We hosted our wedding reception at the Shawnee Inn...

We hosted our wedding reception at the Shawnee Inn and stayed on the property with some of our guests. The 3/5 star rating reflects an average of the overall wedding and lodging experiences, reviewed here separately.

Wedding: 4/5


Food-wise we were pleasantly impressed when we taste tested our menu and made the final choices. The Shawnee Inn has especially good appetizers and the kitchen combined elements of a pork dish we liked to be made with chicken instead. When it came to the wedding day, we felt the appetizers were just as good as our initial tasting, but the quality of a few of the entrees suffered a little due to them being made en masse for a buffet rather than fresh from the kitchen. A few minor details, like bar mixers and which beer to stock, were overlooked but ultimately worked out fine. We opted for the lowest food option and there was more than enough food. We also went with a bar tab instead of a bar package (per person charge) and it was significantly cheaper.

We had our reception in the Riverside Sanctuary (pavilion). The only downside was it was a little buggy during dinnertime. The pavilion could benefit from some fans, bug spray, or citronella candles

Tabitha and the Shawnee were accommodating with storage space for food and decorations. We can't say enough about the wonderful staff who set up the space the day of our reception. David and the team gave life to my wife's vision, incorporating their pieces with the ones created by our florist as well as my wife. We were most thankful for how carefully they packed up the many bins of our personal decorations and stored them safely until we could pick them up. We were so thankful we didn't have anything to set up or pack away on our wedding day.

Overall, we found the value of the wedding planning and event services of the Shawnee Inn to be very satisfactory and would recommend them to others.

Lodging: 2/5
Prior to our wedding weekend, we hadn't stayed at the Shawnee Inn, figuring the event spaces and vibe of the resort would be reflected in the hotel's rooms. We were wrong. We stayed at the Shawnee both nights of our wedding weekend. The cost of one night's stay was included in our wedding contract and the other was $240 in early August. I was personally in 3 of the 5 rooms our wedding party occupied on different floors and in different configurations and found them all to be of a similar poor quality. Others in our party had the same complaints. The biggest issue was the 80s era air conditioning units that were noisy and didn't work. The unit in our room ran the entire weekend, set for 65 degrees and the room never got below 74. The rooms are outdated with low-end furnishings. Greater attention also needs to be paid to room cleanliness as there were thick coatings of dust on the TV, baseboards, and curtains.

One of our guests had to switch rooms because of a damaged screen that allowed a swarm of bugs into their bathroom and bedroom, as the bugs were attracted to the light. This guest called the front desk at least twice overnight and was told there wasn't anything they could do for them. On the third attempt, they spoke to management who moved them to a cottage further away for the hotel and comped just one night of their two-night stay.