Mabee Farm Historic Site Reviews

Great location overlooking the river! Everything here is DIY, sure to them being a historic site and not a wedding venue. They do supply tables, chairs, benches, picnic tables, and indoor bathrooms. We had Friday for rehearsal from 2-8pm, Saturday 10am until 11pm, and Sunday for clean up from 10am until noon.

We both fell in love with the look and feel of the venue over pictures alone, the venue is stunning and so incredibly peaceful! The whole place just has a magical feeling to it we were looking for. The Barn, The Sunflower field, The Lawn areas….and the beautiful river behind! All of our guests had a wonderful time and couldn’t praise the venue enough. It was so lovely to see it all come together so beautifully on our day. Many Thanks to Susanna for helping us with the smooth process answering all our questions and helping anytime we called.

This is a truly awe-inspiring place to get married. My husband and I chose it because the farm allows you to customize basically every aspect of the wedding. It gave us complete freedom in terms of vendors -- being able to use our own caterer and bring our own beer/wine was a major selling point. The grounds are also incredible -- flowers, river views, and an orchard.

AMAZING PLACE FOR A DIY WEDDING!

Where do I begin! Mabee Farm had us hooked the minute we walked in. It has beautiful rustic charm and is beautiful inside and out. It is the most gorgeous setting. I can't say enough about this place and the staff here. If you can afford to get married here, do it! You will not regret it!

My husband and I could not have been happier about our choice to have our wedding at the Mabee Farm. The word our guests keep using, independently of each other, to describe our wedding is “magical,” and I think we primarily have the Mabee Farm to thank for that. It’s such a beautiful, charming setting. And, since we were looking for something a little different from the more typical banquet hall wedding, we especially loved that it is not a conventional wedding venue. Far from it, in fact, it is a historic site, the barn being the Schenectady County Historical Society's largest artifact. If you want something a little less cookie-cutter, the Mabee Farm is fantastic choice.

All this said, I don’t think the Mabee Farm is for everyone. It is definitely a lot more work, since you have to pull all the pieces together yourself - catering, lights, DJ, tables and chairs (if you don’t want to use the basic ones that the barn has), etc. The trade-off for all that work, though, is that you can really make it your own. For a brief moment my husband and I considered having our wedding at a more standard hotel/restaurant wedding venue, purely because it would have been easier. However, we pretty quickly decided that we valued being able to make our wedding our own over a simpler planning process. And we absolutely made the right choice. Our wedding really was magical and we attribute much of that to the Mabee Farm. I should also add that we worked with Jenna and she was wonderful - really nice, very responsive.

So, I highly recommend having your wedding at the Mabee Farm because it’s a gorgeous setting where you can really make your wedding your own. You just need to be aware of the extra work that’s entailed with a more DIY venue like this.

Mabee Farm was a great venue for our wedding! The historic site is a beautiful setting with lots of interesting spots for photos. The Dutch Barn looks amazing when decorated with hundreds and hundreds of lights. Highly recommended!

My daughter had a wonderful wedding at the Mabee Farm October 2015. The setting along the river made for once in a lifetime pictures. If you are interested in having a wedding at this beautiful venue keep some things in mind. This is not a cheap wedding venue, this is a “make it your own” distinctive wedding venue. The Mabee Farm rents you the beautiful setting. Like other alternative wedding venues it is up to you to make it work. My daughter and her husband had specific ideas on how they wanted their wedding. The ceremony was held in front of the barn with the reception was held inside. This is an historic site NOT a restaurant or banquet hall so all the work to arrange it is on you - decorations, extra lighting, photographer, flowers, catering, DJ and set up. You can tailor it the way you want. Spend a lot of effort or a little. I recommend visiting the site a few times before set up and take some pictures of the barn interior. The barn rental specifically states that historic artifacts remain in parts of the barn and smoking is not allowed. That being said we worked with Total Events in Schenectady NY (who are familiar with the venue) for the tables, linens and lighting. We had a guest list of about 120 which I think is about capacity. For a bigger dance floor our caterer Ruggiero’s of Glenville suggested that we have a food tent adjacent to the back entrance so that we had more room inside the barn. Ruggiero’s have a working relationship with Total Events so Total Events also handled the food tent and had serving dishes ready for the caterers. By doing so we had plenty of room for the dance floor, DJ, a bar, and a photo booth. To serve food inside comfortably I would suggest keeping your guest list to 75. There is a helpful member of the staff available for assistance on site during setup and during the wedding. You can email me with any questions at flowerfaerie1207@verizon.net. This is a uniquely beautiful wedding venue with many creative options.

One must always keep in mind the weather with an outdoor wedding and be prepared. We rented a tent also, for the just in case and it allowed our guests to spread out and it allowed more room in the barn for music, dancing, dessert and seating for some of the elders with walkers who preferred the wooden floor versus grass. We did end up with a hot day and a beautiful evening. Having outdoor games was wonderful. It does take time to set up. We went the night before after the tent rental company left - Mabee Farm staff does not do this. We used Native Farm Flowers who did a fantastic job and I would highly recommend for this type of setting. Our out of town guests were happy to come out and help us on set up the night before, as some were from NYC and they were thrilled to be outside on the beautiful grounds. It was a perfect place for my daughter's wedding..... but not for brides/moms expecting lots of hands on assistance from staff. This is a historic site and needs to be treated with respect and their primary mission is not weddings. There is no smoking as one would expect at a historic site, which none of us do anyway, but it means monitoring your guests. We did hire two extra people that we knew from friends to help us out with table clearing, trash, cutting up the homemade desserts, and wish we had more help at the end of the night to help us clean and pack up. It was exhausting and hot at that point, and of course meant no drinking for some, who may have preferred to celebrate. Well worth it, but an investment of some paid help, is well worth it!! We had a large Super moon that night and with both barn doors open and the musicians playing, it was a fantastic backdrop. I would be happy to have any email me at dbradley99@aol.com if they had questions as to who our food vendor, or tent vendor was. For couples wanting to really personalize and make their own mark, versus having the traditional cookie cutter wedding, this was a great .
Karen Bradley

I got married at Mabee and it was absolutely beautiful. It was all DIY so it took a little extra planning but ended up being perfect.

As other reviewers have stated, using The Mabee Farm as a wedding venue is a lot of work because it is not predominately used as a wedding venue. With that, it is relatively inexpensive to use as a beautiful setting for a customizable wedding to suit whatever it is you are looking to produce! My husband and I chose it for a more relaxed, catered fun wedding that wasn't heavy in formality and struggle. The staff at the farm were accommodating to everything we were looking for - they solely have three rules: 1) artifacts cannot be moved 2) no fire in or near the barn and 3) no smoking except in the designated area provided.

Our vendors were not familiar with the Mabee Farm and they found the venue to be easy to work in and the staff were accommodating to assist everyone to make the day as special as possible and be exactly what we were looking for. Rent the Mabee Farm Barn. You won't be disappointed!

The Mabee Farm is a gorgeous historical venue on the Hudson River. Be warned, it is a lot of work to get everything done, the venue is first and foremost and museum and historical site so you have to be willing to put a lot of work in but it also allows you to customize the venue any way you would like. The staff at the farm are so accommodating, they were very flexible with the times we had to set up and clean up and even opening up the barn at odd hours so various family members could come check it out and we could double check the outlet, lighting, tables, chairs and all those last minute things.

My husband and I wanted a laid back BBQ wedding with lots of dancing and lawn games and this was the perfect venue for us. I suggest paying the small fee to clean up the day after the wedding so you can truly enjoy your special day. The Farm was very up front about all special considerations ahead of time (like the artifacts that can't be moved, no smoking, no fireworks, etc.) so there are no surprises when you get there to set up. We worked with vendors that were familiar with the Mabee Farm and they did an outstanding job working with both us and the venue to make sure we were all set. It is truly a one of a kind wedding venue.

Beautiful historic venue! Really allows you to personalize you wedding or event. Guests loved the site just as much as we did. Change of staff lead to some miscommunication but all issues ironed out quickly and seamlessly.

I got married at the mabee barn September of 2019 and it was everything I could've hoped for our wedding was completely diy and mabee farm was the perfect place for it. The price is reasonable but you will have to do everything yourself or hire outside vendor mabee barn is just a beautiful shell that you can do so many things with

They do nothing for you and even tell you that you have to bring the garbage to the dumpster. The lady Mary (curator) is extremely rude and unhelpful.