DoubleTree Resort by Hilton, Lancaster

Girls generally know how they will act as brides, and I knew from the beginning that I would be STRESSING majorly over every detail. Having said that, picking Willow Valley/DoubleTree Resort for my wedding venue was the BEST decision I could have ever made. I grew up going to this resort with my family since I was a baby, and it was my dream location for my wedding. At the very beginning of my experience, a different Catering/Sales manager worked here, and I must say I was worried it was going to be a disaster. However, about a month into planning, Kris Becker entered the role, and changed everything. If you want a person who is friendly, kind-hearted, organized, and willing to go above and beyond for you, pick Willow Valley for your wedding. Kris was so unbelievable... she took ALL the stress off of me and my family and I knew every detail was going to be perfect. She even came the day of my wedding to help set up to make sure everything was exactly how I wanted it! She answered all of my questions very promptly and never missed a beat. If for no other reason, book for Kris alone.

The value of this venue is amazing. We got SO much for our money. We had a morning ceremony in the chapel with a brunch buffet, and our pricing included the ceremony, hors devours, a huge variety of breakfast and lunch foods (buffet style), mimosas, a discount on our cake and rehearsal dinner, and a complimentary night for my husband and me the night of the wedding! Some of my friends and family could not believe how reasonable it was when I told them what it cost us. Plus we got an additional discount for having it on a Sunday.

Quality and service are things that Willow Valley/DoubleTree has down. The grounds are gorgeous, the chapel is clean, adorable, and perfect for weddings, the Palm Court is breathtaking - everything is picture perfect. The food is delicious and the cake was out of this world. The Easter flowers in the front of the chapel were beautiful - we didn't even have to decorate it!

The people working there are amazing - as I said it doesn't get any better than Kris. The lady that helped me confirm the rooms we needed was also very helpful and responsive. The day-of coordinator was great... she checked in with me and dismissed the head table and she even brought my Dad a Diet Coke even though soda wasn't included in our package! My only issue was that she went MIA at some points of the reception... but I'm sure she has tons of behind the scenes work to do! Not a big deal at all. The bakery was great - Sue was so wonderful to work with and did exactly what we wanted! And our sound coordinator was a very nice guy who ran the sound perfectly during the ceremony, which is a huge stress saver! The people at the front desk were helpful checking all of our guests in, and were very accommodating when I was having a meltdown because we thought we didn't book enough rooms!

I also highly recommend having the rehearsal dinner in the smorgasboard! We had the rehearsal in the chapel, then headed over to the Family Restaurant and had a blast. DoubleTree is also a great venue if you have traveling friends and family who need to stay. Everything is in one place - SO convenient!

Thanks to Willow Valley/DoubleTree I had my dream wedding and could never have asked for anything more!! I highly recommend it if you know you will be stressing... trust me, your details will be taken care of and you will truly be able to enjoy your day! Best of...

We had a December wedding and the place was beautiful without a lot of work.

Best prices for a reception around! Great service, really friendly. Got a free Sunday brunch for 2 that we can use whenever!

They were amazing and the wedding was more than i dreamed it would be. When my cake turned out a little lop-sided, they didn't charge us for it...they took care of every detail. Every time we wanted to take care of something, they protested and took care of it!

My wedding day was greater than I could have ever imagined and I have Willow Valley to thank for that. I was very happy with everything that Willow Valley had to offer. The entire Willow Valley campus is beautiful including the chapel and the Palm Court. I didn't do any decorating and yet everything looked beautiful. Willow Valley makes planning easy and convenient by having the chapel, bakery, reception hall and hotel rooms all on the same campus. They also have a family restaurant on campus so all of the family members and friends that stayed overnight were able to have brunch together the following morning.

In addition, any time I had a question, I would email Megan in catering and she would get back to me promptly every time.

Even though Willow Valley is located in an alcohol-free township, we had tons of fun at the reception and didn't even miss the alcohol. Everybody still got up and danced and we all had a great time!

I highly recommend Willow Valley to anybody for any kind of event, not just weddings. They're even great if you just want to get away for the weekend.

Reception: Awesome, awesome, awesome people to work with, and a really great value for the money. They treated us as unique people, not just another event on the calendar. Everything was arranged as we requested, and went smoothly. The food was delicious and served well.

Drawback: requiring that the reception music end at a certain time really cut short our celebrating, especially since it took us a little while to get all the photography done before the reception.

Cake: sooo tasty and beautiful. Go early and try samples of the different cake types - they are all delicious. Our topper was still tasty for our one year anniversary!

We used Willow Valley for the chapel only. We had already booked our reception site elsewhere and only wanted the chapel for our ceremony. Normally they do not allow this, but our wedding day also happened to be prom night, and Willow Valley was happy to have us use the chapel. They provided a sound guy, appropriately named DJ, who did a great job. We were very happy with Willow Valley, and would recommend them.

Here are the Pros:
I fell in love with Willow Valley after staying there for a women's retreat a year ago. It was just after Christmas and the decorations were still up. I loved the chapel and the Palm Court and knew it would be a perfect place for a Christmas wedding. Then I picked up a brochure in which they listed all of their prices! For someone who lives in the Philadelphia area this place is a gem of a find! The price per head was amazing for what you got. There is no alchohol at this venue so that brings down the cost immediately. But even if you compare this venue with other venues subtracting the alchohol you still get so much more! We were paying for the wedding ourselves and I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to afford a grand fairytale wedding, but Willow Valley made that dream happen. You can't get more cozy and romantic than the Willow Valley Chapel and you can't get much more grand than the Palm Court. And Willow Valley is truly at its prettiest at Christmastime. And another selling factor for me was this classic Courier and Ives style sleigh in their loby. You can actually sit in it. I knew this would be a great picture opportunity and it was! Some of our best photos are in this sleigh.

Our coordinator, Megan was wonderful. She was quick to respond to emails and phone calls.

We held our rehearsal dinner there (which I recommend if you are getting married in the chapel). It allowed us to keep everyone in the same place and all we had to do was walk across the street to the chapel. The dinner was wonderful and they didn't rush us at all. Our sound guy, Brian at the chapel was amazing! He had the most wonderful attitude and energy. He was very helpful and thoughtful. He handed us the little lamenated paper that had Krause/Smith Rehearsal on it because he thought we might want it as a memento.

The afternoon of the wedding we called the front desk to see about getting my bags moved to the room my husband and I would be staying in that night. The head of housekeeping came out right away and took the bags himself. A very friendly and helpful man.

The wedding day went off without a hitch. Joe our limo driver was great. He helped every girl out of the limo. He even helped open the doors as I entered and walked down the isle with my father. I was noticing a trend that even some of the more minor players in the event took great care in making our day special.

In terms of the reception, everyone loved the food. The service ran smoothly. The coordinator greeted us and checked in from time to time. When we got back to our complimentary hotel room there were several gift baskets with snacks as well as our dinner which we had not gotten a chance to eat. We had a nice jacuzze bath tub which was perfect to slip into after such a big day. The next morning we were able to enjoy a complimentary brunch for two in the Palm Court. Everything was wonderful.

Cons: A word of caution to brides considering Willow Valley! They are wonderful. They are helpful, but they are also very relaxed too. I used to work for another venue who really thought of everything for the bride. They aren't like that here. I was fortunate in the fact that I was beyond thorough and thought of everthing and asked the questions I needed to ask and gave information that I thought might be helpful to them in making my day perfect. They have their questions that they need to ask you but i found that there were several other little details that they needed to know that they would not have asked me. I had to tell them. Also, they reserve that question time for about a month before your wedding. I requested that we come in for a tasting and planning appointment shortly after we had booked the venue and chosen our other vendors. I'm glad we did. It just put us at ease to know what was going on early. Its too stressful a month before your wedding to be making those decisions. Also, know that they are not your wedding planner. Some places are, but they are not. The only person who will be representing Willow Valley at your chapel ceremony is the sound engineer. No one comes over and directs your guests from the chapel over to the Palm Court. You need to have your minister or guest book attendants make an announcement or be your guides. Little things like that you really want to make sure to think through on your own. And another thing that I wasn't happy about but turned out okay is that the person who coordinates your wedding for all the months leading up to i might not even be scheduled to work the day of your event. That's what happened with ours. But the woman who was on duty was thoroughly briefed by our coordinator and everything went off perfectly. It just would have been an added bonus and personal touch to have had our coordinator who had been with us thru the planning stages. And for some brides I'm sure would have given them some extra peace of mind.

Also, our wedding was an evening wedding. The chapel ceremony was slotted from 5pm to 6pm. The reception time was from 6pm to 9:30pm. This is a total of 4 and a half hours. Had we chosen the afternoon wedding we would have recieved 5 hours. This is because they have quiet hours starting at 9:30pm. You still have the venue until 10pm, but the lights go up at 9:30pm and the dj has to stop playing. You actually pay more for an evening wedding and you loose a half an hour. That was a huge draw back to me, but we dealt with it because everything else was what we wanted. I really think they need to extend their evening weddings to at least 10pm. Out of fairness. There's not much difference bedtime-wise but an extra half an hour is about 7 to 12 dance numbers.

I think the only truly negative element of the review that I have is reserved for the bakery. And it deals with customer service and options. Our cake turned out amazing! It tasted great. We got many compliments. They are ranked number one in Lancaster for their cakes. The two downsides are, the person who takes you through your cake choices and the choices themselves. As we flipped through the book we didn't like any of the pictures. They were very dated. Very 80's. Lots of pillars and people on the cakes. If you wanted a fondant coating on your cake, you weren't going to get it here. This surprised me since you can flip through any bridal magazine or go on the knot and see the trends in cake designs. We finally found a cake on the last page that we knew once we took all of the dated chachka off of it would be a great cake. But as we talked with the woman ordering the cake for us, she had all these restrictions. You have to have a plate or pillar in between layers. We were told that the way our cake looked in the picture would not be how it looked when we got it, due to this stacking policy. We resigned ourselves to that fact but were pleasantly surprised when the cake actually turned out they way it was supposed to at the reception. When we asked this woman about using sugared berries, she had no idea what they were! She was a very unenthusiastic person and i was surprised she was even working at willow valley. Fortunately our florist knew what sugared berries were and had them placed on our cake for us.

To wrap it all up. Our day turned out perfectly. Willow Valley is a splendid place, very affordable, and great accomodations and food. Just remember that you need to be very organized and ask the questions that you need to ask.

The catering department went out of their way to make our special day as smooth and problem free as possible. They even made sure we were comfortable in the resort the night before the wedding!! I highly recommend this venue. Not only do they provide great service, but it is a wonderful place for your pictures!!

Our ceremony and reception could not have gone more smoothly. Everything from the chapel to the reception hall was wonderful. Our reception was in Statesman Hall which we found to be more private and in the end were pleased that we ended up there and not in Palm Court. I would recommend this venue to all.

Everything was very beautiful, and they did our cake there, and we had an ice-sculture as well. The ceremony was held in the chapel on site, which is very pretty. There are a lot of beautiful areas outside for pictures as well.

The Palm Court was beautiful! Megan helped make sure the day ran smoothly, and she was always available to answer any questions I had.

This was a gorgeous venue. It was easy to plan a wedding because everything was included. I woul definitely recommend Willow Valley for a reception!

Willow Valley was very responsive and helpful for our wedding. My husband and I live in another city and were planning everything via email. All of the staff was very helpful via email and phone to assist us in planning the reception. Willow Valley's costs were very competitive and they were very flexible with the schedule of our reception. My husband and were very happy and pleased with how our reception turn out. Thank you Willow Valley for making our day very special.

I dreamed of getting married at Willow Valley's chapel ever since it was built. My family used to stay there every summer when I was a child. It was a beautiful location for our wedding. Everyone complimented the surroundings from the Chapel to Palm Court, the pond to the pools....our guests made a vacation out of our wedding just as we'd hoped.

I would love to give 5s all around in my review however they were in the middle of renovating one of their buildings and when some of my family members checked in under our block the man at the desk put them in the middle of the renovations! The good news: After I went to them and talked to Lauren though, things were fixed in minutes. She made sure I was as happy as possible.

Willow Valley is lucky to have Lauren, Megan (their Catering Manager) and Liz Hess (baker). Those 3 women made sure we had the wedding of our dreams and tackled every problem that arose.

It is an alcohol free place, which may deter somg...but there is so much beauty there you don't miss that small aspect at all.

Our representative was great to work with. Although out of town the week before our wedding, she did have another rep contacting us that week! The rooms were nice however our complimentary honeymoon suite the night of the wedding had a very noisey shower as the pipes were shaking when temperature was at a comfortable level. Water temp had to be steaming hot for it to stop. We were a little rushed out of our reception as there was another wedding right after us and needed to get set up for them. Besides these little issues, the representative were a pleasure to work with and were accommodating where it was needed most.

Willow Valley provided us an absolutely beautiful December wedding. They were super helpful, kind, and wanted to see that my day turned out the best. We had our reception in the Palm Court, which looked so gorgeous decorated with their Christmas decoration.

It was great to have the wedding in the chapel on the resort grounds and have our guests walk to the reception.

GREAT PLACE FOR A RECEPTION AND WEDDING!!!!!!!!!!!! ONLY PROBLEM WAS WITH CAKE....SEE BELOW!!


Ok, I will say off the bat....if you want a delicious cake, the bakery at Willow Valley is the way to go! The problem that I had was that they say they "cannot" make cakes with layers sitting on top of each other due to sliding. They will only use pillars in between layers, which is an old fashioned look that I did not want. However, I know someone else who used their bakery, and this person had two fake styrofoam layers made, with one real layer on the bottom. They did this without using pillars because the styrofoam will not slide. This is what I asked for, and the lady said that could not, and have never done that, and that it is against their policy. After I called her out on it and told her that someone else had it done, after much argument and me getting a little snippy, she finally agreed to "check with a manager" and then later said it was fine.

So, pretty much, if you want a cake with pillars, you'll be fine. If not, be prepared for an argument and stick to your guns...Either way, the cake is delicious, and the decorations were beautiful... (just lacking great customer service).

Willow Valley is a beautiful facility for a wedding. They have a small chapel on site which is convenient if you're not looking to get married at your own Church. We loved the chapel on site feature and it was a major selling point for booking this venue. They also offer great package options. We chose the diamond value wedding package with the buffet option.

This package comes with:
Chapel Ceremony
One-Hour Rehearsal
30% Discount - Rehearsal Dinner & Group Sunday Brunch
One-Hour Complimentary Hors D'oeuvres
Dinner Selection
Deluxe Table Linens
Sparkling Cider Toast
Wedding Cake (WV Bakery $225 credit)
Ice Sculpture
Complimentary overnight room
Gift Basket in Room
Late Night Snacks in Room
WV Monogrammed Robes
Limousine Service (From Brides home to WV- Limited pick up area)
Sunday Brunch for Two
(Minimum of 150 adults for each package.)

The Palm Court is beautiful and requires little to no outside decorations. Willow Valley also provides a basic glass hurricane and candle for the table centerpieces if you choose to use it. (We did) The package offers everything you could need and it's not that expensive when you think about how much you would spend getting everything provided at different places. We also picked a cake that had 5 tiers which was more than the $225 credit, but we only spent a little more than $100 extra. The cake was very good and the bakery was VERY accommodating! It was rather difficult to get a hold of people in the sales office when we would call to ask our consultant about something regarding the wedding. I felt like we were constantly being told that someone new was handling our wedding only to find out later they actually weren't. It was very frustrating and I feel like the "wedding consultants" weren't very helpful for anything outside of the basic things Willow Valley provides. Some information we should have been told was left out when we should have been informed of it. It just seemed like nobody was quite sure what they were doing at any point in time. Everything seemed like it was set up perfectly, but on our wedding day...things weren't quite as perfect as we'd expected. My name was spelled wrong on our ice sculpture that was displayed as a focal point in the reception area. It was spelled RIGHT on ALL our paperwork and nobody could give us an answer as to why or how it managed to get spelled wrong. Also, many of our guests commented to us that they never saw half the Hors D'oeuvres that were supposed to be constantly refilled for an entire HOUR before the wedding party was introduced. My parents arrived at the reception area before my husband and I were finished with pictures and they said all the hors d'oeuvres were gone at that point which was well before the hour was up. The food we had at the dinner was good and we didn't receive any complaints in those regards! The area was decorated just as we expected and our favors were placed on the tables before we got there. Everything was well organized ahead of time by the day's event staff and I can't complain about them. Our reception had to be over at 4PM so we all went back to my parents house for a few hours of celebrating after the reception. My husband and I came back to Willow Valley that night for our complimentary room. The room was very nice and clean, but all of the special gifts we were supposed to receive were NOT in the room (robes, gift baskets, etc). I called down to the front desk to tell them about this only to be told it was not on record that I was supposed to get them and there wasn't anything they could do about it that time. EVERY wedding package comes with this so there is absolutely NO reason why we should not have received them and nobody made an effort to try to compensate for it during our stay. After the wedding was over and we returned from the honeymoon, they decided to send us the things we were missing to our house. This was essentially pointless since our wedding night was already over. My mom called Willow Valley to try to get some sort of monetary compensation for all their mistakes. We payed extra for the Diamond package, but all the "extras" in that package were the things that were not satisfactory. It took NUMEROUS phone calls to even get through to someone who could help her and WEEKS to get a response from them. What she received could not nearly be considered compensation and she is still, to this day, disputing the compensation. We are VERY disappointed with the customer service in the sales and catering office. For a place that specializes in weddings and boasts, "We will be a strong organization glorifying God by serving Him, seeking His will daily, and showing Christian love and respect to others at all times. We will do this by consistently reaching for the highest standards of quality, value and integrity in every area of service, every facility, every product, and every resource we provide to our Guests, Residents, and Team Members" they have been far from considerate or sympathetic in the fact that this was OUR wedding, a once in a lifetime event, in which they failed to meet our undemanding expectations.

I would still recommend Willow Valley to others as it is a beautiful facility, but I would offer STRONG words of advice to check and recheck all the details of your big day. Don't assume it will be covered, always ask and double check! Nobody else will ever think of YOUR wedding as importantly as you will, so make sure you're getting exactly what you want!

There were a few things i did not like about double tree. When i chose the cash bar we did not recieve th alcohol we asked for. Also for my wedding cake moment there was not cake for us to cut. We had to notify someone to call the bakery and get a cake for us to cut. The catering manager could have been a little better. We seemed to have a few problems with her. It took her awhile to return our calls and then when we came to visit and look around she would ask every time we came in when my wedding date was. She wrote all this down the first time we came there. If she wrote the info down why would she not carry it with her to the meetings we set up to come in so she can remeber who we are instead of asking us the same questions over and over again.

Some of the best people I have ever had the pleasure of working with! I recommend Willow Valley to all of my customers in need of the perfect venue.

We recently videotaped a wedding and reception at the Doubletree Resort at Willow Valley and the staff is courteous and very professional. The chapel is a beautiful place for a ceremony and our couple and bridal party even took some photos outside even though it was freezing,it was November 27th 2010 and the weather had just gotton cold. The palm court is beautiful and we really got some beautiful footage of the reception. Our couple was from out of state and really enjoyed having everything at one place and their guests got to enjoy the swimming pool for an after party.

Willow Valley is a beautiful venue for your wedding celebration. The Chapel is wonderful for your ceremony. The service is always with a smile and the food is delicious. I highly recommend it.