DISCLAIMER: This review reflects Saint John's Resort as a wedding venue. My husband and I feel it's important to share this information to save any future brides/grooms the stress we had to endure. We had a beautiful wedding in the Mosaic Ballroom on August 1st, 2025 and we are so grateful for the day-of staff, as they pulled everything together to fix the many mistakes of the coordinators.
When we first came to Saint John's, prior to any payments being made, Saint John's staff was kind, communicative, and helpful. It felt as soon as we paid they stopped responding with efficiency and stopped caring. We had to contact our wedding coordinator, Sarah Jones, superior, CeCe Smith, to handle things 3 weeks before the wedding. Sarah and I had a "miscommunication" about how much time we had to set up the ceremony. I was told it was hours, when in reality another wedding ceremony was ending only an hour before mine. This was not mentioned by Sarah, I discovered this while talking to a ceremony assistant on the phone the week before the wedding. CeCe said during the phone call we had that she would let the wedding ceremony assistants know that they need to set up some aisle chair decorations, chair reserved signs, and some programs. On the night of the ceremony practice, I had to unfortunately surprise the ceremony coordinators with this information because they only knew about the programs. I thought the call with CeCe was productive and she was very nice, but apparently there was a lack of follow-through. The ceremony coordinators were lovely, their names were Judy and Emily and luckily, they were willing to do these things for me. I highly recommend asking for them, they made me feel like a bride! Something that had been lacking from the staff I dealt with prior to the wedding day.
The night before the wedding when we were setting up the reception, the mosaic ballroom smelt musty, and I had to ask them to spray something. It was better the next morning. They also had hundreds of chairs behind a curtain blocking a beautiful mural that we wanted showing, as that was how they showed it to us during the booking. I had to send an email the night before my wedding to have this fixed. In the morning it was fixed. The venue is good at responding to problems, but these problems shouldn't exist, and that's the core issue at Saint John's.
On the day of the wedding there were a few things that caused stress for us.I was in the ballroom checking everything around 10:00 AM on the morning of the wedding and two employees came in and told me that the 36 tapered candle holders I had purchased would not be able to be used. This was upsetting as we set out everything the night before. I had to call my florist and luckily she had enough hurricane vases, which apparently have to be used at the venue. The wedding coordinator Sarah Jones told me that as long as the candle was in a glass holder and it wouldn't drip on the table, it was fine. Now I am told that this is a fire hazard, something not communicated prior. I wish I had known this before as I would have purchased the correct candles.This was so much unnecessary anxiety and tears I did not need the morning of my wedding. Second, they make the vendors travel through underground tunnels with all the set-up items, instead of just letting them park by the door and carry it in. While I understand that it's not ideal to have vans pulled up to the hotel constantly, it makes vendors' lives very difficult, and it's confusing. My flower vendor, Andrea Millar, got lost on the day of the wedding and my bridesmaids had to go find her as they wouldn't let her park by the ballroom. The reason everything worked out was because my flower vendor was amazing and she went above and beyond to figure things out.Third, during the dinner portion, I noticed a server was going to people asking them what they had ordered so I asked her what was happening and she said she never received the photocopies of the menu indicator key I created and emailed to Sarah. Again, I don't know if this was an error that happened with the wedding coordinators or the kitchen, but either way it's ridiculous. I had to tell her what the stickers meant, during my wedding dinner, because Saint John's was so unorganized. Lastly on a positive note, Nicole, one of the head servers, was incredibly kind and helpful. Without her quick thinking, the night would not have gone as smoothly as it did. She is an asset to Saint John's and they are lucky to have her. Her dad Charles, the bartender, is pretty awesome too!
The amount of miscommunication, mistakes, and lack of compassion and follow-through was incredibly disappointing throughout almost the entire year of planning and of course, day-of. Saint John's is not a cheap venue and it has the reputation of being a beautiful wedding resort. FIND REST OF REVIEW AT GOOGLE DOC LINK: https://docs.google.com/document/d/16fbuyTeZbqn5wjevv005bBjEswva0dPqwSw410Lh_Bc/edit?tab=t.0 read more