Stone Valley Meadows

iew critiques are simply untrue. We would like to start by saying that all of our policies are clearly listed in our contract that was signed by the couple. The contract clearly states what our rules are regarding alcohol, what the clean up looks like, that chairs must be set up, ect. We even had most chairs set up for you that morning, and alerted the couple that only ~30 chairs would still need to be added. Most aspects are also communicated in the initial tours we do with couples. As can be seen from other reviews, we are very flexible with our clients. But, we will not cancel other couple’s noted rehearsal preferences that have been noted months in advance to accommodate the time that is suddenly desired by another couple. When a Thursday wedding was booked, we reached out and explained all the ways we could accommodate your daughter’s rehearsal to take place during the week or the morning of, yet none of these appealed to you so you scheduled one with your own planner at the rehearsal dinner. Two days prior to the wedding, we were contacted and asked to add the clean up package. When we explained that this was unable to be done due to the wedding being two days away and us not having the staff to get this scheduled (also stated on the contract that packages are subject to availability) we were again met with pushback. As confirmed with your planner the day before the wedding, adding the cleanup package was only mentioned at a previous meeting and was labeled with a “maybe” and that we’d be informed if it was desired to be added. Said package was never added or paid for. As discussed with your planner who called for further information as to why it could not be added, said package would have our staff clean up items and have ready for you to pick up the next day. But, since our building ordinances do not allow for clients/guests/nonvenue persons to be inside the building past midnight, all items must be removed from the building at that time. This is also reiterated in the contract, and highlighted under the rental time you have booked with us. The only money kept was the refundable security deposit, and that was due to our alcohol policies being broken time and time again throughout the event. Our staff asked that self service be stopped multiple times, the bartenders asked that self service be stopped multiple times, and when asked we all were ignored and brushed off. We do have a written statement from the bartenders, as well as footage, showing all the instances that our words were ignored and the verbal altercations that both our staff and the bartending staff were exposed to by said guests. The loss of deposit stems solely from the safety risks that the venue, staff members, and bartending company were put at due to this recurring issue that night.

chanting!

hat you were looking for. As staff members, we are here to assist when asked questions, but we don’t overstep our role and offer unsolicited advice or try and dictate what decorations you choose for centerpieces. But we are always here to offer opinions when asked. Our coordinator package is limited to working in-house and with vendors that have already been chosen. Unfortunately, with our venue and schedules, we are not able to assist with meeting vendors with you initially and helping you book them. We do give recommendations though. We did sit down with you to aid in timelines, floorplans, etc; and communicated with vendors once we received their contracts to nail down their arrival times and monitor what they would be responsible for the day of. Your day of coordinator did set up the space with your linens, decorations, folded napkins once they arrived, and worked to ensure that the timeline was followed, vendors were greeted, and that the wedding party knew when to walk. Unfortunately, at this time, we do not offer any more in depth packages for planning than those listed on our site and package list.

that day and we were unable to get a tech out to fix it that day. We are very sorry for that inconvenience. Currently, we are unable to provide linens with our facility as we do not have a place to launder and store them. We also don’t want to limit our customers to only using the limited selection that we may be able to provide. Set up of the chair is extra since many of our couple do not choose to utilize the space, but we will automatically take the chairs down so clients do not have to worry about them at the end of the night. We do include a rehearsal hour and assistance in the rental price of the venue, but should clients need someone to plan and organize the entirety of the rehearsal and ceremony, there is an extra charge associated with that since our staff will then take over the role of a day of coordinator or planner. We will relay to our staff to double check the linen’s bottom seams before setting the tables. As for the table numbers and set up of flowers, everything would have been followed via the set-up document that our staff collects prior to the wedding day. It is possible that the table number order and flowers were not highlighted on said sheet and that our staff followed those instructions before moving on to other added tasks. We will work on making a more in-depth planning spreadsheet to ensure that our staff has all the information needed to aid in the best set up possible. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.

k with you (and you lovely planner) to help make your big day everything you wanted and more. You were great to work with, and we can't wait to see more beautiful pictures from your wedding and reception!

gh all our emails and "leads" and were unable to find anything under your name. My sincere apologies but it seems that their was a technological issue, and it is possible that this issue inhibited us from seeing any follow up emails from you. We do have an up to date office number on our website, social medias, etc. and a redirecting voicemail should you have our old office number. We are in office nearly every day from various hours and would have been able to take any call and/or reply via voicemail.

y Meadows. It was an absolute pleasure being able to help you plan and coordinate your big day! You, your *husband* and your guests were so fun to host that night! We are so glad that you had a fantastic wedding with us.

with you the entire time during the Covid situation, making multiple date changes to ensure you a date as things continued to be a moving target with the governor when venues were able to reopen. Once things started to settle down you reached out to me to ask about the bartender having to be licensed and insured. I confirmed they had to be. You stated that was not listed specifically under the bar tender section of the contract, but I showed you where the contract states that all vendors have to be licensed and insured. This is both a legal zoning requirement and a safety issue. I am not willing to take that risk. I am sorry that it upset you. However, I am not willing to have folks leave the venue over served, and put one of your guests or someone in the community at risk. With all that being said, it’s evident that the person you used as a bartender failed to do their most important job, safely serving the guests (they over served your guests and my janitors had to clean up vomit in the stalls of the bathrooms.) Your bartender also allowed guests to bring in random bottles of alcohol and pass them around. My attendant requested the bar to be closed at 10:30pm due to these actions. A competent bartender would have follow the trained “safe serve protocol” and stopped service until the outside alcohol was removed. I have instructed my team that if this ever happens again to call the police. We will not tolerate those behaviors. You added the clean up package which clean up of the areas of the barn the wedding party is responsible for. Vendors are responsible to clean their areas. Your bartender, a vendor was under the impression that they didn’t have to clean their section of the barn, even though they were presented a cleaning checklist the beginning of the night. And therefore left the bar area trashed (I would recommend that you don’t use or recommend them in the future. We will be putting them on our not allowed vendor list) Unfortunately, your bridal party thought that clean up package meant they could leave trash every where except in a trash can. You left the bridal suite trashed. No one in your party had any respect for the space or my staff. Your caterer showed up late (my team even tried to contact them on your behalf) and then they proceeded to not want to follow the policies and procedures as well. This is exactly why venues have preferred vendors because of situations such as this. Folks have zero respect for other folk’s property. We specifically allow brides the ability to pick and choose their vendors, but I can tell you that we have a list of folks who are not welcome at our venue because of the manner in which they have left it and both of your vendors are now on that list. We allow brides the option to pick whomever they would like to use so that it can potentially save them money. However, they are still required to follow the policies and procedures. At the end of the night, you, your husband and bridal party were completely unprofessional to my venue coordinator to the point that she was crying. To her, it was obvious that there was al lot of alcohol consumed by they way the group was screaming at her and stating you paid for the bar to be cleaned up by our staff (as discussed above, you pay your vendors to serve and clean their spaces. You paid for our staff to clean the spaces you are responsible for. You already paid the vendors to clean their areas). This is why we give the vendors the cleaning list upfront. There is no BUYER BEWARE here. We have been very transparent with what we said we would provide. I don’t mind receiving constructive feedback from anyone who has ever been at our venue., However, you and your friends stated that you were planning to leave a bunch of bad reviews. You had all your family and friends leave a series of reviews on Facebook that were simply untrue. I have been a business owner for 20 years and i can tell you, I do not have that kind of history in any industry of the picture you have painted. I think the real reviews speak for themselves in terms of the content of my character. With all that being said, one of your friends did bring up what I felt was a valid issue with storing the chairs in the pod at the end of the night. I have since added that into our package. So thank you for that valid feedback. Everything else you and your friends stated is simply UNTRUE. My manager and coordinators can speak first hand to your behaviors. Our doors are always open if you would like to meet in person or virtually to discuss this.

re your day is amazing. We take pride in not nickel and diming our brides hence why we include all the chairs ( both inside and outside) , tables, audiovisual system, outside patio furniture, furniture in grooms barn, furniture in the lounge, use of the entire property for the day ( where some venues charge for different portions of the venue like the bridal suite or etc)a program to utilize for your layout of our venue so that you can plan your room scape to name just a few. Like most venues, we do have items that brides can incorporate into their special day that are an additional expense. The wooden patties you asked about would be an additional expense. However, I would hardly consider that nickel and diming. You are correct, i did not know where the wooden patties came from but it was obviously an item that one of my other employees purchased to be use by the brides. It comes down to personal preference. As it relates to the outside chairs set up, they are not included in the set up / tear down package and as I stated some brides will not even use the meadow to get married. Therefore we also did not want to fuel questions that would consist of deducting items that were not in use. As you are aware, I did include those in those in at no charge. I was definitely taken back on how you handled the matter when you did accuse me of bad business practices. Your fiancé later discussed your tone and tried to smooth it over. As you have stated, in a comical gesture, I do state that the barn is not my “ main hustle” , the reason I share that with folks is to hopefully provide them with peace of mind that I am not miss managing my business and we have every intention of being here for them in the long haul. I think for most folks they can see that I have poured my heart and Soul into the venue with every detail that I believe that can make your day special. I think they can also see that it was a very expensive project and do not take the management of it lightly. As it relates to Covid like many venues, I have done everything on my side to be as accommodating with brides including waiving change fees, allowing them to put soft holds on other dates, allowing them to have small ceremonies on their actual day. We are all trying to navigate something that is truly unprecedented. As it relates to your zoom appointment, I had explained when you scheduled the zoom call that I had a private school at the facility looking at the barn for a prom and it could possibly run over and it might be best If i call you. However, you insisted on a zoom call. Obviously i took the zoom call and the school administrators came back to the barn and interrupted your call. Unfortunately, there is not a lot I could do about that. At the same time another group came in as well to look at the venue. I unfortunately could not ignore either of the parties. Again, I was trying to be considerate and even apologized to you multiple times for the interruptions. I think there are PLENTY of brides that can definitely attest to the fact that I will most certainly provide them with the opportunity to make payments, adjust due dates and etc. However, your request to pay $1000 and then pay the balance at 30 day before the event was unreasonable. I explained that in the event that you had to cancel the date I would not be able to rebook it. I also explained that if you had to cancel, you would have a better chance of rebooking your date and refunding those monies once another bride assumed that date. I also explained that I could be flexible with the payment plan, but you kept pushing to pay the remainder at the end. As you can imagine, I do not have access to your finances so I have no way of knowing if you can come up with $6,000 at the end which is why we do a payment plan. As I said to yo, this has been the policy even before Covid. However, what I am 100% confident that I know of several brides that will definitely concur that I have been more than flexible with their payment schedule. Especially for those folks who have lost their jobs and been furloughed and etc. however, that was not the case for you, you simply wanted to pay at the end because you felt my business would not be operational. It was at that point, that I explained my personal financial situation. I also explained that this was a completely new industry for me and I honestly didn’t know what was the best payment structure - that I was still working through those details. I was completely honest and up front with you as well as any bride. As we continued to meet, it became increasingly evident that I was not going to be able to meet your needs. For example, you wanted the All Inclusive Coordination package but stated that you would do the rehearsal off site if I was unable to do it on a Thursday. I explained that I could not make that guarantee because with all of the Covid brides potentially needing dates, I can not predict what May of next year would look like. I explained that I could walk your bridesmaids / groomsmen through the morning of worst case scenario and have stand ins for each of you. Justin stated you all would come at an earlier date and I could show you were folks would be. He was not open to us doing any sort of rehearsal the day of. I have done enough weddings to know, that not having a rehearsal at the venue before hand with your bridal party would be a HUGE mistake. Again, case in point, you have booked this package with us, but we are unable to fulfill the service in a manner that we know has been successful. You all refused to be open for my suggestion. Even though we have experience with having weddings at our venue. We know that several run throughs are always appropriate. Now if you think back to the very first interactions, when you accused me of not including chairs in meadow package ( as bad business practices) how do you think it would have ended if I was unable to effectively implement the day of coordination package which is literally 3 times the amount of money as the set up package or clean up package. I felt that you would have accused me of it being a rip off when in essence you were upfront handcuffing us to be able to do our job effectively . I honestly felt that you would immediately posted a bad review after your wedding that you didn’t get your monies worth, or it was a rip off etc. In my mind, I felt that the Day of Coordination was a critical component of the success of your day and I did not want to be apart of it not going the way that you had envisioned it. In summary, my goal is to make each brides day special, unfortunately early on in the process, I simply felt as though I was not going to be able to meet your needs. We have booked over 100 plus weddings and you all are the FIRST that I felt we were not going to be able to make happy. I fully expected to receive this review from you, but quiet honestly I would rather have a one star review from you now versus you not being happy with your wedding and then giving us a one star review. I realize you are disappointed, but I honestly felt this was a better option than not making you happy on one of the most important days of your life. I wish you and Justin peace joy and happiness. Again, at the end of the day, it’s not personal, we simply do not want to fall short of your expectations. I think that brides will be able to see from all of our 5 star reviews who ACTUALLY have had weddings at our venue that me and the team bend over backwards to make your day special. I hope you have a wonderful wedding. Be well, Angela Norman