blue dress barn

I recently held my wedding at Millcreek Barns as well. To say that Kirby is rude and a pitiful businessman is an understatement. Beginning from our first walkthrough to post wedding bills, he was a challenge to work with and was inflexible every step of the way.

-I scheduled our first walkthrough for a Sunday in February (emails to prove it). After driving from Chicago to Watervliet in a literal blizzard, he had the date wrong and wasn't around to show us the space. That wouldn't have been so bad, I understand human error, but he insisted that it was my fault and was totally rude (Amy later apologized for their mistake by email). Luckily we could walk around the space and see in the windows so the trip wasn't completely wasted.

-We envisioned a wedding with much more detailed decor from my company, Kehoe Designs and that seemed to offend him. He then charged us to adjust every tiny little thing...flags, paper lanterns, chairs, ceremony seating, you name it! He even charged money for "clean up" of an outdoor cocktail hour that was completely tables/bars/decor that my company brought in and took out...he had absolutely nothing to clean up.

-For being the "artsy" owners they seem to be, they don't seem to have any respect or appreciation for anyone's vision but their own. I believe they usually have pretty simple weddings there with not much decor because they seem to think that an entire venue can be cleaned up in a half hour. I wasn't about to pay to have the space until 1am and kick my guests out at 10pm just to make sure my decor crew could take everything down by their ridiculous 1am exit time. I understand guests leaving by 12:30am-1am for noise issues, but if they had any experience in larger scale weddings they would understand that teardown takes some time. I paid the extra $500 for overtime for my clean up crew without argument because it was in their contract and I expected the charge to come, but they need to reevaluate what they are asking for with a 12am standard exit time for everything (not just guests). This is one of the biggest days of their clients' lives...it's a party. After months and months of planning, who wants to end the event at 10-11pm just to make sure the venue staff gets home by 1am?? Welcome to the industry people--by opening a business in the events industry, you should expect some late nights.

-They do have a beautiful space, but I honestly don't know that being there was worth it to have to deal with Kirby. I would give all of my vendors 5 stars--they were amazing. DJ Guy Voss, Events Without Boundaries Catering (as good as any I have seen in the industry in Chicago, if not better), photographer Lindsey Shae, Skip from Millburg Trading Post for alcohol. Kirby Briske at Millcreek Barns I would give 1 star...and that's only because I liked the space for my style of wedding.

I will post pictures when I get them so you can see the detail I'm referring to!

My husband and I absolutely fell in love with Millcreek Barn the second we saw it. The barn is rustic, yet elegant, and situated amongst beautiful gardens. It is a very laid back, comfortable venue, and our guests really enjoyed being able to sit in the dinning hall, the dance hall, by the bonfire, outside in one of the many "picnic" type areas... People could wander about and just get comfortable which all really loved. We had countless comments on how unique and beautiful the venue was, which was great to hear from our many out-of-state guests.Although I am glad that we chose this venue, there are some things to be aware of. There are a lot of costs that go into renting this hall. You are charged per person, and there are lot of extras such as high top tables which are pretty much a necessary in the dancing area since this is seperate from the dining area. Also, linens are not included. It cost over $600 to rent linens from the nearby Taylor rental, so when you throw that on top of the cost for the barn for 140 guests you quickly start approaching 4k just for the venue and linens. Just be prepared for that if you do book here. This is also a DIY venue, so you are in charge of hiring all the other services... catereer, dj, bartender... Southwest Michigan has some fabulous vendors, and don't be afraid to steer off of the "recommended vendor" list for catereers provided by the barn - they list off some of the most expensive in the area.You are not able to get into the barn until noon the day of (unless you pay extra for the night before, if there isn't a Friday night wedding booked which there typically is). I was unable to get pictures before the wedding of the bridesmaids and me because there simply was not enough time to set up and then get ready before the 4:30 ceremony. This is not an air conditioned venue, and although the fans do help to keep it comfortable in the evening it was HOT while we were setting up and numerous people were having to go back and forth to hotels to take additional showers and such. Everyone was so stressed trying to set everything up that it was hard to enjoy the beauty of the barn... at least the guests did. SO! Get a posse of relatives to do it for you or a planner... which is another cost. I would gladly have paid a few hundred or so more to be able to get in at 8 in the morning and get everything set up so I could worry about just enjoying being pampered and such in the afternoon.Overall I am very happy with the venue and so excited to see the pictures. Just wish I would have had more time to enjoy it myself since I was so busy trying to get everything taken care of in the limited time they allow.

While a little difficult to contact initially (I called and emailed while they were on vacation), this vendor was absolutely wonderful to work with. They allowed me to come out multiple times to view the facilities since I was my own coordinator. Kirby, the owner and manager of the Millcreek Barns, is meticulous with the property's appearance, regardless of the time of year. From early spring when I first visited without three feet of snow to October when I got married the place was always spotlessly clean, lawns well groomed, attention to details in the decor and design of the barns, and a system in place to help brides easily determine the plan for the day of the wedding. I highly recommend this venue to anyone that is looking for country elegance with a lot of flexibility. We were able to hire each vendor individually, from the bar tenders, to purchasing the liquor, to the DJ to the caterers, cake, and flowers. I have to say that it was the most perfect day and better than I hoped for in my dreams. We held the ceremony outside because the weather was perfect on October 1st. Millcreek does provide a list of vendors that they recommend, and we used some people from that list, but they were fine with bringing in our own people as well. We did need to provide proof of liability insurance for the bar service as they do not hold a liquor license, but Kirby was helpful with that also. This was exactly what I wanted, it was a lot of work to plan every detail, but totally worth it. There are a lot of weddign coordinators in the St. Joeseph, MI area that work with Millcreek all the time if that is more your style, and they have done a lot of beautiful weddings, but I am too much of a control freak to turn it over tosomeone else :) Thank you to Kirby and Amy for a beautiful wedding!The only downside is that the barns are located where barns are usually located, in a rural area with few accomodations nearby. We stayed at Surfari Joes in Watervliet, MI and had a VERY difficult time with the hotel changing ownership and general lack of customer service. The rooms are nothing special, but were fairly clean, but expensive for what you get. But, they are 10 minutes from the Barns and the next closest option is about 25 minutes away. We hired a shuttle service charter bus to take our guests to and from the wedding, which I would highly recommend to anyone with an open bar like what we had. Even though the hotel was lousy, I would not go back and change it because it is so convienient to the barns.Hope you find this helpful - and congratulations! Have fun planning :)

If you're looking for a beautiful outdoor venue for your wedding day, this is the place to have your wedding. Guests kept asking me "how did you find this place! This is the best location for a wedding we've ever been to!" It provided the perfect laid back, but elegant environment I was looking for. Also, the people who run the place, Amy & Kirby are very friendly and very helpful with any questions or concerns you have. Everything ran smoothly that night and we couldn't have picked a better location to have our wedding!

Absolutely stunting!!! I loved everything about this place! I look at our pictures and am so glad that we picked Millcreek Barns for our ceremony and reception location!

Absolutely BEAUTIFUL reception and ceremony site.

Absolutely GORGEOUS venue. I have heard nothing but rave reviews from everyone at my wedding. I keep getting asked how I found the place. No regrets at all! I'm so glad I had my reception there! In terms of my feedback, in all fairness to the vendor, any frustrations I had were mostly due to the fact that it was still under construction at the time I booked it, so they were unable to answer many questions until later. That should not be a problem anymore. The ONLY major downside is that the barn does not have linens for the tables, so you have to provide those yourselves. Hopefully at some point, the barn owners will create a list of all of the tables available and their sizes. That would help a great deal with planning.

My wedding at millcreek barns could nt have been more charming or unique...I loved that it was tucked away on a country road, yet had all the modern amendities . The artist touches were perfect and the grounds were simple but well kept. The owners were very friendly and helpful. My guests really enjoyed themselves! I highly recommend MILLCREEK to anyone!

Really beautiful location with well thought out design. Gorgeous photos we took on site show it best. We got so many comments about how "beautiful" and "perfect" the barn was from our guests, also many comments about how they thought they were going to get lost driving home (very rural location, about 15 minutes from town).

My experience with Millcreek was
very good; however, my mother-in-law and the florist did not have any nice things to say about one of the owners, Kirby. I guess he was very hot and cold with him and he wasn’t willing to negotiate on the time we were to get in the barn (I asked to get in at 11:30 am and he was absolutely not budging) and he did charge us $300 for a half hour that we were late getting out (in all fairness it stated those charges in the contract). I will say Amys personality seems far more suited for this type of business and it seems as though Kirby should be the behind the scenes kind of guy. He was very upset about them hanging chandeliers and the candy sign for the candy buffet; he also did not like that they wanted to place initial signs that were on huge wooded boards in front of the barn by the old windmill fixture but Kirby told them they would mess with the flowers (which werent there yet)so they put them at the edge by the fence turning into the barn). We brought all of their own items needed for decorating the grounds (including extended ladder and such) but he was still pretty rude about it all. There was some girl that seemed to take Kirby’s place at the end of the night and I overheard her calling and saying “there just now taking the flowers down”…it was funny, she didn’t look a day older then 16 but turns out she was working for them but we didnt know because they failed to tell us this fact (nice to know if something went wrong).

Things to consider:

Ø The grounds and what flowers will be planted, the flowers might not be as plentiful as you would like.

Ø Having heaters on standby, I only heard of one person that said they were chilly but everyone else was on the dance floor and in the bar area and they were fine (I had my mother double check on grandmothers and such who would have been honest for sure).

Ø I highly recommend having transportation for guests that are out of town (all of mine were), it helped make the night carefree and everyone wasn’t worried about going back and fourth, I used the Ramada’s free transportation and hired out an 25 pp limo bus to go back and fourth to the Blvd

Ø Have an after party planned because the DJ has to stop at 11 pm and you need to be out of there by 12 pm and if you have family and friends who love to party then you’ll want to go somewhere after (we went to our hotel suite and down to Lake Michigan).>

Ø Think of a day of coordinator if you haven’t already decided on having one, she really helped moved things along and I hired her in a panic 3 weeks out!


The grounds were pretty but I went the night before the wedding with one of my bridesmaids we actually started weeding some of the flower beds (again, we were only the 2nd or 3rd wedding so those items might be taking care of by the time of everyone else’s wedding).
The dj was worried about the sound system getting to the dining area but it was absolutely perfect, no worries at all. Our officiant found a podium and wireless microphone for the ceremony and that was a last minute addition and it was a good move (she suggested it). I didn’t decorate the arbor besides with ferns and small tins with daisies lining the aisle, the setting speaks for itself.

****The vendor actually read this post on another review site and emailed me some pretty un-professional respones to my reviews. My intention was not to offend anyone but I feel that my review was true for our situation and I stand behind it. Wedding are expensive and stressful as well as wonderful and memorable. People deserve to see other perspectives and that's what wedding review sites are for, not just smoke and mirrors. The place is unique and if you are willing to deal with a staff that may not exceed or maybe meet your expectations then its for you, hopefully they make changes so they can really have a great venue.

This barn MADE our wedding! It is gorgeous inside and out including the grounds. Very little decorating is necessary because the place is a work of art and has so many small details that really fell into our country casual/barn formal wedding theme. It's very martha stewart! If you're looking for a formal event with elaborate elegance, this may not be the place to implement those ideas--it's just not a mesh of themes. For us, it's exactly what we wanted. Amy and Kirby are very talented artists and designers and extremely kind. We had a little snaphoo with booking, but once that was worked out, everything went very smoothly. Make sure that you read the contract fully to understand what is included in the price. For example, we had to turn on the heaters and also used the grounds for our cocktail hour...these were additional charges that I overlooked. There is another older barn on the property that lent itself perfectly for photos. Parking lot is all grass..not sure how that would work if it was raining...luckily we had a beautiful day. The other nice thing is that you can bring in all your vendors which is a huge money saver on things like alcohol. One suggestion I would make is to hire a day-of coordinator to receive and orgainze all your vendors (band, caterer, etc) as this is not a service that is provided. This place goes like hot cakes. If you think this is the venue you want and they have an open date, BOOK IT, because it likely won't be available days later.