My sister got married at Brookside 6 years ago, and it was so beautiful I knew I wanted to get married there too. My wedding was beautiful too, however my experience was MUCH different than hers.
Keep in mind this is the SECOND wedding my fam...ily has held here. Things started out great. Our first letdown was that the guys weren't allowed to play golf on Friday because we are not members, unless we found a sponsor. Weddings are very expensive, the guys could have even paid a discounted rate? Not allowed at all -- seems pretty strict.
I had debated getting ready at Brookside vs the house I grew up in, and was considering using the Bridal Suite so the guys and girls could get ready on the same site making it easier for the videographer and photographers. The Bridal suite is beautiful, but will cost you an additional fee ~$300 to use. Also, since we are not members, I was finally told the guys would be getting ready in the board room and have to use the BATHROOM, instead of the locker room. No thanks.
We did use day of wedding coordinators and had done a mock set up. Callan was available for all of this, which was super helpful. I was a little disappointed when my wedding coordinator mentioned to me that they wanted to get to Brookside a little early to help set up, because they were told "if there are wedding planners, I usually don't do .....(x,y,z)." My wedding coordinators had to help with set up, which is advertised as "included." "Clean up" is also included. more on that later.
When we showed up for our reception, there were 2 golf carts waiting for us outside. That was convenient, however we were given zero direction or recommendations for where to go for pics. Sure, the photographers can come see the grounds beforehand, but not even a quick hello, congrats, and make sure to check out a,b,c on the course for a great pic! Our pics ARE great, because we had amazing photographers!
We were finally able to join out guests for cocktail hour -- come to find out that my MOM was given a cocktail napkin for A DIFFERENT WEDDING! How embarrassing. You host your dream wedding at your dream venue and they hand out napkins from a different wedding?
Dinner took a while to be served once salads were dropped. The wait staff and bar tenders were nice. The night seemed to be going well, until it was time to go.. Our parents and close family were still at the venue after we had left and were told the entire place needed cleaned up because they had a wedding the next day. (which no one had mentioned beforehand -- I would have kept the wedding coordinators there til the end of the night) So the parents, sister and family of the bride and groom spent their night CLEANING up the venue/decor with the staff.
Obviously a conversation was had after all of this, in which my mom was told she "should have left" the decor for them to clean up -- which was clearly never an option the night of. They instead wanted to know the name of the staff who told them, as if my family maybe had misunderstood. If there was a misunderstanding and the staff noticed family helping -- they should have quickly stopped them and assured it was taken care of/included in the wedding. They barely apologized for the napkins and were arrogant and had really no suggestions on how they would make it right.
I would NEVER recommend Brookside again to family and friends for a wedding, which is so unfortunate because the grounds are beautiful.