Wedding DJ at The Reid House in Matthews, NC

The Space

Edward Solomon Reid built this house in 1890, and it stayed in the family for nearly a century. He sold it to his sister Ellen in 1893, the same year she married Dr. Thomas Neely Reid, a physician who treated the people of Matthews for fifty-seven years until his death in 1946. Their youngest daughter, Nancy Reid, was born in the house in 1898, taught in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools for 35 years, and lived there until she died in 1986. Her niece Sarah Redd then gave the house and grounds to the Matthews Historical Foundation on the last day of 1987.

The Queen Anne Victorian carries the details of its era: a gingerbread cupola, a Chinese Chippendale porch railing, a rounded turret, and interior walls nearly 12 feet high with the original windows still holding their original glass. The Foundation now rents the house out for weddings, receptions, and parties, so a couple gets a genuinely lived-in 1890s home rather than a replica built to look old.

Capacity & Layout

Seated dinners top out around 55 to 60 guests, with buffet-style events stretching to about 90, which puts this venue firmly in intimate-wedding territory rather than large-reception territory. That size is the whole appeal for a couple who wants close family and friends in a house with real history instead of a ballroom sized for a crowd they do not have.

Ceremonies take place at the gazebo on the back lawn, set among colorful plantings, while the reception moves into the house interior and spills onto the side yard. That side yard is a defined room in its own right, bordered by a brick wall on one side, the house on the other, and a large Southern magnolia overhead, so the layout naturally separates the ceremony spot from the reception space without anyone having to reset chairs in between.

Amenities

The house interior holds multiple rooms suited to receptions and smaller gatherings, which lets a couple split cocktail hour from dinner from dancing without everyone standing in one space all evening. The Foundation’s ownership also means the house has been kept up as a working rental rather than left as a static museum piece.

The grounds are the other half of the amenity picture: a spacious landscaped lawn, the back-lawn gazebo built for ceremonies, and the walled side yard under the magnolia for cocktails or a reception tent. Together they give a small wedding three distinct outdoor settings on one property, in addition to the house itself.

Location & Getting There

The Reid House sits in Matthews and has been recognized locally for its upkeep, winning Best Local Historic Site in the Charlotte Media Group contest in 2016, 2017, 2018, and again in 2019, four years running. It stands as one of the few remaining Victorian homes of its kind still open to the public in the area.

Because the ceremony space is an open-air gazebo and the reception runs partly indoors in a house with 12-foot ceilings and partly outdoors on lawn, a DJ has to plan for two different acoustic environments in the same afternoon: open sound outside at the gazebo, then a smaller, harder-walled room once the party moves indoors.