Jesus Torres
Google
RANT INCOMING - READ BEFORE YOU BOOK
Let me start off by simply saying that this review is NOT to take away from the venue itself or the catering. The venue is GORGEOUS, with great views, a great setting & versatile for different types of photography, with optional access to the airport hangars for an additional fee on behalf of their preferred vendors. Additionally, Mary at Catering is INCREDIBLE. She’s well-mannered, respectful, shares the details with you & is the GREATEST COOK EVER. So for clarity, those things I’ve noted are exempt from my 1-star review.
Where things go south, is where many others also share their grief and conflict. Abel, the on-site coordinator, is a NIGHTMARE to deal with. In the meetings, calls and appointments leading into the day of, one thing I can share is that he is VERY communicative and responds in a very timely manner. We never found ourselves waiting more than 24 hours for a response, other than the weekends, when they had events booked at the venue. Apart from that though, he was & is an AWFUL person to deal with. Almost every encounter, every message, meeting & phone call resulted in at least ONE moment where his horrible attitude and condescending tone was on FULL DISPLAY. I can have AT LEAST 10-15 guests that can pour into this review within their own experience on the ACTUAL wedding day. He was disrespectful in his treatment towards guests. We understand that this venue is STRICT; we are FINE with that. However, it’s one thing being strict & another thing being outright disrespectful. I have vendors, band & sound techs that were present that ALSO let me know of their negative experience with him. You couldn’t ask him a simple question the day-of without him being short-tempered & dismissive. Refused to make simple adjustments. Even during the breakdown post-reception, he was disrespectful towards my guests and vendors. The venue & catering was pretty pricey, which we were fine with paying since we REALLY wanted to hold our wedding here. Even after the reviews we read, we gave it the benefit of the doubt. You would think that after paying as much as we did for 70 people, he would be accommodating, respectful & kind to our guests and vendors. I strongly believe he needs to take a background role & they should really consider having a more welcoming person assume his position. He micromanaged, demanded & policed every single person on our wedding day and made COUNTLESS guests uncomfortable with his character. We couldn’t even move some lounge furniture for photography purposes, without him moving everything back before even getting the photos & mugging us with a negative look. Even worse, his attitude when Mary (the owner) was around was completely different! Quiet, reserved, respectful. When she wasn’t there - an ENTIRELY different persona.
To make matters worse, my wife was in the mechanical room upstairs awaiting to make her entrance. Abel himself admitted to my coordinator after that the room hadn’t been swept in 3 WEEKS. She severely stained her dress prior to walking down! We have pictures & witnesses as well that CLEARLY noticed the staining as she made her walk down. When I addressed it with him after we got back from our Honeymoon, He lied and said my coordinator said it was just “dry dust.” However, that was a lie. My coordinator had to take her shirt off, wipe as much as she can & fix the dress inwardly, to hide the staining as much as possible. We called her about it & said he was being dishonest. He refused to comp us for the incident and instead blamed the tarmac we were on, when in reality, we kept the dress unraveled because it was already a lost cause anyway. It costed us $300+ to get it cleaned up.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. I can’t & will NEVER recommend this venue to anybody, literally just because of the experience with Abel. As mentioned, I can 10-15 people MINIMUM that can attest to their experience with him. Avoid this nightmare; take your services elsewhere. To Mary : me and my wife absolutely LOVED you. We’re sorry if you find yourself reading this review.