M L.
Yelp
Beware of this place. I recently had my wedding here and it was a nightmare. Warning, this is a lengthy review.
There is a lot of turn over with their staff, so in the one year of planning my wedding, I dealt with 4 different girls. The first girl, Leisa, hated her job or something and didn't want to work so she told us things that were untrue like we were not allowed to have any outside alcohol and that we had to be off the property by 10pm on a Saturday. Both are not true because the contract states we can bring in our own bottles for a corkage fee, and we must be off the property by midnight (depending on the time we started), not 10pm.
They only offer tastings when events happen, so you get to taste only what other customers have chosen for their food. We did two tastings, and it wasn't much different other than the meat served. We originally tried their prime rib, and it was so tough and overcooked. So, we had a second tasting to try the tritip and it was better. We ended up choosing the tritip for our wedding. As far as appetizers go, we got to try the stuffed mushrooms and cheese and crackers. We ended up choosing the stuffed mushrooms and just blindly chose the eggrolls and goat cheese crostini. Had I known that the eggrolls and goat cheese crostini tasted the way they did, I would not have chosen them. Not being able to taste the majority of food they offer was a big downside.
When it came time for our rehearsal, Desiree was on vacation, and no one opened the gates for us. We had a line of cars waiting to enter and thankfully we hired the resident DJ, Frank, who we contacted, and he let us in. Desiree says that Frank knew to let us in, but that's untrue because of his reaction and him actually telling us that night that he had no idea. She also said that the only role of HPW staff during rehearsal is to open the gates. That being the case, there's nobody to help guide you through the way you're supposed to walk down the aisle or answer questions for you, unless you hire DJ Frank.
Desiree was also out during our wedding, so the fourth girl who we met once, was the one working the night of our wedding. So many things went wrong. They didn't set up all our tables and despite one of my vendors telling them BEFORE the wedding started to add the extra table, HPW staff ignored it and did not set it up. This led to our 90-year-old great aunt to be seated under the pagoda away from the rest of our wedding guests. She had to walk all the way to the pavilion to do table dash pictures (that's when we realized they screwed up our tables). HPW's lack of care to fix this when notified before the wedding started is a big slap in the face to us.
We had a traditional roasted pig which HPW knew of and approved. However, my coordinator had to fight for space for our roasted pig as the chef refused to make room for it on the buffet table or elsewhere. They also would not let her put our noodle bar in an area where there was clearly space for it (again, they knew of it and approved it prior to the wedding). She had to fight for that, too. They also did not give us the noodle bar table that we confirmed with them. Instead, they put the hot water next to the coffee and coffee cups, so there was no room for my coordinator to set up the noodle bowls. She had to squeeze the bowls in between the coffee and water dispenser where there was barely any room. It looked so horrible and tacky. To add, there weren't enough napkins in the color I chose and my coordinator had to choose different color napkins for the remaining tables last minute.
They also did not cut our cake like the package we purchased states. They made excuses that did not make sense as to why they did not cut our cake. Our cake ended up being trashed and no one got to eat it.
HPW charged us for bar drinks that we did not host. They also charged us for wine but we brought our own wine and were only to be charged corkage fee. It was an ordeal trying to get them to refund us the appropriate amount. In the end, they only refunded us less than half of what they should have because they said that our guests would have ordered other $9 drinks we hosted, which is untrue. Who is to say they would not have ordered a beer (cheaper than $9) or soft drink instead?
Holland Park West made over $25,000 off my wedding, and the lack of care we received is shocking. When I brought up how much money they made off us, they stated that they did us a favor for not charging us the original larger number of guests in the "ESTIMATED..." section of our contract. Leisa originally told us that that number listed in the estimated section is not anything we're tied to, and we will only be charged for the total amount of guests when we give them the final count two weeks prior to our wedding date. The contract also states that it is an estimate. To threaten us with the comment of saying they could have charged us that amount instead, and did us a favor by not doing so, is sleezy.
