Wedding DJ at McGuire Millrace Farm in Murphy, NC

The Space

Six generations of the McGuire family have lived and worked this 110-acre farm in the Appalachian Mountains near Murphy, and in the spring of 1999 Linda McGuire asked her sisters Margie Foster Stroud and Donna Foster Bryant to join her in opening a wedding chapel, forming Weddings by the Foster Sisters. The property still holds structures from that long farming history, including the Original McGuire Homestead from the Pre-Civil War era and a Country Store dating to the Pre-Depression years.

The main barn runs 8,000 square feet with 30-foot tongue-and-groove ceilings overhead and 30 custom chandeliers holding more than 2,000 crystals between them. A floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace and a two-piece bar with granite countertops anchor the room, and outside, the Birch Garden holds more than 100 river birch trees that Mr. McGuire planted himself, with an arched footbridge crossing a pond nearby.

Capacity & Layout

The property handles up to 200 guests across its flexible sites, with around 190 seated comfortably at the primary ceremony and reception locations. Couples can choose a ceremony in the Birch Garden, under the open-air Belvedere pavilion with its mountain backdrop, on the concrete courtyard, or inside the barn itself, which gives real range depending on the size and feel of the day a couple wants.

A 25 by 25 foot dance floor with built-in lighting sits inside the barn, sized to handle the venue’s larger guest counts without crowding the tables around it. Dressing rooms and handicap-accessible parking round out the layout, and the barn’s certified commercial kitchen gives caterers a real working space rather than a converted storage room.

Amenities

Six guest rooms on site offer lodging for up to 30 people, so a wedding party or out-of-town family can stay on the property itself rather than driving in each day. Two outdoor bar stations supplement the barn’s granite-topped bar, and over 2,000 feet of ambient string lighting runs across the grounds alongside the more than 200 rows of river birch trees.

The venue is fully heated and air-conditioned, and couples can move their entire ceremony or reception indoors at no extra charge if the weather turns, which removes one of the more stressful contingency decisions from the planning process. Flower gardens and a solid wood arbor sit near the pond and footbridge for photos and outdoor moments throughout the day.

Location & Getting There

The farm sits in the Appalachian and Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina near Murphy, far enough into the mountains that the views themselves become part of the day rather than a backdrop glimpsed from a parking lot. Guests traveling in should expect a genuine mountain drive rather than a short hop off a highway, and that distance tends to shape the guest list toward family and close friends willing to make the trip.

We have worked this room, and the barn’s scale gives a DJ real flexibility: the 30-foot ceilings and tongue-and-groove wood overhead carry sound well for a 200-guest reception, while the stone fireplace and hard barn floor mean speaker placement benefits from facing the dance floor directly rather than bouncing sound off the far wall.