We found the owner to be unprofessional, disorganized, and uncooperative. As a frame of reference, we contracted with ten other vendors for our wedding, and this one is the ONLY one with which we were dissatisfied. We would NOT recommend this venue.
She did NOT "make planning your event simple." I only initiated 3 emails with her. Each time, she seemed inconvenienced, repeatedly stating that she usually books then doesn't have any further contact until 1 week before. In fact, she was irritated that 2 of our vendors needed to visit her hall to do their job stating, "that's not part of my package." She does not keep set hours at the venue but also does not make herself readily available by appointment (only giving us a 3-hour window on Sunday mornings), an unfeasible business plan. She did not appear to want to provide any service for our contract. She charges a package price but still wants to charge an hourly fee for her time. As with appointments, she wants to have it both ways. This makes planning anything but simple.
She did NOT have a "dedicated and professional staff (who) will assist you in providing sincere hospitality to ensure your stay is exceptional." The staff actually is largely just her. Besides her making disparaging remarks about us to our vendors, she made derogatory comments to us about other family members. She was rude to our guests. Her staff included a clumsy bus boy and a bartender who did not know how to pour a beer. She was not at all hospitable, taking her glassware from our sober, adult guests, because they "might throw them into the fireplace." A full 1 1/2 hours before our event was scheduled to end, she had picked up all glassware (including those full of drink).
She will NOT "work diligently to earn your trust." In fact, when a vendor would not work with us because of her, she said we should have thought of that before we booked her, which showed a complete lack of professionalism, lack of interest in earning our trust, and lack of understanding about how an event is planned. The owner asked us the same basic questions, such as, start time for our reception, setup time, over and over including just 5 days before our event. We began to have no confidence that she would make the venue available when needed. Her lack of organization left us so distrustful that we created and provided a detailed outline for our event. At no time did the owner ever thank us for our business or ask for any feedback, something one might expect if someone was working diligently to earn our trust.
Her hall is a dressed-up Morton-style building more fitting for a rustic or country theme. She advertises that it will accommodate 250, 275 or 300 guests, which would be impossible for a sit down dinner with space for a buffet line, cake table and dance floor. Her space includes a main room, a smaller adjoining "rustic" room and a very small loft. Setting up for over 120 requires that some guests be seated in a separate "rustic" room or in a loft, which is not optimal because three stone pillars block the view from the "rustic" room and a half-wall or balusters block the view in the loft. Also, in an email, she stated that any more than 182-190, she "would need to set up banquet style," which isn't optimal. We were set up for 178, and she complained that the tables were too close for her staff. Also note that although her packages are based on 150 guests, she has only 120 nice chairs and only 9 or 10 round tables. She has an unorthodox way of setting up by placing two 6-foot tables together lengthwise, creating a 6 x 6 square table to seat 10 guests, not the most efficient use of the space and clearly not traditional. She typically uses a hodgepodge of banquet and round tables, wooden and metal chairs, white square tablecloths (on both round or square tables), one and only one glass plate (no salad plates or cake plates), one glass and one knife, one fork and one spoon. If you want other than white tablecloths, that comes at an upcharge, which for us meant we were expected to rent our own with no discount for not using hers. We did not find this venue to be a good value.
Her website states, "Mellon's is based on the belief that our customers; [sic] needs are of the utmost importance." In our experience, nothing seems further from the truth. read more
