Boy oh boy. Where do I start?
First of all, the grounds of the Willow Tree are beautiful. The house is well cared for, the barn is one of the better rustic wedding venues my wife and I looked at pre-wedding, and we fell in love with it immediately. Unfortunately, we fell in love with the venue before meeting the owner.
Someone needs to give Ben lessons in manners, customer service, and human decency. Of course, I doubt he cares about this considering the amount of money he brings in (which, of course, rose by over $1000 between booking the date and signing the contract...). My wife and I are pretty resilient people. We get over being disrespected pretty easily. The early signs of disrespect on Ben's end were easy to look past, especially because we wouldn't need to deal with him for another year until the actual date of the wedding.
Well, that year passed quickly. The week before the wedding, the wedding forecast called for rain, and lots of it. As the Willow Tree is mostly an outdoor venue, my wife was justifiably a bit nervous. Luckily, a phone call from Ben came late Wednesday night, the night before the rehearsal. Great! He was going to be able to relieve some of our fears!
Nope! It was a perfect opportunity for him to upsell a panicking bride, and boy did he take it. He started off the conversation by telling a frantic bride that it was going to rain on her wedding day. What little hope she had been holding out for a sunny day had been completely smashed. And, look at that! The temperatures have dipped. Looks like you'll need some heaters! Ben immediately tried to sell us four heaters (listed at around $80 a pop), which he let us know might not even work. Sounds good Ben! Sign us up!
Luckily we weren't that naive. Vandalia Rentals, about an exit away, was able to give us a space heater that did a much better job of heating up the barn than the two measly heaters Ben ended up talking us into buying. Definitely go that route if you're planning on getting married at the Willow Tree.
Since the rain was 'imminent' as Ben put it, we decided to move the ceremony in doors. Obviously this meant we would need to move the rehearsal inside as well. But wait! Ben had double booked the barn on the night of our rehearsal, which meant we would need to tip toe around a bride setting up early for her wedding during a time we had already booked the venue for our rehearsal. This was a huge disappointment for us, but luckily the other bride was super cool, and we were able to get in and hurry up our rehearsal to get it overwith. During this time Ben reminded us we needed to pay him a deposit on Saturday. WE KNOW BEN.
After our confusing, hurried rehearsal, we were finally able to relax a bit before the wedding on Saturday. When our big day finally came, Ben greeted us in the driveway, holding out his hand, demanding the deposit check. Is this guy for real? He's like a movie villain. He literally cares for no one but himself. Of course we paid him right away, and after that he seemed a bit happier.
Throughout the set up and the wedding, multiple guests came up to us wondering what was up with the crotchety dude standing in the corner looking like he's having the worst time of his life. That's Ben. He's a constant rain cloud reminding you that you owe him way too much money on what is otherwise the happiest day of your life. We had a young wedding, and provided all of our own alchohol, so we bought plenty. Even though we agreed we would be out of the venue by midnight, Ben ordered the bar tender to shut down at 10:30, and the DJ to shut down earlier than we had anticipated as well. When I asked him why we were shutting down early, he stated "It's always been this way". Good trick, Ben. I hope that extra half hour of no dancing really made you a lot of money.
To top it all off, Ben didn't post pictures of our wedding to facebook. This sounds insanely petty, but we had honestly been looking forward to these pictures for a long time. If you look on his page, he posts pictures of literally every wedding to go through his venue. Not ours. Just goes to show that if you even hint at being unhappy with his service, he'll take it out on you in the most pitiful of ways.
I EXTREMELY urge anyone falling in love with the grounds of the Willow Tree, as my wife and I absolutely did, to look elsewhere. There are plenty of beautiful wedding venues in this area with actual people with an actual soul running them. I feel extremely sorry for the weddings he's already booked. You're getting a great-looking venue, and if you can look past the money hungry owner, you'll have an amazing day. read more