Harvey B.Gantt Center

You will not be disappointed!! These other reviews were before Chanel was there. She has this COVERED! My planner was a waste of space, and if it wasn't for Chanel, I don't know how my wedding would've worked!! I constantly saw her checking to see if everything looked perfect. She is the best! The space is amazing!! We got married on the ROOF, nothing short of magical. The rain day plan was probably the main reason I chose this venue, by far the most beautiful plan b I've ever seen. 'The flip' as they call it offers 3 levels for the ceremony, cocktail hour and dinner, then you head back to the roof (and/or indoor space on top floor) for dancing. I would highly recommend this place! So many guests said they were so impressed with the space. Plus Chanel makes you feel like family and tries to help your vision in any way!! 10/10!!

I had such high hopes for the Gantt. I literally spent weeks visiting just about every event space uptown before deciding to host both my ceremony and reception at the Gantt - afterall the space is beautiful and it was a much better value than other uptown spaces. Well six months after I signed the contract to host my wedding at the Gantt, I was told of an exhibit that would interfere with my use of the space. Needless to say, I was not happy - but I was ensured that I would still be able to have my wedding at the Gantt staying true to my initial vision. Although I wasn't happy about this decision, the Gantt and I came to an agreeement about how things would look and relying upon these assurances, I kept my wedding at the venue. I should have known something was going wrong when it became increasingly difficult to reach the staff over there to answer my questions and to get the architectual drawings of the exhibit (not that they were all that responsive from the beginning). Well fast forward to 3 WEEKS before my wedding!!! The exhibit looked NOTHING like it was represented and in fact covered every single window, from top to bottom, in the grand lobby where the reception was going to be held. I felt duped, misled, lied to and decieved. The space I contracted to use and the was totally different than the space with the exhibit and totally different than what the Gantt represented it would be after I learned of the exhibit. It was a complete and utter disaster and the biggest upset any bride could experience merely weeks away from her wedding. And to make matters worse, the Gantt didn't care they were potentionally ruining my wedding and basically said - take it or leave it - 3 weeks before my wedding!! After getting lawyers involved - yes LAWYERS, I was able to recoup some of my money and move my wedding across the street to the Mint Museum Uptown. Thankfully the Mint was available at such short notice and so accommodating. I would run - not walk - in the opposite direction of the Gantt. It was by far the worst wedding related experience that I had and I would not wish that type of stress and frustration on bride. They know nothing about customer service, care little about the importance of a bride's wedding day and are the most unprofessional group of people I've ever had to work with. Luckily, my wedding day turned out beautiful with no major hiccups. Due to time constraints and lack of other options, we were forced to keep the ceremony at the Gantt on the 4th floor - which actually was quite beautiful. But I am thankful every day that I was able to move the reception away from the Gantt and have the wedding I truly dreamed about and spent a year planning.

I chose the Harvey Gantt Center because my husband and I wanted an uptown wedding with an outdoor option and the Mint Museum was out of our budget (and we didn't want to do a hotel option like the Holiday Inn). We LOVED the setting of the Gantt Center- the museum was modern, clean lines, NO ugly carpet!! the view was great-espeically at night with the Duke Energy building lights on...However, the 'event coordinator' left something to be desired. We booked our event not to long after the center opened, and we did NOT have a wedding planner...the event coordinator was less then helpful when it came to working with us. She was late to numerous meetings, extremely delayed in returning emails and always gave off the feeling that she had some place better to be. If you are going to have your wedding here I highly suggest you hire a full scale wedding planner, who is VERY upfront and not afraid to be pushy- otherwise you are not going to have a very pleasant planning process with the Gantt Center....I could do her job better!