytale” dream of what her special day should be. It is now your responsibility to give her that once in a lifetime experience. This isn’t just a business venture, your heart and soul has to be involved in planning and providing the couple a wonderful day. There will be challenging and emotional emails, texts, and phone calls along the way. Always remember it is her day. Most of the time you just need to listen and the changes will be few. In terms of the business realities you need to be aware of the costs of employees (that you can trust), insurance, advertising, maintenance, and the list goes on. Every effort must be made to keep the
facility in tip-top shape at all times.”
What do you like best about being a venue owner?
“Being able to witness the love between our couples. That will never get old.”
How many acres do you have and what is it like to maintain that much property?
“We have 50 acres. It is a lot of work, but I wouldn’t change it for anything.”
How many weddings do you host each year?
“When we decided to start weddings we did not want it to take over the weekends. We did not want our couples to be stressed about set up, rehearsals, etc., having to work around other couples big days. We do not push to have full weekends booked. We also only host weddings May-November with restrictions in October and November. To answer your question, it ranges between 15 and 25.”
Do you host wedding shows, open houses?
“We were planning on having a few this year, but didn’t due to the Covid 19 situation, maybe next year.”
Tips on providing great venue tours for potential clients?
Always treat the clients like family. Every guest we have on our family farm is treated like family.
What do you think your couples love most about your venue? Any venue assets or features that help you book clients?
“I feel that we are one of a kind in our area. No one has built a traditional Amish barn in our area in over 50 years. Many venues around us have barns, but the weddings are not held in the barn, but in a tent. Our barn was built with love by our Amish crew, the barn raising took only 15 days to build with no power tools. It was a unique experience to watch come to life. We also have a wrap around large stone patio with a water feature with landscaping.”
Please share any costly errors or regrets you may have learned from?
“Not asking more questions when we were in the planning process and having it all on paper.”
Do you have a great website? Tips on website design or features that help you attract clients?
“I believe we have a great website. I think your website must be easy to navigate and have photos.”
Any hard challenges you would like to share with venue owners and how you overcame that challenge?
“When we began our major challenge was city and county regulations. We were told we were taking all the right steps to get everything opened properly. After working with both our city and county on this process we had a ribbon cutting ceremony, couples began booking their “Happily Ever After” day, and then we were shut down due to changing regulations. It was devastating, both financially as a business and as emotionally as human beings. After many long stressful months and substantial legal costs we were finally able to host events in our Amish barn. No one had built a barn for weddings in over 50 years in our area and we were the “guinea pigs”. Regulation were being established for our specific situation. Which in my option just wasn’t fair but I guess that is part of being a business
owner. I learned who our real friends were out of the entire situation.”
Do you have any tips you would like to share with other venue owners?
“Sometimes I tell myself it was just not worth it anymore when I look back at the hardships we dealt with during the opening process, but then we have a wedding and the love we witness makes us just forget about all that.”
Do you have any thoughts or solutions to share regarding Covid 19? Or maybe share how Covid is impacting your business?
“It sucks! Only positive way to look at it is that we are all going through this together and we will get through it together.”
Any advice to anyone thinking of starting a venue?
“Be sure to give it very serious consideration before you make any real decisions. Make sure that you dot all your I’s and cross all your T’s before accepting any contracts. Be sure to get everything in writing from your city or county officials.”
If you would like to schedule a wedding venue tour please contact
Kaity Siegel-Grimmenga, Event Manager at The BARN at Cottonwood website: https://rusticfarmweddings.com/
The BARN at Cottonwood Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/SiegelsCottonwoodFarm
Please visit our Wedding Venue Gallery to view more inspiring wedding images and to see a couple of images from The Barn at Cottonwood that are in this blog. We hope you enjoyed learning more about The Barn at Cottonwood, Wedding Venue Story! #weddingnerd
