About Us

Honeysuckle Hills is my beloved farm, mountain meadows and gardens where my family has hosted weddings for over sixteen years. It wasn’t always a fairytale setting nestled in the Smokies. At one time it was a working farm where my Daddy raised cattle and tobacco. As much as I enjoyed growing up here, I sure do enjoy weddings more than farming! Sierra came into our lives in 2016, later marrying my son in 2020. I truly believe God sent her not only as a helpmate for my son, but to me as well. We make the perfect team to pull together an unforgettable wedding for you.

Do you want to simply show up and get married in a beautiful location that’s already set up and ready to go? Honeysuckle Hills is the truly effortless way to get married in the Smoky Mountains. We have a place to get ready, gorgeous ceremony locations, views, photography sites, a coordinator, and backup plans if it rains. Privacy abounds because our land is not open to the public. We maintain a permanent theme of rustic, vintage décor with silk greenery and white flowers at all our ceremony sites. Our historic 1950 red barn is surrounded by flower gardens, a horse pasture, rolling hills, and a creek that runs through the entire property. We have more locations for wedding photography than any other venue, making it a popular choice for micro-weddings and couples-only elopements. I can also make your wedding with reception easy with one of our all-inclusive reception packages!

Sierra and I believe that the best way to make our guests feel appreciated and cared for is to only host one of our classic elopements or one wedding with reception on any given day, and no more than three each week. No other wedding will take place in the same vicinity as yours. For this reason we recommend booking as far in advance as possible, especially for weekend weddings on Fridays and Saturdays.

We welcome our couples to bring any items to personalize their wedding. Most will bring a few pictures and signs, a unique guest book, or a few wedding favor gifts. Some of our larger weddings with receptions will bring a few storage tubs of items to decorate the reception tables (votive candles, trinkets that signify their hobbies, etc.). But, honestly, any couple could simply show up with only their wedding attire and rings and be pleased as punch with the atmosphere we maintain at all times. We best serve the simple at heart, nature lovers, animal lovers, and free-spirited souls.

We have an open door policy to all faiths, all persons, and all those who wish to commit to the one they love. We believe that our own personal faith in Jesus Christ fosters abounding love to welcome every single person with open arms and a servant’s heart. We’ll never impose our beliefs on anyone. It’s very simple, actually… love conquers all.

Most of our family lives on the thirty acre tract of Starkey land, and has since 1983. The Honeysuckle Hills wedding venue is right in the middle of those 30 acres along a country road.  Sierra, my mother and sister all live within walking distance of the venue.  I live three miles from the venue on private, gated Starkey land that has been in my family for almost two centuries and borders the Smoky Mountain National Park.  My great-grandmother’s 85 year old home is a popular adventure-wedding photography site for Honeysuckle Hills couples with its mountain waterfall, historic smoke house and century barn.

My parents met in the mid-1900’s walking along Mill Creek Road to the schoolhouse by Hurst Chapel Baptist Church. They married and set up housekeeping close by, later moving to the farm in 1983 after the original home owner, Zula Brackins, became widowed and sold the property to my father. To understand more of the land’s history, the property was given to Ms. Zula’s father-in-law by the government in exchange for taking his land for the National Park. It was farmed with tobacco and black angus cattle from the early days until my father passed away from lung cancer in 2005. The Honeysuckle Hills wedding venue is a loving testament to his memory and all the old-timers in overalls who fell in love tying tobacco leaves, gossiping across fences and enjoying the small things in life.

Our venue is only three miles from traffic light #10 in Pigeon Forge. This gives us much more privacy than locations along busy highways, but is not too far away for your guests who want to vacation in Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. There are many cabins within five minutes of the venue, and hotels as close as ten minutes away. The Smoky Mountains are a huge draw for tourists year-round, so your expectation for guest RSVPs should be 90% of those invited. Dolly Parton’s theme park, Dollywood, is the second largest draw to our area next to the Smoky Mountain National Park itself. Our town is full of entertainment for all ages. I recommend keeping the guest count as low as possible to enjoy the peaceful intimacy our weddings are so well known for.

The most challenging part of a Honeysuckle Hills wedding is narrowing down the sites for your photographs. Unless the artist is named otherwise, all the images you see on our website and social media pages were created by Regina or Sierra.

We hope to meet you soon and add you to our ever-growing love story!