While we had a beautiful wedding with a mostly smooth planning process, there were a few problems on the day of the wedding that would have convinced us to choose a different venue....
Our assigned wedding coordinator, Karen, was not available to us on the day of the wedding like she said she would be. She promised us she would be readily available, visiting us in our rooms, answering texts, and doing anything that needed to be done. She never visited either of our rooms and did not answer text messages. She didn't even retrieve us from our rooms when it was ceremony time and we walked down on our own to get lined up. We later found out that the reason she was so unavailable was because she was showing the venue to potential clients all day up until 15 minutes before our ceremony. This even means that some of our guests were not able to sit in the ceremony room because she was showing the room to potential clients. I found this very sales forward and not putting the client experience forward.
There were a few issues with our reception that I found unprofessional. First, we had an issue with the hors d'oeuvres. We had a staff of butlers serving the food and the Desmond includes a 22% service charge (aka tip) in their bill, so the staff was tipped. However, a table of guests had given an extra tip to some servers to have them bring fresh food directly to their table. This means that servers actively passed by other guests and even refused some guests that stopped them because they had to make it to the guests table that tipped them. While this table should not have tipped them, I think the staff should never have accepted this tip because my guest did not get the same experience. There were many guests that did not get to try something and that was definitely in part due to the servers going right to one table. In regards to the bar service, I had asked for an Aperol spritz to be my signature cocktail. When the day came, it was very clear that the bartenders did not know how to make it. I just think a little bit of prep and practice could have been put in to make my experience better. \
Lastly, the Desmond provides an amazing and helpful service where they will clean up all of your provided decor and pack it up ready for you to retrieve in the morning. However, there were a few hiccups. First and most importantly, our gifts/cards box was not locked up like they said it would be. That means that there was about $8,000 worth of cash just sitting out unlocked and vulnerable to anything that could have happened. Also, our remaining wedding cake was simply put into one of the random bins without telling us. I put the bins in my car and later returned tot the front desk to retrieve the cake because I assumed it would have been refrigerated separately. It was not. They leave it out all night and since they didn't tell me it was in the bin, it even sat in my hot car for at least an hour before I figured out it was in there. I really think the Desmond should have refrigerated it and also packed it separately so that this would not have happened.
All this to say, our wedding was beautiful and I do not regret using the Desmond. Our guests keep telling us that it was one of the most amazing and beautiful weddings they had been to and were very complimentary of Kevin after he took over for Karen. If you consider the Desmond, I would just advise you to use a coordinator that is not Karen and ask many questions to make sure they do not cut corners.