I attended a wedding there recently. Absolutely stunning location - truly gorgeous -- BUT the woman…read morewho runs it is just the worst. If she was trying to make us all uncomfortable, she couldn't have done a better job. Everyone I talked to who encountered Renee had a weird story to share. She told people that she's a Minister of The Lord. She told people that this place is an "angel portal". She walked around with a mug that said "Trump save us" and the barn where the bridal party were put before the ceremony had a big flag with "We the people" on it. You're fully entitled to have your flag and write whatever you want on it, (actually, writing on the flag is illegal...) but it is just not the vibe for a wedding venue IMO.
A few of us requested songs at the dance - no can do. The songs had to be approved of beforehand. No swears or vulgarities allowed! The bathroom walls and every stall had posters about their off-season business: The Nation's Glory Barn. Which probably explains a lot. LOL. And to be clear, the majority of us there are Christians. It was just a lot. Like, more religion than you'd see in an actual church.
She came up to one of the parents toward the end of the night and mentioned that she expected a tip - something like $600??? Maybe $400? I don't remember, but it was a lot! Who does that?! "Hope you enjoyed your stay at the Glory Barn! I know you just dropped thousands of dollars here, and I spent the evening making everyone super uncomfortable, but don't forget my giant tax-free tip!"
While we were standing in line for food, she kept pointing at the menu and telling us to make sure we knew what we wanted beforehand, like we were children. There were supposed to be trays of lots of different kinds of cookies and treats to choose from, which all the family members supplied. Instead, they put out like 50 dessert plates, each with a brownie and a bar on it; covering the whole serving area. So the cake ended up being just squished in among all the brownies. The cake never was cut and served, even though it was supposed to be (but there truly would not have been room), and the cookies were on 3-tiered platforms kind of in the back, so you had to awkwardly crawl around for them. Also, many of them weren't even opened / served.
She complained to several people that the women needed to clear out the bride's room immediately - yes, it's posted that the room needs to be cleared by 5 (Although she told one bridesmaid that she needed to get her stuff out before the ceremony.) But since there were pictures and stuff after the 4 pm wedding, it wasn't cleared out right on time. We remedied that as quickly as we could though - yikes!!
The officiant was told to make the service as short as possible because of the heat and the biting bugs, so he cut out his sermon entirely. Maybe if you have an outdoor wedding venue, you'd know there's a bug issue and offer bug spray instead of a huge fan to unsuccessfully blow the bugs away. Oh, we were given tepid water for the heat, so thanks for that. No big thing of ice water so we could refill water bottles though. Just a billion plastic water bottles.
There was a ceremony rehearsal, but then for the real ceremony, she made the people walk in way more slowly. Person B couldn't start until Person A was all the way up and in their place - and the only people who were in pairs were the parents & grandparents who were accompanied by groomsmen. Oh, and she yelled at a grandma for walking back there because she'd been sitting with the guests until the ceremony was about to start, so she assumed the grandma was just some rando. Anyway, the musician, who has played at many weddings, said that the whole aisle part usually takes about 40 seconds - 1 minute. This took over 3 and she ran out of music! She was also not notified when they got in place, which the owner promised she would do. And someone had to drive 40 miles to get music stands because they didn't have any. Wouldn't they be used to having live music? Why no music stands? So confusing!
The food was late, but she insisted that people get seated (and go to the bathroom first! Like we're preschoolers) at the time listed on the schedule. She was literally walking around telling us to go to the bathroom, then find seats. So we were sitting in the upstairs of a hot stuffy barn for 90 minutes. Why not have the speeches start early? I was told that the wedding party even asked for that, but she wouldn't let them because because they were supposed to be after dinner. You'd think someone who runs a business like this would be well versed in moving things around as needed. Speaking of the schedule, I noticed that the dance was "scheduled" until 11, but he stopped playing music at 10:30.
Don't get me wrong, the wedding and reception were amazing, but that was in spite of her, not because of her. I do appreciate having a new "crazy wedding" story to tell though!
