Wedding DJ at Tanglewood Park in Clemmons, NC

The Space

William Johnson, a Welsh immigrant, settled this land along the Yadkin River in the 1700s and built a fort here during the French and Indian War, and Mount Pleasant Church, erected in 1809 next to his grave, still stands on the property today as one of its architectural landmarks. In 1859, James Johnson built the 18-room Manor House as a wedding gift for his daughter Emily, and both the church and the Manor House remain part of the grounds a wedding party can see today.

The Johnson family sold the property in 1921 to William Neal Reynolds, brother of R.J. Reynolds, who expanded it past 1,100 acres before he and his wife willed the whole estate to the citizens of Forsyth County in 1951. It opened as a public park in 1954, and the county has run it ever since as a mix of golf courses, gardens, trails, and event spaces spread across those 1,100 acres.

Capacity & Layout

Five outdoor shelters and two indoor event spaces make up the venue’s rental options, alongside one space set aside strictly for ceremonies and the option to use Mount Pleasant Church itself for a ceremony. That range, from a covered outdoor shelter to a historic 1809 church, lets couples choose between an informal park gathering and a more traditional setting without leaving the property.

Because the park spans 1,100 acres, a wedding here is not confined to one fixed footprint the way a single banquet hall is: the two championship golf courses, the Arboretum’s 26 gardens, and miles of trail systems all sit within the same grounds as the event spaces. Couples planning photos have real distance to work with, from formal gardens to open fairways to the Yadkin River itself.

Amenities

A bed and breakfast and an RV campground with 44 full hook-up sites are both on-site, giving a wedding party lodging options within the park itself rather than requiring guests to drive in from town. The Arboretum’s 26 gardens showcase seasonal flowers and ornamental shrubs year-round, so the backdrop for photos changes with the season a couple chooses to marry in.

Shelters are available for reservation from April through October, and the park itself stays open year-round, so timing a wedding around shelter availability matters more here than at a venue with climate-controlled indoor space. Entrance is by vehicle fee, two dollars for personal cars and eight dollars for vans and buses, a detail worth passing along to guests driving themselves in, since it is easy to overlook on a property that otherwise runs like a private venue.

Location & Getting There

Tanglewood Park sits in Clemmons, near Winston-Salem and Bermuda Run, along the Yadkin River, and the drive in itself passes through the same 1,100 acres of gardens and golf courses guests will later walk through for the event. Because it is a working public park rather than a private venue, couples should expect other park visitors around during daytime hours.

The outdoor shelters and ceremony sites are open-air, so sound has nowhere to bounce and needs to be pushed with intention across whatever distance separates the DJ setup from the last row of guests, while the two indoor event spaces behave more like a standard hall, holding music closer and more evenly across a smaller, enclosed room.