The Historic Water Street Inn - Stillwater

I held my small, Sunday morning brunch wedding here. Julie, the Director of Events was easy to work with, prompt and reliable when answering questions. The food was great and my guests had a great time.

Save yourself the stress, the heartache, and the tears, because the online reviews about this place are true. Let me start off by saying, they really make you think at the beginning that they will be there to help with whatever you need. I am only 2 months into my wedding planning, so the only real concerns there were was the menu, the floor layout, and the room block. Working with Julie was awesome, at first, until I stopped hearing from her. When I asked questions about the floor plans it would take her weeks to respond, when I had food questions, she never knew the answers and never connected me with someone who would know. But the real issues didn’t start until the room block. As someone with a majority of guests coming from out of town, rooms are a huge concern. To start off, the rooms are so old, so its not like the $300/night price tag is reasonable. But it was the lack of service that really upset us. When my guests called to book rooms, the front desk was so condescending and rude that one of my bridesmaids was literally close to tears because of how rude they were when she was asking questions. But let’s let the price and the front office staff go - after seeing reviews that people had experiences where random people were blocked into the rooms they booked for their wedding, I was determined to see my rooming list. The main issue was that I was not able to know which of my guests had booked rooms inside my block. When I asked Julie to send me my list, she sent an email stating it was “against the law” to give me that information. As someone who has been in the industry for 5 years, I was shocked. I picked up the phone to call and she changed her story to “against company policy”. In all of the hotels I have worked in, I have never heard of a hotel not being able to give a rooming list to the bride/contract signer. This is when the entire process went downhill. We were transferred to the “Hotel Manager” who is actually just the front desk manager, Alex, who was impossible to work with. When stating that I would likea rooming list, he just said no, and when I stated that we may need to look somewhere else if we couldn’t get this figured out he said “let me start onthat cancellation process for you”. I thought it couldn’t get any worse. Until my Mom was finally able to get aholdof the owner, Chuck. Let me tell you, never in our lives have we dealt with someone so horrible. He started telling us that we were the rude ones and that we were calling the front desk names and making the associates cry? When would we have even had time to do something so terrible? We could barely get ahold ofanyone! After more research, I saw that he was on TripAdvisor, publicly attacking a bride who posted a negative review in regard to her wedding. And this man is a city council member?! Here’smy advice to you, Chuck - as people stop traveling and having events, and more and more hotels shut down, I would try using the golden rule and treating others how you would like to be treated. It is the first and foremost rule of hospitality, and your associates would learn a lot from following in those footsteps. Your reviews would probably improve as well. Here’smy advice to anyone thinking about a wedding here, don’t do it. It only took me two months of dealing with these people to know that it wasn’t worth the stress.

I can’t recommend a wedding at the Water Street. Menu pricing is subject to change under their contract, which was non-negotiable. There are too many unknowns in a wedding - and not knowing how much we would pay for food left me stressed for a whole year. This was a decision made by the owner of the Water Street. Water Street advertises that an event coordinator is included when you book a wedding. The coordinator we dealt with was Julie Rademacher, who had two jobs: event and sales manager. I don’t have the best things to say about Julie, so I will just say - it was super stressful from signing the contract to the wedding day. If you’re in love with the location like we were, consider hiring a wedding planner & day-of coordinator. We had many great vendors who handled COVID, communication, pricing, and contracting differently from this venue. The main issue is customer service and unfortunately this is an issue from the top-down. There’s other venues out there if you want a stress-free day.

Let me start off by saying we had an amazing day and everything turned out great. We received a lot of good feedback on food, bar/staff service, and overall venue. The event staff were so helpful. Georgene seems to be at the root of recent bad reviews and she is no longer with the venue. We worked with Julie once Georgene was no longer there and communication between us was fine. There were some unexpected circumstances that arose two weeks before the big day which led to Christy stepping in for Julie and she did an amazing job. We had various, last-minute requests for the day of the wedding that were all accommodated for. I do agree that the room situation is a total cluster. If you have a DJ, you need to have the six St. Croix Suite rooms above the ballroom booked under your block, and you are responsible for paying for any of those rooms that don't get booked by your guests. Several months before the wedding, my mother had booked a St. Croix Suite for the Friday night and Saturday night of our wedding. We found out about two months before the wedding the St. Croix Suite she had booked as actually on the third floor and not above the ballroom as requested. When she asked about this, they told her there was a wedding going on there Friday night, and those rooms were a part of that party's block. There for SURE was not a wedding the Friday night before ours because we hosted our rehearsal in the ballroom that night :). You NEED to keep an eye on the St. Croix Suites because they seem to find any excuse/lie not to put people in there. They also seem to put their most expensive rooms under your block, and fail to tell your guests that there are cheaper rooms outside of the block. Overall, the rooms are honestly not worthy of their price tags. They're outdated, moldy smelling, and practically every room in this hotel has a piece of furniture/decoration that has been super glued back together. The new bridal suite is quite nice though with vanity space for ~three people to get hair/makeup done. I had about 10 people in there at once and it didn't feel too crammed. Housekeeping was also able to make their way through the suite during the day so it was nice and clean for the night of our wedding (they even left some champagne on the table for us). The ballroom space smelled overwhelmingly stale/moldy, but otherwise it looked really nice with the extra drapery and we had plenty of room for our roughly 200 guest count. Once the party was in full swing, you didn't really notice the smell, and that was the general feedback I heard from our guests. The private patio was a nice feature to have as well. With having to flip the room from our ceremony to our reception, it was a great spot for our guests to mingle. As for the construction, it was incredibly unsettling to see that they were two months behind schedule and nowhere near finished when I showed up for my final consultation. However the only effect it had on our day was that some of our guests who were staying at the hotel couldn't find parking in their napkin sized lot because construction equipment was parked there. It really wasn't a big deal. So unless you were planning on taking photos with the new addition, or you're super particular about an exterior aesthetic that your guests won't even see much of, I'm not sure why you'd complain about it… If the rooms were updated and the booking process for a block wasn't so shady, there would be more stars given.