We had our wedding reception at the Heritage Museum in September 2021. While the day turned out to be beautiful, we had some problems with communication leading up to our wedding day. The positives: The day of the wedding went very smoothly. The ballroom looked beautiful and was set up just as we had asked. The museum allowed our planner to come in early to set up our decor. The bar staff did a great job (if you're having alcohol, you have to use the museum's vendor). We had plenty of room for 120 guests. The negatives: Communication leading up to the wedding was poor. We understand there were extenuating circumstances affecting our wedding--we booked the venue before the pandemic's start, and the museum, which is a non-profit, had to go through a lot of changes as a result of COVID. However, they did not handle the changes well. After firing their whole staff and temporarily shutting down the museum (which we were first notified of via a Facebook post), the museum's board president was assigned as our main contact for our wedding. When we talked via zoom and met at the venue, she was attentive and helpful. However, via email it would sometimes take her weeks to respond to urgent questions. We had to remind her of our questions and plans again and again. We often found things were changed up on us--one example being when we were at the museum in person, we were told we could use the museum's vases for candles. Then weeks later over email, we were told we could not. (That's just one example of a handful). The disorganization and miscommunications were frustrating during a stressful planning time. While the Heritage is beautiful, I would consider finding a venue that has a full-time event planner dedicated to coordinating with brides/grooms or see if the Heritage has hired anyone else for this. All of our other vendors, who also faced changes due to the pandemic, were fabulous and attentive throughout the process so we expected the museum to be the same.

I was delivering food and that was my first time being there. Growing up in the area I never went there for school or anything. The lady, who by the by tipped fairly nicely. She broke out into a longer than expected explanation as to what the place was and things they do. There was something coming up (that I missed) even. Basically though, beautiful building, very interesting things going on and GOOD PEOPLE that run it. You know people who actually tip and tip WELL are good folks.

We recently had our wedding ceremony and reception at the Heritage. The venue is absolutely stunning and we had friends and family raving about how gorgeous it was all night. The bar package that comes with booking the venue is an awesome rate, and the bartenders who staffed our event were super fun and super kind. They were true professionals and did an excellent job. In terms of those things, we couldn't have asked for more. There's a review just below by Hannah Prokop in which she details her experience with some questionable communication during the planning period. My experience was very much the same, though we booked almost a year into the pandemic and not at the beginning. Perhaps the worst instances of miscommunication included us being left without a ceremony musician less than a month before the wedding due to our contact's neglect (despite insistence that we should allow our contact to take care of it), and my dad having to set up all the chairs for our event on his own when we were told we would have them set up by our rehearsal. I won't belabor the point too much, though, as it appears that the Heritage has recently hired additional staff for weddings. Megan, who is one of their new coordinators, was at our wedding, did a lovely job of managing the day and I have full confidence that she would be an absolute joy to work with. I just wish I'd gotten to work with her sooner! Overall, St. Joseph is a wonderful town for a wedding and the Heritage is a lovely venue. I recommend it so long as you are ensured of personal attention by someone who is focused on weddings. If that is not the case, I would caution brides without organized wedding planners that you may have difficulty getting your questions answered, and find yourself being repeatedly told how busy your contact is despite paying a considerable amount of money for their services.

Beautiful, comfortable location for our wedding reception venue. Staff is incredibly friendly. Chandelier lighting and spacious room made our reception pretty magical.

We had our wedding at The Heritage Museum & Cultural Center and it was fabulous! We had lots of space for our approx.160 guests and it is a beautiful building that did not need much decorating. The staff at The Heritage were also super helpful during our planning process, and on the day-of they were on top of everything! Lots of parking space, a really nice courtyard and interesting exhibits made for an even better experience!

Attended an event there this evening. This is a top shelf venue! The facilities are perfectly maintained, well lit, high quality sound system, exceptional food and wait staff. Not sure where they came from but we had a great experience overall.

We were there for a wedding.

Clean, professionally run. Elevator. Beautiful and interesting displays. Very informative. Extremely helpful and courteous staff. Definitely recommend.

Very nice place to stop by they always have something going on. The staff let us in early. Thank you!

I absolutely loved the fatal crossing exhibit and have been telling everybody about. I love your building just amazing people should go in there just to see that. Very impressed with a nautical also. The lady that was working there I forget her name was so polite informative and professional. I will be back soon and bring some friends

What a beautiful venue for my step daughters wedding The venue was beautiful and did everything to make sure her day was perfect

Very interesting exhibits, and a great way to get to know the area's history!

The museum was closed even though their web site said they would be open. I can't be too upset, it is run by 100% volunteers.

It's got a nice thing on the Ladies of the Lights and two Fresnel lights to see a 4th & 5th Order.

The venue is beautiful but make sure everything is in writing. Their events coordinator tried to take away the extra hour that we had paid $500 for, and I spent hours on the phone with her trying to get it back. She was very unprofessional throughout this process. Adding stress to an already stressful time.

Debated between 3 or 4 starts. It's a beautiful venue, plenty of parking, and serves well for a reception hall. I do recommend it for your wedding. However, watch out for the A/C system. Unfortunately there was a problem with it for my wedding causing the 150+ attendees to my reception to end up sweaty by the end of the night. It was explained to me that it's a known issue with competing 2 different thermostats being set. Whether this was the real issue or not there should have been preventive measures in place...especially if known to be an issue. If it truly did break, the facility should have brought in an emergency repair tech. Overall, impressed with the facility. Not so impressed with lack of response or failure to prevent such a known risk by the staff. If you have your wedding reception there, please be on top of the staff in regards to the A/C.

Lovely historic venue, beautifully tended.