When my husband and I first drove up to The Winfield Inn, we immediately fell in love with the…read morecharm and uniqueness that the property offers. After touring the property with the owner, we decided this was the special place we wanted to tie the knot, so we quickly signed the paperwork and sent our deposit to secure our Friday wedding date. Initially, I felt very confident in the owner, Leslie, and was extremely excited to be working with him. That all changed in the few months leading up to our wedding date.
My husband and I discussed with Leslie in person, on two separate occasions and once via email, about us staying the Thursday night before our wedding and having our bridal party stay in the various beds/bedrooms on the property. When Leslie called us the week before our wedding to finalize everything, he claimed that he had no idea we were having other people come and stay and proceeded to tell me it was "a misunderstanding on your part" and that he would require not only an extra one thousand dollars, but that the cottage, that was set to house half of our party, did not have running hot water. We were left to scramble at the last minute to find a new place for our family.
Fast forward to the Thursday before our wedding: we get there after the 3pm check in time to start setting up and decorating, and the pavilion is a wreck. The ceiling and walls were caked in dirt, there were leaves and dirt all over the floor and the tables were not set up, as per our contract. We did not complain, just grabbed the broom and swept and set the tables up ourselves. The next day, we were left scrambling for trash bags (per our contract, the venue supplied trash bags), there were strings of lights that were out, and there was a dead bird in the pavilion. As the evening went on, the owner Leslie, showed up towards the last few hours of our reception and proceeded to bombard our day of coordinator with questions about trash clean up and haul off, after we had already informed him that we hired people to take care of everything. We did not notice until a few days later, that Leslie had sent my husband an email on the night of our wedding stating that we should "go ahead and send him $250 for clean up."
It did not end there. A week later, my husband reached out to Jack, the property manager, to ask about a few missing items we thought might have been left on the property. Jack then informed us that one of our guests had popped a balloon with confetti in it, in the grass, in which he stated we should "bring a vacuum" to clean it up. Once my husband confronted him with the various issues we had that previous week at our wedding, Jack quickly turned the blame to the owner saying that "Leslie is in over his head at times."
The amount of unprofessionalism shown by these two men was, and still is, extremely disappointing. The owner was clearly unorganized and would frequently confuse me with the Saturday bride. My husband and I were questioned on whether we made our deposit and final payment the week before our wedding and requested receipts. I found out a few weeks after my wedding, that the owner was trying to blame me, as the bride, for the lack of basic housekeeping for his business (bedsheets changed, beds made, toilets scrubbed, floors swept and mopped).
It has taken me a few months to write this review because every time I thought about my wedding, it would bring negative reminders of the unnecessary stress and issues that were added by the venue. I am now able to focus on the only positive, which is marrying my husband.
The Winfield Inn is an extremely unique and gorgeous property, but the owner and property manager, in my opinion, are not worth the money, or stress. Until the owner hires someone to take over management, I will not be recommending this venue to anyone in the near future.
