Madison Greenhouse Event Venue

TLDR: RUN AWAY AS FAST AS YOU CAN. I don't even know where to begin. My Fiancee and I booked our wedding at Madsen's (Madison's) back in 2019 when it was operated by the previous owners. This amazing couple was so welcoming, friendly, helpful and you could really tell that they enjoyed what they were doing. We had planned for a 2021 wedding, so we knew we had quite a bit of time to look after the planning. Mid way through 2020, we started receiving phone calls from Madsen's telling us that we owed them thousands of dollars for deposits, however our contract clearly stated that after our initial deposit, we didn't owe any additional payments until 30 days prior to the wedding. I explained to them that this was what was stated in our contract, and this is when I found out that the venue had been sold to the Renaissance Group. The person that I spoke with told me that he would do me this favour one time (are you kidding?), and would keep me on my original contract instead of moving to their new contracts. However, it wasn't long before we started getting additional phone calls once again telling us that we owed more money. 6 months before our wedding was scheduled to take place, I called Madison's to inquire about how they were managing the COVID restrictions and to better understand what our options would be should we be unable to hold our wedding later that year. The employee told me that I was being premature calling 6 months out and that I should call him 60 - 90 days before the wedding for more information. I'm not sure if he has ever worked in the wedding industry before, but 60 - 90 days really doesn't leave us much time to coordinate critical details of our wedding. Additionally, every time we called we were being assigned to different employees which meant that the next person wasn't aware of any of the details of our wedding and would have to re explain during every interaction. And on 2 separate occasions, the employee that was assigned to our account completely missed our appointments without any notice, only apologizing weeks later that she was "busy". But I think what is most disappointing about this venue is when I started looking through reviews from other frustrated clients only to see responses from the owner like this: "we have hired more experienced personnel and made significant improvements to our overall event management process" "please note that we have hired more experienced staff and made significant improvements to our overall event management process" I shouldn't be surprised, but how disgusting to suggest that your staff are the reason why so many of us have had such terrible experiences with this venue. Let me make this clear, your staff are not the problem. It's clear that the owner has done little to ensure that his team is equipped to be successful and to turn around and blame them is incomprehensible. My fiancee and I have since moved our wedding to a new venue and we couldn't be happier. Should you choose to ignore this review and some of the others below with similar issues, I sincerely hope that your experience is better than ours. Best of luck

Echoing a lot of the reviews here that fell within the transition of new owners from 2019-2020 and onward. TLDR; the venue is beautiful and everything worked out, but dealing with Renaissance prior to the event was a complete mess. We booked Madison's (previously Madsen's) as our dream venue at the end of 2019 with the sweetest older couple that owned it. When we were made aware that it had been taken over by Renaissance, at first we were assigned a contact and felt taken care of. As time went on, we were not notified of our contact leaving the company and struggled to get a hold of anyone for MONTHS. This ended up happening 2 other times, where the contacts we were given ended up leaving without telling us as well. We often felt like we were scrambling to figure out how to get a hold of anyone at all. Aside from the issue with having a point of contact, every time we were able to talk to someone and be reassured that our original contract was in place, we were told that a service was no longer available, that something cost more, or that there was some sort of issue. We had to postpone our wedding from 2021 to 2022 due to COVID-19, and felt like planning and communication was a mess. Fast forward to 3 months prior to our wedding date, we reached out with a question regarding inclusions of our open bar package, and were notified on that date that open bar was no longer available and we had to provide our own alcohol. It was included in our contract, where we paid a deposit and had it reviewed 2 weeks prior to this conversation and nobody mentioned that the open bar was no longer available. From other Google reviews, it's clear this was a common frustration as it was not communicated that this paid service was removed without notifying clients. Thank goodness we asked, or we would have showed up to our wedding and had no bar. We received a handful of duplicate emails, including the 'welcome to Madison Event Venue' only a few months out from our wedding which was concerning and confusing. It felt like everything was very disorganized and did not make us feel at ease when it came to planning and trusting the venue. The final contact we were assigned to was Shawn, who absolutely saved the day. She was responsive, caring, and understanding those last few months leading up to the wedding and on the wedding day. Shawn understood our frustrations and was able to reassure us that everything would work out. Additionally, we had a venue manager who stayed to the end of the wedding and she was wonderful - I wish I could remember her name. There was a mix up with the hotel shuttle and she stayed with us, chatted, and helped out. Also, our bartenders were a hoot and really had fun with the guests. Overall, this venue is absolutely breathtaking and speaks for itself. I genuinely hope that Renaissance gets organized and gives future clients a better experience. Thank you to the staff that made us feel at ease by the time our wedding came around because it ended up being beautiful and we had a wonderful day.

Amazing venue and wonderful staff. If you are looking for a fairytale wedding, this is the place. We have hosted many family events at Madisons over the years, and the new owners have kept the same magic as before. The staff were wonderful to work with. 5 stars!

Beautiful outdoor/indoor venue. Lots of areas to take pictures. Great layout for your guests to move around. The washrooms could be bigger and more of them.

I wish I could leave a better review because the greenhouse is honestly such a beautiful space, but my experience with this venue was a headache. The space itself is unique and gorgeous - it really made our wedding photos and videos look stunning, so I would still recommend the venue solely for the look as you don't need to do much to decorate the space, however, be prepared to deal with a lot of difficulties as management is quite disorganized. We had a morning ceremony-only at the greenhouse. On our actual wedding day, nothing was set up properly. We had asked for the ceremony chairs to be 10 x 6 for each side of the aisle, but they only set up 10 x 4. This made our guests sit closely together even though there should have been social distancing. When we asked about microphones during our vows, we were told the ceremony arch would be placed underneath a microphone hanging from the ceiling of their greenhouse but they did not set it up this way, and I did not realize this until we were in the middle of doing our vows, so our guests pretty much could not hear us at all which was extremely disappointing and frustrating. What was the point in us doing a site visit and having the venue coordinators writing down notes when the actual day-of did not reflect anything that was discussed. Update: The owner reached out to me over the phone to apologize for the experience we had, and he was able to listen and take the feedback so I bumped up my review to 3-stars. In the end, our photos turned out beautiful because of how nice the greenhouse is, so I don't regret having had our ceremony here. If you do decide to have your wedding here in the future, just be mindful that things might not go 100% smoothly.

When I first visited the venue, it was a wonderful feeling where you could get the touch of nature. I ensure that with all your decorations it will give you a different vibes of pureness. We requested a fairytale theme for the event, which was perfectly synchronized with the gesture of the natural beauty of the venue. The food was delicious, while everyone on the staff was cooperative, friendly and welcoming. I would definitely recommend this location for creating unforgettable memories.

Absolutely beautiful place, beautiful ambience, perfect nature-loving venue. Food could be a little better, but their mashed potatoes are fantastic.

Update: This review was for my wedding in June 2021 under the previous owner and previous manager/coordinator, who appear to be no longer involved. It is a beautiful space and a professional team/coordinator might result in a better experience. Original: We needed a flexible indoor/outdoor venue for our covid wedding with a long ceremony. This fit the bill and the inside is beautiful for photos (although beware it is humid!). However, I would not recommend this venue to others if they can find a better alternative. 1) Other than chairs and a few tables being set up, it felt like we doing managing the wedding on our own. The coordinator was nowhere to be seen despite her knowing the time of the outdoor ceremony. I texted her during the ceremony for bug spray which was never replied to and I never got bug spray that day. I finally spoke to her for the first time after the outdoor ceremony was finished (and I didn't need anything at that point), and ran into her as we were leaving the venue after photos. Our families cleaned up the ceremony area because we had made a mess with rice but we would've appreciated some help. Even the days leading up to the wedding, I felt more in tune with the venue's caterer (who is amazing) compared to the coordinator. 2) Our wedding went from 100 people to 10 people due to covid restrictions. They did not think to give us a discount which some other venues were doing at the time and would've been the kind thing to do. To be fair we didn't ask for it either, but given the lack of coordination help the day of, the money didn't feel worth it. 3) We were promised lush greenery on the outdoor space but there was nothing growing. I understand nature is unpredictable but I would've appreciated openness rather than confident overpromising. Thanks to my frequent visits I realized we needed to hire a decor person and it turned out to be gorgeous only to her credit.