Wedding DJ at FigMINT Farms in Apex, NC

The Space

In 2018, Mounir Saleh bought a plot of land intending only to grow mint for his family’s Sassool Mediterranean restaurants, inspired by his mother’s use of mint in Lebanese cooking; that plot has since become FigMINT Farms. During the pandemic the family added lighting, a firepit, paths and weatherproofing, gradually turning a private growing operation into a public event space, and by 2022 they had formalized plans for rentals, hosting the first Dinner in the Pines that October.

What guests find today is a working farm rather than a built-for-weddings venue: pine forests strung with market lighting, a pond, the mint garden itself, which produced over 1,800 pounds of mint in its last harvest, and a renovated pavilion at the center of it. Sassool has run the family business since 2011, and that same team hosts events on the property, so the people setting up your wedding also run the restaurant supplying the mint.

Capacity & Layout

The pavilion seats 80 guests on its own, with room for additional tents to extend that for a larger wedding, and total site capacity runs to 100. That is a small enough number that a couple planning here is choosing an intimate day over a large ballroom crowd, with the pine trees and pond doing the work a big room would otherwise need to do.

Rental includes furniture rather than requiring a couple to source it separately: three six-foot folding tables, eleven seven-foot farm tables, seven eight-foot folding tables and 50 black folding chairs, plus three propane heaters and yard games for guests to use between the ceremony and reception. A venue host stays on site for the full rental, which helps on a property where nature, not a building manager, sets most of the conditions.

Amenities

Sassool is the preferred caterer, unsurprising given the restaurant owns the land and grows part of its own menu on it, and the firepit is available separately at $30 an hour with firewood included, a small but real detail for an evening reception that runs past sunset. Rental runs $300 an hour with a three hour minimum, plus one complimentary hour built in for setup and cleanup.

Because the property is outdoor only, with no indoor fallback mentioned in the venue’s own materials, weather planning matters more here than at a built venue, and the propane heaters and covered pavilion are the main tools for stretching the usable season past a warm afternoon. Trashcans with liners are provided, a small point that still tells you the property is set up to host, not just to be visited.

Location & Getting There

FigMINT Farms sits in Apex, North Carolina, on grounds that read as a working farm rather than a manicured event lawn, pine trees and a pond standing in for the landscaping most venues would need to install. Guests walk in among the trees rather than park at the door, which sets a more relaxed tone before the ceremony even starts.

With the reception centered on an open-sided pavilion and the surrounding grounds uncovered, sound travels outward into the pines rather than bouncing off walls, so a DJ works with an open-air setup, running speakers pointed into the pavilion itself to keep music focused on the dance floor instead of scattering across the property.