The Olana Wedding Guide: 50 Weddings Inside the French Chateau of North Texas
By Jose Hiram, Jose Hiram Photography. Last updated September 2026.
The short version. The Olana is a 48,000 square foot French chateau at 1851 Turbeville Road in Hickory Creek, Texas, about eight miles southeast of Denton in Denton County. It holds 250 guests, it has four floors and three main ceremony spaces, and it is operated by Walters Wedding Estates. The front of the building faces south and the back faces north, which decides almost everything about your light. Catering and bar are in-house and required; you can bring your own photographer, florist, DJ and cake, as long as your photographer’s certificate of insurance and a signed indemnification agreement get filed with the venue first. I have photographed roughly 50 weddings here over the past five years. Everything below is what I have learned doing it.
Jump to: At a glance · What this building actually is · The layout · Getting ready · First looks · Ceremony spaces and the sun · Sunset by month · Timeline math · Reception · The exit · What it costs · Bringing your own photographer · FAQ
Who this guide is for
If you are reading this and you just got engaged, first off, congratulations!!!
This is for couples who have already booked The Olana, or who are close to it, and now have a list of questions nobody has answered for them in writing. To be honest, that list is longer at this venue than at any other I shoot, because the building is enormous and almost nothing about how to actually work in it has ever been written down.
The Olana is one of the grandest venues in the South, and I would argue it is the grandest in Texas.
I have shot there roughly 50 times over the past five years, and I have gotten to know not only the building but the people who work in it. I did my wife’s bridals there before we got married. We took our couples photos there. We had our rehearsal dinner in the building before getting married next door at The Shops at Wedding Square, which was previously known as the Olana Design Center.
So I am one of the most experienced people at this venue, and I am excited to share it. What follows is everything I would tell you on a walkthrough, in the order your wedding day actually happens.
The Olana at a glance
The Olana sits at 1851 Turbeville Road, Hickory Creek, TX 75065, in Denton County. Walters Wedding Estates publishes it as roughly 35 minutes north of Dallas, 45 minutes north of Fort Worth, and less than 25 minutes from DFW Airport. Hickory Creek itself is about eight miles southeast of Denton, right off I-35E.
| Guest capacity | 250 |
|---|---|
| Size | 48,000 square feet on four floors |
| Rooms | 57 rooms and 17 bathrooms as a private residence, including six bedrooms, six full baths and eight powder rooms |
| Grounds | About 40 acres |
| Completed | 2002, after roughly five years of construction |
| Style | Pseudo-French Baroque, built as an homage to the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte outside Paris |
| Main ceremony spaces | Front lawn, back lawn, and the mirrored ballroom on the third floor |
| Orientation | Front faces south, back faces north |
One thing worth knowing before you go looking: the directories file this same address under four different cities. You will see The Olana listed under Hickory Creek, Lake Dallas, Highland Village and Dallas. Same building, every time.
And if a page tells you this building is 50,000 square feet, or that it seats 350, or that it was built in 1913, that page was not written by anyone who has been inside. All three claims are live on the internet right now. The one that matters to you is capacity, and it is 250.
One disambiguation, because the names changed. The Olana is the mansion at 1851 Turbeville Road. Next door on the same estate, at 3575 Harrison Road, is the building that opened as The Olana Design Center and is now The Shops at Wedding Square, which holds bridal and tux shops, a bakery, a florist, a photo studio, and its own event space called the Jolie Ballroom. Two buildings, two capacities, two rate cards. If you were quoted on “the Olana Design Center” a couple of years ago, that is the building you were looking at, and it is not the mansion. That stray “275 guests” number floating around the directories belongs to the Jolie Ballroom.
What this building actually is
Almost nobody who gets married at The Olana knows what they are standing in, and it genuinely changes how you see every room.
The house was built by Alan Goldfield, founder of the cell phone distributor CellStar, and his wife Shirley. She drove the design; the Nashville architect Terry Bates drew it. They named it Champ d’Or, French for “field of gold,” which is a straight translation of Goldfield. It was finished in 2002 after about five years of work, at a reported cost of around $52 million.
Shirley Goldfield called it her “collection of dreams,” and that is the key to the whole place. It is not a copy of one building. It is a magpie house, and nearly every room you are going to photograph was lifted from somewhere real:
| The room | Where it came from |
|---|---|
| The central dome | Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte, outside Paris |
| The mirrored ballroom, third floor | The Hall of Mirrors at Versailles |
| The hallway of plates | The Palace of Fontainebleau. Her reasoning was that if Napoleon could line a hallway with his plates, so could she |
| The two-story black lacquered closet | The Chanel store in Paris |
| The tea room | Tavern on the Green in New York |
| The pool room | The rooftop pool at the Hôtel de Paris in Monte Carlo |
That is not trivia, it is a shot list. When I tell a couple the plate hallway is Fontainebleau and the closet is the Chanel store, they stop treating those rooms as backdrops and start treating them as places.
And the painted doves on the foyer ceiling, the ones under the dome that every single couple ends up standing beneath, were reported by the writer who interviewed her to be Shirley Goldfield’s tribute to 9/11. I photographed under that dome for YEARS before I knew that lol.
The rest is quick. The house went on the market almost as soon as it was finished and then sat for about a decade, through eight agents and asking prices that swung from $72 million down to $27 million. It sold at auction on March 30, 2012 and was a private family retreat for six years. Walters Hospitality bought it off-market in September 2018 and reopened it as The Olana in June 2019.
How the building is laid out
A space this big lends itself to being personalized any way you want. I have seen full tents on the front and back lawns. I have seen ceremonies happen not just on the third floor, the back lawn and the front lawn, but also in the drawing room and in the solarium.
Here is the map, the way I hold it in my head.
| Where | What is there |
|---|---|
| The front, facing south | The big lawn, used for ceremonies, and a great spot for essentially any angle as long as it faces the building |
| Inside the front | Library on the right, drawing room on the left, main lobby leading into the grand staircase |
| Down the hall on the left | Past the reading room, the tea room. The hallway that leads to it is another gorgeous spot, and it works for pregnancy sessions as well as weddings |
| The middle, first floor | The elevator that reaches all floors, a staircase down to the groom’s suite, and on the back right the bridal wing |
| Downstairs | The groom’s suite: bathroom and shower area, a large closet, then a bowling alley, a bar, a pool table and a half basketball court |
| The bridal wing | The main bridal room opening into a myriad of rooms: a sauna, bathrooms, a large getting-ready area, a pool house, a giant interior pool, and the full-sized Chanel closet |
| The back, facing north | The solarium, which is the reception space, and outside it the back lawn |
| The second floor | Mostly hallways and the route upstairs, plus the theater room. What it gives you is a great view down onto cocktail hour below |
| The third floor | The mirrored ballroom, a room filled with glass panes, and the third of the three main ceremony spaces |
I call it the bridal wing and not the bridal suite, by the way, because it is the size of a house.
Getting ready at The Olana
Getting-readys should really happen in the suites. You have two of the best getting-ready spaces in North Texas sitting right there.
And the thing that decides whether those rooms photograph well is not the light. It is the clutter.
Tip for couples
Put as many things on the edges of the rooms as possible: bags, luggage, clothes, all of it. When you walk into the bridal suite, the farthest wall, the one with the windows, should be the wall that is CLEAR. Most things should go toward the credenza near the bridal suite entrance. The other good spot is all the way in the back, outside the Chanel room, right in front of it.
The groom’s suite is similar: keep things inside the closet, put stuff in the shower and bathroom area, and put the rest under the TV on the closest wall as you walk into the main bowling area.
What we are trying to avoid is random luggage and unnecessary junk in the background of the best photo spots in the building.
Tip for photographers
Bring a flash down with you into the groom’s suite. It gets incredibly dark down there and it is just not great lighting; flash solves most of it. And if you are comfortable with flash, go direct off-camera rather than bounced on-camera. That is actually the difference between a usable frame and a flat one. Bounce needs something close and light-colored to work with and you do not have much of that in the bowling area, so direct off-camera is what gives you shape.
First looks, first touches and pre-ceremony photos
After getting ready is done, meaning the dress is on and maybe you did a first look with your bridesmaids, I generally recommend doing first looks and first touches.
Here is why. A big thing with The Olana is that if you do not have an early ceremony, it is really difficult to get every single photo you might want in the window after the ceremony and before the sun goes down. The building is too big to rush.
If you do a first look or a first touch, the tea room is a great option. It is far enough out of the way that nobody will disturb you, while also being a gorgeous spot with great natural light and amazing greenery around you. Being secluded means you can actually be present in your moment and not get interrupted by a random aunt who showed up two hours early.
After that there is a natural flow. You move from the tea room into the plate hallway, which is one of my favorite spots in the whole building for natural light, and then into the drawing room and the library.
Tip for couples
This is a great window to do wedding party photos, assuming you have two photographers. Two is what I recommend as a minimum at The Olana, simply because the building is so large. And this works even if you did not do a first look; you can close the doors between the drawing room and the library so the two of you do not see each other.
In the drawing room you can do bridesmaids’ photos on that gorgeous stage against the amazing white walls. In the library the groom gets very cool frames, disguised in that old-money background. Some people do family photos in here too, separated by side.
I strongly recommend starting with all your interior photos and then going outside during sunset hour. The outside trades intricacy and winding hallways for large lawns that take forever to cross, and with Texas heat you need all the time you can get while also not dying of heat stroke. For my own clients I move fast enough outside that we always have five minutes at some point to take a break, get some AC, and grab water or a drink from the bar.
Ceremony spaces, and which way the sun actually is
You could get married anywhere in this venue, but the big three are the front lawn, the third floor and the back lawn.
And here is the thing nobody has published about this property, which decides more than any other single factor:
The front of The Olana faces south. The back faces north.
In North Texas the afternoon sun sits in the southwest and swings west as it sets. Work that through and almost everything else about this venue explains itself.
| Front lawn, south side | Back lawn, north side | |
|---|---|---|
| Sun position, from the aisle | Behind the camera | In front of the camera |
| The couple and the facade are | Front-lit, all afternoon | Backlit and rim-lit |
| Shade from the building | None, ever. The building’s shadow falls away from the lawn | Grows across the lawn as the afternoon goes |
| Heat | Full sun until sunset | Shaded and noticeably cooler |
| Usable light ends | Last | First |
| Best for | A bright, clean, evenly lit chateau backdrop | A glowing, backlit, hazy ceremony |
To be honest, that one table would have saved me a lot of guessing in my first year here.
The front lawn
The front lawn is easily my favorite, whether you do it right up close to the doors or further down, closer to the entry loop. The scenery does the work, and the sun geometry is why: the facade is lit from the front for the entire afternoon, so the building never goes flat or muddy behind you.
The trade is that there is no shade out there at any hour, because the building’s shadow falls north, away from the lawn. Texas heat and Texas cold are very difficult to deal with, and planners will often push back on an outdoor ceremony for that reason. I think that is a valid response. If you force yourself to get married outside on a 100 degree day in July just to get ten minutes of front lawn photos, you are going to be miserable. Your hair is going to frizz, you are going to sweat, and you may not have the energy for a lot of the poses, especially if you have been on a wedding diet or you are running on wedding stress. Weather is no joke.
Two other things about the front.
Sound. Planes take off regularly from the local airport, so you will most likely get planes overhead. That can be loud if you wanted something more intimate.
Wind. The front of the building acts like a giant mountain face and all that wind circulates straight through where ceremonies usually happen. If you have loose hair, like face framers, I wish you the best of luck; I have watched a lot of my couples fight their hair in front of those doors.
Tip for couples
If you plan on really focusing on the outside of the building, book a month when the weather will be on your side. If you do not care much about the outside and you just want to enjoy the day and the place, skip the front lawn entirely and get married on the third floor.
If you do want the front and you are picking a hotter day, think about your dress and how many layers it has, and think about your hair. I generally recommend something close to a slick back, or hair pulled back, plus a lighter dress, maybe something backless. If it is cold, layer up and match your hair to it; sleeves and big poufy princess dresses are best on cold days. I have had couples bring big fur coats, which I think look beautiful, though that is tailored to a very specific crowd that wants to emphasize they are getting married in a cold month.
Tip for photographers
Bring water. I can survive out front in a full suit, but I have seen many colleagues struggle and even pass out in that heat.
And know that from the aisle you are shooting north with the sun behind you. You will not get a backlit ceremony here no matter how late you schedule it. What you get instead is clean front light on the stone and cross light from camera left as the sun swings west. If your couple wants the glowing backlit frame, the back lawn is the one that gives it to you.
The back lawn
The back lawn has its own challenges, though most are similar to the front.
It is much less windy back there because of the large amount of tree coverage. That coverage also solves another problem. Certain wide shots from the front of the building catch the maybe not-so-photogenic water tower off to the right. From the back lawn that is not an issue; it does not appear in the photos at all.
Some people prefer the back for the grandeur of the staircase. Personally I think it needs more floral and decor to match the grandeur of the building. What it is genuinely good at is comfort. Between the trees and the building throwing shade north across the lawn as the afternoon goes on, there is much more shade back there and it is generally cooler, which makes it more bearable for couples and for guests.
BUT, the cost of that comfort is light. The back lawn is the first part of the property to lose usable sun. Look at the sunset table below and subtract from it, not add to it.
Tip for photographers
Shooting south from the back lawn puts the sun on the far side of your subjects. Expect rim light, a bright sky, and flare if you are careless with a filter or a dirty front element. Meter for faces, not for the sky, and use the building as your flag.
The third floor
The third floor is the mirrored ballroom, the room modeled on the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. I had my own rehearsal dinner up there, so it holds a sentimental place for me. It is also the hardest space in the building to photograph.
Visually, this room of mirrors and glass is gorgeous. In person it looks incredible. Compared to something like the front lawn, though, I find it does not carry the same grandeur in a photograph. So when I have couples who get married on the third floor, I make it a point to get as many outside photos of them as I can, to tie the story back together.
That creates a double problem in December. Naturally you might be inclined to put your ceremony up there in the freezing Texas winter. But that also makes outside photos harder, because you have already established that it is cold and yet you still have to go out there and face it.
The third floor is also fairly tight. You can almost squeeze an indefinite number of people onto the front and back lawns, but the third floor is limited. There is a stated seated capacity, and when people hit it, it is incredibly tight.
Tip for couples
The third floor is great for surviving the heat. I would sometimes suggest getting married up there specifically so you have more energy for newlywed photos outside, even on a hot day.
Tip for photographers
Be very cognizant of your reflections in the mirrors and the glass. Some people use flash in there and some do not; both are good options. If I am using flash, I make sure I am standing directly behind the couple relative to the mirror so my flash does not throw an obvious reflection into the glass.
Sunset at The Olana, month by month
Sunset and civil dusk, computed for The Olana’s actual coordinates in Hickory Creek, on the 15th of each month. Civil dusk is roughly when usable light is gone.
The last column is arithmetic, not opinion. It is sunset minus two hours, rounded down to the nearest quarter hour. Two hours is what a 30 minute ceremony, 20 to 30 minutes of family photos, and the walk out to the lawns actually eat before you reach golden hour.
| Month | Sunset | Civil dusk | Latest ceremony start for a full portrait window |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 5:48PM | 6:11PM | 3:45PM |
| February | 6:17PM | 6:39PM | 4:15PM |
| March | 7:39PM | 8:01PM | 5:30PM |
| April | 8:02PM | 8:24PM | 6PM |
| May | 8:24PM | 8:49PM | 6:15PM |
| June | 8:42PM | 9:08PM | 6:30PM |
| July | 8:42PM | 9:06PM | 6:30PM |
| August | 8:17PM | 8:40PM | 6:15PM |
| September | 7:38PM | 8PM | 5:30PM |
| October | 6:58PM | 7:20PM | 4:45PM |
| November | 5:30PM | 5:53PM | 3:30PM |
| December | 5:26PM | 5:50PM | 3:15PM |
If you are getting married in November, December or January, this table is the single most important thing on this page. A 4:30PM December ceremony means your portraits are happening after dark, and that is a completely different wedding than the one in your Pinterest board.
Cocktail hour, family photos and the five minute rule
In the one hour you typically have for photos during cocktail hour, the biggest thing that kills time is the walk from one point of the building to another.
Here is the number nobody gives you. Crossing from one side of The Olana to the other takes up to five minutes, once you account for actually setting up when you get there. Not thirty seconds. Five minutes, each way, every time. Three location changes and you have spent a third of your cocktail hour walking.
The second thing, which is much more avoidable, is the family list. I often lose 5, maybe even 10 minutes waiting on Uncle John to show up for a family photo, because he went down to the bar and now he has to climb back up to the third floor where the ceremony and the family photos are happening.
I cannot stress enough how important it is that family knows who is going to be in which photo and that they stay present. Or, as some of my couples have done, that they are okay with not being in these photos.
My most efficient couples are very type A about this, and it saves us so much time. I have even had couples rehearse their family photo combinations the day before, at the rehearsal dinner, so everyone knows exactly when they go and exactly where they stand, written down on a piece of paper. I just call out numbers.
You do not need to be that intense. But because the building is so large and you generally get the same amount of coverage time here as anywhere else, you have to be efficient.
Tip for couples
I hate to say it, but my biggest recommendation is being efficient with your family photo list, or being comfortable extending your cocktail hour, even by 15 or 30 minutes. Combinations that only include immediate family, or ten combinations max, are the easiest way through. And while I can be fairly commanding about getting family to pay attention, I do not know who Aunt Sylvia is, what she looks like, or when she leaves the room to grab a drink, so I cannot stop her lol.
Outside couples photos
Outside couples photos at The Olana are, honestly, fairly easy for me at this point. Every section of that building is gorgeous. Every angle, every look is incredible. Every day I see a new photo on Instagram that surprises me and gives me another idea for how I want to shoot my clients.
But you also need to know where the places ARE. I have worked there enough that I literally know which windows to jump through to unlock doors that give me access to some incredible spots. So please get a photographer who knows the building. At five minutes a crossing, the difference between someone who knows the route and someone figuring it out is not a matter of taste; it is a measurable number of photos you do or do not end up with.
The reception in the solarium
The reception tends to be difficult for a lot of couples. The large walls in the solarium make it hard to decide how your loved ones will be seated, because the room is essentially divided into two.
Do not be afraid of playing around with floor plans, much to the detriment of your wedding planner. I did not get married at The Olana and I still went over my own floor plan eight times, much to the dismay of the person making it. Asking your vendors what they think is an underrated move, and I mean all of them; not just your planner, but your photographer, your DJ and catering.
The Olana presents real challenges as a fun reception space. Because the building is so amazing, your guests will feel the need to explore it, and when they explore, as they inevitably will, that means fewer bodies on the dance floor. It is a funny conundrum: you have this incredible venue, and it can feel like people do not want to party.
Tip for couples
You have to be on the dance floor as much as possible. A rule every wedding vendor knows is that your guests will not dance if you are not dancing. I have seen many dance floors die to the surprise of the couple, here and elsewhere, largely because people are chatting in other rooms or are too shy to walk onto a dance floor in a place this big. Good DJs help. I recommend bands too, because they can take the couple’s place in keeping the energy going even when the crowd is not lively on its own.
And last, personally: I love a fun little photo session after a dress change and I wish more of my couples were open to it. There are so many good spots for flash photography, like the library and the Chanel room. It does take you away from the party, so your photographer has to be efficient. I take no more than 10 minutes, at maybe two spots I planned out beforehand, and I already know every pose I need.
The exit
Sparklers are very normal now, and this is the one to ask about early rather than late. I always believed there was a permit question here, and there is. Three rules stack up:
- The town. Hickory Creek’s code of ordinances makes it unlawful to possess, use or discharge fireworks within town limits, with a narrow exception for a permitted public display. Whether a handheld wire sparkler falls inside that definition is exactly the kind of question you do not want to be answering on your wedding day.
- The county. Denton County issues burn bans when conditions get dry, which happens routinely in a Texas summer. A ban can land on your date months after you planned the exit.
- The venue. Walters publishes its own fire rule: open-flame use indoors is limited, and only cold spark machines are permitted indoors.
So a sparkler exit at The Olana is not automatic. Get it approved by the venue in writing, well before your final meeting, and ask what happens if a burn ban is active on your date. That second question is the one nobody asks, and it is the one that ruins exits. Pick a backup.
Other options, none of which carry that problem: bubbles, light wands, LED foam sticks, paper lanterns and exploding streamers. I would urge people not to use anything that stays behind, like confetti. Weddings at The Olana happen back to back on weekends and you might accidentally leave confetti on the lawn for the next couple. The cleaning team is very thorough, but you never know.
Tip for couples
At this point, if you are getting married at The Olana, you are probably a big-budget bride or a big-budget groom. The experience for your guests here is already incredible; the icing on the cake is giving them a way to get home afterward. People often hire large charter buses to a main hotel where a block is reserved, or shuttle vans that run people back to their spots. The Olana also has a valet option so guests do not have to walk all the way from the parking lot to the front door. None of this is required, but it is a nice welcome and it ties in with what it is to be a guest at a venue like this one.
What a wedding at The Olana costs
I am not going to republish Walters’ rate card, for two reasons. The venue distributes its pricing through its own pricing guide and a tour, and how they price is theirs to communicate, not mine. And the third-party numbers floating around the internet do not reconcile with each other; one photographer’s blog quotes figures thousands of dollars apart from a budgeting site’s, and both are older than the venue’s current guide. Publishing a number I cannot stand behind on the day you read this would not help you.
What I can do is explain the shape of the bill.
- The venue rental, priced by day of the week, not by season. Saturday is the top tier, Friday and Sunday sit below it, Monday through Thursday is the floor. The “starting at” number you see on The Knot, WeddingWire and Zola is the weekday floor, not a Saturday. This is the single biggest lever you control.
- Catering, in-house and required, priced per person. No outside food.
- Bar, in-house and required, priced per person. Texas law requires alcohol be purchased through the venue, and no outside alcohol is permitted anywhere on the property, including the parking lot.
- Vendor services, which you can buy as a bundled package or select individually through Walters’ “Customize Your Own Package” option.
Walters publishes peak months (March, April, May, June, September, October, November and December) and off-peak months (January, February, July and August). From what I can tell the seasonal split affects availability more than price. Day of week is the real lever.
Can you bring your own photographer to The Olana?
Yes. It is in the contract, not just in marketing copy. Walters’ own Additional Contract Terms say it plainly:
“Client may hire outside vendors; however, for any non-Company-affiliated vendor, Client must provide an executed Indemnification Agreement and a certificate of insurance to the Venue before such vendor may provide goods or services at the Venue.”
That page closes by stating these rules are an integrated part of the contract. Three things in it that most couples miss:
- There are two documents, not one. A certificate of insurance AND a separately executed indemnification agreement. Almost everybody knows about the COI. Almost nobody knows about the indemnification agreement until it holds things up.
- The client files them, not the vendor. The clause says “Client must provide.” So your photographer hands you their COI and their signed indemnification agreement, and you file both with the venue. Put this in your planning timeline well ahead of your 30-day final meeting, not the week of.
- The exact insurance limits, additional-insured wording and filing deadline are not published anywhere. Ask your Wedding Specialist for the required limits and for a copy of the indemnification agreement early, then forward both to your photographer. Any professional will have a COI ready the same day.
In my experience across roughly 50 weddings at The Olana, that paperwork is the whole of it. I have never seen a couple charged a fee for bringing me in. The genuinely mandatory in-house services are catering and bar; photography, videography, florals, DJ, cake and officiant are not.
One piece of vocabulary trips people up. Walters describes some of its vendors as an “exclusive partner.” That means one brand per category inside Walters, not that the brand is mandatory for you. Their own FAQ says it directly: “We have one brand per category.”
And one thing to ask about, because I cannot answer it for you. Walters sells vendor services two ways: a bundled vendor package, or their “Customize Your Own Package” option, which they also call the Vendor Services Minimum. You pick the services you want as long as you meet a minimum amount, and their FAQ states it applies to vendor services only, not to catering or bar. Separately, the contract terms note that hosting an event “may require Vendor Minimum Services or a Minimum Spend.”
Note the word “may.” Whether any minimum lands on your contract, and what it is, is a question for your Wedding Specialist, and it is worth asking before you assume anything about what an outside photographer costs you. To be honest, I have watched couples talk themselves out of a photographer they loved over an arithmetic problem they never actually ran. Ask, get it in writing, then decide.
Tip for photographers
One clause worth reading before you build a shot list: the contract limits the client to “only those areas of the Venue expressly specified for the Event.” On a house with a Chanel closet, a theater, an indoor pool and a bowling alley, do not assume the whole building is included by default. Ask your couple which spaces are on their contract, early enough that they can add one if it matters.
Frequently asked questions
Where is The Olana?
The Olana is at 1851 Turbeville Road, Hickory Creek, TX 75065, in Denton County, about eight miles southeast of Denton. Walters Wedding Estates publishes it as about 35 minutes north of Dallas, 45 minutes north of Fort Worth and under 25 minutes from DFW Airport. You will also see it listed under Lake Dallas, Highland Village and Dallas in various directories; same building.
How many guests does The Olana hold?
250. That is the figure Walters Wedding Estates publishes and it is confirmed on the public record in Town of Hickory Creek Planning and Zoning minutes. Higher numbers circulating online are either bleed-over from the sister property or simply wrong.
How big is The Olana?
48,000 square feet on four floors, with 57 rooms and 17 bathrooms as originally built, on about 40 acres.
Does The Olana have a chapel?
No. The Olana has no chapel and no gazebo. The main ceremony spaces are the front lawn, the back lawn, the mirrored ballroom on the third floor and the solarium, and you can also get married in the drawing room.
Which way does The Olana face?
The front of The Olana faces south and the back faces north. That means the front lawn is front-lit and in full sun all afternoon with no shade from the building, and the back lawn is backlit, shaded, cooler, and loses usable light first.
Can I bring my own photographer to The Olana?
Yes. Walters Wedding Estates’ contract terms permit outside vendors, provided the client files a certificate of insurance and a separately executed indemnification agreement with the venue before that vendor works there. Catering and bar are the only genuinely mandatory in-house services at The Olana.
Is catering in-house at The Olana?
Yes, and it is required. So is the bar. No outside food and no outside alcohol anywhere on the property, including the parking lot.
What does a wedding at The Olana cost?
Rental is priced by day of week, with Saturday at the top and Monday through Thursday at the bottom. Catering and bar are per person. Vendor services are on top of that. The “starting at” price on the marketplaces is the weekday rental only. Request the current pricing guide from Walters Wedding Estates; the third-party figures online do not agree with each other.
Can you have a sparkler exit at The Olana?
Not automatically. The Town of Hickory Creek prohibits fireworks within town limits absent a permitted display, Denton County issues burn bans in dry conditions, and Walters permits only cold spark machines indoors. Get your exit approved in writing and have a bubble or light-wand backup.
Can guests stay overnight at The Olana?
No. A hotel and spa on the estate was announced in 2023 with a projected 2025 opening, and as of September 2026 it has not opened. Walters’ own venue page still directs guests to hotels within a 20-minute drive. Plan on an off-site block and transportation.
What is the Chanel closet at The Olana?
It is the original owner’s two-story dressing room, built as an homage to the Chanel store in Paris, down to the black lacquer cabinetry. It sits off the primary suite and it is one of the best getting-ready and flash photography spots in the building.
Does The Olana have a bowling alley?
Yes, two lanes, in the secondary suite downstairs, along with a half basketball court, a pool table and a full bar. It is dark down there, so it needs flash.
What was The Olana before it was a wedding venue?
It was Champ d’Or, a private residence completed in 2002 by Alan and Shirley Goldfield as an homage to the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte outside Paris. It sat on the market for about a decade, sold at auction in 2012, and Walters Hospitality bought it in 2018 and reopened it as The Olana in 2019.
Who designed The Olana?
Shirley Goldfield drove the design and the Nashville architect Terry Bates drew it. Individual rooms were modeled on real places: the dome on Vaux-le-Vicomte, the third-floor ballroom on the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, the plate hallway on the Palace of Fontainebleau, the closet on the Chanel store in Paris, the tea room on Tavern on the Green, and the pool room on the Hôtel de Paris in Monte Carlo.
Is The Olana the same as the Olana Design Center?
No. The Olana is the mansion at 1851 Turbeville Road. The building that opened as The Olana Design Center is a separate, newer building at 3575 Harrison Road on the same estate; it is now The Shops at Wedding Square, and its event space is the Jolie Ballroom. Different capacity, different rate card, different building.
Let me know
If you are getting married at The Olana and you want someone who already knows which hallway is fastest, where the light is at 6PM in October, and which door has to be unlocked from the inside, I would absolutely love to talk!
All of my pricing is on the site, all of it, because you should not have to book a call to find out what something costs.
Check your date with me here. If not then no worries!
Facts on this page were verified against Walters Wedding Estates’ own published materials and contract terms, Town of Hickory Creek records, and reporting from D Magazine, the Dallas Morning News, CBS Texas, NBC 5 and the Denton Record-Chronicle. Pricing structure is described rather than quoted, because published third-party figures do not reconcile and go stale annually. Sunset times are computed for the venue’s coordinates. Confirm all venue policies directly with Walters Wedding Estates before you plan around them.
