The Mulberry is the ultimate “Instagram versus reality.”
My husband and I hosted our wedding at The Mulberry in May 2021. We had exactly the same experience Amanda McLeod (unaffi...liated with our wedding) describes in a Google review of the venue. Her review is worth a read.
The overwhelmingly negative way we were treated left our day shrouded in a dark cloud. My points of contention are below -
Communication - Jessica is a busy mom, and communication was inconsistent and challenging. For example, after our tour, we scheduled a follow-up call to go over some questions. The call was scheduled for 10 a.m., and we didn’t end up hearing from her until 4 p.m., despite following up with calls, texts and emails.
Rehearsal - The contract states you can have your rehearsal during office hours, which are M - F, 8 - 5. What is not clearly defined is the “upon availability” verbiage. We were thrown for a loop when we found out there was a wedding Friday evening - and the latest we could host our rehearsal was 11 a.m. Not being local, we were unaware events were booked on week nights. We had told our wedding party they could fly in Friday morning, so they all had to change their travel arrangements at the last minute.
On our rehearsal day, though we contractually had one hour on the property, we were asked to leave well before our hour was up. Our rehearsal only took about 25 minutes, so my husband and I tried to do a quick walk-through of the property to finalize our decorating plans. While doing so, the caretaker rudely insisted she had vendors arriving and that we needed to leave immediately. We had only been there for 30 minutes.
Coordinator - There are multiple coordinators on the venue’s preferred list, but Jessica paired us with the company she felt was the best fit for us. This came as an unwelcome surprise to us, as we felt that was a decision that we should have been able to make.
Staff - The poor attitude of the staff is easily the most negative aspect of the venue. As stated earlier, we were very rudely asked to vacate the premises post-rehearsal.
Similarly, though we were supposed to have possession of the venue until 11 p.m. on the day of our wedding, we were angrily and aggressively approached by the head caretaker at 10:15 p.m. She said, quote, “Per your contract, you need to be off the grounds by 11 p.m.” At that point, we were halfway through cleaning up, so it’s not as though we were still celebrating. At 10:30 p.m., the staff proceeded to turn out all the lights, rendering the final half hour of our cleanup chaotic.
The Mulberry’s staff legitimately does not care it’s your wedding day. They are snarky, condescending and rude.
Missing Items - Between our unprofessional coordinator (who left well before the end of our event), being harassed to leave and having the lights turned off on us, several personal items were lost.
Because the coordinator didn’t personally tell us where the food had been stored, the top tier of our cake, our custom cake topper and all of our catering leftovers were thrown in the trash.
Additionally, $200 of BBW hand sanitizer and several LED candles disappeared, and two expensive registry platters, which we used in our dessert display, were inadvertently left in the catering room’s sink. Post-wedding, Jessica confirmed via email the platters were still at the venue and promised to mail them to me, but we have yet to see them.
This venue is beautiful but also inherently flawed.