The Best Venue Perfect for Your Connecticut Summer Wedding!

You’ve started to warm up to the ideas open to your location with Part 1 of this blog series, but now it’s time to turn to the summer season for the best Connecticut summer wedding venues! Pun completely intended by the way.

As you curate your list of potential Connecticut wedding venues, keep in mind the different factors this wedding season holds. Summer weddings go hand-in-hand with warmer and brighter days so it’s one of the best times of the year to take advantage of the outdoor setting. With this, consider the higher than normal temps that may exist during the day and early evening. We’ll go into a little more detail about what you want to keep in mind when preparing for your summer wedding!

Summer Wedding Venue Must-Haves and Considerations

• Tenting Capabilities: Who doesn’t love to be outdoors during summer?! While rain is always something to plan for in any venue with outdoor elements, you also want to be sure to protect you and your guests from extreme heat. You’ll be thankful when you can enjoy being dressed up in your finest and dancing the night away without being sidelined by high temps. If you’re looking to host 100% of your event outdoors, be sure the property has room to host this many tents (reception + a rain backup plan), or one area large enough for an extended size that you can creatively split into two spaces.
• Exclusivity: With more couples looking into Summer for their big day, you may find that your venue hosts more than one wedding in a day. If being the only event onsite is important to you, be sure to ask the sales manager what their event schedule is.
• Noise ordinance: Like we mentioned under our list of Spring venues, it’s important to take note of the noise ordinance of your wedding location to coordinate the end time appropriately. You should be dancing to the very last beat as planned!
• Holiday weekends: Many of our favorite holidays fall right within the summer months (Fourth of July, Labor Day, even Memorial Day weekend which is the unofficial kick-off for summer for me!). Understand and budget for some added costs for hosting a holiday weekend event. This can be higher venue fees, rental delivery fees, or accommodations for your vendor team to avoid traveling back and forth long distances during heavy traffic weekends!

Now on to the good stuff! Below is a list of 10 venues fit for your summer wedding, all ranging in styles, settings, guest capacity, and more!

Chatfield Hollow Inn

Words and photos cannot properly do this space and its team justice! We’ll have a special blog post coming up on this newer Killingworth venue next week as it’s the perfect space for guest counts up to 200. Also known as the Chatfield Hollow B+B, this natural oasis offers a variety of ceremony locations. Choose between their two ponds, fruit orchard, grassy meadows, or birch grove to start. Along with the clear top tent onsite, the property — including their charming inn — belongs to you the entire weekend. With fully functioning flower and food gardens, you have the opportunity to bring the freshest details to your menu or decor, found right on site. The amenities and care this location provides is unparalleled and ideal for a variety of design approaches for your summer wedding!

photos: carla ten eyck photography

Stone Acres Farm

Stonington hosts a number of the best destination venues for you and your guests, many of which you’ll see below. Set on 65 acres of family owned property, Stone Acres Farm hugs its guests in the most natural and romantic views. Imagine your ceremony in their historic formal boxed gardens set in front of their farm house, which hosts an intimate group of 30 guests, followed by dinner on the vast lawn perfect for a tented wedding up to 250. You’ll fall in love with the area, but even more the owner as soon as you visit the space!!

Saltwater Farm Vineyard

Another Stonington favorite, Saltwater Farm is the perfect location for the rustic, but perhaps even the industrial couple! Ceremonies are typically set in the middle of their wide sprawling vines — lush, peaceful, and romantic. Of course, these views don’t get lost should you host your ceremony indoors in front of the floor to ceiling windows in the winery’s hangar. Designed with an upstairs and downstairs location to comfortably accommodate dinner and dancing for up to 200 guests, as well as cocktail hour and the ceremony if needed. Plus, two bars, because a wedding on a vineyard always calls for a glass (or two!) of wine.

photos: tim correira photography

Jonathan Edwards Winery

Located in North Stonington (not to be confused with the beautiful town of Stonington), Jonathan Edwards offers all the lush, rolling greens that a vineyard should. The winery includes an on site tent for dining and dancing all night long for up to 200 of your friends and family or their rustic barrel room for a smaller affair — even that back up rain plan we mentioned! Their tasting room and wrap around porch for cocktail hour is the best way to take in the views of your entire wedding day location and helps to take advantage of the entire space.

photos: robert norman photography

Heritage Homestead

Years ago, we had the pleasure of doing the first wedding set on this family owned property, a fully functioning farm with miles of the BEST views of the Quinnipiac Valley! Located more in the center of the state in the country town of Northford, Heritage Homestead sits on acres that are perfectly set up for a tent for up to 150 guests or an outdoor ceremony. The property also houses a barn pavilion for 120 guests for a sit down meal or as a back up ceremony location, enclosed in the case of inclement weather. Good weather? The walls can come right off, giving you a front row seat to the gorgeous views surrounding you. For your event, you have the entire space for your weekend to ensure a flexible day of timeline and set up schedule for your vendors to bring your vision to life!

photos: carla ten eyck photography

Branford House

A Jubilee Event favorite, the Branford House is a part of the UConn campuses, set on acres of grass that meet the Long Island Sound. This luxuriously built, stone mansion is comprised of three rooms, each with rococo ceilings and an ornate fireplace set against the rich wood walls — the Great Room’s marble fireplace heights itself at two stories tall! Between the rooms, you can sit a total of up to 200 guests, though depending on your floor plan, you might find it a bit more comfortable at 150 – 165. On a perfect summer day, or for guest counts exceeding 200, the lawn is perfectly prepared for that sailcloth tent you’ve been dreaming about!

photos: carla ten eyck photography

Gallaher Mansion

Some of the best summer wedding venues sprawl along the Connecticut shoreline areas. The Gallaher Mansion in Norwalk is no exception as it provides a timeless, elegant setting and romantic settings indoors and out. Open to hosting 100 guests inside the gorgeous stone monument or 200+ on their tented terrace, the Gallaher offers some rentals to help develop your look and several other amenities to make it your own!

Smith Farm Gardens

How could we not mention this idyllic country spot in our summer collection?! If you’re looking for a home wedding without the worry of structuring an entire venue at your own home, then Smith Farm Gardens is the best location to consider. Hugged by lush gardens, there’s a noticeable sense of peace when you step onto the property. When it comes to one of the most important details of your wedding — the food — Smith Farms lets you pluck right from their own garden. It doesn’t get fresher than that! To top it off, there are stunning onsite accommodations in the house, which is perfect for getting ready and hanging with your favorite people once the last song has been played. You can certainly host up to large number of guests here as your event takes place 100% outdoors with the capacity for a tent!

South Farms

Set a little more inland in Morris, South Farms is one of our favorite family-run farm venues! This barn is iconic and once you step foot on the property, you’ll know exactly why! Not only do they offer the parlor, hayloft, bull room, and stone barn, but they are working up their brand new Garage, opening the opportunity to their couples to host just under 50 guests all the way up to 175. Whether rustic, natural, or industrial, this space offers so much to their clients and exceeds your wildest dreams!

Chamard Vineyards

Another popular vineyard, but this time located right in Clinton. Whether you’re hosting an intimate celebration of 30 guests up to a bash of 150 of your loved ones, the vineyard has several locations for your ceremony or reception, both outdoor and in. As an added bonus to the local wine you can enjoy, Chamard is responsible for your freshly prepared culinary experience. While quiet and set back, the vineyard is not far from the center of town, so some noise ordinance rules may apply!

As you follow this list, you may notice many of these summer venues include working farms and wineries that contribute you to your event day menu. One of the best parts of summer is freshly grown food. Developing your menu with local, seasonal fare elevates the experience of one of the most important elements of your day and it has a resounding affect on all of your loved ones!

Let’s face it, there’s just no way to narrow it down to only ten venues. There are a few you will see double dipping across the seasons, but they’re too perfect to leave out. Because Connecticut has a proud list of venues, there are far more outside of this top 10 here that not only offer picturesque views signature to Connecticut, but their outstanding teams are just as excited for your day as you are!