Even though overall everything was great on the actual wedding day, we were very disappointed with The Gallery. Initially one of the main reasons we picked them was the fact that they include all the main parts of a wedding - the venue, caterin...g, bar, tables, linens, etc, and in a package that includes tax and gratuity. We also appreciated how responsive and communicative our point of contact was.
We postponed our wedding from 2021 to 2022 due to the pandemic and while they were very flexible about that, trying to communicate with the person that took over during the pandemic was like pulling teeth.
That main point of contact was reinstated again at the end of 2021 and we were very happy initially but sometime just around 3 months before the wedding it seemed like all communication broke down. In March 2022 for example we absolutely could not get an answer to a couple simple, but relevant, questions for two entire weeks (after 6 total attempts to contact them over email, web portal and text message - which was left on "read" for 3 days).
They said there had been a problem with their email system. Funny thing is another vendor of ours also had an email problem just a month later, and they posted about it on Instagram and also emailed their clients letting them know, which only highlighted how badly this issue was handled by the Gallery.
Despite being managed by a larger company, it seems like they have no sort of coverage for their people. You are assigned one person and that's the only contact you have. If they're out of office (not that you'd know, since they never use OOO automatic replies) or busy with another event, there's not a second person to at least take two seconds to say something like "we'll look into that and get back to you". It seems so unprofessional and not in line with the expectations they set.
We had scheduled our final walkthrough 3 months ahead of time, because it's an appointment in the middle of the day during the week so we both had to fit it with our busy work schedules. Just a week before the appointment we got an automatic email notification that it had been changed to a completely different day and time. I had to reach out myself saying that new date didn't work for us. No explanation was given about why the appointment was changed, and we were appalled that they would change it without FIRST contacting us, the client!
More details:
- On the day of there was no one from the venue there when the groom arrived at the scheduled time, thankfully our coordinator was able to reach someone over the phone to unlock the door. The point of contact person eventually came in about an hour later. She barely acknowledged either of us at any point.
- There was also no one available at the rehearsal, so again we had to track someone down to validate parking for our guests.
- The food was not as good as what we had been served at the tasting, and it was fine, but again, not at all in line with the expectations set.
- They were supposed to have 100 signature drinks placed on the way to the cocktail room as guests left the ceremony, but only a few were placed there in time. By the time people realized the drinks were sitting outside the room (the Kill Devil Club) most of the ice in them had melted.
As a side note, the bartender Ruben was absolutely great, he was fun, attentive, and it seems like he ended up taking on some responsibility that we would have expected from someone else at the venue.