I loved how my wedding turned out here. There's no question that this venue is stunning. My photographer gave a sneak peak of the pictures, and the photos, especially from the garden, are spectacular. The wait and bar staff were fabulous and s...o was the food. If you have your wedding here, you'll likely be very happy. However, working with the management of the Abbey during the planning of the wedding wasn't easy. We booked it a year and a half out, and there were several things promised at the time of the booking that didn't happen or we had to pay extra for, so make sure you get EVERYTHING in writing.
For example, when we booked, we were told we could exchange Jim Beam whiskey for Jack Daniels no problem. Then it was an extra dollar per person per hour, so it was almost an extra $1000 dollars because we didn't get it written into the contract. They also had a baby grand piano at the time we booked. They no longer had it by the time of the wedding, so we had to provide one for our ceremony musician. They didn't even tell us they didn't have it anymore. I found out because I just asked to see if I needed to get it tuned. The other frustrating thing was the lighting - they tell you they have included gobo (design) lighting, but don't make it clear what it included and what is extra.
We got married on a Saturday and they wanted us to rehearse on a Thursday. Originally we looked into having our dinner catered at the Abbey as well, and the Thursday rehearsal was not mentioned until we chose another venue for the dinner. Our minister and several members of our party are from out of town, and we were told "we're sorry it might not be everything you envisioned" if we had to rehearse on Thursday and everyone couldn't make the rehearsal. My dad was able to get them to add a 2pm Friday practice to the contract, but our day of coordinator spent half of it with another bride who got married that day, and it was a little chaotic.
We weren't allowed to have our tasting until after we sent our invitations, and we ended up changing our menu. They also only do tastings between 11am and 1pm Tuesday through Thursday, so neither my husband nor I were able to go. The food ended up being delicious, though. However, they only served our kitchen cakes and just chopped up our tiered cake to send home with us, and a lot of our guests complained that they didn't get cake.
The wait staff and bartenders were fantastic. One other cool thing the Abbey did was take my family's "secret" whiskey slush recipe and serve it for our cocktail hour, and it was a big hit. One of the waitresses that worked the head table noticed I wasn't feeling well (it was 100 degrees) so she brought me a cold towel for my neck.
The sales rep we signed the contract with would usually take a week or more to respond if I had a question from the florist or another vendor; she made a point to make me feel like I wasn't the only wedding happening there. After my day of coordinator was assigned to me 3 months out, and we were able to ask her questions instead, it was much better. She was very responsive, much easier to work with, and much nicer. Our day of coordinator made us feel special.
Bottom line, I loved how my wedding turned out at the Abbey, but there were some planning irritations that occurred while working with the management, which is to be expected. If you have a planner, that won't even be your problem.