Overpromised and Underdelivered
The Spring Lake Manor was BY FAR the worst decision that I made for my wedding.
First of all, despite spending ten of thousands of dollars, when yo...u show up for your tasting the hostess will ask, “do you know how long you are going to be here? Because I had no idea you were coming”. My future-in-laws actually looked shocked that the hostess was so blatantly rude. Three days before the wedding, I dropped off decorations. Janine (the maître de) dropped one of my candle holders and broke it. She didn’t realize that my mom watched her do this when she wasn’t looking, so she thought she could get away with lying to us. She told us it was broken when she opened the box. Now the candle was worth $15, it’s not about money. I don’t appreciate falsehoods told straight to my face. It’s insulting and disrespectful. Two days before the wedding, it looks like it’s going to rain. Janine happily told us that the back deck was covered, and that photographs could be taken there. It was a lie. The back deck covering was NOT sufficient to protect against rain. As a result, my entire wedding party got wet. Janine also failed to tell us that she offered the deck because she booked two events inside. Which meant we had no where to go to protect from the rain. My mother (who did most of Janine’s job for her) complained, and thankfully we were granted access to the front hallway to take pictures at the very end of the inside event. As my entire wedding party is posing for pictures in the middle of a lobby, still half wet from Janine locking us outside, the guests from the other event walked right through our wedding party and exited the venue. By this time, my wedding guests are arriving. Janine had to sneak me, in my full wedding gown through the kitchen so they wouldn’t see me. So unprofessional. Such a joke. They will claim there is no need for a rehearsal because Janine will be there. ANOTHER LIE. She gave no insight/direction pre lineup. My DJ saw us getting upset and nervous, and thankfully stepped in and did Janine’s job for her. They will claim there is no need to hire a wedding coordinator, because Janine can do the job! Another lie. If she COULD do the job of a wedding coordinator, I’m pretty sure she would have remembered to give our Best Man the RINGS. Instead, my bridesmaid had to army crawl across the ceremony to the bridal suite to grab them. As if she had an actual goal to prove that she should work in an another industry, Janine spent the rest of the wedding missing. I wasted a half hour of my own wedding desperately asking random waiters where she was. Someone spilled a drink at out sweetheart table, and my husband and I had to desperately beg three different employes for help, because Janine was missing. Again. We ended up standing there awkwardly by the sweetheart table for 10 minutes while our food got cold. The service was so bad that the catering manager (the only competent employee in the entire establishment) took pity on us and offered to help pack up and deliver our decorations. He must be used to having to compensate for incompetence. I cannot believe that I was lied to and treated like a patron at TGI Fridays on my wedding day. John, the owner, should have considered a career in politics, as hospitality is certainly not his strong suit. When I called him to complain about the plethora of mistakes his lying employee made, he basically gave non answers and defended the deceit. The canopy that Janine told me that we could pose under? According to John, that was never weather proof! When I asked him why Janine lied to me and said otherwise (especially because I could have just went to convention hall for pictures instead), he didn’t have an answer. He refunded me Janie’s $500 fee, which is literally the bare minimum he could do. When people don’t do there jobs, their fee shouldn’t be charged. I was not satisfied with the resolution at all. You are spending a lot of money on your wedding. You deserve to feel important and respected. With that being said, please don’t make the same mistake I made!