Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Andrea Van Wambeke. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Andrea, appreciate you joining us today. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

While I do feel like Sweeney Barn is one of my own children, I’m not actually the owner. I’m privileged to work for Noel and Alannah Sweeney, who had the idea to renovate an abandoned 1939 dairy barn in the middle of Manassas, Virginia and turn it into a premier wedding and event venue. They invited me out to the site in 2017, when it was just a husk of a building. We walked around with flashlights imagining what the barn could look like on a wedding day and discussing all the incredible details they dreamed of furnishing the space with. It was such an amazing vision – when they asked me to manage the venue once it was up and running, of course I said yes! We broke ground on the renovations in 2018, and we had our first events in early 2019. It was incredible to watch the transformation from this dilapidated barn to a state-of-the-art reception hall. I’m still in awe when I see the photos of what it used to be and what it is today. Sweeney Barn isn’t in a field with cows – we’re in the midst of office spaces and data centers. But that is what makes our space unique. We’re a perfect fit for weddings and corporate events that want the beauty of a rustic chic venue, but the accessibility and amenities of a 21 century hall.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I took a very roundabout journey from studying history in graduate school at The College of William & Mary to managing a wedding and event venue! While still in school, I interned at a historic site called Bacon’s Castle in Surry, Virginia. While I loved feeling part of that space and giving tours to visitors, I felt like I was missing a larger purpose in my career. That changed when I went to an economic development meeting hosted by the county, where we spoke about the importance of tourism in driving jobs and growth in our local community. Something in that connected with me, and I decided to look for economic development work within the tourism and hospitality industry when I moved back home to the DC area that fall. Luckily for me, Destination DC, the destination marketing organization for Washington, DC, had an entry level position open on their Partnership & Finance teams. I stared working as an assistant there, getting to know all the member organizations in the city like hotels, museums, restaurants and tourist attractions. When the member event manager position opened up on the Partnership team, I decided to apply – and I got the job!
This began a new element of my career where I planned all of the networking and educational events for our member organizations. I found that I loved the project-based nature of event planning, and it was exciting to host meetings in different venues all around the city. But I found that I missed intimately knowing just one space, like I did in my first internship at Bacon’s Castle.
When Noel and Alannnah, the owners of Sweeney Barn, contacted me asking for my perspective on how to open an event venue, I was excited to meet with them about the space. I realized that opening and managing this venue was a perfect blend of my event planning experience and my desire to have one location that felt like home. I’m so fortunate to have found something I’m truly passionate about in Sweeney Barn. I love meeting with couples when they are first touring and deciding on a venue for their wedding, and I still get to work with corporate events that bring together people in the community. I’m a caretaker for this wonderful space, and I feel tied to it in a very special way that I don’t think I could find anywhere else.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

When the venue was still under renovation and preparing to open the following year, our team immediately started marketing Sweeney Barn on wedding-specific platforms like The Knot and WeddingWire. Although we weren’t quite ready for events yet, it definitely had people wondering what we were doing and how our venue would be different and unique. At the same time, I started researching local event professionals and inviting them out to see the construction site. I built relationships with them that I knew would serve our future clients, but that would also add to the amount of industry buzz as planners, caterers and other vendors chatted about new spaces and experiences in the area. While I brought contacts with me from my previous job in DC, I really focused on meeting the best event professionals local to Manassas and Prince William County. We also joined the Prince William County Chamber of Commerce and started attending networking events with them. There is a ton of talent in our area, and we immediately felt a connection to the community that has served us incredibly well. While meeting with these vendors and giving them tours of the event space, I made sure to snap some photos of us in our hard hats, put them on social media, and tag whoever we were meeting with. That helped establish our early Instagram and Facebook pages, and it also drew in other event professionals who hadn’t heard of us yet.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Like every business in the last few years, the COVID-19 pandemic taught our team so much about how to balance our venue’s survival while also being compassionate to others in a time that was largely out of our control. The weddings and events industry was one of the main ones suffering in 2020-2021. Unlike businesses that could work from home or turn to virtual platforms, our venue was specifically geared toward hosting events in our actual space. We immediately lost all corporate meeting business, so I concentrated on helping our weddings find new dates for reschedule or creative ways to host smaller events that fit within the social-distancing restrictions. We must have done something right, since we still came out of that period with all 5 star reviews from our clients. More than anything, that time taught me that we are survivors. There are few situations I can think of that would be more cataclysmic than the pandemic for our venue. It really puts the rare bride- or groom-zilla into perspective! I have so much more patience than I did before, and I don’t sweat the small stuff nearly as much. We went through hell, but came out the other side much stronger in our business and in the industry as a whole.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sweeneybarn.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sweeneybarnweddings/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sweeneybarnweddings/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sweeney-barn