The Bedford Columns

The Bedford Columns, owned and operated by Entwined Events, is an all-inclusive venue that drew us in with a reasonable rental rate. Their package also included numerous accommodations and services that most have to get specific, separate vendors for. They provided not only the space, but the furniture, décor, set up and break down, clean up, staff, and a place to stay the night before and night of the wedding (upstairs there were five bedrooms with their own shower/bathroom). They also included the food, cake, florals, a wedding planner, DJ and sound system, bar and bartender. The only caveat is that if they provide the vendor, you have to use them. For instance, if we knew a baker for the cake, we couldn’t have had them make it for us, we had to use their baker for the cake. However, since I wanted to have a wooden bouquet, I was able to buy that separately and use their vendor for the rest of the florals. We toured The Bedford Columns with Mark in the summer of 2022 with an aim to get married in the fall of 2023. Mark was very friendly as he showed us around all of the spaces and answered all of our questions. We set our date for Oct. 13th, 2023. They let us know that they don’t start planning until a year out from the wedding, which we understood, but when they didn’t contact us by the end of October 2022, I emailed them myself. Our first wedding planner, Savannah, reached out to us and we set our first of three, two-hour wedding planning sessions (six hours total). The first meeting was a whirlwind as she asked us a series of so many questions dealing with our wedding. We discussed everything from our florals to table napkins, to our vendors, to our memorial table. They truly do think of everything! I did feel pressured at times to get more décor or pick the more expensive package, because as I mentioned, we had to use all of their vendors and everything was an extra charge. Even a votive on each table was like $4 a table! Our second meeting was set to be our tasting and another planning meeting. We emailed Savannah a few times between meetings and she was pretty responsive, for the most part, but it was approaching the end of March 2022 and no one had contacted us about the tasting. We finally emailed Entwined Events planning email where we were informed Savannah was let go a while ago and we were supposed to be contacted about new wedding planners. This came as a surprise to us and we were a bit hurt that no one took the time to inform us. Our new wedding planner was another Savanna, but she was completely different from our original planner. She was incredibly responsive to emails, texts, and phone calls, and when we met her first time at the second wedding planning meeting, we felt much more comfortable with her. She was very bubbly and energetic, and tried to accommodate every request! Our tasting was done at another Entwined Event venue/estate and it was set up in a very romantic style. We enjoyed our tasting and were able to pick our dinner and cake easily! Our third and final meeting was set approximately two months before the big day. The third meeting we met with Savanna again and finalized all of our details. We were able to get our timeline set and all vendors were ready to go! The countdown truly began. We had a rehearsal the day before our wedding and the day of our wedding, Savanna coordinated and facilitated everything. She was there to reassure all of our décor would be placed in the right spot and answer all of our last-minute questions. Our wedding was DJ’d by Armand, who followed our requests to the letter. Everything seemed to go off without a hitch; my spouse and I were very pleased and had a wonderfully magical time. Overall, we would have to give The Bedford Columns and everyone involved four out of five stars. We do wish there was more communication regarding the issue with our first wedding planner and other issues we experienced throughout the planning process. For instance, we had to ask for clarification on the difference between “cedar greenery” and “mixed greenery” on several occasions. And we were waiting to hear about burgundy napkins, only to be told days before the wedding that they came in too red and will not be used. We also wish there was more included in the pricing for décor. Literally everything was an upcharge and it added up very quickly. The bedrooms that we purchased to stay in the night before and night of our wedding came with a host of challenges as well. For instance, one of the doors would not open once it was shut and a locksmith had to come out to unlock it and completely change the door handle itself. And the water pressure was not great, especially if more than one person was trying to shower at the same time. However, looking back on our day, we wouldn’t have changed a thing and were very pleased with how things turned out.