Beautiful Venue Space but Organization & Services were Disappointing
I honestly wasn’t going to write a review because even just thinking about our experience there just drains my energy, but it’s been really bothering us how things were handled and I just want our voice to be heard and for prospective clients to be prepared if they do decide to book with this venue. Sorry, this is a long one.
Very gorgeous venue, but there were more than a handful of events that happened that were very disappointing and could have easily been prevented or fixed. I’m not going to list every single thing, but these were the significant events that transpired.
When we originally booked with them, they took our deposit and gave us confirmation on a specific date only to be informed the next day that someone had already booked that day and that we would need to find a different date. We were in communication with them for about a month before they accepted our deposit and not once was it mentioned that another couple had booked our preferred date. We told them that they should have informed us before accepting our deposit because we would have kept looking at other venues. They did not apologize and told me it was first-come-first serve which of course we understood, but they should have never given us confirmation and taken our deposit in the first place. We ended up settling on a different day, but this was pretty much our first impression of their communication & organization.
From this initial experience, we actually decided to hire a day-of-coordinator because we didn’t have confidence with the venue’s operation; their email responses were quite slow and we usually wouldn’t know who we were speaking to because they often wouldn't include their name at the end of the emails. We emailed them quite often only because there were many information discrepancies between their online planning sheet, contract, and online private website for clients that we needed to confirm. Information like the bridal suite hours, number of guests per table, mics available with their PA system, etc. Little details that make a big difference when planning a wedding and should be very clear on their online platforms.
During our decor consultation about 3 months before our wedding, we asked the lady who was helping us what the responsibilities of the event coordinator were that was included with the venue as it wasn’t clear on their website. She said they were responsible for things such as being the main point of contact with the vendors, making sure late guests enter the ceremony smoothly, making sure bride & groom are fed, schedule is on time, etc. etc. She listed responsibilities that were almost identical to the responsibilities of the day-of-coordinator that we hired, so we decided to cancel that service as we felt it would have been more complicated if two people were responsible for doing the same things.
Fast forward to the wedding day. We had children invited to our reception and on the online planning sheet (which was to be finalized the Wednesday prior to the wedding date), it said that they had 4 high chairs available. We needed 5, but we wrote on there that we would get one family member to bring their own. When we dropped off our decorations in the morning, the coordinator said that they only had 1 high chair available. She said something along the lines of “It’s not a big deal, we had the same situation last week and the couple just got their guests to bring their own high chairs.” We were given a very detailed online planning sheet to fill out with a deadline a couple days before the wedding day… I’m not even sure if they looked at that sheet, because I would assume that they would have otherwise informed us ahead of time so that we could get guests prepared. Also, if this exact scenario happened a week ago, they should have updated the information on the planning sheet right away? We had guests coming from different countries and it is not that easy to bring a high chair to the venue. We ended up making it work, but I felt embarrassed asking our guests at the last minute to bring their own high chairs when they were told that they would be provided.
The most significant situation that happened was just before the ceremony. My bridesmaids and I were in the bridal suite waiting for all the guests to arrive. We needed a bit of help with getting the guests to take their seats and guiding them to the ceremony space. My MOH went to the front counter to ask for the event coordinator’s help, who was Caroline that day. Caroline told her that she was only responsible for managing the vendors and that she was just a “liaison” for our own day-of-coordinator. We were all shocked and started to panic. We were given different information from the person who did our first decor consultation and we ended up not having a DOC that day. Luckily, my bridesmaids stepped up and adapted quickly and divided their responsibilities for the rest of the day. The misinformation we received had such a huge impact on our day. I would have been more than happy to have kept the DOC we originally hired and for our wedding party to just enjoy the day without worrying about responsibilities.
Something small that bothered my husband and I during our reception was while we were eating. Caroline came up to us to water our glasses and asked how we were doing. She didn’t introduce herself, but I asked if she was Caroline. She said yes and then told us that the music was too loud. I told her that she can talk to the DJ and ask him to turn it down… We were both confused why she would tell us directly and not the vendor or the person who we assigned on the planning sheet as the main point of contact. We are the bride and groom eating dinner at our reception during a very overwhelming day. Did she want us to go up to the DJ ourselves and ask them to turn it down? What was the point of filling out the online planning sheet when it seemed like nothing was read by the coordinators.
The last frustrating event that happened was trying to get all of our decoration items back. We opted-in for the clean-up service which allowed us to leave all of our decorations as well as any leftover cake overnight to be picked up the next day. For our table decorations, we decided to do a mixture between venue and client provided items. We were told on our second decor consultation that they don’t usually do mixed decorations but it would not be a problem as long as we added the clean-up service and provided them with a list of items that we’ve brought in which we did. We emailed them to get confirmation how the clean-up service worked and we were told to just show up back at the reception space the next day between certain hours and everything would be packed up and ready for pick up. Great. We relayed the information to my family members as my husband and I took the next day to relax. My MOH went to the venue the next day and took a photo of everything that was presented to her. She took home what she could and other family members showed up after to pick up any leftover items. After reviewing our items back home, we noticed that our ceremony arch floral, cake stand, topper and cake were missing, so we emailed the venue right away. This whole process was so messy and we were communicating with both Caroline and Megan at the time. At first, they were confused and did not recognize the items so we sent them pictures. Megan said they should have been with the rest of our decorations but they weren’t. Caroline said she might have seen the arch floral at another area of the venue but would not be able to check for another few days as she was away. She said that we were welcome to go back to the venue to check for ourselves. Abbotsford is not close to us and we were not going to go all the way back to the winery without knowing if our items were actually there. We told them that we needed the decorations back by the end of the week as we needed them for our second reception. Megan was apologetic and said she was going to keep looking. We waited a couple days to email them back to get an update. Finally, they sent us a photo of the ceremony arch floral. As for the cake, Caroline said that their freezer broke while she was away and that everything inside, including our cake & accessories were thrown to the dump. She then added that leftover cake is not usually put in the freezer unless it's not picked up the next day, implying that it was our fault for not doing so. We went back to the winery to pick up the arch floral and found the cake topper underneath the floral. We asked the lady who was helping us (not sure her name) if she knew anything about the cake stand (it was a DIY wood stand that my mom had made herself that we’ve had for years and really valued - if it was just another cake stand from wherever, I honestly would not have cared). She said that she suspected that it might have stayed at the venue since it looked like one of their decorations, used and taken by another wedding. She said she was in the process of trying to contact the other clients to get it back and that she would update us. Caroline said it was thrown away. So again, more information discrepancies between each coordinator that we talked to, but at least the lady that was there when we picked up the arch floral was actually friendly and seemed to want to help us.
We emailed the venue again about a week later for an update on our cake stand. We also expressed our disappointment with the pick-up service and inquired if we would be getting any compensation for our lost items which included our cake that was quite costly for us. Caroline was never apologetic throughout our communication with her and seemed to always put the blame on us for any of our concerns. She blamed us for not double-checking ourselves which items should have been there for pick up and a list of items should have been given to our family members. We literally gave the event coordinator the list of all of our items and were told to just show up at the reception space. We truly were not looking for monetary compensation but at least just an apology or someone to take accountability. The last thing Caroline told us was “This unfortunately will not get resolved but hopefully you can look back on your happy day, rather than on this one small issue.”
So with all of the above that had transpired, it was definitely not “one small issue” that we experienced as a whole with this venue. I'm sorry to say that the event coordinator was the only vendor we did not tip. We had envelopes prepared for all of our vendors including the Secret Garden, but unfortunately we decided not to give it to them as they gave us more stress during our planning, on and even after our wedding day when they should have been doing the exact opposite.
We honestly had an amazing wedding thanks to our incredible wedding party, family and rest of vendors. Writing this review is us letting go of the bad energy that we've been feeling towards this venue and everything that has happened because we really did have an incredible day otherwise.