Citadel and your owners - you are a horrible, deceitful, empty place - void of any sense of humanity or respect for people. This PLACE and its OWNERS DISGUST me. The number one complaint that my husband and I have is that the owner, Sarah, and her husband are dishonest and manipulative people to the core. They made our entire experience so painful and traumatic that it took me this long to write the review. I could not express enough how much stress they put on us during the process and even on the day of our wedding. They did not let up their abuse and attacks - not even in the final hour (read on). Booking the Citadel was the absolute WORST decision we made for our wedding. I'll make this a list, as the issues are numerous and the emotional baggage is heavy:
1) Firstly, it looks like a fake castle from a Super Mario Bros. video game. The exterior is as fake and cheap as its owners. I hated it the first time I saw it, and I hate it more today.
2) The owner, Sarah, changed the price of the venue rental fee MULTIPLE times. Even up until 6 days before the wedding, she was still adding fees to the venue cost (despite the fact that we paid for a full venue rental ALL day)! The price quoted initially doesn't actually allow you use of the venue all day. They will add fees - but they will wait til your invites are sent and your hands are tied to tell you so. Sarah threatened to CANCEL the wedding more times than I can count. She made promises of champagne toasts, free linens, and discounted prices on décor - all of which she denied after the contract was signed.
3) We wanted to do a food tasting at Citadel before deciding if we wanted them do our food service. Sarah said food tastings were only for people who already paid for food service. Now, all logic cannot reason with this concept. How can you expect that we book food for 400 guests without trying it first (btw, we were the first big wedding that would be using their chef and we had zero references we could ask)? She was pissy about it, but eventually let us do a tasting - at which the food came out cold, had been defrosted, and gave us diarrhea. Needless to say, we did not book food with them and paid the buyout fee. We decided from that point on we would not book any more services with Citadel or its affiliates.
4) We met with Sarah and her coordinator, Jenna (who quit the DAY after our WD), to finalize costs, since we felt we were getting extorted and just wanted to know the bottom line price (this is about two months before the wedding, invites were already sent). The disrespect she showed my father and mother during this meeting made me feel my pulse in my mouth. Sarah was nothing short of a nasty, lying, emotional wreck that day. I told her that I could not accept the disrespect that she was showing us and that I didn't even care if we canceled the wedding because this was not what a wedding is about. We came close to walking out and cancelling the wedding - the only thing that saved Sarah was her coordinator Jenna, who pulled Sarah out of the room and came back in to get our temperatures under control.
5) 6 days before the wedding, we were told we would have to pay an additional ~$2500 to use the rig points on the ceiling to hang the flowers that had been a part of our design plan all along. I told them NO.
(6) The day of the wedding, the decorator was not allowed to bring anything into the venue on carts. Citadel said they would only allow items that could be carried in by hand (just a ridiculous attempt to make it harder for us).
(7) At the end of the night, as friends and family were helping to remove the remaining decorative items, food, and personal belongings BY HAND, the owner's husband was shouting at my parents to GET OUT of the venue, my mother reminded him that we had paid EXTRA to stay in the venue to break down for one more hour. He said he didn't care. He began verbally abusing my mother, father, and extended family members. The husband of the owner kept turning the lights off at the end of the night, so much of the breakdown was done in the dark.
8) They LOCKED MY MOTHER INSIDE THE VENUE! They shut the door and locked it! My father was just outside the door while my mom was taking one more look around to ensure we had taken everything we brought (she knew we would never see any personal items again if we left them there); when my father saw this, he began banging on the door. Finally, a worker emerged and guided my mother through a back way to get out of the building. ABSOLUTELY UNBELIEVABLE! I cannot believe people and businesses like this exist. Don't give Citadel the chance to interfere with your wedding or the most special moments of your life. There are many other places to have an event that will make you feel welcome and happy as the days approach. Citadel is a concrete box owned by people with concrete hearts; nothing and no one can change that. You can only choose to avoid them and their childish, demoralizing antics. read more