The Ashley Castle

NOT RECOMMENDED!!! ⁰⁄₁₀ –Wish I could give this business 0 stars.
Unprofessional staff, absolutely rude during party time. The bartenders were so rude, they were not even paying attention to the guests. I am so heartbroken for even organizing a party here. Some of the banquet hall staff members was just chilling with the bartender, talking, and one of the bald guys with glasses was actually downright offensive in his mannerisms, the way he was dealing with the guests.
One of the older gentlemen in the party accidentally was about to walk behind the bar (he had a drink or two), and was stopped as soon as he was told by the bartender without any confrontation, but this overzealous staff member (they bald guy with the glasses) started chanting the Arizona statute for what happens when someone walks behind the bar like there was a crime in progress, and he wasn’t even serving drinks, he was actually just chilling with the bartender, distracting him by just non nonchalantly talking.
My suggestion to anyone who’s planning to organize a party here, spend some more money and go somewhere else, the staff here is downright unprofessional and rude. They standard of providing service is not up to the mark as compared to so many other fantastic banquet halls in Chandler, Phoenix, Scottsdale etc.
Thanks for reading!

The Ashley Castle is an AMAZING venue! Olivia, Krystie, and Lauren are wonderful coordinators who go above and beyond to make your special day run smoothly! Ruben even helped us carry in our decorations into the castle! I was completely stress free because I knew I had reliable people working for us. They address your concerns in a very timely manner and are very attentive to your needs. They pay attention to the details regarding anything from the décor, to the food, and drinks. Our guests continue to tell us how beautifully planned our wedding was. I couldn’t imagine choosing a better venue. We chose the Imperial Package.
The food from LUX catering (included in package) was delicious. I definitely recommend using them as your food caterer. They have good sized portions and healthy options. You can purchase the alcohol for the reception separately. The florist who works with the castle made a stunning bouquet and beautiful flower arrangements.
I love the fact that the castle lets you be as creative as you want to be. I made and brought in my own manzanita tree centerpieces and garland backdrop. Thanks again for such a wonderful and memorable experience! We couldn’t have asked for anything more!

The outdoor area was beautiful. The indoor as well but the indoor acoustics were so bad I couldn’t understand the toasters or the music. The acoustics were bad because there was nothing to absorb the noises. By the tlme everything reached my ear it was a mishmash of echos. The water glasses had floaties like I have never seen before. It was like a an appetizer before the meal. My table was nervously playing with them by swirling them around our glasses like snow globes.

My Fiancée and I went to check this place out because we pass it every day on the way home from work, and were looking for a location close to where we live for our wedding ceremony and reception which will be held next year. Upon visiting the website, the pictures that they displayed showed a beautiful venue with almost a fairy tale look to it.
The problem is this: What you see on the website and in person differs drastically. In some of the pictures on their website, you can see the venue, a wonderful castle, clear as day and in beautiful condition. Some of these pictures were posted years ago (at least two or three) and since then, the landscaping around the venue has changed quite a bit. If you compare pictures from then and now, its obvious. You can BARELY see the castle anymore because of the bushes and shrubbery that have grown to overtake the front of it! Anyone paying for this venue is clearly paying for it because it looks like a castle and judging from the pictures, one can see that. The problem is, you can barely see the actual castle anymore.
My issue is that anyone booking this venue will be paying the same amount (maybe more or less by a little bit depending on specifics) as someone who had their wedding there 2 years ago, but is receiving MUCH less of the aesthetic value that someone did two years ago. If you dont believe me, look at the pictures online and then go visit for your self. You will be able to tell.
It is actually a shame, because if they had not let the grounds surrounding the venue get so out of control, it would be a BEAUTIFUL place to get married. This is literally a venue with SO much potential that is just no longer being used. When you go there in person, you can see and feel the potential, but you can also see that what was once an amazing venue has changed due to what seems like lack of care. As someone else wrote on here, it really is in need of some TLC.
All in all, I would still recommend checking this place out, but please be weary of how much the pictures they display differ from what is currently there. They just need a really great groundskeeper team to remove all of those bushes that are covering the amazing structure. It really is a shame. The staff were helpful and let us walk around and check the place out on our own. I really am sure that people are capable of having an amazing wedding there, it just really bothers me that the look of the castle has changed so much from just a few years ago. This was my biggest issue with the place. It is an older venue too, and you will probably get that feeling when you go and visit.
Either way, check it out for yourself. Maybe I’m just being picky.

I got married her January 6, 2012. It was PERFECT! The coordinators are wonderful and help you plan out every little detail for the big day. The catering staff and chef are amazing. The food was sooo good! I would recommend this venue to anyone and everyone!

I attended a wedding here. During cocktail hour, I mentioned to one of the servers that I have a shellfish allergy. More than an hour later at dinner, a different server came to my table to confirm my allergy as there was shrimp on the menu. They wanted to make sure there was no shrimp on my plate. I was pretty impressed!

My fiancé and I booked an appoint to tour this venue. When we arrived there was not a sole in sight to greet us. Once we located the office the woman behind the desk informed us to have a look around and that she would be with us in a minute. The linens on the tables were stained, the chairs were in very bad condition, and there was heavy calcium build up in the bathrooms, but other than that the venue was very beautiful. After waiting for 30 minutes and not being greeted my fiancé and I simply left. If the Castle can not handle simple costumer service and scheduling with tours to view the location I cannot image how they will be once you have actually given them thousands of dollars.

We had a perfect experience at the Castle at Ashley Manor. We had just been informed, right before a photo shoot, by our previously booked venue (Stonebridge Manor), that instead of the rate of $ 50 an hour we agreed on, we would now be charged $ 1,000, with an additional fee for changing rooms. We decided to pass on that and take our chances somewhere else, even though we had little time to book another venue.
We ended up being able to book the Castle At Ashley Manor and we are so pleased with our experience there. The staff was kind and friendly, even when our photo shoot ran a bit over schedule. We got to change in the bridal room for no extra charge, the rate was more than reasonable and overall, the venue was stunning. The grounds and interior and so far superior to Stonebridge Manor, it’s not even worth comparing the two. The grounds were immaculately kept and had an air of the Regency period about them (it could have been Mr. Darcy’s garden). The interior was stunning as well and would be the perfect place for any couple to be married. I could not be happier with my experience and could not more highly recommend the Castle At Ashley Manor!

I’m going to start with four stars for the Castle. We booked here last weekend and the spot is amazing. I love the feel and the idea of the greenery and artifacts in the back which give for great after-​ceremony photos (exactly what most of the venues in the city are missing). My biggest gripe is with their ‘soft holds policy’. Personally, I have no issues with this. So, after touring on a Saturday and falling in love, I tell them my fiancé and I will be back the next weekend with family because we want to lock down our October date that is still open. They tell us thats great, set an appointment, but again make it clear they cannot do a ‘soft hold’.
The following Saturday 9 of us show up. Tell them we’re probably going to book, and they mention another bride is INTERESTED… There are no soft holds though, so it shouldn’t matter-​right? So while I’M there touring with my family, the owner calls the other bride telling her there is someone else touring that is REALLY interested (I witnessed the call first-​hand when I walked in to their office to ask for pricing to show my dad whom hadn’t seen it). The owner is on the phone for a long while, and comes back to say ‘the other bride is on her way down (!!!) but it’s whoever gets the money in our hand first that gets the date, since we don’t do soft holds’. When my dad says alright, we’re ready, the owner says ‘I don’t want you making a rash decision because you feel pressure’.
At this point I’m almost ready to cry out of pure frustration, and tell the owner point blank, ‘If we walk out now so you can talk to the other bride, we will not be back’.
Ultimately we got the date we wanted, and the other bride got her secondary date, and came over to congratulate us after booking. Kudos to the other bride, but hopefully The Castle owners will provide for a better experience going forward and not make us regret investing thousands in this place.
Will update as things progress, and hopefully be able to increase the stars because I do think the place is absolutely stunning.

We had our wedding at The Castle at Ashley Manor on 3÷23÷13 and it was the best day of our lives! Olivia, Jeff & the whole team at The Castle were truly amazing. Olivia was so helpful throughout the whole process — from helping with menu selection & flowers to coordinating the day-​of, I absolutely could not have done it without her. Everyone raved about the food and the staff that was helping throughout the evening was very attentive and personable. Jeff was our DJ and he was incredible. He really controlled the entire event and made sure everything ran smoothly. Our guests were dancing ALL night and commented on how great the music selection was. One of my favorite parts was the limbo — classic! Honestly, I would recommend The Castle to anyone. It is such a beautiful venue and the team makes wedding planning a breeze! I cannot thank them enough for helping make our wedding day so special!

Attended my brother’s wedding here this past weekend. It was just as awesome as my wedding here. Great time. Laura remembered me from the giant cake I made for my wedding. We had a lot of fun. The staff here are very accommodating.

Had my wedding here in 2010. We got engaged in December and thought we’d do a May wedding and looked at a few places, but as soon as we saw Ashley Manor I wanted to hold it there. It was beautiful. When I expressed my interest to the coordinator at Ashley Manor she told me that I could get a major discount if I opted to do our wedding earlier than the wedding ‘season’ at the end of the Spring, like we’d originally planned. The discount was considerable if we could do the wedding on certain weekday dates in February and we were game, so our late May wedding suddenly became our mid-​February wedding. As you can imagine we were rushing to get things done! Thank God for the Ashley Manor coordinators, they made it 100x easier than I could have ever imagined!
We opted for an all-​inclusive package which (in 2010) was almost $ 10,000, again we got a nice discount because we chose a less popular time. The package included facility rental, food and drink for 50 people (LUX Catering: three appetizers, two entrees, one salad, one vegetable, one starch), basic bar service and a bartender, a DJ and Master of Ceremonies for 5 hours, a cake for 50 (Nancy Rae Cakes), ALL of the flowers for the whole event, a security guard, and a choice of linen colors for the tables and a coordinator to make sure the whole thing went smoothly.
The good things
–The place is very, very pretty, there are a couple of places here and there that could use some minor repairs and updating, but really, this place is pretty.
–Our flowers were amazing! We ordered blue roses and white Easter lilies. The effect was gorgeous, and they didn’t spray paint the roses, but had them water dyed the exact same color of bright blue that I wanted. I’m a florist’s daughter, and I was impressed.
–The cake was beautiful and DELICIOUS. We ordered a banana cake with strawberry filling and white buttercream icing, piped in a lacy-​white spiderweb overlay. Not only did Nancy Rae not bat an eye when we told her we wanted a ‘Corpse Bride’ themed cake, she went above and beyond in delivering one! We had collectors edition Corpse Bride figurines for our cake toppers and the effect was beautiful, creepy and playful.
–They had no issues with us doing a candy buffet and happily provided a candy table in the castle turret opposite the cake turret. We did an assortment of purple, black, blue and green candies and custom message fortune cookies in multi-​tiered apothecary jars with blue butterflies and purple and blue dragonflies clinging to the sides, all with monogrammed, white Chinese take out boxes. It was spectacular.
–Additionally, Ashley Manor’s DJ was great. Our ceremony ending song was New Order’s-Ceremony and he timed the music to our exit perfectly, and he was actually excited when we told him that our ‘Mr. & Mrs. Introduction’ song should be the energetic trumpet opening to Oingo Boingo’s-Dead Man’s Party. Our first dance was to Blue October’s-Calling You and he nailed it. He only failed us once by using some techno re-​mix of Echo & The Bunnymen’s-Lips Like Sugar for the cake cutting ceremony, not the original recording.
–The LUX Catering food was quite good and we enjoyed everything, and our bartender was friendly and accommodating. (We brought in our own cases of wine).
The not so great things
–The coordinators were all very friendly, but they weren’t consistent. We worked with at least 3 different coordinators over the span of about 10 weeks and it was a bit confusing not knowing who was in charge of our file that particular day and having to reexplain the last discussion with the other coordinator to them each time we had a conversation. The one MAJOR glitch was that we believed that one of the coordinators had offered us two additional appetizers, but the next coordinator would not honor it and claimed it wasn’t documented, so we had to pay out of pocket in the last couple of weeks to cover the two extra appetizers.

–We hardly got any prep time before the wedding for photos because we were coming in on the heels of another wedding, because of that we only got a few photographs of the wedding party. That made me very sad.
–Finally, at the end of the event almost NOBODY was still there from Ashley Manor staff for me to ask if there was anyone to help us clean up and pack our stuff. I didn’t know if we were supposed to leave our stuff and get it the next day, or what. We weren’t really told what to expect, and so there I was at midnight, in my gown, trying to pack up my stuff and get ready to leave. Finally someone told us we could get it in the morning if we got there by 10 AM. When we got there the next day, our stuff was packed up for us and ready to go, but sadly one of my apothecary jars from my candy buffet had been broken and the cake topper that we were supposed to freeze for our one year anniversary had been crammed into a too-​small cake box and smooshed. :(
Pics uploaded.

I had my wedding at The Castle in june and it was so perfect! They helped from start to Finnish and when I needed help and was confused they were right there for me! I definitely felt like a fairy tale princess! Oh and my ceremony was so wonderful! Everything was picture perfect! And my Dj was wonderful they recommend him for you so it’s a one stop shop for all of what your looking for! I would tell anyone and everyone to have your event here! 5+ stars for sure!!!

Absolutely a storybook wedding!
My daughter had her wedding at The Castle and I have to say, from our initial consultation to the minute she and her new husband drove away in their limo, it was a fabulous experience.
The wedding consultant was very knowledgeable and offered terrific ideas and special touches to create the most beautiful wedding I’ve ever attended. She coordinated everything with meticulous attention to detail. I know everyone says there’s always a glitch at the last minute, but everything went smoothly. From the beautiful flower arrangements to an amazing catering job, we were impressed.
They recommended a great band and we had most of the 250 guests on the floor at some point. It was so fun!
The grounds are beautiful and The Castle offers a rich ambiance that made her wedding seem a little like a fairytale affair.
I will never forget the thoughtfulness of the staff, their impeccable communication and their attention to all the details. They had a can-​do attitude throughout the planning process and the wedding itself.
Our wedding consultant was on-​site throughout the wedding, just to be sure things went smoothly.
In addition to it being a beautiful, organized venue, it was a value.
I highly recommend The Castle for any couple who wants their wedding to have a little magic in it.

This was actually the first of many venues visited by myself and my fiancé (now husband) for our wedding ceremony. The photos online look amazing, and we were anxious to visit the property. We called and made an appointment, and arrived a couple of minutes early. We stood in front of the open door of the office for nearly 20 minutes, all the while the two employees inside (who could clearly see us) joked and laughed. We finally stepped out back to take a tour ourselves.
We were not nearly as impressed as we thought we would be. The place is in need of major repairs, and the attention to detail just isn’t there. The windows looked as if they hadn’t been cleaned in a very long time, as they were coated with smears, fingerprints, goop-​like substances, and a layer of the desert’s dust. The floor of the main ball room was absolutely disgusting, and the women’s and men’s bathrooms smelled HORRIBLE (seriously, they smelled like a well-​used Port-​A-​Potty after midnight at an all-​you-​can-​eat deep-​fried sausage event).
We were just about to walk out the door when one of the two employees who had been jibber-​jabbering in the office came to stop us. When we told her that it was over 30 minutes past our appointment time and we needed to get going, she inquired as to why we just didn’t come into her office and sit down. Really? So it’s our fault that we didn’t begin the meeting on time? We told her that the place just didn’t look how we expected it to look. She remarked that they had had a big event the weekend before, and that the place still hadn’t been cleaned. That might be true, but there were things that looked like they hadn’t been cleaned in months!
Further, the «castle» is situated in an industrial area which is currently under construction. If you’re planning an event that does not take place in the evening, construction noise is a very real possibility.

The place looks beautiful at first glance, but don’t look too close! This place is in need of some TLC and perhaps a little bleach and elbow grease. It is not kept up and the kitchen is extremely dirty! There were dead flies everywhere in the kitchen and it looked as if it hadn’t been cleaned in months! It’s not a place you want to serve food from. The refrigerator was packed with old, moldy food. Who knows how long it was left there. I don’t think the floor has ever seen a mop. Completely disgusting. If this place had been a restaurant it would have been shut down. The bathrooms were not clean either. If this is how they take care of the venue, how are they going to take care of the people they rent it to?

My daughter had her wedding here. It was beautiful and I must say a perfect day. Some snafus did happen. Up to the day of the wedding they were very accommodating, answering yes to anything we asked. The day of the wedding they allowed people to come in for «tours» while our personal things were there — tables were decorated, things were in the bridal room, etc. They had set up 100 chairs outside for a wedding the next day… we had to ask them to remove them which they did but were not happy about it. We paid for but never had a security person there and we did have two men try to crash the wedding. Near the end of the night, the staff was crazy about keeping the tables cleaned and if you turned your back your cake was taken along with your drink. Everyone was commenting about that. None of this was enough to even remotely ruin the day but if you are reading this review, just take note of those things. The sun set behind the bridal table — was a typical gorgeous Arizona sunset and the pictures captured all of it. It would be hard pressed to find a more beautiful place in Arizona for a wedding.

Was part of a wedding here a couple of weeks ago and, I have to say, I was incredibly impressed. Throughout the wedding planning process, this venue was sooo helpful to the bride, never treating her questions as bothersome and almost never answering «no».
They offered several opportunities for brides to come with family members and fiances and bridal party members to a sort of dry run of the buffet, so that choosing a menu was based on actual samplings of the food. They also held a mini-​bridal expo at the Castle, allowing couples to meet photographers, the DJ and other critical vendors often used by them.
During the wedding itself, they were right there, taking away the stress of setting up (Yay!) and attending to the needs of all those involved in the wedding.
Shout out to Isabelle and Heather (and another woman, whose name escapes me), who are RIDICULOUS in their awesomeness.
Oh! Also, it’s gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous!