First time giving a negative review on Yelp, but I feel obligated to be transparent about our experience.
I am leaving a 2-star review only because the food was good. That said, there was a complete breakdown of service on our wedding day. The event was significantly understaffed, causing a snowball effect of other mistakes, oversights and delays. After the wedding, Dawn White, the co-owner and business manager, showed little to no empathy or remorse for the many issues that significantly impacted our reception. Instead, she either downplayed the impact or blamed her staff - never once taking ownership of the mess. During our tasting, Dawn told us that she would be at our wedding reception. She did not attend, yet dismissed our comments and criticized our wedding coordinator's decisions despite not seeing anything firsthand.
As we shared with Dawn since our wedding, we hope our poor experience provided an opportunity for PHC to learn and avoid future mistakes. Ultimately, we hope future couples that do elect to use PHC are the beneficiaries of our poor experience.
However, to be clear, we cannot recommend anyone use PHC for their wedding. When you imagine your wedding day, you don't imagine watching family and friends wait in long lines all evening for drinks, seeing guests with empty wine glasses at their tables and missing out on an hour of time with the live band due to significant catering delays.
Below is a summary of our experience:
* Only one bartender showed up when our contract called for two bartenders and a barback. This caused long lines all night.
* Because of the lengthy line at the bar, our grand entrance was delayed over 30 minutes.
* Once seated for dinner, there were long lulls between dishes. (i.e. It took about 15-20 minutes from our plated salads being served until any other food came out.) Dawn told us that with family style dinners, it's standard to "let a few minutes go between dishes to allow guests to pass around what's been served," but these lulls were excessive.
* Our coordinator and her assistants counted just four servers at our reception. Our contract called for nine servers. Dawn, who was not there, claimed there were six servers there (plus a trainee). Regardless, it was insufficient, especially considering that we had family-style dinner and tableside wine service.
* We paid for tableside wine service and there were not enough servers to provide this. The owners of the venue and one of our coordinator's assistants actually had to serve tableside wine because of the lack of servers. Eventually, we had to ask them to simply leave bottles of wine at each table for guests to serve themselves in an attempt to make up for any lost time.
* At one point, a server told guests that he could not serve white wine because it had not been chilled.
* These snafus delayed everything even more. We saved 15 minutes by forgoing sunset photos, but then lost 30-40 minutes back from dinner service taking far longer than scheduled. In total, we were over an hour late starting our first dance.
* We paid to rent Moscow Mule mugs, but PHC misplaced them, so they were only used for the final 30-45 minute of our reception - after I specifically asked the bartender about them.
In closing, as you can imagine, we were extremely upset and disappointed with the level of service provided at our reception. We were extremely communicative throughout the year-plus prior to our wedding and didn't have any changes to our menu. (FYI, Dawn was always slow to respond or needed "reminders" to respond throughout the yearlong planning process.)
At the end of the day, Dawn refunded us for the bartending, the copper mugs and the tax/service charge (20%) stemming from those charges. She had previously agreed to refund the tableside wine service because of a separate issue. She did not refund us any money for the breach in contract for number of servers or for any of the emotional distress caused. She never sincerely apologized or showed personal remorse.
With that said, the food was terrific and the one bartender we did have made great drinks. read more