For 18 months I planned, prepared, created and crafted in anticipation for the most important day of my life, and in one short morning West Park Winery unraveled all the work I had done and all the love that I had given my wedding day. I knew two things for sure from the reviews that I had read (yes, I had done my homework). First, was that there was an extremely high turnover in management and staff and second, they do not get involved in the planning and preparing so I would be left to my own devices when it came to set up and layout of the day. I didn't think either one would be an issue for me.
But I was so wrong and had no idea how bad it would actually be. We worked with 5 different maitre d's throughout our planning. Each one quit before we could even get a second meeting in. The last one was assigned to us one week prior to the wedding. The entire team had quit, and much of the staff because the owner is unbearable, inappropriate and aggressive with the staff. So we were left with inexperienced kids, who did work incredibly hard, to run the ceremony, cocktail hour and reception.
I will just list a few of the problems we encountered throughout the day. Our maitre d' was supposed to arrive at the winery at 8:00am to start the set up. She did not arrive until 4:00 and she was dressed like a slob wearing capri leggings with dirty sneakers. There were no parking attendants as promised, so the guests parked in the lower reception lot instead of the upper ceremony lot. This guided them directly into our pre-ceremony photo session. We had to keep stopping to tell people to go back to their cars and keep driving up the road. And again, due to no parking attendants, the cars pulled too close to the ceremony site, so the pictures of me walking down the aisle look like I'm in a Wal-Mart parking lot. We were promised a crudités table which was to be filled with salads, soups, veggies, fruits, breads, cheeses, dips and crackers. It would be refilled throughout the reception. We were shown photographs of what it would look like and it was spectacular. Ours was a folding table with some grapes, cheese and crackers and was never filled. The favors were not put out for the guests until I told them they were missing. It was a warm day, and I was told that the air conditioning would be put on ahead of time. Surprise, it wasn't and my wedding party and I were stuck dressing in a room that was over 80 degrees. The bar ran out of juice during the cocktail hour. And lastly, our 15 year old niece was given a vodka and cranberry, because the underage bartender did not know what a Shirley Temple was.
I could go on but I won't. Just suffice it to say that I would never recommend West Park Winery to anyone. We even had a staff member contact us after the wedding, letting us know she would be willing to sign an affidavit if we decided to take legal action. The setting was beautiful, the guests had a wonderful time, and I was married to the love of my life, but the stress of the day just wasn't worth it. Please, if you're reading this, take this review of my experience seriously. There are many equally beautiful venues in the Hudson Valley and you will be doing yourself a huge favor by passing West Park Winery by. read more
