The Venue: The Maple Manor is a cute little Victorian B&B. Once inside, it's hard to believe that it's in the middle of uptown Dallas. The garden outside is the perfect place for a ceremony. The venue is older and some things are a little worn. The chairs weren't that great (a little worn, kind of ugly) but no one will care about that too much. I guess you can get chair covers if it bothers you, but we opted to go without them. The venue does photograph really well though!
Venue Coordinator: Monique is fabulous! I really enjoyed working with her on the details of our wedding day. She was always extremely prompt in answering any questions that we had. When looking for venues, I noticed that many other venues in Dallas would take weeks to respond to an email (if they responded at all!), while Monique typically responded in 24 hours or less. Working with Monique is absolutely the best part of booking your wedding at Maple Manor.
Cost: This is a very affordable venue, especially given it's prime location in uptown Dallas. While most other venues charge a rental fee, Maple Manor only requires that you meet their food and beverage minimum. This is definitely a good thing for a budget bride.
Food: The food was really good and this was probably my number 1 worry throughout planning the wedding. We had to book the venue without a tasting because they only do an annual tasting in January. Even after the tasting I was still worried because the tasting focused on dinner items, while we were planning a Sunday brunch. Luckily the food was really good! If anyone is considering brunch at the Maple Manor, just do it (and eat a bunch of the cute little swan puff pastries). My only complaint was the fact that we upgraded to a tenderloin carving station. The tenderloin was very good, tender, probably the best thing on the whole buffet line according to my guests... however, I was told that the chef doing the carving was very stingy with the portions. It's not that anyone needs a huge steak in the morning, but my mom showed me the size of what he cut for her, and it really was just 1 little piece. It was a little bit of a disappointment and made me wonder if they had prepared enough tenderloin for the group?
Flexibility:
I did give a lower score on flexibility for the Maple Manor. It seems that they are an old venue that is used to doing things a certain way. I can see that they are trying to make it work in this changing world of weddings though. The menu options are pretty much set in stone with little ability to customize. This did become a slight issue when I realized that we would need to find a solution for a vegan and someone with a gluten allergy. When I pushed back a little, I was able to make an appropriate modification though. I'm glad that we reached a solution for that. Though if I could give any suggestions to the Maple Manor, I think that being a little more flexible on the menu overall would be a good thing! read more