Pemberton Weddings

Upon our arrival meeting with Jill & John we couldn't be more excited and relieved of our wedding day!

They both are there to ensure the day is as special as it can be, and we couldn't be happier to allow us to use their property! Beautiful views all throughout, the thought and hard work in every detail they have created has us confident this was 100% the perfect choice for our day.
We had also got a tour of the entire property, and Jill spent time showing us her horses explaining a lot of her rescue's, the story behind their farm and the reasoning of how and why this has all began. With us meeting off season, they used lots of detailed explanations of what to expect, also showed slide shows of previous set-up examples, and were there for any questions we may have had. They are very open to any customizations or requests, and mentioned they can be as involved or uninvolved as we want them to be.

The pricing for this venue is also very reasonable, with outlined and in detail of what extra fees are/will be upcoming. Discussing with Jill while viewing the property she is very clear on what to expect.

Another thing we liked, Jill & John are so accepting for our same sex marriage that will be taking place. Immediately after being there we felt comfort from both, Jill has even mentioned gay weddings are fun and was excited.

Excited, thrilled, & relieved. These three words are the best way to describe how we both feel and can't wait for this day!

Dreamcatcher Meadows is an absolutely gorgeous venue, all of the guests were raving about how stunning it is. Owners were kind and helpful, it was great having beautiful tables and chairs provided. Property was nice and private, set far back from the main road unlike some other venues we saw. Nice and breezy being right on the river and great having the open-air barn in case of rain.

We booked our wedding for June 2021 but due to Covid restrictions we decided to cancel our wedding and elope. Jill gave us the option of rescheduling the day for 2022 or cancelling with a full refund. She gave us our deposit back with no issues! We would have loved to have our dream wedding there and will hopefully have a celebration at a later date.

I’d like to start this review by saying that the venue itself is absolutely gorgeous. My husband and I visited lots of different places before selecting this one and nothing else even came close. We got amazing pictures and lots of our guests complimented our unique choice. The venue itself deserves 5 stars. However, this review is about the service provider who we had a lot of difficulty with after the wedding (and potentially before if our wedding planner hadn’t taken over communication on our behalf).

Our wedding was held on October 13 with less than 100 guests. We signed the contract before the wedding and put down the full amount, as well as credit card information for the damage deposit (this was all in the contract which we received from Jill, signed and then sent back to her). There were some extra rental items which we knew we would use but we would decide the exact number on the day of based on the weather and our needs.

The day after our wedding, Jill sent my MIL (who had offered to cover the cost of extra rentals) an invoice for $3,166. In her email, she told my MIL that it was very generous of her to cover “the outstanding invoice and last-minute rentals”. Just to clarify, there was no outstanding amount left for the venue rental fee (we paid it in full BEFORE the wedding) and the “last minute rentals” were all items we’d discussed 2 weeks before the event.

I reviewed the invoice, got some clarification from our wedding planner and emailed Jill with some questions. Just to be clear, I never said to Jill that we didn’t want to pay (on the contrary, she’d already charged my MIL’s card without giving us a chance to review the invoice so not paying was out of the question). We simply wanted clarification on the items listed in the invoice. I won’t go through the whole thing but there a few items I’d like people to be aware of.

- Heaters– our contract clearly stated that heaters were $110 each but the invoice didn’t even say how many we used – there was simply a lumpsum amount charged for the heaters. According to our planner, we used 7 so I asked Jill why we were being charged for 8 and never got an answer.
- Tent set up and take down for our caterer – Jill’s husband, John, offered to set up a tent for the caterer. The caterer didn’t know there was a charge for it and it wasn’t approved by me, my husband or our wedding planner. In fact, our caterer had brought his own tent and would’ve put it up if he (or we!) had been told we would be charged for using theirs.
- Firewood – this wasn’t in the contract, nor was it ever verbally expressed to us but we were still charged for it.
- Labor per hour for her husband and his assistant – our contract stated that their assistance would be $50/hour as an extra item and nowhere was it stated that it was required. We NEVER put in an official request. John was there at the wedding and offered to help without making it clear that we would be charged. We ended up paying $300 (for 6 hours of labor) for help that we never requested and that was after she reduced it from 9 hours (so basically she billed us for the whole event). If onsite assistance is mandatory for the whole event, that should be clearly stated in the contract.

I was expecting a reply from Jill with an explanation for the charges but unfortunately, all we got was a long emotional diatribe about how happy everyone was, how many last minute requests they accommodated and how we left decisions until the day of which caused unnecessary panic (still don’t know who was panicking and why since we’d discussed everything ahead of time). None of the above items were addressed in her email except for the first one.

Not only that, there were accusations in the email against us which were blatant lies (we have documentation to prove everything).
- Apparently, once our wedding planner made initial contact, Jill only heard from her once until the day of the wedding. This is false and we have the emails to prove it. Our planner was in constant communication with them, both via email and over the phone.
- Jill claimed not to know that our caterer would arrive the evening before to set up but our planner discussed this at length on the phone with John. Maybe there was some miscommunication between them (?) but that wasn’t our fault.
- Jill was unable to take a damage deposit as she apparently didn’t have a credit card on file. That’s not true since the contract had a specific section that clearly stated the credit card information being provided was for a damage deposit (which we completed and sent back to her). If she didn’t this information, why didn’t she simply tell us instead of bringing it up on the day of the wedding?
- We were accused of not sending her a list of rentals 7 days before the wedding. However, our wedding planner sent us a copy of the email she sent Jill 14 days before the wedding which clearly stated which rentals we required.
- Jill expressed unhappiness that I didn’t communicate with her after holding my makeup trial at the venue (which Jill was kind enough to let us do) but that’s the purpose of a wedding planner; once she took over, she handled communication with ALL the vendors. I wasn’t purposely ignoring Jill and if she expects the bride to be in touch with her, that should be stated in the contract.
- Jill stated that a bear broke into the food truck left on site by the caterer. When I asked our caterer, he said that didn’t happen. A bear DIDN’T break into the truck; he did drag some empty containers away from the truck down near the river but at no point was the food truck broken into!

I found Jill’s communication to be extremely unprofessional and condescending at times. When we did the initial site visit, we weren’t informed that are no guest bathrooms on site. When I expressed my unhappiness at not being told this important piece of information, her husband kindly offered to pay $300 towards the cost of a rental unit but in Jill’s email, she said “I felt bad I had not specified that necessity, and as a gesture of goodwill and help you with your limited resources, offered 50% credit toward the $300 quote for Carney's economical rental units. I guess your budget must have increased as you ordered a $1500 Sunshine unit. We still applied $300 toward this high end rental and did not apply like other venues, any charges for early drop off and late pick up.” WE DIDN’T ASK FOR CHARITY! Whether our resources were limited or unlimited was none of her business. What we eventually decided to rent and pay for was none of her business. Her comment about our budget/resources was completely unprofessional and unnecessary.

Also, part of the labor charges were for wiping down the tables and chairs that were to be provided as part of our contract. What kind of venue charges for cleaning their own tables and chairs?! It’s a very reasonable expectation that they would be set up for us without us incurring any extra charges.

After several emails back and forth where we were reminded that the only reason the wedding was a success is because of the extras Jill provided and all the running around she did, the final straw was when she called my MIL and told her she no longer wanted to communicate with me and my husband. We, the clients, who signed the contract and paid $6,000 to use the venue are no longer welcome to contact her and try to get clarification on the items my MIL paid for.

In addition to all of this, please be aware that we often felt like Jill’s main objective was to promote her business.

- She asked my MIL if we would put HER business’s logo on OUR wedding favors – what kind of vendor asks a couple to put their logo on wedding favors?! We’re not there to provide free advertising!
- Jill also pushed us to write a review before the wedding. Again, who expects a review before goods/services are actually provided?!
- After all this mess, she still had the audacity to tell us she would be majorly disappointed if we’re not willing to share our pictures with her. She even asked our videographer for pictures! Just because we used her venue for our wedding, doesn’t mean she owns the wedding now…we’re not obliged to provide her with any pictures or videos nor was it stated in the contract. She shouldn’t be reaching out to our other vendors to acquire goods that she has no right to.

In a nutshell, the venue is gorgeous. There are tons of great spots for pictures and you’ll get a great rustic farm atmosphere with a lot of natural beauty. John is very easy-going, helpful and a pleasure to work with.

However, beware before signing a contract that communication with Jill will tough. It will be difficult to get a straight answer if you question anything and you’ll feel as if your wedding is owned by the venue.

We had to deal with false accusations and blatant lies. All our other vendors were amazing and a pleasure to work with. However, we spent our honeymoon dealing with Jill and the invoice she sent my MIL all because we asked a few questions (which remain unanswered) so we ended up paying for stuff without either knowing we would be charged for it or without clarification on why we were paying the amount that we did.

If you decide to have your wedding here, please make sure you write every single thing down (although that didn’t help either since we were wrongly accused even when things were documented). Don’t let Jill push you into writing a review BEFORE your wedding and don’t feel obliged to let her take pictures. It’s YOUR wedding. YOU decide who takes pictures and YOU decide what you want to share.