“I had my eye on The Grove at Briar Barn Inn since it was simply a blueprint on an Instagram post. From the start, I knew it was going to be where I would get married someday. There is just something so quintessentially charming about the post and beam restaurant and the quaint New England Inn. The entire experience working with The Grove was great. We picked December 8th for not only the idea of a winter wedding but also for the holiday decor and availability for our preferred vendors. They were flexible in putting together the details and stuck to all the outlined dates and deadlines.
We were assigned our wedding coordinator, Jeannine, about six weeks out as they said, and we were able to have our wedding details meeting soon after. The payment portal was easy to use, and the planning pod was intuitive and a great spot to keep important details in order. Jeannine answered all my questions promptly, and in the week leading up to the wedding, she was available for us to drop off all the decor ahead of time and spent time reviewing our vision one last time. On the day of, she was present, available, and helpful. She was detailed and organized and never pushy. She let us have our day and was there to help transition to the different elements seamlessly, paying attention to all the details so we wouldn't have to.
Our guests have had only positive things to say about the entire day from the incredible food and the overall atmosphere.
The only critique I have of the entire experience is the check-in process at the Inn. We had a 20 room block and ended up with 29 of the 30 rooms booked by our guests. The Inn has a very strict 2pm early check-in for 50 fee or 3pm otherwise check-in. We had a Sunday wedding in December where we had a first look and formal portraits at 2pm before a 4:00 ceremony because of the early sunset. We weren't able to stay Saturday night due to another wedding buy-out. The Grove accommodated me by making the hospitality suite available for us to get ready in; however, the Inn did not accommodate the groom getting ready. We rented out the Silo/Library for 250 to try to have a space for the men to get ready, but they didn't set up the privacy screen and there were too many people milling around for him to get changed in the non-private space. After a lot of inquiry from our wedding coordinator, our officiant, and our makeup artist, they finally let him into the room at 1:45 for the additional 50, but at that point it was only enough time for him to drop his phone and wallet. He ended up changing in the single stall bathroom in the basement of the Inn, which is a nice bathroom of course, but we would have liked a little more flexibility for us to have 1 room with early check-in to give him a bit more privacy. Flipping one room early for the bride and groom doesn't seem like a lot to ask in the grand scheme of the day or even offering some alternatives - we likely would have paid for a full extra night even if we couldn't get into the room the night before just to have the spot, but they didn't give us any options to work with until 1:45 p.m. ahead of 2pm call time. My recommendation for future couples is to negotiate into the wedding contract for something ahead of time if you could potentially run into the same issue, especially if you're out of towners who don't have other options nearby.”
