Wedding venue owners provide the stage for the worlds love stories. Think about that for a moment. A wedding venue is not just a building for business. Wedding venues are built or renovated to host one of the most incredible celebrations, weddings and along with weddings, love stories, family stories, dreams for the future! This transforms a building, all who enter it and those who own it. How on earth do you come up with one list of top 5 wedding venues near Austin Texas, home of some of the most successful wedding venue owners in the United States? I focus on friendly, business savvy, wedding industry supporting wedding venue owners & managers. These venues not only offer engaged couples & their families the best wedding experiences, they also support their wedding venue colleagues. This creates a powerful impact on the local wedding industry which in turn benefits wedding vendors and local businesses like hotels, restaurants & even gas stations who will benefit from the millions of dollars in revenue wedding venues will bring to the local economy. Revenue venue owners rarely get credit for, but that is a whole other blog. These venues deserve your support first, in my opinion, because they are the foundation for the local wedding industry to thrive! Please support our friendly, wedding venue owners who through their hard work and innovation are building a better, safer, more professional wedding industry.
Top 5 Austin Area Wedding Venues:
Lone Star Oaks: Liberty Hill Texas. When consulting with wedding venue owners, I often advise them to create top ten lists about their venues. For example, “Top Ten Reasons Couples Book Our Venue” or “Top Ten Unique Venue Features”. Lone Star Oaks could have top 20 lists! They have so many unique features and beautiful venue spaces that make this Austin area wedding venue a standout. While visiting Lone Star Oaks in April of 2021, I had the pleasure of meeting Mary, Dave, Jenna & Roger, the venue team. Mary is one of the friendliest wedding venue owners I have ever met! She was excited to host the Wedding Venue Owners Working Vacation, a group of wedding venue owners who traveled from all over the country to tour Austin area wedding venues! She greeted our group with a generous spread of treats & refreshments. This is never expected but always appreciated.
The Lone Start Oaks team is hard core dedicated to providing outstanding hospitality and amazing wedding experiences. They are not afraid to roll up their sleeves and manage the massive amount of hard work required to run a wedding venue. Don’t be surprised to see the owner’s mowing their 22 acres of beautiful Texas Hill Country grounds in sweltering heat. Or managing their own social media, a time-consuming task that adds to the authentic experience engaged couples enjoy from start to finish when they choose to book their wedding at Lone Star Oaks! This wedding venue offers upscale Texas Hill Country vibes. For example, the reception space has so many lovely chandeliers, each one is unique! It’s the extra mile they take in every detail that has couples (and myself) madly in love with this wedding venue. Thank you so much Mary and team for being a supportive part of the wedding venue community & for all that Lone Star Oaks has done to help build a thriving local wedding industry in Georgetown, Dripping Springs, Liberty Hills and Austin Texas! Check out the images below for a glimpse at some of the beautiful wedding venue features offered at Lone Star Oaks. To enjoy a virtual tour and see more online images (dressing suites, grounds, wedding swing, real weddings) head over their site and socials or schedule a tour: www.lonestaroaks.com.
Favorite Venue Features: Ceremony Oak Tree, Dressing Suites, Wedding Reception Design, Cocktail Hour Space, Paved Sidewalk to Ceremony Site (LOVE), chandeliers, The Stain Glass Doors to Ceremony Site, Decor, Bar, gorgeous farm tables and venue furniture, mobile Green Wall, PARKING – I love good parking!
Kindred Oaks: Georgetown Texas. Elaine Lincoln was so gracious to host our Wedding Venue Owners Working Vacation group while we toured Austin. Elaine greeted our group with Round Rock Donuts, a favorite of Austin locals! We never expect this level of hospitality on our tours, but we appreciate it so much! Kindred Oaks has very unique features including an onsite florist, Lincoln Chapel a one-of-a-kind wedding chapel, remote controlled retractable pavilion walls that WOWED our venue owners, beautiful and distinct “LOVE LETTERS”, gardens, outdoor fireplace, a babbling brook flowing by the limestone covered pavilion and so much more! The fact that this wedding venue offers rustic elegance Texas Hill Country style with a bold modern minimalist work of art chapel blows my mind! It makes no sense on paper and perfect sense in person! It is so Austin wedding weird in the most beautiful way. Head over to the Kindred Oaks website gallery for more gorgeous images, find info on their upcoming wedding venue open house July 23rd, and contact page to schedule your wedding venue tour.
Favorite Venue Features: Gardens with running stream, LOVE letters, gorgeous grounds, beautiful reception pavilion, onsite floral design Zuzu’s Petals, Lincoln Chapel, the reception fireplace, ceremony site surrounded by natural beauty, charming historic design elements, ruins, multiple ceremony sites, the list goes on.
This French inspired wedding venue is located near Austin Texas, in a charming little town called Dripping Springs. You can clearly see that this wedding venue is an elegant standout in a sea of rustic Texas wedding options. I met the owner Karen online a few years ago when she joined the Wedding Venue Owners & Management Group on Facebook. We became fast friends and I asked to feature The Ma Maison in a blog and was absolutely thrilled that Karen said “yes”. I guess I thought I wouldn’t have a chance to feature such a stunning, luxury wedding venue as I am obviously not as well-known as some of the large blogs. But this is the essence of Karen, she is simply kind, genuine, authentic and she truly has a heart for uplifting others! Karen and her team have hosted hundreds of weddings and thousands of wedding guests. Their wedding branding is legendary, their experience for planning luxury weddings spans over 30 years!
In addition to hosting absolutely stunning weddings, there is much more to this venue than successful business practices. HEART! Karen & her family work hard to bring opportunities to the local and national wedding industry. They host wedding open houses each year where they celebrate the best local wedding vendors (no kickbacks or hidden fees). They are advocates for the local wedding industry, creating and building strong relationships with venue owner colleagues. You heard me, they support and work with their fellow wedding venue owners striving to improve standards of practice, wedding industry ethics and transparency! This was unheard of in years past, for this, we sincerely thank you Karen! Please support the Ma Maison and venues like this, they are truly changing the way the wedding industry works by empowering wedding venue owners. When local wedding venues with high business ethical standards succeed, the entire wedding industry succeeds!
My favorite Ma Maison venue features: Karen of course, The Green Cathedral, The Gorgeous Grounds, Spacious Tranquil Property, On Site Dressing Suites, Views, Loft Overlook in the Grand Hall, Chapel, AV System, Tons of Luxury Rest Rooms, Lake (Lac Moise) & Fountain, BELL TOWER, Gorgeous Ceremony Sites, Decor Cache, Commercial Kitchen, The Grove, Chandeliers….I’m running out of space, the list goes on!
There truly is no other wedding venue quite like Vista West Ranch. The venue is rustic but elegant in a chill way, its boho but very much Texas Hill Country. Vista West Ranch is purposefully designed to stand out in a beautiful way. I was absolutely thrilled to have the opportunity to tour this wedding venue, even on my online searches I could tell this was unlike anything I have visited before. The owners Joe & Stacey are straight talk no chaser wedding venue owners. They are honest and authentic in their business approach with couples and vendors. They hosted our group of wedding venue owners and graciously provided strategies for success. These wedding venue owners truly want to see wedding colleagues succeed.
The Vista West Ranch team is absolutely dedicated to providing safe, beautiful weddings – they truly love hosting weddings! You won’t find that passion at most corporate owned wedding venues! I sincerely hope that engaged couples will consider a small-owned, locally owned wedding venue first.
Favorite Venue Features: In house sound system (DJ’s love), willow sphere lighting, babies breath altar (incredible), rustic tin exterior, tons of gorgeous natural light, brewery, gardens and courtyard, Bunk House (suite), Tree House (suite), Honeymoon cottage, double commercial margarita machine, Biergarten, 25 custom 8ft farm tables, 250 fruitwood folding chairs and the stars at night are big and bright no added charge!
The Prospect House
I have toured over 850 wedding venues in 25 states, trust me when I say The Prospect House is one of a kind! Prospect House was designed by award-winning Texas architect Max Levy, known for creating simple yet dramatic modern spaces connected to nature through light, shadow, and breezes. The Prospect House offers a gallery-like event space with abundant natural light, a simple material palette, thoughtful details, and multiple outdoor sites, all designed to take full advantage of the long-distance Hill Country views. I would describe this space as modern minimal, high impact. Prospect House is located in Dripping Springs, Texas about 25 minutes from downtown Austin. While we were not able to meet the owner of The Prospect House, they were gracious enough to open the venue for our Wedding Venue Owners Working Vacation group. WeddingVenueOwners.com is dedicated to providing education and community connection to wedding venue owners. The Prospect House went out of their way to provide a group of strangers access to this incredible wedding venue and the experience we had here, was inspiring.
Engaged couples love this space for a variety of reasons, one being the modern design that does not look like most other wedding venue options. Wedding planners and engaged couples can really design mind blowing, wow factor weddings in this unique space. Please head over to their Instagram page for lots of beautiful images of how engaged couples have decorated The Prospect House for their Austin Wedding.
If you are engaged and searching for a wedding venue, I hope that knowing these wedding venue owners are friendly, kind, supportive of their wedding industry colleagues and dedicated to providing you with an incredible wedding experience, will encourage you to tour these venues first. I want to sincerely thank these wedding venue owners for going so far above and beyond in their efforts to extend kindness to fellow wedding venue owner colleagues. If you would like more information on any of these wedding venues, please contact didi@weddingvenueowners.com. To find friendly, wedding venue experts look for the WeddingVenueOwners.com badge below. If you would like host a Wedding Venue Owners Working Vacation and invite your colleagues and me, Didi Russell “wedding nerd” to your wedding venue please let me know, didi@weddingvenueowners.com. The only way to get on this list is to host a wedding venue tour or to invite me out to your location for a private tour and share your wedding venue story in our wedding venue features. I have toured over 850 wedding venues over the last 10 years in 25 states. I am passionate about sharing wedding venue owners stories and supporting our wedding venue owners and managers! Contact me for more information, didi@weddingvenueowners.com.
