As both a bride that 3 years ago almost signed a contract and delivered our deposit to this place for our own wedding, and as a wedding planner who is currently planning a wedding of another bride who saw this place and fell in love with it for her wedding as well, I am supremely disappointed and unimpressed with the service offered to potential customers.
Back 3 years ago, I had similar issues as my current bride does. The events co-ordinator, Darlene I believe, was very bad at returning calls and messages, often waiting more than a week before returning a message of any kind. Also, when I asked if we were permitted to cater the event ourselves instead of being forced to use their list of caterers, I was told I could, only to arrange a deposit and be about to sign the contract when low and behold in their contract it states that we are required to use one of their approved caterers only. When I called Darlene back to ask why we were not told about this, she simply stated that's the way it had always been and that's the way it was going to stay. When I addressed the fact that she had specifically told me otherwise, she accused me of remembering our conversation wrong, and refused to take any responsibility for any part that she played in the major miscommunication. Subsequently, I was so distressed by this that my husband and I decided to completely revamp our wedding plans and stayed away from this venue for fear or further on-the-day miscommunications that would most likely occur.
Fast forward 3 years later and the bride that hired me as a wedding planner for her wanted to look at venues that would be cost effective and would give the country/vintage feel to the wedding vision she and her fiance had. They came across this venue and asked me about it, which I agreed to set up a showing for them to see. I had hoped that in 3 years a lot had changed and I didn't tell my bride of my own personal experience with them so as to hopefully avoid her having a bad impression of the place in case things had changed for the better. Turns out it hasn't. While we were lucky enough to catch Darlene on the phone and go out and view the barn once, it was on a day that my bride's fiance was unable to join us and so we made a follow up appointment to come the next Sunday with Darlene in person to see it once more and get all of the needed information packages at that time.
When we showed up, after battling toronto traffic to get out there, there was no one to be seen. After calling several times the office number and trying multiple extensions, no one answered. The barn was locked and we had just driven for an hour to get out there for nothing. I left a voice mail for Darlene asking that she call me back and reschedule our viewing. But even an entire week later, and another voice mail, I still have not heard back from her.
My bride is crushed and angry that we got stood up and treated this way, and while I wish I could say that this is surprising to me, sadly it is not.
BRIDES BEWARE. IF YOU PLAN ON BOOKING THIS PLACE, DON'T EXPECT THAT YOUR BUSINESS IS IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO THEM THAT THEY WILL BE ALWAYS STRIVING TO TREAT THEIR POTENTIAL CLIENTS PROPERLY. You might get lucky and catch them on good days, but then again your risk of being shoved to the side or treated as unimportant is very real. And since two separate experiences have shown me this, I will now be actively steering all future clients of mine and anyone else that I hear of who is considering this place, absolutely clear of it. read more