The East Valley has some of the best wedding venues in Arizona, and they rarely get the credit they deserve. A Tuscan style villa behind iron gates, a century old hotel in downtown Chandler, courtyards strung with lights, lakeside portraits and one of the most beautiful temple grounds in the state. Many of them cost far less than a Scottsdale resort, and some are simply the better fit for the day a couple wants. We have filmed more weddings out here than anywhere else in the Valley.
We have filmed weddings at venues across the East Valley, in Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa, Queen Creek, and San Tan Valley. Everything below that is marked as first hand is something we watched happen. Everything sourced from a venue is labelled as such, and where a venue publishes nothing we say that too. A venue that will not publish its capacity or its end time is worth noting.
A note on geography. The East Valley means Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa, Tempe, Queen Creek, San Tan Valley and Apache Junction. Several venues marketed as Phoenix or Scottsdale are actually in the East Valley. If you are looking elsewhere, we have a Scottsdale guide, a Phoenix guide and a guide to West Valley wedding venues.
Chandler
SoHo63
63 E Boston St, Chandler, AZ 85225. (480) 878-5663.
We have filmed more weddings here than anywhere else we work. An industrial downtown block rather than a resort, with the ceremony space, the courtyard and the ballroom all on one property.
Mike and Katelyn married in front of the large fireplace in the SoHo63 courtyard, with only their closest family there. What we would tell you from working this building repeatedly is that the urban frontage is an asset most couples ignore: there are good backgrounds for bridals in the street outside the venue, and using them costs you nothing but a few minutes of your timeline.
The courtyard is the romantic option, and the tight one. It has a fireplace and string lights overhead, and it is the ceremony space we prefer here for its natural light. It really suits an intimate wedding. At fifty to seventy five guests it was wall to wall chairs, and moving around guests for photos and video took some care.
There is an indoor ceremony option too. We have seen ceremonies held in another room in front of a wall of small candles that the staff light one by one, and it is lovely. The light in that room is the house lighting and the can lights, so for a ceremony there we bring our own lighting.
How the evening flows. The venue opens the dividing wall between the courtyard and the reception space, so guests can drift in and out and step outside for air. The courtyard usually becomes cocktail hour, and we have also seen it turned into an intimate reception area. The main reception is inside, in a much larger room. During the reception a small outdoor bar and patio makes a quieter spot, and it is a natural home for extras like a 360 video booth.
Where the portraits are. There are plenty of spots right out front. A short walk away, the column lined walkways at The Alexander on Arizona Place work beautifully for photos and video, and the top level of the nearby parking garage is another good option if you plan the time to walk up. Our favorite window is right after the ceremony at golden hour, at the columns or up on the garage roof.
What the venue publishes, and what it does not. SoHo63 names four spaces, the Tribeca Terrace, The Plaza, the Gramercy Ballroom and Brix on Boston, and publishes no capacity for any of them. The marketplace listings fill that gap with figures that range from 200 to 530 for the same building, which is a spread wide enough to be useless. Get your number from the venue in writing.
Catering is a closed list of four. Heidi’s Events and Catering, SanTan Catering Company, Cuisine Privé and Babbo Italian Eatery. Several marketplace listings call this in house catering, which is wrong and matters: you are choosing from four outside companies, not eating hotel food. No end time is published anywhere.
Crowne Plaza Phoenix Chandler Golf Resort, the historic San Marcos
One San Marcos Place, Chandler, AZ 85225. (480) 812-0900, weddings (480) 857-4413.
We have worked weddings here. They include Rachel and Colton’s, and Hanna and Tristen’s reception after their sealing at the Mesa Arizona Temple.
What we like here. The little courtyard with columns is a lovely spot for a first look, and we have photographed bridal parties there. A small stairway works well for bridal portraits and for hanging the dress for photos. We have also seen an intimate reception held upstairs on a balcony patio, which was a lot of fun.
The ceremony space is pretty, and very public. It is in shade with a little fountain, which counts for a lot in Arizona. It also sits right next to the public sidewalk, the parking lot and the hotel entrance, with people walking past throughout. At one wedding a stranger on the sidewalk called out a cheer of congratulations in the middle of the ceremony. It was well meant, and it surprised everyone. If privacy during your vows matters to you, weigh that before you book the space.
It can take a crowd on short notice. The main reception hall is massive. Hanna and Tristen planned their wedding in a couple of months and needed room for a couple hundred guests or more, and the San Marcos was one of the few places that still had availability at that size.
Start with the name, because it will cost you search time. This property answers to at least four: Crowne Plaza Phoenix Chandler Golf Resort is the current operating name, the IHG brand page calls it Crowne Plaza Resort Phoenix Chandler Golf Resort, the marketplaces still say Crowne Plaza San Marcos Golf Resort, and its own domains, its social accounts, its street address and its main ballroom all still say San Marcos. It is the historic San Marcos and it trades on that name. Search all of them.
This is the most financially transparent venue in the East Valley, and the number that matters is not on the menu. The resort publishes full dinner and bar pricing, which almost nobody does. Dinner packages run $72 to $99 per person. Bar packages run $30 to $65 per person depending on length and tier. Then, at the bottom of the menu: all prices are subject to a 23 percent taxable service charge and 8.1 percent sales tax. A $99 plated dinner is about $131 a head once both land. Build your budget on the second number.
Two other published facts worth planning around. The weather call for moving your ceremony indoors is made six hours before the event start, and the relocation is a chargeable item at around $250. That is a tight window and a real decision, not a formality. And going past your contracted time costs $350 an hour.
The unusual one: outside catering is genuinely allowed here, through a published programme aimed at multicultural weddings, at a per person facility charge of $50 for dinner. The caterer must be licensed, insured and preapproved, and cannot use the resort kitchen at all. For a branded hotel that is rare, and if you are planning a South Asian wedding in the East Valley it is the single most useful fact on this page. Alcohol is a separate matter and must come from the resort, which is state law rather than a house rule.
Getting ready space is an add on at $350 rather than an inclusion, and only a bridal room is published. There is no published groom’s suite. A licensed MC or DJ is required.
Ocotillo Golf Club
3751 S Clubhouse Dr, Chandler, AZ 85248. (480) 917-6660. We have not filmed a wedding here.
Two named ceremony spaces, The Grove and Lakeside Palms, with the Overlook Pavilion for receptions. The inclusions list is unusually specific for a golf club: a wooden arch, white padded garden chairs, floor length linens, five hours of event time beginning at the end of the ceremony, and use of the wedding suites two hours before.
One warning. The club’s maximum capacity is published as four different numbers across four sources, and two of those sources are owned by the operator itself. Arcis Golf’s club page says 200, Arcis’s own weddings site says 185, and the marketplaces say 151 to 200 and 225. When a company cannot agree with itself about how many people fit in its own building, get the number on your contract.
ISKCON Radha Krishna Temple
Chandler. A Hindu temple rather than a wedding venue, and it is on this list because a real wedding happened there. Akshita and Alex had their Hindu ceremony at the temple on a Thursday and a Western ceremony at a Scottsdale resort on the Friday.
A two day, two tradition wedding is two weddings for budgeting purposes, and a videographer quoting you for one day has not understood your wedding.
Gilbert
Villa Siena
890 W Elliot Rd, Suite 104, Gilbert, AZ 85233. (480) 782-7218.
We have worked weddings here, both video and photo. They include Jenny and Kevin, and Victoria and Mitchell. We also photographed Jamie and Geoff’s wedding here in August 2026.
One of our favorite venues in the valley that is not a resort. The front gates are beautiful, and the architecture leans fully into its Tuscan look. It is an elegant venue, and everything is a short walk apart, so nobody is trekking from the ceremony to cocktail hour to the reception. There are dedicated bride and groom suites, and the reception room is lovely and holds a good crowd.
Plan for the sun in the courtyard. Piazza Toscana looks great for a ceremony, but it is generally in direct sunlight for the whole wedding. Jamie and Geoff held their August ceremony indoors instead, in front of a giant fireplace mantel, and it is good to know that option exists.
Portraits here are architecture and fountains, not gardens. Bridals usually happen out front by the gates and the fountain, in the courtyard, or among the columns. All three are good, and there is plenty of shade for portraits, but that is essentially the list. If you are picturing a long walk through gardens, this is a different kind of venue.
The best thing about Villa Siena is stated plainly on its own site: only one event at a time is held at the villa. You get the grounds. At a lot of venues this size you are sharing a property with a second wedding and discovering it on the day.
Piazza Toscana is the outdoor ceremony courtyard at up to 250. La Stanza Firenze is the ballroom at up to 250. La Stanza Chianciano seats up to 150 for a ceremony. The bridal suite is sixteen feet square, and there is a separate groom’s suite.
Three vendor categories are locked, and this is the thing marketplace listings get wrong about this venue. Villa Siena requires you to use one of its approved caterers, one of its approved florists and one of its approved DJs, and it has an exclusive bartending service you are also required to use. Several major listing sites describe it as an in house catering venue. It is not. You are choosing a caterer from a list of six outside companies. If a locked florist list is a problem for you, find out now rather than after the deposit.
The rain plan has a gap worth doing the arithmetic on. The venue will move your ceremony indoors into La Stanza Chianciano, which seats up to 150. The outdoor ceremony space seats up to 250. If your guest list is above 150 there is no stated indoor equivalent, so ask what happens in that case before you plan an outdoor ceremony for 200.
One small oddity: no alcohol is permitted in the bridal suite, and the venue says security will remove it. If your morning involves mimosas, that is worth knowing.
Val Vista Lakes
1600 E Lakeside Dr, Gilbert, AZ 85234. (480) 926-9693.
We have worked here. That includes Hanna and Ejaz’s Mehndi, one of three events across three locations in their Pakistani wedding.
Be aware before you start: this venue has no working wedding website. The old domain is a parked page listed for sale, and the community association site has no events or weddings page at all. Everything published about it as a wedding venue comes from marketplace listings, which means the capacity, the inclusions and the reported ten o’clock hard stop are all unverified. Two listings cannot even agree on the phone number.
What the listings agree on is the model: a banquet room, a grassy oval by the lake, roughly 200 guests, tables and chairs provided, and outside catering allowed. That last point is why it works for a Mehndi. A venue that lets you bring your own caterer is worth a great deal to a family cooking its own food, and there are not many of them at this size in the East Valley.
What we saw on the night. The lake is the reason to come. There are nice portrait spots by a little waterfall and along the water with the boats behind you. The banquet room was the surprise. With about a hundred guests, a dance floor in the center and a few guest features around the edges, it felt tight to move through, and that was not a big group. The listings put the venue at roughly 200. Walk the room with your layout in hand before you trust that number.
Treat everything else as a question for a phone call.
Gilbert Arizona Temple
We have worked weddings here. They include Alayna and Shaylor’s and Talia and Enoch’s.
A temple sealing is not a venue booking and it does not work like one. We cannot come inside, and neither can a good many of your guests. That is the shape of the day rather than a problem to solve. The film is built from the morning, the exit, the portraits on the temple grounds and the reception, and a videographer who treats the sealing as a hole in the footage will hand you something that feels like it is missing a piece. It is not missing anything.
Talia and Enoch had a backyard reception afterwards with Tongan dances and Tongan dress. A backyard is a harder room than a ballroom, not an easier one, because the light is whatever the sky and the string lights give you.
Mesa and Tempe
Mesa Arizona Temple
We have worked here. That includes Hanna and Tristen, sealed at the temple with a public ring ceremony and a reception in Chandler.
The same rules apply as at Gilbert. What is worth adding is the timeline consequence: a temple morning, a ring ceremony for the guests who could not attend the sealing, and a reception at a second property is a day with two travel legs in it. Budget the driving. It is the part couples forget and the part that eats the portrait hour.
The grounds are some of the best portrait locations in the valley. The temple was recently renovated, and the gardens are beautifully kept: gates, mature trees, reflecting pools, a desert garden and plenty of flowers, with some shade. For Latter day Saint couples the iconic image is the front of the temple, where House of the Lord is written on the building, with the reflecting pool in front of it.
Confirm which doors you will come out of. It is not always the main entrance. Hanna and Tristen came out of the smaller doors on the east side. It was evening, and our read is that the west facing main entrance would have put them in direct sun, while the east side kept the sun behind the building. Whatever the reason, make sure your photographer, your videographer and your family know which side to wait on.
Gather Estate
2600 E Southern Ave, Mesa, AZ 85204. (480) 600-3444. We have not filmed a wedding here.
Worth including for one reason: it is the only venue in this guide that publishes real prices on its own website. Elopements of 50 guests and under at $7,500, all inclusive packages starting at $12,500, and a $2,000 non refundable retainer to hold a date. Everyone else on this page makes you ask.
Up to 225 guests. The inclusion list is long and specific: coordinator, both suites, tables, linens in your colour, white resin chairs, dance floor, bistro lights, a custom wood arch and in house decor. Outside caterers are permitted, which is unusual at this level of inclusion, though the DJ and bartender must come from an approved list. No end time is published.
Tempe Mission Palms, a Destination by Hyatt Hotel
60 E 5th St, Tempe, AZ 85281. (480) 894-1400. We have not filmed a wedding here.
The name changed. It now carries the Destination by Hyatt flag, and several listing sites have not caught up.
The Palm Courtyard is published at up to 175. The Rooftop Terrace, The Abbey and the Palm Ballroom are named with no capacity attached, and the third party figures for the Palm Ballroom range from 500 to 900 depending on who you ask. Downtown Tempe, walkable, and the strongest choice on this page if a large share of your guest list is flying in.
Queen Creek and San Tan Valley
Schnepf Farms
22601 E Cloud Rd, Queen Creek, AZ 85142. (480) 987-3100. We have not filmed a wedding here.
The most transparent venue in this guide and the most restrictive, at the same time. Three properties: the Farmhouse up to 200, the Meadow up to 200, the Big Red Barn up to 250. Full published rate cards by day and season, from $3,900 for a summer Monday at the Barn to $7,000 for a Saturday at the Farmhouse, plus tax and a $650 service fee. Tables, chairs and linens for up to 150 included, and a day of coordinator included, which is a genuine cost saving rather than a listed amenity.
Now the constraints, and they are real ones. Catering must be in house, with a $1,500 minimum. Dessert must come from one named bakery. Your DJ must come from their list. And the one that ends the conversation for some couples: beer and wine only. No spirits on the property for any reason. Music ends at midnight and everyone is off site by one.
If you want a farm wedding with a full bar, this is not your venue, and it is better to know that from a guide than from a contract.
Encanterra Country Club
36460 N Encanterra Dr, Queen Creek, AZ 85140. (480) 677-8073. We have not filmed a wedding here.
A gated Trilogy country club, and the first question everyone asks is answered on its own site: events may be reserved by members and non members alike. You do not need to know anybody.
The Mallorca ballroom holds up to 250 and the ceremony lawn up to 250. Food and alcohol are strictly in house; their licence makes bringing your own illegal rather than merely unwelcome.
The hard constraint is the clock, and it is a county ordinance rather than a house rule. Access runs ten in the morning to ten at night. An extra hour to eleven costs $500, and during that hour the music has to be indoors, because outdoor music must stop at ten under Pinal County regulations. No negotiating with that one.
Apache Junction
The Paseo
3753 N Apache Trail, Apache Junction, AZ 85119. (480) 845-9114. We have filmed here, though not a full wedding.
This venue is in Apache Junction, not Scottsdale and not Phoenix. It gets filed under both because listing sites sort it into a Phoenix and Scottsdale regional bucket, and the venue’s own site never claims either. It sits at the foot of the Superstition Mountains in Pinal County, which is most of the reason to go there.
Up to 200 guests. Two getting ready suites. An event director who runs your rehearsal and works the day with two assistants, which is more coordination than most venues at this size include. The time block ends at eleven.
Two things to ask directly. You must use one of their preferred caterers, though you are allowed to bring your own alcohol, which is an unusual and useful combination. And there is no enclosed indoor backup published anywhere; the Pavilion is a covered open structure, not a room. For a desert venue an hour from town, that is the question worth asking before you sign.
One venue that is gone, and one that is not really out here
The Big Tin Cotton Gin has closed
We filmed Alexis and Jacob’s wedding at The Big Tin Cotton Gin in San Tan Valley, and we are keeping the film on this page because it was a real wedding at a real place. But the venue is closed.
The operator announced it on its own site: the Gin and MOSO Events closed on 28 February 2026, because the land was sold. A gas station is planned for the corner. Local reporting through 2026 describes the building being scanned and modelled for preservation with a view to relocating and rebuilding it somewhere in San Tan Valley, but that has not happened, has no timeline and is not funded.
Its listings on the major wedding marketplaces are still live and still show no closure notice. If you found this venue on one of those sites and were planning to tour it, that is why. There is nothing to book.
The Windmill Winery is not an East Valley venue
It comes up in every East Valley search, so it is worth saying plainly: The Windmill Winery is at 1140 W Butte Ave in Florence, in Pinal County, well outside the East Valley municipalities. It markets itself as a Phoenix venue and a Mesa tourism directory lists it, which is how it ends up in these searches.
It is a good property with two separate bookable estates, the Barn at 250 plus and the Lake House at 200 plus, both with catering bundled in. Just do the drive before you decide, and note that no drive time from anywhere is published, which for a venue that far out is information they have chosen not to give you.
What we would ask any East Valley venue
- What is the actual end time, in writing? Most venues on this page publish none. Encanterra publishes a county ordinance, Schnepf publishes midnight, The Paseo publishes eleven. Everyone else leaves it to the contract.
- What does the rain plan seat? Not whether there is one. What it seats. Villa Siena moves 250 outdoors into a room that holds 150.
- Which vendors am I actually allowed to choose? Caterer, florist, DJ and bartender are all locked at one venue on this page, and couples routinely find out after the deposit.
- What is the service charge and tax on top? At the San Marcos it is 23 percent plus 8.1 percent. On a $99 dinner that is another $32 a head.
- Can my caterer use your kitchen? Outside catering being allowed and outside catering being workable are different questions.
Filming weddings in the East Valley
The Ember Edit is a wedding film and photography team based in Scottsdale, and the East Valley is where we work most. SoHo63 is where we have filmed the most weddings.
If you are looking at any venue on this page we are happy to tell you what we know about it, whether or not you hire us.
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