Timber Lake Camp
- Wedding Venues
Joshua is a Preferred Vendor
Timber Lake Camp
- Wedding Venues
Joshua is a Preferred Vendor
Timber Lake Camp is a 500-acre summer camp property in Shandaken, New York, set in a valley at the base of Saddle Mountain in the central [Catskills](/catskills/wedding-venues/). It operates as a kids’ camp from mid-June through mid-August, and opens for private events during the shoulder windows: mid-May through early June and mid-August through September. The property is about two and a half hours from the city and ninety minutes from Albany.
The property offers something most Catskills venues can’t: scale. Two private spring-fed lakes, a pool, a game room with arcade machines and pool tables, a movie theater, basketball courts, baseball fields, and hundreds of acres of forest. Your guests don’t just attend a wedding. They get a weekend at camp.
The ceremony can happen lakeside, on the main lawn, or in the wood-paneled assembly hall if weather pushes things indoors. The lakeside setup puts water and mountains behind the couple with the valley framing everything wide. The assembly hall is large enough for a full guest count and has the character of a mountain lodge, with wood walls and high ceilings.
Receptions happen in the Adirondack Dining Hall, which seats the full capacity for dinner and dancing. The space has the proportions and feel of a camp mess hall built for hundreds, with enough room that tables can spread out and a dance floor can anchor the center. After dinner, the property opens up for the kind of evening programming that a 500-acre camp makes possible: bonfires by the lake, s’mores, lawn games under string lights.
The pricing model is per-night and per-guest. The facility fee is $10,000 per night, and overnight guests are $100 per person. That per-person rate covers two nights of lodging in climate-controlled cabins, a welcome BBQ on arrival day, breakfast and lunch on the wedding day, and a departure brunch the following morning. The venue handles setup, cleanup, event rentals, lighting, and sound. For the Day 2 evening meal, couples can use the camp’s catering or bring in an outside caterer.
Accommodations are the other defining feature. The cabins sleep up to 500 guests across the property, which means your entire guest list can stay on-site. The cabins are climate-controlled and spread through the grounds, giving the weekend the feel of a retreat rather than a hotel stay. Getting ready happens in the cabins or in the main lodge, with the morning schedule set by proximity rather than drive times.
The limited availability windows matter. You’re working with roughly six weeks in spring and six weeks in late summer. September dates put you in the early fall color window in the Catskills, with the valley around Shandaken showing foliage while temperatures are still comfortable. May and early June are green and cool. If you want this venue, the calendar is the constraint.
One thing to consider: this is a camp, not a hotel. The cabins are comfortable but they’re camp cabins. The appeal is the shared experience of being on a private 500-acre property with your people for the weekend. If that’s what you want, there’s nothing else like it in the Catskills. If you’re considering Timber Lake Camp and want to talk through the photography, [get in touch](/contact/).
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The property has strong bones from a photography standpoint. The two spring-fed lakes provide reflective surfaces that double the sky and surrounding mountains in wide shots. A lakeside ceremony in late afternoon, between 4 and 5pm in summer, puts warm directional light across the water with Saddle Mountain behind. The valley orientation means the light comes in from the west and catches the lake surface, which fills in shadows on faces naturally.
The assembly hall works as a ceremony backup and has the look of a mountain lodge. Wood-paneled walls, high ceilings, and enough natural light from windows to shoot without flash during daytime hours. The warm tones of the wood give the room a color temperature that works for ceremony coverage without any correction.
The Adirondack Dining Hall is a large space, and large spaces give you room to work. Wide shots of the reception will have depth. The dance floor coverage benefits from the proportions because you can pull back far enough to get the energy of a full room. After dark, the combination of venue lighting and whatever the couple adds with candles or string lights determines the ambient quality.
For portraits, the lake is the primary location. The shoreline with the mountains reflected in the water behind the couple gives you a shot that’s specific to this property. The forest trails through the 500 acres offer a different option: darker, more enclosed, with filtered light through the canopy. The camp infrastructure itself, the docks, the boathouse, the playing fields, adds a layer of texture that reads as playful and personal rather than formal.
The scale of the property creates a consideration for timeline planning. Guests are spread across cabins, and the distance between the ceremony site, the dining hall, and the various activity areas means you need to build in transition time. The morning getting-ready coverage will likely involve multiple cabin locations for the wedding party, which means the photographer is moving between buildings rather than between hotel rooms on the same floor. Plan for that.
The camp setting also changes the candid coverage. Guests swimming, playing basketball, sitting around a campfire with s’mores. The hours outside the ceremony and reception produce a gallery that’s different from what any other venue type generates. That’s the real photographic value of this property: the in-between moments are as strong as the formal ones.
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– Lakeside Ceremony Site: Spring-fed lake with mountain reflections and Saddle Mountain in the background. Late afternoon light from the west hits the water surface. Strong for ceremony coverage and wide landscape portraits with the couple at the shoreline.
– Assembly Hall: Wood-paneled mountain lodge interior with high ceilings. Indoor ceremony backup with warm wood tones and natural window light. Works for ceremony coverage and group formals in inclement weather.
– Adirondack Dining Hall: Large-format dining space with camp proportions. Room for wide reception shots with depth. Works for dinner coverage, speeches, and dance floor photography.
– Forest Trails and Grounds: 500 acres of Catskill forest with trails through the property. Filtered canopy light for intimate couple portraits. The variety of terrain, from open meadow to dense woods, provides different backdrops within walking distance.
– Camp Infrastructure: Docks, boathouse, playing fields, and recreational areas. Adds texture and personality to candid coverage. The camp elements read as playful and specific to this venue rather than generic backdrop.
– Cabins and Lodge Areas: Climate-controlled cabins spread across the grounds. Getting-ready coverage happens here. The camp setting gives morning photos a different character than hotel rooms.
– Campfire and Lakeside Evening: Bonfire area by the lake for evening coverage. S’mores, campfire light, and the lake at dusk provide a strong closing sequence for the gallery.
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Understand the availability windows before you fall in love with the property. Timber Lake Camp operates as a summer camp from mid-June through mid-August. Private events happen mid-May through early June and mid-August through September. That’s roughly twelve weeks total, and popular weekends fill early. September is the most requested month because of fall foliage in the Catskill valley, so start the conversation early if that’s your target.
Plan for the full weekend, not just the wedding day. The per-person rate of $100 per overnight guest includes two nights in a climate-controlled cabin, a welcome BBQ on Day 1, breakfast and lunch on Day 2, and a departure brunch on Day 3. That’s a substantial portion of your food budget built into the venue fee. For the Day 2 evening reception meal, you can use the camp’s catering or bring in an outside caterer. Either way, the rest of the weekend’s meals are handled.
Use the camp. The property has two lakes, a pool, a game room, a movie theater, sports courts, and hundreds of acres of trails. Build free time into the weekend schedule so guests can actually enjoy all of it. A wedding weekend where people swim in the lake, play pickup basketball, and sit around a campfire is a different experience than one where guests wait in a cabin until the ceremony starts. The camp activities also produce great candid photos.
Set expectations about the accommodations. The cabins are climate-controlled and comfortable, but they’re camp cabins. This is not a boutique hotel. The appeal is the shared experience of being on private land with your group for the full weekend, not thread-count and turndown service. Communicate that to your guests in advance so everyone arrives with the right expectations.
Build your timeline around the distances on the property. The ceremony site, dining hall, cabins, and activity areas are spread across 500 acres. Transitions take longer than they would at a compact venue. Work backward from dinner: if you want portraits between the ceremony and reception, schedule thirty minutes and pick a location close to both. If the ceremony is lakeside and the reception is in the dining hall, account for the walk. Your coordinator and photographer should walk the property together during the site visit.
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