Ravina...on the Lakes

**LONG read, but worth it. I'm not one to write reviews, but I hope I can prevent someone else from making a terrible mistake. Don't be fooled like we were. When we arrived at Ravina on Friday to decorate for our wedding, we were taken by surprise to see that the pond was completely scummed over and actually looked more like a swamp. When approaching Melissa ("the coordinator") about it, she informed us that the fountain was struck by lightning several weeks ago. My first question was “why are we just now hearing of this?” The least she could have done was communicate with us prior to the day before our wedding. I find it very unprofessional of Melissa and her lack of communication was evident from the beginning. We weren’t even asked if we wanted our chairs moved, so the ceremony could face another direction. My guests had to sit and stare at the scummy pond, which was upsetting. Every ceremony picture we have, has the pond in the background. No fountain, a dirty pond and no knowledge prior. The grounds also looked very unkempt and messy. The landscaping seemed untouched for months and there were dead flowers in the flower pots. On the day of my wedding, my family was decorating the arbor, which had not been cleaned and there were wasps swarming it. They spent a lot of time cleaning the arbor and swatting the wasps away, at which point my matron of honor was actually stung by one. We were told the arbor and chairs would be cleaned prior to the wedding and that did not happen. Because we were busy getting pictures prior to the ceremony, we were unaware that the chairs were still filthy. It wasn’t noticed until 30 minutes before the ceremony when my guests had begun arriving. Melissa was informed and sent out ONE person to wipe down 180 chairs. My matron of honor had to approach Melissa again to let her know that one person clearly couldn’t do all the work alone. So as my guests were coming, they were watching two staff members cleaning all the chairs and had to wait to be seated. I was also very upset to find out that the reception venue had 21 lanterns without bulbs. During our wedding party pictures, a friend was putting out our desserts. One of the bartenders decided it was okay to help herself to over half a dozen cookies. We also had several other issues with the bartenders that night. One of them showed up with a black eye. They refused to serve my wedding party and guests who went inside during the cocktail hour because they had a keg outside. We paid for the alcohol, so it shouldn’t have been an issue. They were charging some people $5 for a mixed drink while charging others $8-9 for the same drinks. The prices for the drinks were inconsistent which raised a red flag. By the end of the night, one of the bartenders was sitting at the top of the hill screaming and crying about how she didn’t want to go home because her boyfriend beat her. It took two of my bridesmaids to get her in the car. I’m now wondering if she got belligerent on the alcohol that we had paid for. Overall Melissa lacked professionalism and communication and didn’t seem to care about making her clients happy. We still haven’t received any kind of follow up from her. Some of the bar staff was rude and took it upon themselves to take things that we had paid for. I am very disappointed in the way the staff running the business handled everything. To pay that much money for a below average experience was disheartening and upsetting.