We were so picky about the location for our wedding, and were so excited to find somewhere as beautiful as Overhills. We had several meetings with Lynda who is quite good at getting all the details together. She qwelled my concerns as well as my finance's and parents concerns about making sure we had an event planner (as promised) who knew all the details of our special day there. We were having a Jewish ceremony and the mansion was supposed to have their pergola moved so that our florist could set up a Chuppah, I got a call at 1:30 from my florist (who was amazing) when I was getting DRESSED in my WEDDING DRESS that it hadn't been moved, not ok. We also decided to serve ribeye and were told that of course everyones steak would come out warm. I have to say that there were more things that didn't go well on our wedding day that had to do with the venue than I imagained. First...the co-ordinator that we'd been told would be there, Julia, was there when we arrived for pictures, but evidently went home sick, without even saying a word to me, the bride. She left in charge a very nice but inexperienced and uninformed young man, Derrick (I say this because honestly I don't think this is completely his fault). The "event co-ordinator" is supposed to be there to manage the day, to line people up for the ceremony, to line people up for the introductions, to make sure your timeline is follow and that all the details that we spent MONTHS talking to Lynda about were carried out. First, no one but my PARENTS lined us up for the ceremony or even came to checkin with us except to introduce himself as the banquet manager, and I assumed that meant just for the food. After we waited for our string quartet to arrive, Derrick NEVER came back to talk with us, our DJ did, our officiant did, our photographer did but Derrick never came in. He didn't ask what we wanted to do regarding the ceremony, nothing, that was all taken care of by people who shouldn't have had to deal with it. Unacceptable. After the ceremony and before pictures I pulled Derrick aside and very sternly told him that I know this wasn't the plan to have him here but he needed to get on the ball and familiarize himself with our timeline and things that had been discussed. There also wasn't an easel to hold our marriage contract as there was supposed to be, our Cantor had to go find it, Unacceptable.
At dinner, over half the steaks were cold including mine and pretty tastless, (actually they sent me the wrong meal first) we NEVER got any appetizers that were supposed to be put in the bridal suite, and it took me asking 3 times for them to bring us some at the sweetheart table and they were incredibly cold. My mother in law, who is a super picky eater and sister in law were supposed to get "adult kids meals" which on our contract were listed as "Chicken tenders, pasta with butter and applesauce" they were served 1 burnt chicken tender, brussel sprouts and butternut squash puree.
We paid for extra bar tenders to serve wine at dinner and my dad told them at the beginning that one type of white wine is the one they'd like passed and the other was to stay at the bar, he had to tell them that several times before they actually listened! We went to great lengths to pair the wine with the food and it was pointless. There was also an expensive bottle of Scotch that was only supposed to stay behind the bar and the bar tenders didn't listen, they served it to whoever asked, so when my now husband and father went up there, there was hardly any left.
There were other things that went wrong but these were the highlights.
Overall I'm pretty disappointed in Overhills, luckily we had some amazing vendors who made it a great night, but Overhills really didn't play a big part in pulling that together. For the amount of money we paid I'd expect a lot more. read more