10:22 PM
Tim
Tim Boje
Beautiful venue and thoughtful touches, however, unprofessional staff, poor management, and mediocre food. We were frustrated by a lot of what happened in the... planning process, but loved the venue itself on the wedding day.
Our experience at Cascata Springs was a mixed bag, which ended in very poor customer service. Our initial tour, the owner Sarah had a family crisis and she had another employee, Alli give us a tour. We had already communicated that if we booked, we would like do a Sunday wedding. During the tour, Alli showed us the gorgeous bridal suite and said that the bride gets ready in the morning (there are even 3 hair/makeup stations) and as part of the package the couple gets to stay the night (which we were so pleasantly surprised). We decided to book the venue and were so excited.
Throughout the wedding planning process, we attended three meetings at the venue. The first meeting we had with Alli she had her laptop out and asked us specific questions, making notes, including if we were planning to stay the night there, which we said of course (I remember being shocked that anyone wouldn’t want to!) The following meetings, she did not reference her notes, would often confuse details, and we also received multiple incorrect invoices. During our second meeting we were told we could only come to the venue at 12pm on the wedding day (for a 3:30 wedding), because it was a Sunday and that we would need to get ready at a salon or hotel nearby. We made it clear that was not correct and they allowed us to get ready at the venue as promised.
As the wedding planning proceeded the responsibilities shifted towards the owner, who was also inconsistent with communication. She forgot to send a final invoice before final payment was due and I had to ask for it multiple times. None of the above were deal breakers, but pointed towards what happened the night of the wedding, when we were refused to stay the night as promised. At the end of the night, we asked about plans for the morning and the owner denied that was an option, and Alli denied ever telling us that we could and denied even giving us a tour. They continued to blame shift, and claimed that we fabricated a story that we could stay the night. There was no apology by the owner, but an offer was made by an older gentleman who did not introduce himself that we could stay if we left at 7am, because they had a tour. So rather than reschedule the tour or limit access to the bridal suite (which is clearly a big selling point), they continued to inconvenience their current customer.
We opted to leave with a family member who had already come to get us (it was now around 11pm).
The wedding itself was very beautiful. Sarah has a clear creative talent for making beautiful spaces and events. She is detail-oriented when is comes to the aesthetics and goes above and beyond in that department. The communication and professionalism from her and others was lackluster at best and created a lot of stress throughout the process. We sincerely wish her success in the future and hope this can be a learning experience going forward.