I got married here in August 2017. The outdoor part venue itself is beautiful. There are lots of plants and trees that make it great for a garden-themed outdoor wedding. The owner, Shera, has some major changes to make before I would ever consider giving this place 5 stars.
For future brides thinking about this venue, here was my wedding experience:
+LACK OF PRIVACY. On multiple occasions during my wedding event, I noticed 3 of her friends just standing around gawking at everything and everyone. Part of the reason I picked her venue was for privacy and intimacy. I could have saved a lot of money and had my wedding at the beach if I didn't mind gawkers. She claimed they were there to help, and maybe they were...but I never once witnessed them doing so. I never saw any of the other people hired to help out just standing around staring. Her gawking friends not only made my guests uncomfortable (I received several questions and comments about them), but they appear in the background of lots of my wedding photos. My photographers clearly thought they were guests, because there is even a photo of the three of them just standing around talking! And one of them was supposed to be babysitting at that time!
+DIRTY FACILITIES. I asked Shera the day of the wedding if the groom's quarters had a shower and she assured me it did. It absolutely did not have a working shower, and my groom had to use a shower in the bridal cottage. He also said the groom's cottage wasn't clean and smelled of cat urine. The bridal cottage was slightly better but was musty and dusty with spider webs in every corner. Seems like it hasn't had a deep clean in quite some time.
+ATTEMPTED THEFT. Shera's intrusive friends tried to steal a necklace that my groom had purchased for his mother. He forgot to give it to her before the wedding, so the day after the wedding we went back to the venue to get our things. Cindy, "the babysitter", walked up to my groom before he went into the groom's quarters and said that she saw "some shady people hanging around the groom's quarters". Really? Hmmm, who were the shady people? My invited guests? I highly doubt it. That comment only made her look more guilty. It was right then that my groom noticed his Mom's necklace was missing. Seems pretty suspicious to cast blame on someone else right before you know they are going to notice something is missing. Even more suspicious that it magically reappeared once it was brought to Shera's attention. Her friend said that it had simply "fallen out of the bag". Why were other people in the groom's quarters in the first place?
+OVER-PRICED FLOWERS. She charged me $500 for 8 flower arrangements, table greenery, and swing decoration. Yet when I arrived at the venue, only 7 of the 8 centerpieces were ready. The centerpieces were of very low quality as well. There were ants and spiders crawling all in them, and they were made with greenery that had clearly been eaten on by insects. The leaves were visibly covered in dirt and had holes and bites taken out of them. My sister, mom and I pulled out the worst parts, but didn't have time to do a great job fixing them. I would have thought that her "friend who was a florist for years" would have had the professional sense to use greenery that wasn't covered in dirt or half eaten by bugs. And finally, the swing was clearly forgotten about and I had to tell her to do that less than an hour before the wedding.
+FAKE BABYSITTERS. I told her there would be 4 children in need of care and she quoted me $15/kid/hour. So I paid her for 4 kids x 5 hours. One of the kids couldn't make it, so I asked for my money back for that portion of the babysitting fees. She eventually refunded that but it was only after we exchanged some heated emails. My family that left their children with the "babysitter" didn't leave them for long because the babysitter was caught on several occasions completely ignoring the kids on the floor while playing with her cell phone and talking about how good all the dessert was (why was she eating the dessert I paid for?). Lastly, I failed to tell my sister that I had pre-paid for babysitting, so she gave the awful babysitter $60. I didn't find this out until a week after the wedding and when confronted about it, Shera defended her friend saying her friend thought it was "just a tip". HAH. She eventually refunded this as well.
The price of $8,500 was not worth it. read more