The Lionsgate Event Center Venue Guide
Three Stunning Wedding Venues in Lafayette, Colorado
Never heard of Lafayette? Well, you’re missing out!! Part of the expanding Boulder suburban area like Louisville, Lafayette has developed a cute little downtown over the last few years with breweries, restaurants, and summer festivals. Whether you grab a coffee at East Simpson, snag a famous sour beer at Odd13, or hang out at the food trucks parked at Liquid Mechanics, Lafayette promises a good time! It’s just 20 minutes from scenic Boulder, where you can hike the Flatirons or visit Pearl Street Mall.
The Lionsgate Event Center is an expansive property just south of “downtown” Lafayette with three amazing wedding venues on site: The Dovehouse, The Gatehouse, and the Chandelier Barn. All three are stunning and unique buildings that can host a wedding ceremony and reception. They include a ton of amazing amenities in their packages, and the otudoor areas of each space are some of the best around for photography! Read on, and I’m going to break down these awesome venues for you!
The Dovehouse
The Vibe
As you drive along 287 looking for The Lionsgate Event Center, you’ll see a gigantic property with a forest green fence and the most epic twinkle lights hanging in the trees. The Dovehouse is the first property you drive by if you’re coming from Point Drive. Once you park, you’ll walk through iron wrought gates down a curving sidewalk to the gorgeous brick building in the South end of the Lionsgate property.
Watch your feet, the chickens free roam throughout the Dovehouse grounds! There’s also a small fountain, flowering pink cherry trees, expansive lawns, and three outdoor ceremony outdoor sites surrounded by massive trees. Inside the building 100yr old building, you’ll be treated to vintage decor and styling that reminds me of the older houses in the Denver Area, like Grant Humphrey’s mansion. The main reception space has windows on all sides with brick walls, a gorgeous dedicated bar area, and a dance floor that opens outside onto a concrete patio! The space has some unique touches like a stained glass dome over the bar, edison bulb chandeliers, and some of the coolest wallpaper around.
If you wind up getting married here, your guests will love wandering the grounds, taking selfies with the chickens, and spending time in a unique venue that feels like it could be your super wealthy grandma’s house. I’ve noticed that no one gets “stuck” doing just one thing during weddings here, and the flow from room to room as you move through your timeline of events keeps things interesting and fun!
The Venue
1055 US 287, Lafayette, CO 80026 – Southern Building on the Property
The Details
How much does it cost to get married at The Dovehouse at Lionsgate Event Center?
Pricing varies based on the day of the week and the number of guests. Here’s the baseline package price for the Dovehouse. The booking fee is $2,750.
2022 & 2023 Prices
Includes up to 15 guests, $22 per added guest.
You can arrive to start setting up and getting ready at 1pm, and the event run time is 5 hours. You can choose when that event run time starts! There’s an additional hour included for event break down at the end of the event.
If you want more time, you can upgrade any package to the “full buy out option” for $2,000. It extends your event time to 7 hours and allows you to set up at 10am.
What’s included in the venue rental of The Dovehouse?
The Dovehouse Rules and Requirements
Lionsgate has preferred vendors in every area you can imagine. But, unlike many other venues of its size and popularity, you can bring in any caterer as long as you use Lionsgate’s waitstaff to run the event! That gives you a huge amount of flexibility with your budget for food (often one of the most expensive parts of hosting a wedding), and allows you to shop around all the amazing caterers in Colorado. Food trucks are welcomed and they have a few on their preferred vendor list. You are required to use Party Liquor for alcohol, and all bartenders and alcohol packages must be purchased through them.
Lionsgate requires that you purchase insurance for your event! They recommend Wedsure, but are open to working with other insurers as well.
The venue capacity for The Dovehouse is 150 people.
Photography at The Dovehouse
The Dovehouse is one of my favorite venues to photograph weddings at! I’ve worked there probably close to a hundred times (I used to work for a company that was an in house packaged vendor with them) and it’s about a five minute drive from my house.
I’ve found all the awesome nooks around the property for photos while looking for something different to photograph each time. The Dovehouse has a large tree at the south end of the property covered in lanterns and goodness is it gorgeous. I love using the backside of the building for formal photos (like family and wedding party) especially during the fall when the leaves on the vines change color!! At twilight, all the lights and lanterns get turned on all over the grounds and it turns into a magical land of twinkles. It’s my absolute favorite thing to sneak outside during “blue hour” and use the lights to create something magcial!
You can’t skip taking photos with the chickens either!! Nothing is better than a fluffy headed hen photobombing your portraits. If you’re brave enough, ask your coordinator to help you hold one of the more friendly ones. They’re not the only unique element of the Dovehouse grounds, though! The owners have painstakingly searched out the coolest things to bring onto the property, and if you like one of them, take a photo with them! I’ve had a blast incorporating the blue cow and the yellow truck into wedding party photos before, and the red phonebooth is always worth a visit.
During the spring time, there are two areas of the grounds that have absolutely stunning flowering trees. The north edge of the Dovehouse property is lined with breathtaking pink cherry trees that are mature enough to have long drooping branches i.e. a photographer’s paradise. A little later in the spring (think late May) the row of trees at the entrance to the property, outside of the Dovehouse gate, pop off with amazing white blossoms! While it might be “off-season” for most Colorado weddings, I think trying to time your wedding with the flowering trees is a fabulous idea. Try for the last weekend in April or first few weeks in May to time them right.
While folks in Colorado tend to get married in the summer, I photographed a wedding there in the winter where it dumped snow all day long and it was truly magical. The Dovehouse looked like a little gingerbread house, and with the Chandelier Barn as the “bad weather” option for your ceremony, you have the best bad weather contingency venue of anywhere in the Denver area! Of course, you need to make sure no one else is using the barn, but that’s the other bonus of a winter wedding!!
Here’s my last photography secret for the Dovehouse… the field at the back of the property is the perfect spot for those golden hour “running through the grass” photos. It also makes for an amazing spot to get a clear shot of the skies at sunset if the clouds really pop off that evening. Most photographers keep their eyes on the sky during the reception to watch for pretty light and sunsets, but make sure to leave some extra time in your timeline if you want to go run off into the distance holding hands.
A Winter Wedding at The Dovehouse
Wedding Tips & Tricks for The Dovehouse
You learn things photographing at venues that usually isn’t listed on a website or shown on an Instagram page. Here’s some things I’ve picked up when working at the The Dovehouse that might be helpful as you plan your wedding!
#1 Footwear
Tell guests not to wear narrow heels! While there are paths to take you from place to place, there are also large lawns and some uneven flagstone areas. So lower heels, wedges, or block heels are much better for guests (and you, come to think of it) than skinny heels.
#2 Directions
Because the property has multiple buildings, and in peak summer there may be multiple weddings in one day, make sure to give your guests clear directions on where to park and get to the right building. The staff is amazing and does a good job of catching wanderers to direct them, but it helps if you can do some of the legwork as well.
#3 Ceremony Lighting
The main Dovehouse ceremony gets side lighting from the west in the summertime. Make sure your guests are well prepped with fans and sunscreen for hot days! If you want the best lighting for photos at your ceremony, use either the site that faces diagonally west (with the mountain frame ceremony arch) or the one that faces east. Otherwise be prepared for your photos to have bright light on one of your faces and not the other one.
The Chandelier Barn
The Vibe
The Chandelier Barn at the Lionsgate Event Center is hands down the most glamourous and unique venue in all of the Colorado wedding venues I’ve visited. Nothing comes close to the ceiling dripping in vintage chandeliers, the amazing wall details, custom ironwork, and beautiful stained glass windows. The owners even thrifted each chair separately then painted and reupholstered them to give the space an even more magical vintage feel.
When you have your ceremony in the Chandelier Barn, you’ll process down the amazing staircase, then walk down the aisle between your guests to the front of the room. Can you imagine that magical “first look” moment on that staircase?? It really is something else. I love that you can use the two sides of the staircase to have your groups process down and meet each other in the middle!
If you think the central area of the barn is amazing, you should see the little getting ready room at the top. It’s perfectly furnished with some mirrors, hooks to hang your belongings while you get ready, and windows that let you peek outside to see all your guests arriving. If you’re using the barn just for your ceremony, it usually makes sense to get mostly ready at one of the bigger buildings, then hang out in the staging room just before the ceremony.
The Venue
1055 US 287, Lafayette, CO 80026 – Central Building on the Property
The Details
How much does it cost to get married in The Chandelier Barn at the Lionsgate Event Center?
The Chandelier Barn is available as an add on to Gatehouse or Dovehouse pacakges for the ceremony. You can also book it for a standalone ceremony, or as a bad weather contingency plan if you can’t do your planned outside ceremony. The fee to book it is $250 as your “Plan A” ceremony site (i.e. you for sure want a magical barn ceremony).
2022 & 2023 Prices
What’s included in the venue rental of The Chandelier Barn?
The Chandelier Barn Rules and Requirements
The Chandelier Barn can only be booked as an add on for your Gatehouse or Dovehouse wedding!! The venue capacity for The Chandelier Barn is 110 people.
Photography at The Chandelier Barn
I’ve waxed poetic about how much I love the Barn a little already, but why not more?? This space is literally my favorite ceremony site in all of Colorado. Composing photos of the ceremony from upstairs with the chandeliers in the foreground lookin’ all twinkly makes me giddy. In a state full of ceremony sites with great views but at the whim of Colorado weather, I would choose this spot every time.
There are some particular considerations for it from the photography side of things though. First off, the chandeliers flicker really subtly. The human eye doesn’t notice it, but cameras do. Your photos will come out stripey with lines of darker and lighter photos unless your photographer knows to set their shutter speed correctly for the conditions. Because of that, working with a photographer who knows the Chandelier Barn already is a huge plus!!
It’s also a pretty small space to move around, and its one of the few areas where I require a second photographer to be booked for at least the ceremony. The side aisles are nonexistent, so one of us hangs out at the front to get guest reactions while the other is in the back working the aisle and the staircase. It is possible to move around the space from the outside and use the doors near the altar to snap a few photos. But, that’s really distracting for guests as well!
Even if you don’t get the Chandelier Barn for your ceremony, sometimes if it is not booked, your coordinator will give you the go ahead to do some portraits in the Barn during your wedding day! I definitely recommend you check it out. There’s some really unique photo opportunities that are a nice contrast to the gorgeous greenery around the rest of the venue.
If you like more surreal abstract photos done with prisms, mirrors, or other reflective twinkly objects, using the Barn will give your photographer a total playground of objects and lights to work with!!
Wedding Tips & Tricks for The Chandelier Barn
You learn things photographing at venues that usually isn’t listed on a website or shown on an Instagram page. Here’s some things I’ve picked up when working at the Lyons Farmette that might be helpful as you plan your wedding!
#1 Staircases
Okay, so while that procession down the staircase is super epic, it is also super steep and tricky to navigate in a bigger gown or shoes with super tall heels. Have I seen people rock it? Yes. But, I know myself, and I know I wouldn’t be able to walk down those stairs wearing heels if I was also super nervous about the large room of people watching me. Choose good footwear, or rock your ceremony barefoot!
#2 Directing Guests
If you know for sure you’re doing your ceremony in the Barn, that’s likely the spot your guests will head right as they arrive. Let them know to look for the Barn and where it is located in the property beforehand! If you wind up using the Barn as a backup ceremony location, the coordinator usually directs guests from either the Gatehouse or Dovehouse to the Barn for the ceremony. So, they’ve got your back there!!
#3 Heat!!
That cute little room at the top of the Barn gets HOT in the summertime. There’s not much you can do about it if it’s a warm day out, but get those fans running ASAP when you get into the room. Make sure your makeup artist used some good fixing spray on you, and bring blotting paper to dab if you get too shiny!
#4 Bathrooms
There are no bathrooms in the Barn, so hit up the restroom in the main building before you go over to the Barn to get ready for your ceremony. The last wedding I went to there, the bride peed in a soda cup before the ceremony because she forgot to go before she got up there! While hilarious, it might not be an experience everyone is down for on their wedding day.
The Gatehouse
The Vibe
As you drive along 287 looking for The Lionsgate Event Center, you’ll see a gigantic property with a forest green fence and the most epic twinkle lights hanging in the trees. The Gatehouse is the third property at the northern end of the property. Keep an eye out for the big silo to guide you!! To get to the grounds and ceremony site, walk under the large brick arch through the iron gates, and make sure to check out the big stained glass window on your right. It looks even more magical from the inside.
The Gatehouse is made up of the west facing lawn on the north side of the old dairy building (the one with the cool silo), the Gatehouse itself, and a yard on the east side of the main building (where the cool fence mural is). Between the three areas, you get so many awesome spots to take photos! Plus, gorgeous getting ready spaces for two big groups, and a gigantic event hall with stunning wood floors. The stained glass window is on the western side of the main event hall, which means the afternoon sun peeks through it during the event. It makes such a gorgeous backdrop to all your reception events!!
Most folks choose to do their ceremony outside, but you can also do it inside and “flip” the main reception hall during an outdoor cocktail hour so you can use the space for both parts of the event. Better yet, do your ceremony in the Chandelier Barn for an even more unique ceremony experience for your guests!
The Venue
1055 US 287, Lafayette, CO 80026 – Northern Building on the property
The Details
How much does it cost to get married in The Gatehouse at the Lionsgate Event Center?
Pricing varies based on the day of the week and the number of guests. Here’s the baseline package price for the Dovehouse. The booking fee is $2,750.
2022 & 2023 Prices
Prices below are for 200 guests. Add $22 per additional guest.
You can arrive to start setting up and getting ready at 1pm, and the event run time is 5 hours. You can choose when that event run time starts! There’s an additional hour included for event break down at the end of the event.
If you want more time, you can upgrade any package to the “full buy out option” for $2,000. It extends your event time to 7 hours and allows you to set up at 10am.
What’s included in the venue rental of The Gatehouse?
The Gatehouse Rules and Requirements
Lionsgate has preferred vendors in every area you can imagine. But, unlike many other venues of its size and popularity, you can bring in any caterer as long as you use Lionsgate’s waitstaff to run the event! That gives you a huge amount of flexibility with your budget for food (often one of the most expensive parts of hosting a wedding), and allows you to shop around all the amazing caterers in Colorado. Food trucks are welcomed, and they have a few on their preferred vendor list.
You are required to use Party Liquor for alcohol, and all bartenders and alcohol packages must be purchased through them.
Lionsgate requires that you purchase insurance for your event! They recommend Wedsure, but are open to working with other insurers as well.
The venue capacity for The Gatehouse is 200 people.
Photography at The Gatehouse
When I first started photographing weddings, I was lucky enough to work for a studio that was housed inside the Gatehouse. No joke, our office was what’s now the upstairs getting ready space! I got to work a LOT of weddings at Lionsgate during that time, and didn’t realize how lucky I was to be working in one of the prettiest venues in all of Colorado. Soon enough, I’d venture out into the real world and see that not every venue is as awesome as the Gatehouse!
So, what makes this spot the best for photos?? Well, let’s talk about the stained glass window!! What a gorgeous backdrop to your first dance, toasts, and even cocktail hour when everyone is hanging outside on the patio. You can get away with so much less decoration on the tables since the space is contributing so much to the style of your wedding! While gorgeous, the stained glass window can present some challenges, too. It creates really strong backlight on you if you’re sitting with your back to the window. So, make sure your photographer comes prepared to deal with the space. Better yet, use a photographer on their packages, like yours truly, to make sure they’re familiar with photographing in that lighting condition.
The ceremony site is facing the perfect direction for ideal afternoon light during your ceremony. Unlike the Dovehouse’s ceremony site, this one faces west so the sun is setting behind you as you say your vows. If I was building a wedding venue, I would make sure all ceremony sites faced west!! I also love that the ceremony site is large enough to allow you to move around the sides and back of the main event without disturbing the guests or sticking out too much. Getting different angles during ceremony coverage is important, and this site makes it easy on us.
Let’s talk getting ready! The two rooms they’ve built out as getting ready rooms are just GORGEOUS. Stunning light from windows in both of them, and each has a unique style and flair (just like the rest of the building and grounds). I love the wallpaper in the downstairs room, and the bay window is an awesome photo op spot, too. The upstairs room get’s amazing light from the large skylights, and it super big to make sure there’s room for everyone to hang out!
I’ve had secrets on the other buildings… so of course I have one for the Gatehouse, too! The courtyard on the east side of the building is rarely used for any of the wedding activities, and is a “safe space” when you’re guests are arriving. So, I love it for pre-ceremony photos like the first look, wedding party photos, or just your portraits! There’s a gorgeous vine wall in that section with a little bench to sit on–that might be one of my favorite spots on the grounds, especially in fall! There’s another little secret courtyard to the west of the main entrance to the ceremony site. In spring and early summer, there’s some lovely bushes with pink flowers. It makes a great first look spot since it feels “secret” and is sheltered from guests arriving and the other vendors setting up.
My last honorable mention for the Gatehouse is the vine wall on the south side of the ceremony site! In the fall, it turns a stunning red. So, if you time the magical color change right, you’ll get some stunning shots there. It does turn before the rest of the trees in the area do, so shoot for late September if you want to try your luck on timing it!
More Wedding Photos at The Gatehouse
Wedding Tips & Tricks for The Gatehouse
You learn things photographing at venues that usually isn’t listed on a website or shown on an Instagram page. Here’s some things I’ve picked up when working at the The Dovehouse that might be helpful as you plan your wedding!
#1 Footwear
Tell guests not to wear narrow heels! While there are paths to take you from place to place, there are also large lawns and some uneven flagstone areas. So lower heels, wedges, or block heels are much better for guests (and you, come to think of it) than skinny heels.
#2 Directions
Because the property has multiple buildings, and in peak summer there may be multiple weddings in one day, make sure to give your guests clear directions on where to park and get to the right building. The staff is amazing and does a good job of catching wanderers to direct them, but it helps if you can do some of the legwork as well.
#3 Ceremony Lighting
The main Dovehouse ceremony gets side lighting from the west in the summertime. Make sure your guests are well prepped with fans and sunscreen for hot days! If you want the best lighting for photos at your ceremony, use either the site that faces diagonally west (with the mountain frame ceremony arch) or the one that faces east. Otherwise be prepared for your photos to have bright light on one of your faces and not the other one.
The Lionsgate Event Center Vendor Packages
Should you book an inclusive vendor package?
Lionsgate offers packages with their bookings that allow you to bundle all your vendors together in one big happy bundle. The question is, is that a good fit for you and your wedding needs? The upside is less hassle, stress, and communication for you. The downside is more limited options for your vendors.
But, I will say, in comparison to many other venues that offer inclusive vendors, Lionsgate has an incredible team, and really diverse options for their packaged vendors. Catering and Photography tend to be vendors where you may want more choices, and Lionsgate keeps a large selection of both on their packages. So, they mitigate a lot of the downside of inclusive packages.
The team at Lionsgate has a lot of experience with the vendors who are on their packages as well. So, they can help recommend a photographer who they think is a great fit for you and your wedding style. That is super valuable!! The coordinators have worked alongside all the vendors many times, know them really well, and get their vibe on the wedding day.
The last couple weeks before your wedding can be one of the most stressful parts of the whole process, and if you have a vendor package with Lionsgate, your coordinator will take over a lot of that communication for you. When I work there, my primary contact switches over to the coordinator and we finalize the timeline and any other last minute tweaks while you relax and enjoy spending extra time with the guests who are arriving in droves for the big day!
Kate Merrill Photo is a packaged vendor at Lionsgate Event Center
As of 2022, I’m available to be your packaged photographer through Lionsgate!! I’m thrilled to be partnering with the amazing team there, and am looking forward to spending more weekends on the grounds again. If you’re interested in working with me for your Lionsgate Package, just ask your coordinator to see your package options for photographer. They have all the pricing information and will handle booking for you! Don’t have a package booked at Lionsgate yet? Well, email them to get the ball rolling!
LGBTQIA+ Weddings at Lionsgate
Is The Lionsgate Event Center LGBTQ – Friendly?
YES!! Fortunately this awesome venue absolutely loves catering to gay couples and is welcoming to all LGBTQIA+ folks looking for a spot to get married. They have some photos on their site from gay weddings there, but I figured I’d drop a few photos here from one of my favorite Dovehouse weddings!
LGBTQ+ Wedding Photos at Lionsgate Event Center
Need a Photographer?
I’d love to work with you for your Lionsgate wedding!! You can either contact me directly, or chat to Lionsgate about adding me to your inclusive package. As you can see I adore it there, and it would be an honor to get to work with YOU!