City venue guide

The 10 best wedding venues in Burlington

Burlington weddings divide between the waterfront and the farm country behind it. On the lake, Hotel Champlain holds the largest ballroom in the city at 350 seated, ECHO rents its aquarium and lakeside pavilion after hours, and the Spirit of Ethan Allen takes the whole party out on the water. Inland the barns do the heavy lifting — the Old Lantern in Charlotte seats 300, Isham Family Farm in Williston 250 — while Shelburne Museum, seven miles south, can spread one guest list across a round barn, a brick house lawn and a dry-docked steamboat.

Researched and last reviewed 2026-08-16. We have no commercial relationship with any venue listed.

Hotel Champlain, Curio Collection by Hilton — wedding venue in Burlington, Vermont

Photo: hotelchamplainvermont.com

No. I

Hotel Champlain, Curio Collection by Hilton

Waterfront hotelBattery Street, downtown Burlington350 seated; 600 standing in the ballroom

Rebranded out of the old Hilton Burlington Lake Champlain, this is still the largest single room in the city: a 5,400-square-foot ballroom seating 350 or holding 600 standing, inside 18,822 square feet of total event space at 60 Battery Street. West-facing glass puts the lake and the Adirondacks behind the head table, and 258 rooms upstairs mean nobody drives home. Church Street Marketplace is a five-minute walk and ECHO closer still, which matters when the guest list has a free afternoon.

The city's largest ballroom, on the lake

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Spirit of Ethan Allen — wedding venue in Burlington, Vermont

Photo: soea.com

No. II

Spirit of Ethan Allen

Lake cruise shipBurlington waterfront, foot of College StreetUp to 350 across all decks

Lake Champlain has one cruise ship running private charters and this is it, boarding at the waterfront by College Street. Couples take a single deck, two, or the entire vessel — the Admiral Deck below is the accessible level, the Horizon Deck sits above it, and Coast Guard rules set the ceiling at 350 across the ship. The charter rate is genuinely all-in for the hardware: deck, dance floor, tables, chairs, linens, china, glassware, waitstaff, bar staff and a certified captain, with food, drink and entertainment quoted on top. Worth saying out loud to guests that the vows happen on a moving boat, so there is no arriving late and no slipping out.

Charter the whole ship for the evening

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ECHO, Leahy Center for Lake Champlain — wedding venue in Burlington, Vermont

Photo: rentecho.com

No. III

ECHO, Leahy Center for Lake Champlain

Science center and aquariumCollege Street pier, Burlington waterfront10 to 150

A lake-science center on the pier that rents the building after closing with the exhibits left switched on — roughly 70 species of fish, reptiles and amphibians behind glass while dinner goes out. The usable layout is a lakeside pavilion for dining and dancing, a dockside pavilion outdoors and an upper balcony that suits cocktails; ten to 150 is the honest working range even though the building technically absorbs more. A 6pm-to-11pm booking runs about $6,500 and covers the space, in-house tables and chairs, staffing and the rehearsal. Any guests under twelve will be lost to the exhibits for the first hour.

Dinner beside the aquarium tanks

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UVM Alumni House — wedding venue in Burlington, Vermont

Photo: weddingwire.com

No. IV

UVM Alumni House

Historic mansionThe Hill Section, Burlington

Edward Wells put this Queen Anne house up in 1894 on the Hill Section ridge, hiring the Boston architect Edgar Allen Poe Newcomb and the carver Albert Whittekind, whose work also lines UVM's Billings Library. An award-winning preservation project returned it to use in 2015, leaving about 13,000 square feet of stained glass, carved wood and curved porch joined to the modern Silver Pavilion, which supplies the flat-floor ballroom and the audio-visual rig the old house never could. It reads best for couples who want period rooms for the ceremony and the photographs without asking a hundred guests to eat dinner in a parlor.

1894 Queen Anne with a modern pavilion

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Hotel Vermont — wedding venue in Burlington, Vermont

Photo: hotelvt.com

No. V

Hotel Vermont

Boutique hotelCherry Street, downtown BurlingtonAbout 56 seated; micro-wedding package for 20 to 26

At 41 Cherry Street this is the deliberately small option, and the hotel says as much: the Van Ness Room, Juniper Hall and the American Room are built for showers, rehearsal dinners and micro weddings rather than a two-hundred-person reception. The published micro-wedding package covers 20 to 26 guests with the ceremony, dinner, cake and a night upstairs for the couple folded in, and about 56 seated is the practical ceiling in the larger room. There is an outdoor ceremony spot with Lake Champlain in view. For couples marrying quietly on a Friday and throwing the real party somewhere else, it is the most useful address downtown.

Built for micro weddings, not ballrooms

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Shelburne Museum — wedding venue in Burlington, Vermont

Photo: shelburnemuseum.org

No. VI

Shelburne Museum

Museum campusShelburne, seven miles south of Burlington80 to 500 depending on the site

The campus at 6000 Shelburne Road is a collection of Vermont buildings moved here and preserved, and a good number of them rent. Capacity does the sorting: the Round Barn seats 200, the Brick House lawns take ceremonies of 250, the Pizzagalli Center seats 120 indoors, and the Circus Lawn holds 500 under a tent. The strangest option is the steamboat Ticonderoga, hauled overland to the grounds in the 1950s and sitting on dry land ever since — 80 at dinner, 150 for a ceremony. Catering comes off a preferred list, and parking is free and abundant, which is true of nowhere downtown.

Round barn, brick house, or a steamboat

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The Old Lantern Inn & Barn — wedding venue in Burlington, Vermont

Photo: oldlantern.com

No. VII

The Old Lantern Inn & Barn

BarnCharlotte, about 15 minutes southUp to 300

Charlotte is a quarter-hour down the lake road, and the Old Lantern has been running events from an 1800s barn at 3260 Greenbush Road long enough to be a local fixture. The room is roughly 8,000 square feet of Adirondack-style post and beam with a stage, a bar and what the venue bills as the largest maple dance floor in the state; 300 guests is the cap, which makes it one of the bigger barns in the county rather than a boutique one. Vows go outdoors under a dark wooden arbor on the surrounding ten acres, and the eight-room inn on the property takes the wedding party overnight.

8,000 square feet of post and beam

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Isham Family Farm — wedding venue in Burlington, Vermont

Photo: ishamfamilyfarm.com

No. VIII

Isham Family Farm

Working farmWilliston, 20 minutes from downtownUp to 250

Still a working maple operation — the family has been boiling sap on this land since the 1800s — with a timber-frame barn from the late 1700s restored for events and hung with wagon-wheel chandeliers. Three ceremony sites are laid out across the property: a hilltop with the mountains behind it, a spot by the pond, and the barn itself as the rain plan. Capacity is 250, and the booking hands over the place from Friday noon to Sunday noon along with 30 handmade benches, 25 eight-foot tables, an oak bar and a plumbed bathroom trailer instead of portable units. Twenty minutes from downtown, fifteen from the airport.

Whole-weekend access to a maple farm

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Sleepy Hollow Inn — wedding venue in Burlington, Vermont

Photo: skisleepyhollow.com

No. IX

Sleepy Hollow Inn

Round barnHuntington, in the Green Mountains165 in summer; 140 in winter

The reception room has seventeen sides — a two-storey round barn on a Nordic ski and mountain-bike property at 427 Ski Lodge Drive, with Camel's Hump filling the view. A 40-by-40-foot covered pavilion with roll-down sidewalls adjoins it, the ceremony gazebo stands by the pond, and 165 is the summer ceiling, dropping to 140 once the trails are being skied. Packages include one or two nights in the eight-room inn, which sleeps 22, plus trail passes for the whole guest list. The property runs the event entirely on solar power and prices in three seasonal tiers rather than one flat rate.

Seventeen-sided barn under Camel's Hump

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The Essex Resort & Spa — wedding venue in Burlington, Vermont

Photo: essexresort.com

No. X

The Essex Resort & Spa

ResortEssex, seven miles from the airportUp to 350 in the Farmhouse or the Atrium

Eighteen acres at 70 Essex Way built around a kitchen — the resort teaches cooking classes and runs its own bake shop, and the catering is usually why couples drive out here. Four rooms carry a real guest list: the Farmhouse at 4,968 square feet and the Atrium at 3,185 both take 350, the Ballroom 250, the Salons 150, with small private dining rooms below that for a rehearsal. With 120 guest rooms, two restaurants, a spa and a golf course on the grounds, it is built for a whole weekend rather than one evening, which is the case for leaving Burlington to use it.

Cooking school attached to the catering

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Marrying in Burlington?

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Tell us where you’re marrying in Burlington, Vermontand we’ll build the invitation around it — the venue’s own colours, an illustration of the building if you want one, your map and timings already in place. One link for every guest, with live RSVPs.

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Planning a wedding in Burlington

Vermont asks no residency of anyone: the license is $80 from any town clerk in the state, Burlington's sits at 149 Church Street, at least one of you signs in person with a state or federal ID, and it stays valid 60 days. The trap is the officiant rather than the license — Vermont recognizes judges, justices of the peace and clergy residing in the state, so a friend or an out-of-state minister must register as a temporary officiant with the Secretary of State before the date. Book lodging early for late September and mid-October, when foliage season fills Chittenden County at tourist rates, and expect a good share of guests to route through Boston, about three and a half hours by road, or Montreal, roughly two hours with a border crossing, because Burlington's airport is small.

When to marry — June through early October is the working season, with late September and the first half of October buying peak foliage at peak prices and the worst competition for hotel rooms.
What it costs — Venue-only spend commonly lands somewhere between $5,000 and $10,000 for a full Saturday — ECHO quotes around $6,500 for a 6pm-to-11pm buyout with staffing and in-house furniture included — but the figure is hard to compare across properties, because hotels and resorts fold the room into a per-head catering number instead of charging rent.

Once the venue is settled, the next thing most couples deal with is telling everyone. A digital wedding invitation carries the address, a map, your timings and a live RSVP on one link — which matters more than usual when guests are travelling to Burlington and need directions, and plenty of notice.

Questions

Marrying in Burlington: your questions.

What does a wedding in Burlington actually cost?

Venue-only rental for a full Saturday commonly falls between about $5,000 and $10,000, with ECHO's roughly $6,500 buyout for 6pm to 11pm — space, in-house tables and chairs, staffing and the rehearsal included — a fair midpoint. That figure is not comparable across the board, because hotels and resorts such as Hotel Champlain and The Essex charge little or no room rent and recover it through a per-head food and beverage minimum instead. The single largest lever is the date: a Friday or Sunday in June costs materially less than a Saturday in the first half of October, when foliage tourism is bidding for the same rooms and vendors.

Can a couple from outside Vermont, or outside the US, legally marry in Burlington?

Yes, and it is unusually simple. Vermont has no residency or citizenship requirement, so any couple may take a license from any town clerk in the state; Burlington's office is at 149 Church Street. The fee is $80, both parties must sign the application but only one needs to appear in person before the clerk with a state or federal photo ID such as a passport, and the license is valid for 60 days. There is no separate civil ceremony to arrange back home — unlike Italy or France, the ceremony performed in Vermont is itself the legal marriage. For recognition abroad, order a certified copy afterwards and, if your country is party to the Hague Convention, have it apostilled by the Vermont Secretary of State.

Who is allowed to officiate, and can we ask a friend?

This catches more out-of-state couples than the license does. Vermont recognizes Supreme Court justices, superior and district court judges, justices of the peace, and ordained or licensed clergy who reside in Vermont. A friend, a family member, or a minister who lives in another state is not automatically qualified — they must register with the Vermont Secretary of State as a temporary officiant before the wedding day. Sort this out months ahead rather than in the final week, and confirm it in writing, because an unregistered officiant invalidates the paperwork rather than the party.

When should we book, and where do bigger guest lists go?

Saturdays from late June through mid-October at the better-known properties are routinely taken twelve to eighteen months ahead, and because peak foliage in the second half of September and first half of October is also the busiest tourism fortnight of the year, the hotel block deserves booking at the same moment as the venue. Guest count narrows the field fast. Past 300 the realistic answers are Shelburne Museum's Circus Lawn under a tent at 500, Hotel Champlain's ballroom at 350 seated, The Essex at 350, and the Old Lantern at 300. In the middle sit Isham Family Farm and the Shelburne Round Barn at around 200 to 250, Sleepy Hollow at 165, and ECHO at 150. Below that, Hotel Vermont handles roughly 56 seated and publishes a package for 20 to 26 — and if the date matters more than the address, weekday and shoulder-season availability is far better than the Saturday calendar suggests.

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Marrying in Burlington?

Want an invitation designed for your venue?

Make ours for Burlington See the designs

The 10 best wedding venues in Burlington

Researched and last reviewed 2026-08-16. We have no commercial relationship with any venue listed.

Want an invitation designed for your venue?

Planning a wedding in Burlington

When to marry — June through early October is the working season, with late September and the first half of October buying peak foliage at peak prices and the worst competition for hotel rooms.

What it costs — Venue-only spend commonly lands somewhere between $5,000 and $10,000 for a full Saturday — ECHO quotes around $6,500 for a 6pm-to-11pm buyout with staffing and in-house furniture included — but the figure is hard to compare across properties, because hotels and resorts fold the room into a per-head catering number instead of charging rent.

Want an invitation designed for your venue?