Melody C.
Yelp
Rating is more like a 3.5/5.
I had my wedding reception here last year, and overall, it was a decent venue considering the price range. However, there are a ton of areas that they can improve on.
1. Communication - It was so hard getting a hold of my sales rep after booking the venue and leading up to my wedding. Whenever I called, I had to leave messages with the receptionist and the sales rep would never get back to me. My emails would often go unanswered, and then I would have to follow up. When they were answered, the sales rep would only address some of my questions/concerns instead of everything, so I'd have to chase him down again. Also, some of the instructions/requests that I relayed to him weren't carried out on the day of the wedding. For example, I asked for the "throne" chairs in the room to be switched out to normal chairs, but I saw that this was not done when I arrived at the venue for wedding pictures. It really sucked that I had to be on top of making sure that everything I asked for was in place. Obviously, I couldn't do that for every single detail, so there were definitely a lot of things that weren't perfect. Another example is we agreed on the guest check-in area to be where the cocktail hour is being held, but it was moved to the outside of the reception room instead. I don't mind the change but I just wish there was more communication here.
2. Cake - Leonard's package includes a complimentary wedding cake from Francesco's, which only has a 3.5 star rating on Yelp. That seemed a bit too low for such an important part of my wedding. And my gut instincts proved to be right. At the cake tasting, I paid an extra $200 for a better wedding cake design because the complimentary ones looked very tacky and old-fashioned. I emailed the bakery staff the design that I wanted on the spot AND the staff doing the tasting with me noted on the receipt/order form that the design is "same as pic" and attached it to a printed picture of the cake design. Sadly, I found out that they gave me the tacky complimentary design instead of the design I wanted literally 10 minutes before the reception began. I was upset but couldn't do anything about it at that point. My maitre'd and sales rep at Leonard's assured me that they would reach out to Francesco's and give me a refund quickly. I later learned that this was NOT the case. It took me 3 whole weeks to receive my money back and this was after A LOT of follow-ups and chasing both Leonard's and Francesco's for the refund. I sincerely hope Leonard's took my suggestion to partner up with a different bakery for their future needs.
3. Food - I had a lovely time at the entree tasting with my husband and our families. It gave us an opportunity to see what was working and what wasn't. Then, we gave the chef our feedback, and I also sent a copy of my feedback to the sales rep. So definitely take notes during the tasting to give feedback later. Chef Carlos was great and a joy to work with. He saw how much my mom loved the sauce of the Agrigento Salad and let us take home a small container of it. Our server, Rina, was also fantastic. I specifically asked for her to help me on my wedding day, and the sales rep made it happen, so yay. The layered potatoes accompanying the entrees on each plate was the highlight for me. However, sadly, it was switched to mashed potatoes on the day of the wedding. I'm not sure why and I never got to ask. Overall, the food was ok - not the best wedding food I've had but acceptable.
4. Timeliness - Some of my guests probably started arriving about half an earlier than the start time, which seems pretty normal to me, but Leonard's was so behind on setting up the cocktail room and reception room. They were still in the process so guests saw it still under progress/ couldn't enter yet.
5. Vendor showcase - Before I booked the venue, the sales rep let me know that Leonard's has a vendor showcase once (or twice??) a year where we can sample the appetizers we'd have at cocktail hour and meet vendors. I was really happy to hear this and I thought I would be able to sample the cocktail hour appetizers, but this was pretty far from it. Yes, we had a lot of food to sample, but most of the food was not on the list of food available for the wedding. So I'd keep this in mind! But the showcase was still really fun; I got to meet a lot of cool vendors, although I didn't end up going with any of them.
I think I could go on and on about their flaws, but I think it's important for me to acknowledge they did have areas that they excelled in, such as flexibility with changing ballrooms last minute, increasing guest count, etc. And honestly, the venue, especially the Leonardo ballroom was gorgeous, with a private patio and a huge bar area. They also did a terrific job packing up all our stuff at the end of the wedding for us to take home. For what I was looking for, I don't have regrets about having my wedding reception here.