Des Moines Heritage Center
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Des Moines Heritage Center Photos
About This Vendor
Welcome to the Des Moines Heritage Center, an event venue located in the heart of the Historic East Village! The Heritage Center features all the modern comforts you could ever imagine without sacrificing an ounce of the ambiance that’s been seasoned over more than a century. This is the perfect place for couples to celebrate milestone events such as engagements, bridal showers, wedding rehearsal dinners, and your big day. Facilities and Capacity The Des Moines Heritage Center offers two different venues with views of the brilliant gold dome of the state capitol building. The historic 1909 East Des Moines Union Depot at the Heritage Center can accommodate 50 to 80 guests and is the perfect venue for intimate weddings as well as wedding rehearsal dinners, and bridal showers. The newly constructed Events Center can accommodate up to 300 guests. The Events Center includes everything you need for your big day from dressing rooms to catering kitchen to the latest in audio/visual equipment. The plaza, nestled between The Depot and The Events Center, provides couples with the perfect spot for an outdoor ceremony, cocktail hours, or flexible activity space in concert with the depot or events center. The plaza can accommodate 300 to 400 guests. Services Offered The Des Moines Heritage Center provides couples a seamless experience. Services offered include tables, chairs, linens, audio/visual equipment, catering kitchen, and dedicated dressing room. Location The Des Moines Heritage Center is located at 120 East 5th Street, in the Historic East Village of downtown Des Moines, near the state capitol building. Numerous hotels are located conveniently close by within walking distance for the wedding party and guests.
Amenities & Details
Ceremony Area, Covered Outdoors Space, Dressing Room, Handicap Accessible, Indoor Event Space, Outdoor Event Space, Reception Area, Wireless Internet
Guest CapacityUp to 300
Ceremony TypesCivil Union, Commitment Ceremony, Elopement, Interfaith Ceremony, Non-Religious Ceremony, Religious Ceremony, Second Wedding, Vow Renewal Ceremony
Venue Service Offerings SettingsBallroom, Historic Venue
Business AttributesPricing for Des Moines Heritage Center
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| Starting Cost | Affordable |
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Des Moines Heritage Center Reviews
We could not be happier with Des Moines Heritage Center as the Venue for my daughter's wedding on July 15, 2023! We had the ceremony, cocktail hour, dinner and dance all at the same place! Our guests loved being able to park and be there to celebrate the rest of the day. The Heritage Center, Depot and Plaza are all perfectly set up to host a beautiful wedding in the East Village. Our Photographer took advantage of all of the different locations around the Venue to get awesome pictures. Thank you, Sarah, and all of your team in making Kelly & Beau's wedding day special!
Reviewed on 21-07-2023
The Des Moines Heritage Center was the perfect venue for us. The space was beautiful and the staff made it as simple as possible (even with a change in staff). The ability to have our own vendors was a huge plus. We could not recommend the Heritage Center any more!
Reviewed on 06-07-2023
Wonderful venue and people to work with! My husband and I had our wedding reception here in March 2023 and we loved everything about our experience. Tim and Sarah were so accessible, friendly, and helpful!We were charmed by the history of the Depot and it provided a great location for our wedding party photos (both indoors and outdoors). The event space itself brings in beautiful natural light in the daytime. It’s lovely on its own but also a blank canvas for any style of decor. In the evening, it's magical to look out and see the Depot lit up and a view of the State Capitol building from the east windows. We felt very cared for by the Des Moines Heritage Center team. Their communication was quick, clear, and honestly took some stress off of the wedding planning process. We had everything we needed, from coat racks and an awesome A/V system to plentiful outlets, a bridal suite, and table linens (so many color choices!). We're also thankful they let us work with our preferred vendors.If you're looking for a unique venue with a rich history located in the heart of Des Moines, this is your place!
Reviewed on 05-06-2023
The Des Moines Heritage Center is a beautiful venue! We are very happy overall. Sarah is great to work with. We had our ceremony in the event center, cocktail hour outside with a room flip and then reception in the event center. We used the Depot as a place for kids to hang out during cocktail hour. It would be well-suited as a getting ready room, but we didn't feel that it offered enough privacy. A rack was provided to hang up garment bags, but there are no hooks in the bathroom or anywhere else. The conference room with glass walls inside the Depot definitely detracts from the feel of the room.We were happy to have plenty of parking space in a location so close to the heart of East Village. The bride's room is very nice, and direct access to the restroom is very nice. The bridal party got their hair done in this room. We appreciated that the room remained locked during our ceremony and could be unlocked whenever we needed anything.We used the projector screens to display a photo slideshow. It was easy to connect a laptop to the built in AV system.We loved all the natural light in the room! Again, we are very happy overall!
Reviewed on 21-05-2023
Wedding Date 18-06-2022
We researched several venues for our wedding with a potential of 300 guests (ended up at 228). To budget for our wedding, it was important to balance venue cost with catering/bartending costs. They allowed us to hire Smokey D's for our wedding caterer as long as they could agree to their vendor agreement (no issues there) which helped us keep cost down while providing great food for our higher guest count. Catering and bartender cost for our wedding had a higher impact on overall budget than venue so we were able to balance that out. As an architect, I loved the Des Moines Heritage Center's clean, modern aesthetic adjacent to the historic brick building of the train depot. You can tell a lot of care went into the planning process and the venue was great the day of the wedding. Having the bridal room directly connected to the women's restroom was also nice - our makeup artist ended up setting up a table/chair in the women's restroom for added space/they liked the lighting while hair happened in the bridal room. Groomsmen were able to hide in the Train Depot during father-daughter first looks to avoid my future husband seeing me ahead of the first-look. Tim and Liz did a good job of accommodating and helping us with the wedding and were very flexible. Having helped a friend set-up their wedding previously, it was super nice that they took care of all set-up of the tables, chairs and most of the linens. That takes a long time to do and is super nice that they'll take care of it! Their wedding venue coordinator for floor plan layouts was very easy to work with and made that process go smoothly as well.The day of the wedding Tim and Liz helped direct confused delivery drivers for bagels/Jimmy John's to the correct places, added a couple tables outside because of the nice weather, did a small flip for us, and helped with some of the clean-up which we definitely didn't expect. They also allowed us to move all of our decorations to a storage area overnight to pick-up mid-day on Sunday instead of having to have every little thing in a vehicle Saturday night. Only require that gifts get taken out for obvious reasons.Minor things to note that could help with future wedding couple's planning-we didn't realize that they don't provide linens for tables where food will be served (buffet line, cake table, etc.) or for vendors. The website advertised linens, contract wasn't clear and it showed up in paperwork ~1-1.5 months prior. We ended up needing to purchase a couple linens for the DJ table/cake table. This made it a little confusing at clean-up when our families helping and we ended up losing one of our tablecloths because it's not clear to others whose white table cloths are whos. Luckily they were pretty inexpensive from Amazon. Lastly, storage overnight for clean-up the next day clean-up doesn't include refrigerator use. We ended up having to throw away our food leftovers because we were all staying at a hotel and didn't have a fridge big enough to accommodate the two catering trays leftover. If I had known that I probably would have made sure an in-town friend or bridesmaid could have taken them home.I'm very happy with our decision to have the wedding ceremony and reception at this location and loved the convenience near downtown hotels to allow guests a safe return back to their hotels after a fun night. The Des Moines Heritage Trust clearly puts a lot of work into the venue and making the day great for couples!
Reviewed on 01-07-2022
Contact Info for Des Moines Heritage Center
| Contact | Value |
|---|---|
| https://www.facebook.com/dsmheritagecenter | |
| X (Twitter) | Des Moines Heritage Center |
| Des Moines Heritage Center | |
| dsmheritagecenter | |
| Website | desmoinesheritagecenter.org |
| Phone | (515) 505-7900 |
| Address | 120 E. 5th St., Des Moines, IA, 50309 |
| sarah@desmoinesheritagetrust.org |
Des Moines Heritage Center on the map
Meet the Des Moines Heritage Center Team
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