Angel K.
Yelp
Brace yourselves, this will be a long one. We picked this venue for the view and for the all-inclusive package. All of our meetings with the venue were fantastic, we had a different person each time, but they all went well. They listened to what we said, told us whether it was a possibility or not (or if it was something we had to figure out on our own) and the planning process went smoothly and easily. We decided to hire some of our own vendors just due to difference in preference and style.
Our last meeting we met our day-of coordinator who would help us with the event. We went over all the final details- from food preferences for guests, to where guests will be seated, basically every small little detail was discussed. Because this event was during COVID, we asked if there was a possibility we could receive the extra food we have already paid for if there were guests who could not show up. We were told to ask for extra plates of food if people were still hungry. We left the meeting feeling confident and ready for our reception.
The problems started the day of our reception. Due to a family emergency, we weren't able to make it to the venue early enough to do a walk through. By the time guests were being seated, we noticed so many things that were wrong. Before we get into them, here are some things to note. Our event was during COVID, so some guests were not able to make it day-of. We let our venue know ahead of time and asked them to remove the seats from the designated tables. To prevent additional exposure, we requested plated meals instead of buffet.
1. My family table was not seated next to us at the sweetheart table, but rather in the corner in front of the dance floor where the music was blaring. My family was quite upset they were seated so far from the sweetheart table because they couldn't see us. My poor grandma had music blasting in her ear all night.
2. All the tables were incorrectly placed. Having gone through detailed designation of which guest will be placed at which table and which guests have food allergies, this was quite a big error. We later heard from guests that they did not receive their requested food. Ex. we had some guests who could not eat meat or fish, but received the wrong item.
3. People were still hungry because they received food they could not eat and they asked for additional portions of food (we were told at our last meeting to do this), and the guests were told there was no extra food. We paid for food for 93 guests, however had 84 guests show up. We paid for 9 extra meals we did not receive.
4. There were not enough seats at the table. Our guests were standing during meal service because too many seats had been removed and there were not enough seats at each table for guests.
5. The venue had asked for a point person from our side and we assigned my sister. No one listened to my sister when she pointed out things that were needed such as extra seats at the table. They would only do something when either myself (the bride) or the groom told them to. We had a very busy night cleaning up all the mistakes.
6. The manager, seeing so many things go wrong, came up to us to tell us that no one told him about the changes so it's not his fault.
7. Our day-of coordinator asked our preference for cake slices. We asked for one of each flavor, we did not receive cake aside from the slice we cut ourselves.
8. The venue asked if we would like to take extra cake home and we said yes! We did not receive any cake to take home. We had a cake for 100 people and with only 84 guests... where did the rest of our cake go?
9. Our day-of coordinator left half way through the night. She told me the name of the coordinator taking over, but I never met him and he didn't introduce himself to me even though we had many more issues during the night.
10. The venue tried to take things that we paid for. We paid for bubble vases from our florist, however, before the end of the night, workers started taking the glass vases. I told them we paid for these and I can show them the invoice, but they said no. I had to find the manager to explain we paid for these and then he said we could have them back.
11. This is a small thing, but we had LED candles that needed to be turned on. The workers couldn't even bother with the small task of switching them on before placing them on the table.
All of the things that had gone wrong were things that we had discussed with the day-of coordinator. It seems like her notes just went missing and she didn't tell anyone about anything and just left half-way through the event. The manager was unhelpful and didn't offer any solutions.
TLDR; Expect this venue to eat your money right up and not give you what you paid for. People received food they could not eat. We got ripped off paying for 93 meals and only receiving the 84. Our cake for 100 guests somehow had no leftovers. If we weren't aware, the venue would have taken the vases that we paid for.
