Welcome to the 1st post in my venue Spotlight Series! This 1st post will be on The Barn of Chapel Hill.

As a wedding photographer, I visit a lot of wedding venues! Between actually shooting there, or going for events, it’s a lot of venues. So I figured I would start a series about different venues that would be amazing for your wedding! I’ll mainly be doing NC venues, but who knows where this could go! I’ll be going over the pros, cons, and some insight from the perspective of a photographer!

Ok so let’s get into the review! This place is so freaking pretty! It’s a large white barn tucked in the countryside of Chapel Hill NC. I had the opportunity to check it out and take some photos during a fun wedding creatives event this past year. Let’s start with the good stuff because there is so much of it!

Pros

It’s super super pretty! It’s not always common that basically every inch of this place is beautiful and perfect for a wedding. From the gorgeous white exterior to the beautiful spacious well lit interior, this place is picture-perfect. The barn’s tall ceilings make the place feel airy and not cramped. But it doesn’t feel like an overly large space either!

There is a loft with space for the bride to get ready right in the main barn. On the main floor, there is a kitchen, bathrooms, and doors that open onto a covered porch. The perfect place for guests during cocktail hour!

There are several spots you could get married. You could have an outdoor ceremony using a beautiful arch that’s already there. Or you could get married facing the barn. In case of rain (or maybe it’s just too hot), you could also have a beautiful ceremony inside the barn. 

Pros from an NC photographer’s point of view.

The COLORS are perfect for photography! Something I’ll be bringing up a lot is how the colors affect your photos in this series.

This place has beautiful white or neutral colored walls and ceilings everywhere. This will allow your skin tones in photos to still look beautiful at any point during your wedding (even at night with flash!).

If you have a wedding and the walls are all a deep wooden color (almost orange) this will often reflect on the skin. This is such a weird thing to look for in a venue, but when you see those light and beautiful photos during a reception, they always come from venues that don’t have crazy colored walls.

Cons

There currently is not a good place for the groomsmen to get ready together. I have heard that they are planning on expanding, but it doesn’t seem like that will happen for a bit. (I’ll update this though if it happens!)

The barn and property are not massive. The actual barn would do best to host under 200 people comfortably. You could probably squeeze more in, but the space would be tight. To be fair, not everyone wants to get even close to that number of people, so this would only be a con if you were really dreaming of inviting 250 people. 

Also, there is not a ton of parking. So you might want to encourage carpooling.

Overall Rating: 5/5

Even with the few cons, I think this is still a 5/5 venue! The owners really have big dreams for the place and only plan on growing and improving! They also own a flower farm, so if you wanted you could have them do your florals as well.

The vibe is beautiful, light and airy, and not too country. It has a garden type vibe and it would be the perfect place to host a mid-spring floral focused wedding (but it would look beautiful any time of the year!). If you check out their website, you’ll see so many photos you could take inspiration from!

Note, all opinions and photos are mine and I wasn’t paid to write this. 🙂