This was the first venue that my husband and I visited and we quickly fell in love with The Chapel in the Pines. We were given a tour and a bunch of brochures by the helpful, lovely owners. After speaking with Dave and his wife, we were told th...at they would hold our date for 7 days while we decided which we thought was very nice of them. That night we went home and crunched some numbers and called to make a deposit over the phone. We actually both agreed that we wished we explored other venues before jumping in.
The craziness started happening about 2 months before the wedding. I could not tell you how many emails I got from Dave about the catering requirements. I worked with our caterer to fill our specific paperwork, some of which had to be sent to the Uxbridge Board of Health and others which were sent to the Venue. Dave told me he had to have specific paperwork, which I gave him and then he turned around saying I did not give him the right stuff. After numerous emails, he said we were all set. 10 days before the wedding, while I'm away from home for military training, he emails me around 10pm and asks for the paperwork since we're past our deadline. Being away from home with limited access to the internet, I had to dig through old emails to forward him the original email from weeks ago. "Sorry I must have misplaced it" he says. Talk about giving the bride a heart attack!
We all arrived for the rehearsal before the owners. Dave took over, we had to make a few decisions for details before we even started the rehearsal. I sensed attitude from him as soon as we all got there. Before we left, he told us to pass the word along that any outside alcohol will be cause to cancel the wedding and kick us out. This was the first time I heard this. This meant that since the girls were getting ready in the TINY room they call the "bridal suite", that my bridesmaids and I could not have mimosas while getting ready. We were assured the girls and I would be let in at 9am to set up the next day and we were on our way.
9am rolled around, the girls and I couldn't get in. Finally got in and their staff was cleaning while we were trying to set up. I am a vaper and one of the guys saw me with it and very rudely told me to get outside with it. The bridal suite was in fact way too small to get ready so makeup had to be done in the hallway. Guests started to arrive and numerous people were saying the parking attendants were very rude. We also had an issue because the parking attendants were not letting ANYONE in the building before the ceremony. This was not something we decided on! They tried to keep out our families who were in the wedding party! Guests started to arrive about an hour before the ceremony and dispite being set up, the bar would not serve drinks until after the ceremony. Again, noy something we knew about or decided on. Dave was very huffy and full of attitude for the short time I saw him. After the ceremony all the staff disappeared with the exception of 1 female worker.
We had one of our handicapped guests use the railing in the restroom only to FALL because the rail ripped off the wall because the wall was rotted out!! The female worker was so rude and fought the groom about it.
The ceremony and reception was beautiful and we received many compliments on how we spruced the place up. People just didn't see all the headache that came with it. If I had a do-over, I would absolutely have my wedding somewhere else!