READ IF CONSIDERING GETTING MARRIED AT VUE ON HALCYON!!!…read more
First let me start with the positives - we were enamoured with Vue and its staff from the first moment we walked in. Rennae was the ultimate professional and very thorough and considerate. The venue is absolutely immaculate, the wait staff are lovely and the wines are beyond delicious.
The booking process was easy, Rennae even applied to VCAT to get us a one hour package extension, and we honestly couldn't believe how lucky we were to have found our perfect wedding setting at the first venue that we visited.
However as we got towards the pointy end of the wedding, things became a little more frustrating. I found that Vue was quite inflexible with scheduling times for rehearsals (we weren't allowed on the premises any earlier than thirty minutes prior to our rehearsal despite my celebrant requesting this extra time); they don't allow food tasting from the wedding menus (they recommend coming for brunch and trying that menu, however it is essentially completely different from the wedding menu); they don't provide a sound system but neither did they inform me that I needed to source my own, so there was a last minute scramble to find this.
All of the above, I can put down to minor shortcomings, however the part that I am still angered by is what happened on the actual night of the wedding. Dean is the owner and was in charge of running the whole night. His first words to the room of guests were 'please don't tap the glasses with forks as they are expensive crystal' and this was a prelude to his behaviour for the rest of the evening. Being a wedding, everyone was there to celebrate. Nobody was rowdy or badly behaved, however I have heard from many key people that Dean was constantly in their ear making them feel guilty and/or responsible for the few more inebriated guests. He was constantly updating my husband on these few people (who it should be said were not behaving aggressively or poorly, but had admittedly vomited by the end of the night). He also tried to talk my husband in to shutting the wedding down an hour earlier, despite our pre-arranged agreement, however my husband said no - after all, everyone was having a great time and behaving in a totally acceptable manner for a wedding. The only physical damage from the night occurred when a guest fell in to a hedge, causing some damage. Not only did Dean constantly raise these issues with my husband, he also repeatedly raised them with my mother, my father, two of my bridesmaids, my MC and who knows who else. Everyone has said they felt embarrassed and guilty, including my pregnant bridesmaid of a sister who hadn't even had a sip all night. On such an important night for us, the last thing we wanted was to feel reprimanded.
I understand that Dean was worried that VCAT might come and police the wedding party due to the hour long extension, and I completely understand that he wouldn't want his licence revoked for irresponsible service of alcohol. However this is not consistent with his behaviour at the end of the night, when my friends wanted to purchase a bottle of champagne to take on to their hotel to continue the party with and he upsold them in to buying a six pack. Interestingly enough, my guests tell me that the champagne ran out well before the night was over, so I'm not sure where this six pack was procured from.
At the end of the day, we were docked $350 from our deposit to cover the additional cleaning costs. It is disappointing that after spending $28,000 on one night, we have been made to pay this last little bit, and I wrote an email to Rennae stating as much when she emailed me on our honeymoon to say they were keeping the $350. I never heard anything from Rennae or Vue again, which is disappointing to say the least. Having said that, it is not about the money at the end of the day - I would have been completely ok about the withholding of our deposit had we not been made to feel so judged the night before.
Postscript to the above review: I decided to do the decent thing and email this review on to Vue rather than posting it online, to give them a chance to remedy the situation. Bad idea, Rennae wrote back with her opening line "obviously not a great start to our week" (how about not a great start to our wedded life?!) before then going on to further cement the idea that we were being judged with pearlers such as this: "quite clearly your expectations for your evening and what you deem 'an acceptable level of intoxication' is certainly not in line with what the majority of our couples wish to experience on their wedding evening and what we wish to provide for our couples." If you want to have a fun wedding where you can let your hair down and not feel like you will get in trouble for this, then I strongly suggest that you avoid Vue on Halcyon.
