Wedding DJ at Kanuga Inn & Lodging in Hendersonville, NC

The Space

This is the lodging and event side of Kanuga, the 1,400 acre retreat center the Episcopal Church bought in 1928 after Bishop Kirkman George Finlay led the purchase from the failed Kanuga Lake Club resort. The original club, laid out in 1909 by George Stephens with design help from John Nolen and Richard Sharp Smith, left behind 39 cottages that still stand today, restored and winterized but kept close to their original look.

The Chapel of the Transfiguration, begun in 1938 with timber salvaged from a 1936 windstorm and dedicated in 1942, seats around 250 and gives the property an indoor ceremony space with real weight to it; architect S. Grant Alexander designed it using yellow pine cut on site, later reinforced with metal rods when the wood proved too soft. The outdoor Chapel of St. Francis, an open-air sanctuary over a stream, offers the alternative for couples who want vows outside.

Capacity & Layout

Kanuga Inn & Lodging accommodates up to 440 guests for events, spread across the Inn, the historic cottages, and the meeting and dining facilities built into the property. The modern Inn, which replaced the original structure in 1968, holds 61 rooms with private bathrooms, so a wedding party can put most of its guest list to bed without leaving the grounds.

Reception space centers on the Fireplace Lounge and the dining hall, both inside the Inn, while the 43 historic cottages, ranging from one to six bedrooms, and six four-bedroom guest houses give couples room to house family and wedding party members separately from other guests. That range of room types means the layout of a Kanuga weekend is really about assigning people to buildings as much as assigning tables to a room.

Amenities

Fleming’s, the lakeside bar on the property, along with buffet-style dining in the dining hall, covers food and drink for a wedding weekend without needing outside vendors for every meal. Complimentary self-parking with EV charging stations is available on site, and the property is accessible enough to reach Lakeside Chapel by wheelchair, a detail worth knowing if the guest list includes anyone who needs it.

The 30 acre lake supports swimming, boating, paddleboarding, and canoeing in season, and 20 miles of private hiking trails, a fitness center, and tennis and pickleball courts round out what guests can do between wedding events. Standard check-in is 4pm and check-out 10am, with late check-out available, details that matter when a wedding weekend runs guests in and out of the same rooms.

Location & Getting There

The property sits about 6 miles from Hendersonville, North Carolina, and roughly 19 miles from Asheville Regional Airport, close enough that out of town guests have an easy drive in without the wedding feeling like it is in the middle of downtown. The 1,400 acre grounds, with their 100 acre historic core around the lake, keep the pace slow once guests actually arrive.

With an indoor chapel, an open-air chapel by a stream, a lakeside bar, and meeting rooms all in play, sound needs differ space to space, so gear gets matched to the room: contained and controlled inside the Chapel of the Transfiguration’s wood-framed sanctuary, open and weather-ready at the Chapel of St. Francis, and built for a mixed indoor-outdoor crowd at Fleming’s by the lake.