Working with the venue at first was easy, of course they are extremely nice to you when they are…read moretrying to get the wedding deposit. Once this happened it was like night and day. We were no longer the priority and it seemed like trying to get a hold of our wedding coordinator to was a mission, and every time we would get a hold of her to ask her questions she was only ever interested in nickle and diming us. I understand that the wedding industry is just unregulated price gouging, but you would have like to feel more like someone of value instead of just a money bag. Multiple unpleasant interactions lead us to try and contact the owner, John Svadbik. After multiple emails and phone calls, I still have never heard from him. This message is directly to John; your venue and your (good) staff - Jose and Alex, are amazing. You are what is holding back your venue. Stop being a cheap owner and staff yourself adequately, stop nickle and diming your guests, and take some accountability for your bad decisions. It was so bad that my wife and I were contemplating walking away from the Villa Toscana and losing the $10,000 we had already given to them for the wedding.
A month or two before my wedding, we were informed that our coordinator was no longer with the venue and we were introduced to our new coordinator. She was very nice and we were just relieved to get rid of our previous coordinator.
Things started well with her too, but she also became robotic and inflexible. Every time we asked questions regarding the music or the venue she would respond with a cut and paste from our contract stating these were the rules we signed and agreed to.
4 days before my wedding we are no longer receiving responses from our wedding coordinator... FOUR DAYS BEFORE OUR WEDDING. So i reach out to the venue, and they explain to us that she is no longer working with Villa Toscana. Would have been nice to know this instead of stressing for a week about our coordinator not responding.
Thankfully we were in regular contact with Jose Barboza. The only consistent employee at Villa Toscana that actually tried to make us feel valued and cared for. He did his best to try and make our wedding feel special, and the best thing he did at this point was introduce us to our third and final coordinator Alex. And thank god for her she is an absolute angel. JOHN PAY HER MORE MY GUY. I promise more staff like Alex and Jose will make your guests feel special instead of like just another check in the bank.
Alex took charge of our wedding with one day notice and absolutely rocked it. Did everything she can with a complete lack of resources and support.
The wedding itself was beautiful. Again that venue is absolutely stunning and we loved and will always be in love with that venue, but they need to figure out their sound system. The band had trouble connecting to the equipment at Villa Toscana. They were not allowed to bring their own systems, and they had to connect to the venue, but they could not connect to the venues audio systems for 20 minutes. The venue also set up the band stage a good distance from the dance floor which was awful planning. Once they connected, the volume was extremely low. Like dinner at a restaurant low. It was so bad we asked the bad to stop playing.
LUCKILY, even though the venue forbid us to bring our own sound system, our DJ brought his backup subwoofer and connected it and finally brought some life to the party. He was not supposed to bring that equipment, but no one was there to stop him because there was no Villa Toscana staff to be seen.
Finally, after coordinating the Hora Loca and giving the venue all of our glow sticks and glasses and balloons to be given out at the time that the music starts and the lights are turned off. They were not ready for this moment. Alex was the ONLY PERSON on staff walking around handing out the glow sticks. She finished right in time for the last songs to come on.
Again she was incredible. But she's only one person.
The venue also owes me a deposit that was to be paid after 30 days if there was no damage to the property. Once I posted the reviews I was informed that I would not be receiving the deposit back if I did not take down the reviews. This is money that was contractually owed to me and I have the right to it without having to jump through anymore hoops. Still, I removed my post in good faith so they would return the money, and they only offered to return half of it. So be aware, it's not just a security deposit, it's a silence deposit. This is the kind of business you will be dealing with.
