1 /5 Carissa Stockstill: I’d like to begin this review by highlighting the positive experience I had with the two lovely ladies in the office. I visited their office several times leading up to my daughter’s bridal shower, and each time they were incredibly friendly, welcoming, and supportive of all the ideas I had for the event. We decided to host the bridal shower in the outdoor pavilion, and they were enthusiastic about our plans.
Unfortunately, the day of the event, my experience took a turn when I encountered the property caretaker. Upon arrival, we found that everything had been set up indoors, though we had clearly communicated our plan to use the outdoor pavilion. The pavilion still had about 70 chairs stacked up from the previous wedding the night before, and the caretaker asked my three male family members (who were there to assist with OUR setup) to help remove around 50 chairs. After directing them to where the chairs should go, she disappeared and left them to do the work by themselves. This was frustrating, as it was not our responsibility to remove chairs from the prior event, and we had only one hour to set up before guests arrived.
As a result, my family spent 40 minutes just moving chairs, leaving us little time to set up the decorations I had spent the past month preparing. By noon, when guests started arriving, we were still scrambling to finish setting up due to a lack of communication between the office and the groundskeeper.
At the end of the event, we followed the cleanup instructions in our contract, but we were never told where the tables should be returned. I knocked on the caretaker’s door, as she had instructed us to do if we needed assistance, but received no answer. After loading our vehicles, she finally opened the door and, without any discussion, loudly yelled at us, saying, “No, you’re not leaving the tables there!” When I asked where they should go, she seemed visibly agitated and stomped over to the pavilion, telling us to leave multiple times and that she would handle it. I was very uncomfortable with this interaction, especially since I was still hoping to receive my $200 deposit back.
My family then took it upon themselves to break down the tables while the caretaker went inside the general store. She later told my sister that she had overslept from a nap and was simply “cranky.” While I understand that everyone has off days, this does not justify treating paying customers so poorly, especially when the experience leading up to the event had been so positive.
While this is a beautiful venue, my experience on the day of the event was far from what I had expected or hoped for. Unfortunately, because of the way we were treated by the property caretaker, I will not be returning to this venue in the future.
