Robinswood House

My husband and I got married here in June of this year and we were so happy with our venue choice. Robinswood is a lovely space, it seems sort of rustic, but we were able to design our wedding to be anything but rustic. The highlight of working with this venue is Joanna. She is so incredibly warm and welcoming and focused on creating the event you want. She was available all the time and always answered emails and phone calls promptly. She is flexible and happy to meet and show you around and walk the grounds with you. She also suggested my amazing planner, Julia Pavlovski of Wedding Wise Seattle, and for that I am forever grateful (sorry, shameless plug, but it really was such a great recommendation). When I arrived to Robinswood on the day of, overwhelmed by everything that was going wrong (sooooo many things went wrong) Joanna saw me and gave me a giant hug and it really reassured me that she and the team were going to make sure everything in their power went perfect. And they did. The space is intimate. They say that they can fit over 200 people, but I wouldn't suggest it for over 100-125 as I feel you'd be quite cramped. We wanted an outdoor wedding and as it rained (even though the forecast was only 10% chance!!) on our big day, having the log cabin and awnings was a great relief for ourselves and our guests while the teams were prepping the reception area. The grounds are unique. I am actually a huge fan of the flow from ceremony garden area to cocktail/dancing area to reception area. It kept everyone organized and in one place.Additionally, their staff for day of is really great. We got compliments about the bartender and serving staff. I would say the things to be aware of is a lack of flexibility on their policies. Their policies are their policies and there isn't wiggle room, so if you were hoping to work with a specific caterer who isn't on their list, or serve liquor, or do a sparkler send off, etc be prepared to nix those ideas. In a way, it actually does make it easier for a bride to make decisions by narrowing down the options (trust me future brides, a million options is not always a good thing), but for people who have a very very specific idea in mind, talk to Joanna about those specific ideas before signing your contract to ensure detail you have in mind is allowed. Over all, we are very happy with Robinswood House. It was great for our perfectly imperfect day!

I loved having my wedding at Robinswood House. It was the perfect outdoor venue for our relaxed, summer garden party wedding; it was beautiful (everything was in bloom!), it was the perfect size and I loved the convenience of not having to make my guests travel from a ceremony to reception site. I had so many guests come up to me on the big day and complement our choice of venue! It's also a great mix of outdoor/indoor space; we had many older guests attend our wedding, and I felt relieved knowing that if anyone needed a break, they could just go into the house and rest in one of the many comfy armchairs. On top of all of that, Joanna (who was my primary point of contact for Robinswood) was SO easy to work with. She took care of all my questions and requests promptly, sent early reminders about important upcoming due dates, and even surprised us with home-baked goodies in our getting-ready rooms on the day of! Amazing service, a beautiful venue and affordable pricing... Robinswood House couldn't have been better, I highly recommend them!

I am titling this review - THINGS NO ONE TELLS YOU ABOUT RENTING SEATTLE BRIDE-ROBINSWOOD HOUSE. Where is the MINUS TEN STARS Rating on yelp for this one?!A HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT! Thank goodness for people with LOW LOW expectations! No offense! This venue is tiny! The tell you can fit 100-250 people but it should only be for 50 and under. The concrete in patios has a weird layout & grounds are uneven. It doesn't flow well at all! Forget a processional entrance. There is no room for 3 people to walk side by side. Maybe 2 and it's still tight!To make this easier, I am listing somethings that would bother anyone. Real along :)Questions to ask yourself before you rent this venue. 1- Do I want to share a venue with a Dog park knowing there will be dogs around property?2- Do I want to have to share the small parking lot with people from the dog park and park behind venue? Overflow parking takes place half a mile from there. Welcome your guests to walk!3- Do I want to have limited space for my photographer to take photo and video? Venue inside and out is tiny. You can see on photos there isn't room for more than 3 tables on the south Patio and no more than 7 or so tables in North patio for guest dining.If you fit more some will go on the uneven grass or will block the pathway to get to the house. The cabana only fits 4 tables or so but if you do that then where does your buffet or bar or cake table go? Can't!4- Do I want people to gather in a dark almost black interior small old home?5- Do I want to be OBLIGATED to use one of their EXPENSIVE and mediocre CATERING Services? You are not allowed to bring a single glass of water from outside. As the Manager Joanna says to many of their former brides and grooms "Please make sure to let your guests know that outside beverages/alcohol are not allowed, don't make me embarrass you in front of your guests"?? Just WOW! 6- Do I care for dealing with constant rude remarks AFTER I have signed the contract. Joanna is the sweetest person right until you sign the contract. 7- Do I care there is the weirdest statue that people can see as they arrive/leave the venue. It's people with bunny ears covering their private parts while seating??8- If your wedding is on a hot summer day or even a rainy day, do I care that my guests will be exposed to the high temperatures or rain? Seating takes place outside and say your prayers weather is perfect as the tarps they provide are old looking, unstable and they look very cheap not to mention it ruins the set up/view of gardens. There isn't anything pretty outside other than the gardens, when and if there aren't any dead bushes or trees. 9- If you need covered patio you will need to let them know days in advance as if the weather in Washington State was that predictable, otherwise you won't have a way to cover your guests from the rain or hot sun. 10- Do I want to pay for overpriced linen rental? $17 each PLUS a fee for damage if anything gets a single spot? It's a table linen, there will be food handled, chances are they will all have spots on them, even if its' only one small one. 11- Do I want to have confetti or rice or something smaller than a rose petal for decor? If so, you are out of luck as this is not allowed on property grounds and you will be fined for the use and clean up. Joanna said she will take photos and even interrupt the celebration if anything was outside of what "rules." Imagine interrupting a Wedding because there is confetti or diamonds on tables? What a big deal!12- Do I mind the OVERALL outdated look of the home? Starting by the bathrooms and "cabana." And the worn out buildings outside where tables and outside restrooms are? Seriously, no matter how fancy your decor is, this will kill it. 14- Expect nasty looks & annoying comments from Joanna if you want to come measure the property, no matter how nice you are, she will even shake her head wen she says "no, no, no, no" If you ask the same question more than once. I was hoping to have a video of this ready and her raising up one finger to complete "the look."15- You are not allowed to move furniture, except for 2 Old chairs. 16-Interior of home is very old looking. Fireplace could not look cheaper. Con's-Joanna does not like it if your catering bill is under $6K because The venue/her doesn't get as big of a commission. 20% of Any catering bill you pay goes to the Venue. They won't tell you this until you have finalized your Catering bill so be prepared to have to pay and extra $1,000 or more for fees. Everyone is supposed to deny this in case you want to ask but this is how it works. You'll see it on the final bills. - Every catering bill you pay will have a 20% Service that can amount to $1-2K + only in a service fee plus another fee that's around $200-500 depending on the total of your bill. Additional to that well you pay your catering bill which won't be under $3k + fees. - Decor will get stolen!! I ran out of room but you get the idea!

My husband and I got married here in July 2017 and had a wonderful experience with Joanna and Mike from Seattle Bride. We had a small wedding (about 33 people) and the size of this venue was perfect for us. We got married on a Monday to save some money. Joanna made everything very easy for me as the bride and primary wedding planner; she was in contact with me frequently over the past year to help move me along through the planning process. On the wedding day, we (and our guests) loved the look and feel of this place. My husband and I loved to be able to walk across the park into the wooded trails for some photographs after the ceremony. I would highly recommend Robinswood House to anyone looking for a beautiful, intimate outdoor wedding.

My husband and I got married at Robinswood a few weeks ago (7/14/17). It was everything I could have asked for! I could go though the details of what it looks like, and our set up, etc..but if you are interested in the venue go to one of their open houses and see for yourself to see if it fits your style. I would like to give my praise to Joanna. She was so easy to work with, sometimes if felt like she was reading my mind. She would send us clear and concise emails as due dates got closer to help us organize and be aware of what was coming up. This helped us shape and time a lot of our wedding planning. My husband and I asked A LOT of questions. She never once made us feel silly for asking and would always answer within 24 hours. On the wedding day Joanna went above and beyond. She kept our wedding gifts in a secure location and, working with our day-of coordinator, made everything run smoothly. During the evening my wedding gown bustle kept coming out. My maid of honor and I tucked into their office (since it was the closest place we saw away from guests) to try to put it back up again. Joanna was in there pouring our champagne toast. She got involved and offered a handful of solutions. She literally RAN up the stairs (in heels!) to grab us things. When the coordinator suggested we get pliers to clamp the hooks down, off Joanna ran to dig around and came back with pliers! I was so impressed. I felt like she truly cared about us having a wonderful wedding. I also want to mention the clean up crew was friendly and incredibly helpful. One more thing I'd like to say. Since the venue is nestled in a park, after hours you can go there whenever you need to (except when there is another event!). My husband and I went over many times to measure for decorations, test out speaking to see if we would need mics, and two weeks before our wedding we practiced our first dance on their patio half a dozen times. This was hugely convenient. In addition to the house and venue, the Robinswood Park is lovely. It allowed us to have several distinctly different backdrops within a few minutes of walking. Our photographer took some stunning photos of us in the woods and in the large field during sunset. I recommend Robinswood House as a wedding venue to anyone looking for a lovely time!

Chick Flick time!!Starring: Yours Truly (the bride) and A Handsome Man (the groom)Co-Starring: Our 125 closest friends and familiesSynopsis: It was a beautiful clear evening in the middle of July, a day our bride and groom decided to legalize their love for each other with a piece of court document with their closest friends as witnesses. Little did they know that the soccer game in the field next to the venue was competing for parking spaces. What to do? Send brother of bride out to redirect parking traffic to lot across the soccer field. Ceremony only started 20 minutes late from the 7:48pm time printed on the invitation. The mah-wage was finalized with a sensual (but not porno) kiss in the beautiful English garden. Later, everyone ate, drank, and danced under the starry sky and the bride had to decline lambada dancing request with the bride's best friend's very drunk dad (who later pole danced and threw out his back). They all lived happily ever after.Rated: PG 13 for slight sexual content and adult language

A pretty venue for a small wedding. Two things I did not like:1) they only let you have a rehearsal for an hour between 9 to 4 weekdays which meant anyone working normal business hours or coming from out of town could not make it. 2) Joanna interrupted me during the reception to go over the credit she was giving me. We had scheduled an hour at the end of our rental for clean up (which was plenty of time since we did not serve food) so I don't know why she felt the need to interrupt me during a busy hectic time for something like that.

My friend got married here and we helped her w the planning. I'm soooo glad more ppls are coming Fw. I helped my friend with wedding costs for venue. What was supposed to be a great gift turned out to be a nightmare. Yelp actually deleted a lot of the bad reviews. The owners must have made themBelieve the bad reviews were fake. Here is what happened. I told My friend toChoose any venue she liked and the reminder of The $ would goTo her honeymoon spending $. She lost her dad sadly months before her wedding so she couldn't afford otherwise. She, like everyone, was drawn by the nice pics$ cheaper price but boy we did not know the venue ppl were going to be so nasty. The one lady was so careless and threatening felt like we were signing our souls to the devil. She has a dark dark vibe I believe her nameIs Joana. Looking back now we know why she behaved that way. We thought she had a lot of stress but no. Turns out she loves the power to destroy every bit of happiness you may have about te wedding. My friend begged me assured me this was the only venue available the date all her friends and fam could travel to come to the wedding. So we practically had no choice. She also lied and failed to mention we would be obligated to use a list of caterers that were "authorized" which is not the case. It just means they only allow them if they give them a kick back which makes your catering bill 10-20% more expensive! Something ppl wouldn't know until after they sign the contract. The way she conducted things were awful. Instead of threatening ppl to not use certain things why not giving them ideas on what they can use?? They really failed at many things... They failed to do so many key things such as not let strangers steal our wedding decor. There's some weird statues on the property that are literally pornographic and children should NOT see them. We also noticed there's a dog park right next door and as we were unloading dogs were fighting and one of them was about to jump the fence to chase us so we had to wait inside the trucks for half hr until the dog owners left. They should have that fenced!! It was alsoIncredibly irritating thatThey did not tell us before singing contract that their parking lot was tiny and wouldn't hold many cars. So we had to reroute ppl to the other places! They also don't keep the grounds very clean. They tried to overcharge us until we proofed those items were left there from prior event! She got soooo mad that we were able to prove it that she tried to charge us for every single things she could. So exasperating. She also threatened to stop the weeding if she saw anyone w a single bottle of anything if it wasn't bought through the venue?? We had some families with young children are you kidding me??? Like I'm a going to stop a wedding because a toddler is drinking a bottle from his house. We were SOOOOOOOOO STRESSED OUT!!!! Also she knew it was going to be super hot out there and she did not even offer to put upSome tarps so ppl wouldn't suffocate in the heat! We had plenty of time and she walked away when we asked her for help. Still what really made me a great after all is that she broke our glass souvenirs only 2 survived and let strangers who knows who maybe employees or ppl from next events take our wedding decor! We could not find sooooo many things. $500+ worth of things just gone. And that's that we picked up next day. The fact I just read many reviews saying they cancelled their wedding and took their $$$ from brides and grooms really made me even more angry. These ppl should not be in business.In short just pick another venue yet doesn't restrict caterers. You'll be a lot happier at least w the food. The flowers are not worth it. This venue is big enough to have a cocktail party that's it. Not a wedding. Can barely fit 50 ppl or so inside cabana. Tight. Super tight. The cement grounds outside are uneven so if you plan to put tables plan on things rolling offf of the tables. I hope many brides search for this. We had to redo all the decor to accommodate tables outside. We are just soooooooo glad we cancelled the drone video because it would've been a huge bill for a lot of bad moments captured. Pictures came out decent because we had an amazing talented photographer. That's all.

Way too many restrictions. Leaves you with little room for your own individual style. Had to use their catering companies, their bar and liquor/wine. Could not put my own look and feel on what I wanted. The guy we met and toured with had zero people skills. Made us feel like we were imposing and he just wanted to sell us and get us out the door. I get that weddings are a big business but it is also someone's special day. Nothing special here

I loved this venue and thought it was such a pretty, romantic venue for a smaller wedding. Everything was fine, until COVID19 hit. I expected them to get shut down along with everything else. Half the city collectively lost their jobs, myself included. They sent me an email that said they were cancelling the wedding, that they would waive the date change fees so we could reschedule if they had something available in their calendar, and that our deposit was non refundable. Then asked me what I would like to do. The email was so abrupt considering our wedding was cancelled, and the fact that they refuse to refund the deposit for the wedding that THEY cancelled is nuts. The circumstances are out of everyone's control and I get that. We're all doing what we can to prevent the spread of this disease. But their response to us was garbage. It's crooked to cancel an event on someone AND keep their money. Because the problem is we can't plan for another date because we have no idea when they'll be open or when it will be okay for us to schedule again. They also told us to encourage our elderly and sick family members to not come to the wedding that they already cancelled. Meaning my mom and dad, my fiancé's mom, our grandparents, and quite a few other close relatives. Again, I figured the wedding would be cancelled because it was the right thing to do during this pandemic, but the way they handled the situation was terrible. I've been planning this wedding for a year. And we chose that date in particular because it had special meaning to us. Every other vendor that cancelled at least told us they would refund our deposits because they haven't actually provided us a service and the reason it was cancelled was because of a pandemic. At my job, we waived all cancellation fees weeks ago. This just destroyed my trust in these people, especially because the contract I signed had very confusing wording that led me to believe that if there was a circumstance that lead to the cancellation of the event that was out of anyone's control, they would refund whatever has been paid. Beautiful space for a wedding, and they'd probably help throw a great event, but they're not trustworthy. They're definitely just looking to get as much money as possible from people and don't really care about you or your wedding. There were a lot of issues with that contract, and I wish I hadn't trusted everything would be fine. They made a lot of verbal promises to be that they broke and backed up with the contract, and that was my bad for trusting them to do the right thing. They told me verbally I could chose any caterer I wanted, and then as soon as I signed the contract they told me I could chose any caterer on their preferred vendors list. Meaning I suddenly had a handful of very expensive options instead of the caterer I had initially chosen. They told me verbally if there was an Act of God that cancelled the event, they would do right by us and refund all our fees. Which I should've realized did not include the non refundable deposit. I definitely felt like they worded things in a specific way to manipulate us. But again, read the contract before you sign and cross your fingers that nothing terrible happens that cancels your wedding because they absolutely will keep all of your money regardless.