Martha Clara Vineyards

My husband and I wanted a rustic wedding, within driving distance of NYC. We loved the idea of getting married on a vineyard but we had over 100 guests and most vineyards on LI needed a tent for that number. Martha Clara though has the most spectacular barn. We got married in the bridal paddock first and then had our cocktails out there as the sun set and moved into the barn for dinner and dancing. All our guests loved the venue - it has so much charm and character. Molly and her team are fantastic to work with as well. So patient but always so helpful and enthusiastic. I was never made to feel like I was being difficult, even though I'm sure I was! I loved my wedding and I loved my venue. Cannot recommend highly enough.

When we booked this venue (two years before our wedding date) the events coordinator in the late summer of 2008 was responsive, professional, and a pleasure to work with. She was apparently fired for reasons that remain unclear and we only found out about the change in staff when I contacted the vineyard about some details about a year before the wedding. The new events manager was initially responsive but the drama began when he blew off our site visit with the caterer and florist about 3 months before the wedding (which we flew in for from Los Angeles, and which the caterer drove out for from Brooklyn). From then on he was impossible to get a hold of, especially when it started getting down to the wire. And then for the bomb... 16 business days before our wedding he sent our caterer a "catering contract" (which we had never seen or signed and which was never mentioned previously!) stating that we had to pay to throw our trash in the vineyard's trash containers, put down a "catering deposit" and have additional liquor license/permits that we were NEVER told about!! Turns out all of that, according to the State of New York, all this had be taken care of 15 business days before the wedding for us to be able to have any alcohol other than wine at the wedding. So we had ONE day to clear this up....from L.A. We were able to hire a second caterer to come in and do the beer and liquor for us (at a HEFTY extra cost given the time constraint and our obvious bind), but this guy continued to refuse our phone calls, answer our messages, and tried to blame the mess on our wonderful caterer rather. Bottom line, the vineyard is beautiful and our wedding turned out to be perfect, the other staff was wonderful and helpful in every possible way, but if Ken Reese is the site coordinator for this place DO NOT have your wedding at Martha Clara.