Hilltop used to be a girls’ summer camp, run for decades by Herb and Eloise Fritz. Ty and Janelle Fritz run it now, and most of what makes the venue different from other Spring Green properties comes straight from that history. The dorm where campers used to sleep is now where wedding parties get ready. The small cabins that dot the hillside were built for camp staff and family, not for guests at a wedding, so they still feel like part of a lived-in place instead of a rented backdrop. A student of Frank Lloyd Wright designed the buildings, a couple of miles from Taliesin itself, and the whole property still reads that way: low to the ground, built into the hill instead of set on top of it.

The short version

Ceremonies happen under a big catalpa tree on a quiet, dead-end stretch of the property, away from the parking and the noise of setup. Dinner moves into a tented dining space built right into the hillside, and depending on your reception plans, guests may walk down the road afterward to a separate pavilion with its own bar for dancing.

That two-area layout is the most unusual thing about Hilltop. Most venues put a ceremony, dinner, and dancing in one room or one tent. Hilltop spreads the day across the property, so guests actually move through it, and the night takes on a different shape because of that.

Norskedalen is the venue we always point to as the quintessential Driftless setting, all limestone bluffs and open valley. Hilltop is its Spring Green counterpart. Just as tied to the land, just as impossible to replicate anywhere else, only built into a hillside instead of spread across a valley floor.

It’s about an hour from Madison, and the venue books seasonally from June through September.

What we love about shooting here

– The catalpa tree. A single tree as a ceremony backdrop does more work than most floral arches we’ve seen.

– The walk between reception areas. It gives the night a second act instead of one long room.

– The small cabins scattered across the hillside. Easy to miss on a first visit, and part of why the whole property feels settled instead of staged.

– The dining tent tucked into the hill. It photographs like it belongs there, because it does.

– Light that behaves the way it does two miles from Taliesin. That’s not a coincidence.

Good to know before you tour

The address is 6447 Hilltop Rd, Spring Green, WI 53588. Hilltop books June through September, so plan your tour and your date around that window.

Ty and Janelle run the property, and they’ve hosted plenty of our couples over the years. Janelle especially is warm and genuinely proud of the place, and she also holds her own rules for it closely. If she asks you to do something a specific way, it’s because she cares about how the buildings and the land get treated. Read the contract carefully and ask questions early.

If your guests are driving in from Madison or Milwaukee for the weekend, House on the Rock is a few minutes down the road and shares the same fieldstone, built-into-the-hillside feel. It’s an easy add for anyone staying over.

Weddings we’ve photographed at Hilltop

– Tara and Casey’s wedding: the clearest example of Hilltop’s split reception, dinner in the main tent, dancing down the road at the pavilion.

– Aistis and Meghan’s wedding: a fall ceremony under the catalpa tree, with two quiet moments during the vows that still stick with us.

– Tatty and Peter’s wedding: shot in 2015, right in the thick of the property’s rustic, camp-era buildings.

We’ll keep adding to this list as we photograph more weddings here.

Ready to see it yourself

If you’re picturing your wedding at Hilltop, we know this venue well and we’d love to be your photographers. Get in touch here.