Greenhouse Wedding Venue in Chambersburg PA

If the sound of an intimate, botanical-style wedding in a garden-esque environment makes your ears perk up – you’re going to want to keep reading! That is exactly how the beautiful Grayce Gardens describes their wedding venue, and I’d have to agree.

As a professional wedding photographer, I’ve visited a lot of venues. Each unique in their own way, and each having something special to offer their couples. With intimate weddings, micro weddings, and elopement popularity on the rise, Grayce Gardens is standing out to local couples for good reason.

The Operations Director at Grayce Gardens, Shelby, was kind enough to give me a venue tour from the perspective of a bride. So let’s talk about it!

The Venues Property & Hosting Spaces

First and foremost, the property is a fully functioning greenhouse! Unlike other greenhouses you may have visited around Chambersburg, the Grayce Gardens owners and team have put a ton of effort into making the outside of the building beautiful and aesthetically pleasing. When you think of “greenhouse” your mind might go to the more traditional greenhouses in our area with lawn furniture out front, huge LED billboards, and landscaping freight sitting outside. Grayce Gardens has been super intentional about creating a space that both their couples and their couples’ guests can pull up to and enter confidently believing they are in the right place for a wedding.

Grayce Gardens contains the primary retail space, a traditional-greenhouse plant area, the indoor event space, and the outdoor event space.

Indoor Event Space – The building that houses the indoor space looks like a traditional greenhouse, but in truth, it is anything but that. This Chambersburg PA wedding venue is a historic glass greenhouse space originally assembled in the 1960’s, but Grayce Gardens has restored the space to a wedding venue of your dreams. This venue has brick floors, white shiplap interior walls and statement french doors all over. It is completely covered and sealed from the elements so that rain will not put a damper on your events. The indoor area, however, is heated but not cooled at this time. Don’t forget- this is still an operating greenhouse. So you will need to be mindful if you are considering hosting a summertime wedding here!

Outdoor Event Space – The outdoor event space connects directly to the main indoor hosting area through the double doors (pictured above) and is the most popular option for your ceremony area. The area is on the smaller side, but totally ample for a simple ceremony. It is easily accessible from the main parking lot so your guests have no issues finding their way to their seat. This space is also completely covered, which is a huge bonus for those rainy days! There are a few leaky spots, but the venue can help you identify those easily to plan around.

This venue space can accommodate up to 100 guests, but the comfort number may be closer to 75 to account for your vendors, yourselves, and to leave some breathing room. If you’re getting married in fairer weather, opening the back doors to allow flow from inside to outside may be just the ticket to creating a diverse and open space for everyone to enjoy.

Add-On Options

Grayce Gardens gorgeous space speaks for itself, but the owners are eager to provide you with more opportunity to bring the beauty out of the space. The venue offers a decorating package to not only take some stress off your plate, but help keep the look of your wedding cohesive with the venues natural appearance. This package is ever-changing but currently includes their egg chair, rugs, pillows, table runners, hanging ferns, large plants, and pampas grass.

Since you’re getting married in a greenhouse, why not keep with the theme? You have the option to add on botanical themed wedding favors in the version of tiny personal succulents. These are priced by the plant depending on the potting preference you like.

Both of these add-ons are an additional cost.

Experience & Accommodations

When you book your wedding at Grayce Gardens, you will get the space on the Friday prior to your event from 9am-9pm and the day of your event from 9am-11pm. There will be an attendant on site in the retail space during the duration of your event to assist you with any immediate concerns or questions.

At this time (Jan 2023), the venue does not offer any getting ready spaces. However, the owners are working on renovating an Airbnb on the property (pictured below) that they hope to offer as a space for a bridal party in the future! Whether this will be an additional fee or included in the wedding package is still up in the air, but definitely something that future brides and grooms can look forward to.

To take some expense off your plate, the venue provides tables and chairs to accommodate up to 100 guests. If you need the full 100 chairs, you may need to move them to the reception space after your ceremony. If you’d prefer not to do that, Grayce Gardens knows a rental vendor with chairs super similar to theirs to keep the look cohesive. Otherwise, you’re welcome to move or rearrange the chairs to accommodate your guests however you need.

Grayce Gardens does not have a kitchen area, however their back door (pictured below) slides open and they highly encourage the use of food trucks on their back pad! They also provide long buffet-style tables along their walls if your caterer would like to set up immediately upon arrival. This makes serving food easy and space-saving. The same usage of the space is recommended for bartenders, though the venue is BYOB.

From A Photographers Perspective

Grayce Gardens is gorgeous – there is no contesting that. While the entire venue is beautiful and so easy to photograph, my primary concern while touring the space was the inability to get my couple away from their guests for couples portraits. ESPECIALLY on cold or rainy days where the guests would be huddled inside. There is outdoor space, yes, but it was minimal and hard to move too much without eyesores.

So naturally I was thrilled to hear that while use of the retail space isn’t encouraged for your actual event, it IS allowed for the couples portraits! This was a total game changer. All of the photos below are JUST retail space. I was already dreaming up all of the gorgeous botanical framing and greenery in every portrait. So evenly lit, and SO photogenic. After the tour, I was itching to shoot some couples portraits in this space!

Couples booking here should be aware that their wedding portraits are going to VERY clearly reflect their venue. While there is some outdoor space, it is not ample. So if your dream was for openly-fielded sunset vision… that may be doable to an extent, but the real selling point is the incredible greenery the space is already offering. I have seen some outdoor photos from this venue, but the space is minimal unless you venture to the surrounding properties, but clarity on who owns them is unsure so ethically it is not ideal.

This may be your dream wedding venue if:

• You want a very light, modern wedding vibe
• Your ideal wedding day is on the smaller side and more intimate
• You already had a food truck on your wish list!
• You have out-of-area guests who would benefit from easy access to the property from I-81
• Your getting married in the spring or fall
• You want the greenery, botanical, boho look for your wedding day

You can learn more about Grayce Gardens on their website at www.graycegardens.com.

You can view my full gallery of Grayce Gardens here.