Virginia Wedding Venues to Consider for Your Micro Wedding

What is a Mirco Wedding Anyway? 

If you Google “what is a micro wedding,” various wedding planning blogs will give you different definitions. For me, the terms micro wedding and intimate wedding are fairly interchangeable but mean a celebration with fewer than 50 guests. Some people seem to break it down that micro weddings are fewer than 20 and intimate weddings are fewer than 50. Whatever floats your boat. 

But they are scaled down celebrations with your core group. Your parents, siblings, closest friends and relatives. 

Typically, they center around the ceremony and then a dinner rather than a dance party. But there are no rules – you can make it fit your situation. 

Here are ideas for you to consider: 

1. Get married in your backyard or the backyard of someone who has enough space to accommodate a small guest list. Have a potluck – invite everyone to bring their best dish. Setup bistro lights and rugs or blankets and have a picnic while listening to a local bluegrass band and enjoying local brews. Have a bonfire or campfire and roast s’mores and cut a pie instead of cake. 

2. Rent an Airbnb, VRBO or vacation rental with a pool and invite everyone to come for the weekend. Have a big BBQ – either catered or homemade, with all of the summer favorites like corn on the cob, coleslaw and baked beans. Cool off in the pool and have a dance party with glow sticks after the sun goes down. 

3. Get married at sunrise up on a mountain at Shenandoah National Park or at your venue, then come back and have a brunch reception – serve a waffle or pancake wedding cake or skip the cake entirely and just feed everyone fresh donuts. In the afternoon, do a group activity – go floating down the river, go for a hike, find a swimming hole, go to a vineyard or brewery, head out to Skyline Drive and watch the sunset over the Blue Ridge Mountains while drinking your beverage of choice. 

4. Plan an epic, high-end dinner party for a small group with beautiful florals, decorations and a private chef. Make it a full evening affair and have people dress up in their finest. Cocktail hour, hor d’oeuvres, soup course, salad course, fish and chicken, different kinds of local wine. Rather than feeding 300 people mac and cheese and brisket (no shade on those things though), you can go Michelin for 10. 

When choosing your venue for a small event, the world is open to you. You can choose a private home, a bed and breakfast, a vacation rental, a museum, or a traditional venue. Some venues always had specific packages or spaces for intimate weddings while others have recently pivoted and started offering “micro wedding packages.” Here is a brief roundup of those who have specific offerings for small events for you to consider as you plan your celebration. I will update this list as venues I have reached out to get back to me.  

Virginia Wedding Venues Offering Intimate/Micro Wedding Packages

This article was last updated on July 15, 2020

Charlottesville
Boar’s Head Resort

The Market at Grelen

Staunton

Stella Rose at Staunton Station

Richmond

Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden

Northern Virginia

The Drawing Room (Middleburg)

Boxwood Villa (Orange)

Greencock Manor (Orange)

Black Horse Inn (Warrenton) 

(Note these rates are currently for 2020 only)

Harrisonburg

The Joshua Wilton House

Southwestern Virginia

Lovewell Lodge and Weddings (Pembroke)

Beliveau Farm (Blacksburg)

I hope this gives you a good place to start! As always, please reach out if you have any questions. I am now fully booked through the end of October 2020, but still have a handful of openings for November and December weddings and elopements and am booking 2021. So get in touch! I can’t wait to hear from you =).