Calamus Estate Winery

We started our wedding planning journey in spring 2021 - Calamus was the first venue we visited and we instantly fell in love! The venue coordinator Makalya is responsive, thoughtful, proactive and organized - and just a really nice human! She made sure we were in the right place at the right time so we could focus on enjoying the moment. The staff were so pleasant and gave amazing service to us and our guests. The "all inclusive" package had everything we wanted - and even more - with special touches that our guests loved. Our guests raved about the food, which was hot and plentiful! The lawn games, ice wine smore favours, and cigar/scotch station were amazing. Adam from the 905DJ Co, which Calamus partners with, had amazing energy and knew exactly our taste in music. The setting was lush and green and the whole day just rolled smoothly. Thank you so much Makayla and Calamus for going above and beyond to make our wedding unforgettable! We will be back to visit soon!

Calamus was the venue of choice for our wedding this past year in September 2019. We elected the stargazing package and couldn't be more pleased with the results. Having the added bonuses of the Chronos observatory and bonfire as available amenities for our guest was awesome!

The staff at Calamus were very kind and friendly to work with - you really get the feeling of being amongst family. Since taking ownership, Peter and Rose are really building something special that cannot really be described but experienced instead.

The wine is also really great! My wife is a big fan of the barrel kissed chardonnay and I'm a huge fan of the double barreled Cab Sauvignon. We had the 2016 Meritage blend as our red table wine and our guest really enjoyed during dinner.

Highly recommend for a wine tour, bistro vist and wedding venue.

PC: wind and willow studios

We have just recently book this as our venue. The staff was very supportive and very prompt when answering my questions. It is such a beautiful venue right in the middle of the vineyard with a walking tour absolutely stunning. Also recent construction and future design is stunning.

My pictures don’t do it justice. The staff at Calamus were so friendly and accommodating, they added so many nice touches, the food was amazing and customized to our preference, they were great with food allergies, and the experience was very unique. We had star gazing, a wine tour, and a bonfire with ice wine smores. There were many great spots nearby for pictures, they had back up plans for cold/wet weather and made sure the wedding party was well taken care of (made sure our food was always hot if we had to leave for pictures or to chat with guests etc. The bar was well stocked and they provided the favours and DJ. I cannot express how magical our wedding day felt thanks to the staff at Calamus.

From start to finish this vendor was exceptional. They helped us make our dreams come true with a rustic, romantic, setting. The food, lawn games and service was amazing and the wines are some of the best we have ever had!

We have been planning this wedding for more than two years with Calamus estates winery. To say that our day was perfect is an understatement. It was everything that we wanted it to be and more. Makayla our wedding planner was amazing at everything she did during the entire two years we worked with her. She goes above and beyond what she needs to do to make your day what you want it to be. Peter also is amazing as well as the entire team. We couldn’t have asked for a better wedding and I couldn’t recommend them more.

We got married here in July and it was a wonderful experience. Makayla and Peter did everything they could to make our day special and stress free. DJ Ryen was great fun to work with. All the wait staff and bartenders went above and beyond to make sure everyone was served. The food was one of the best wedding meals we have had, and our guests raved about it. The pie bar was delicious. The property and gardens were beautiful. We had our reception in the barn, which was perfect for a summer night. It really only needed minimal decorations, with the nice views of the vineyard, the twinkle lights and the wine barrels. We rented the Jordan Manor from Peter as well, which was a great place to get ready with the bridal party before.

We could not have chosen a better venue to get married at or better people to work with!

Makayla, the venue coordinator for Calamus, assisted us and answered all of our questions for nearly 2.5 years, as we booked our May 29, 2021 wedding in 2019, then ended up having to postpone the reception until May 2022. Makayla was seriously amazing to work with, and we appreciate her professionalism, responsiveness, and flexibility. Although it was not the original plan, Calamus staff allowed us to have an intimate ceremony on one of their bridges on the property on our original wedding day. Peter and Makayla were so accommodating, driving us and our family down to the bridge on the 4x4, bringing us wine, and letting us stay longer than planned to take photos. And then in May 2022 we finally had our big party (reception) and it was AMAZING! Calamus is a laid-back, fun, and beautiful venue, with great staff. We can't wait to come back in future years for wine and pizza at the bistro, and reminisce about the 2 beautiful wedding days we had at Calamus.

Pros:
-beautiful winery with great covered patio for dinner reception. This was a perfect option during covid. Also good for adverse weather
- food was absolutely amazing. Not your boring/plain wedding food. Something for everyone. Everything from salad to dessert
- staff were very friendly, attentive, helpful, fun!
- Makayla the wedding organizer was approachable and helped with flow on day of Rehersal and wedding day. Calamus was very attentive to the reopening stages of Ontario and let me adjust as we moved into stage 3. Contact mostly over email with responses usually within 2 days. Harder to get hold of over phone.
Cons:
- they are festivities which is a well established and highly rated/recommended wedding company but they certainly did not seem experienced in hosting weddings at their own venue.
- Unorganized from the start. Because I had to plan everything in under 2months. I made sure to triple check timeline of ceremony and dinner. It was in evening and I wanted it to be as early as possible. Not the biggest deal but after invites were finally out I was told I can move up ceremony by half hour but it was too late. Appeared to just be miscommunication between owner and wedding planner. Much more disruptive to overall wedding was set up for day of. I confirmed decor set up time multiple times. And on day of when family/friends showed up to set up were told they cannot set up for another 2.5 hours leaving them with only 2 hours of set up time prior to wedding and my parents lugging decor up stairs to a storage area. Left them with little time to get ready themselves for the wedding which had I known this I would've hired a decorator to set up.
Our wedding day also had severe winds which is at no fault to venue ofcourse. But a reason I felt comfortable booking this "outdoor" venue was that they had siding for the patio incase of adverse weather. All my decor was flying off the tables and breaking (thank goodness i had plenty of extra) so my people asked to have the sides up until time of wedding. The response was that they were unable to due to not having the weights for draping ready/available? Wine glasses were not washed and ready, which also set back the setting up as I used these for my seating chart (which they were made aware of early)
- Lack of attention to detail...I had made it clear I had my own sweetheart table and provided measurements to make sure it will fit. I showed up to a completely different table and a table cloth on it that I had not chosen and completely ruined the vision I had.
Two wine barrels were put beside the sweatheart table for dinner service with no clear spot for speaches so the microphone was put on other side of a barrel so we could barely see speakers. This was extremely unacceptable as speaches at a wedding are directed at the bride and groom, I had to make them move these barrels and was able to solve the solution but unfortunately this had to happen infront of all my guests who were seated for dinner. A chair was left against the arch during my ceremony which was meant for the signing table so will unfortunately be in all my ceremony pictures now.
Also, due to their busy schedule we were unable to meet with them the weeks before the wedding where we could've done a walk through of maybe some of these decor details.
- Food flavor was the best I could've asked for, only downfall was that we got the family style ravioli for our pasta course (which tastes amazing btw) however the portions given to tables resulted in two small raviolis/person. Although this is an app round it is not a reasonable portion and when some guests asked for more there was some pushback from staff.
Dessert we had chosen three different kinds of deserts described as coming out on shooters (commonly found in restaurants). Although these tasted great, the presentation was horrible. I didn't except fancy but they were served in plastic portion cups (that are used in kitchen prep)

Overall, we had an amazing day due to a beautiful winery backdrop, friendly helpful staff, and great tasting food. I would most certainly recommend this venue. Hope these details help others to alleviate the misshaps that was too late for me to change!

We had an amazing wedding at Calamus Winery in early June. The setting and the food were amazing and the on-site staff were very helpful. I would definitely recommend the location. There was a lack of attention to detail with the planning staff though, so if this is going to be your venue you definitely need to double check everything to ensure you get what you requested.