New England Aquarium

Everything was very well organized. Our guests were especially complimentary about the food. The cocktail reception amongst the exhibits was a favorite and the tent on the harbor was beyond expectations! It was beautiful from start to finish. The venue was a fun and different wedding experience for everyone. Our guests raved about how much fun they had. Our coordinator Amanda was incredibly accommodating and made the whole experience stress free. The on site staff were extremely attentive as well.

We got married on 12/15/2023 and although the venue itself was wonderful and we enjoyed celebrating with the penguins, if we could go back in time, we would not have chosen this venue. Let’s start with communication. From the beginning, communication was lacking on their end. After submitting our deposit, we were told by the event manager that catering would reach out to us in January, but that did not happen. Finally, at the end of February we had to reach out to initiate a conversation. After meeting with the catering manager, we were told we could hear from her in July to set up a date for our tasting. That did not happen. In August we tried reaching out to schedule our tasting, but we never received a response. So, I made a phone call to the catering manager and was told she would contact me later that day, that did not happen. We did not hear from her for a week! At this point, I was stressed because we were four months away from our wedding and our invitations had to be sent out, but we could not do that until we knew what food options we were offering. At the tasting, everything went perfectly. The food was incredible, and I felt confident that the wedding would go off without a hitch, but boy was I wrong. At the rehearsal, we were told the ceremony would not take place at the coral reef because of a lighting issue. Fine. No big deal. On the day of the wedding, we were lining up to get ready to walk down the aisle when they informed us we would not be standing where we practiced the night before, but we would standing where we were supposed to originally, by the coral reef. Everyone was stressed because this was not what we practiced the night before. As a bride, my stomach was already in knots and the last thing I needed was more stress, but I let it go. The show must go on. The ceremony was lovely and when my groom and I walked out we were greeted by our attendant with champagne. At that moment, I was able to relax, and I thought the rest of the evening would go smoothly, but I was wrong again. During dinner service, my husband and I were served the wrong meal, our steak was cold, and close to being raw. The sauce and sides were disgusting. I was shocked. This was not what we tasted and chose during our tasting. While walking around to our guest tables, we noticed nobody was touching their food and we heard whispers of people complaining about their meal. This is not something we wanted to hear. We were embarrassed and this caused so much stress, but we tried our best to stay calm. For the remainder of the evening, my blood sugar kept dropping due to the lack of carbs and protein from not eating our meal, as a type 1 diabetic, this was concerning. We have reached out to the catering manager to address our concerns and while she did seem genuinely apologetic and she refunded us our money for the meals, we still don’t have an answer about what went wrong. We are go with the flow kind of people, and it would be ridiculous to assume everything would go perfectly at our wedding, but this mistake was one that shouldn’t’ve happened. People pay a lot of money for weddings, and the bride, groom, and guests not having an edible meal to eat was unacceptable. We were told by the catering manager she went home after salads were served, but we’re having a difficult time understanding how she was not aware that the chef was not serving the food we chose. Let’s assume they accidentally ordered the wrong food for our wedding. Fine. At least say something to use. At least acknowledge that you made a mistake. We’re very understanding people and the fact that nobody besides the catering manager has reached out to apologize is absurd. I strongly advise any couple considering this venue to consider it carefully.

My wedding at the New England Aquarium was a dream!!! The team there worked so hard to make my vision become a reality. Amanda and Krystal are miracle workers. By the last few weeks, they were able to finish my sentences, they knew my event inside and out! I felt so prioritized and taken care of. The ceremony space is stunning and who can beat a cocktail hour inside the aquarium around all of the penguins!! We had a blast, and now I am trying to figure out how I can have another event there. I wish I could give them 100 stars!!!

The aquarium itself is great— a unique and beautiful venue— and the staff are super responsive, organized, and efficient. If I were basing this review just on the aquarium staff then it would be five stars, hands down. Unfortunately, though, they work exclusively with the Patina Group for catering, and this company is a disaster. I’ll spare the internet the full details, but the short of it is this: They deferred our requests to schedule our tasting dinner until four weeks before the wedding (which was in mid October). The day after we finally had it and firmed up our menu, they emailed to let us know us know that they were increasing our contract cost by $10,000, or a full 33% of the original cost. Again, they did this four weeks before our wedding, with no forewarning, in a breezy 3 line email that referred vaguely to “unexpected price increases.” Notably, the increases were mostly associated with labor costs and managerial fee mark-ups, not food costs based in our selections at the dinner. We were blindsided. When we protested, they told us they would “work with us.” This largely consisted of leveraging the fact that we had fewer guests attending than originally estimated and also revising the number of hors d’oeuvres served down to 2/3rds of our guest count— because why should we want there to be enough for everyone? They also told us that we were the only couple to complain about a last-minute price hike in our contract, as if we were in the wrong. (Mind you, when I told people about the increase, the most common response was an astonished, “Is that legal?” ) To make matters worse, the night of our wedding, the service was a mess. They carved the wrong name for me into a decorative watermelon accompanying a flavored water station set out for guests before the ceremony; they repeatedly ignored our requests to open the sides of the reception tent (we wanted to minimize chances of COVID transmission and had discussed this explicitly days before the wedding, and then repeated it day of); they forgot to set aside wedding cake slices for me and my husband, so that we didn’t get any; they neglected to set out our wedding favors until all but the final guests remained, so lots of guests didn’t get them after we spent hours curating and copying a customized playlist onto 130 thumbs drives. The whole thing was disorganized, impersonal, and seemed sort of thrown together. We felt disappointed and taken advantage of, which was a real bummer because we love the aquarium and their staff members were great. If anything, I would just strongly urge the aquarium to consider dropping their exclusive contract with Patina and allow couples to explore other vendors. I’m sure there are lots of great local groups to work with. As it stands, with Patina as the only caterer/ event mgmt group to contract with, I sadly can’t recommend having a wedding at the aquarium.