The owner and his staff are astoundingly unprofessional. Trust me, if he relied on repeat business, he would be out of business. Let me tell you about my wedding day:
On my day, the coordinator/manager on duty had none of my event details co...rrect. 1. We paid $200 extra to have the venue and bar for a sixth hour. But as I got my wedding gown on, the coordinator/manager on duty interrupted me to say that he couldn't figure this out per our contract, and he would close our bar during dinner, which was unplanned.
2. He made us move part of our decor during the reception due to it being a "fire hazard," even though we had a floor plan mapped out and approved with the owner, Bentley Austin, during our final walk-through. This piece of decor was a background for our ceremony that we spent several hundred dollars to build, and it was destroyed in this process. It was thrown in a dirty storage hallway and is completely ruined.
3. This person was also supposed to assist me and my bridesmaids from the "bridal lounge" to the elevator downstairs prior to the ceremony; but instead of showing up, a bridesmaid had to enter the ceremony area to go find him and ask him to unlock the elevator for us. When asked if he could close the venue door after the bridesmaids and open it for the bride's processional, he reaction was an eye roll and "That's not my job." He couldn't be bothered to open the door for the bride.
4. He was extremely unprofessional and rude throughout the evening and at the end of the night told us to get our things and "get out" because there was another event the next day. Even though we had previous permission to store our decor in the office until the next day or so. In the end, we did store our belongings there, but they had to be thrown in trash bags and boxes quickly in a haphazard way.
5. Then, when we arrived 2 days later to get our things, we were attacked by the owner's partner who said "I hope you're here to clean the room that you trashed." What kind of way is that to communicate with a customer? I explained that of course, we were there to get our belongings, but the level of cleanliness was not my problem, especially when parts of the venue we paid for and used weren't even in a presentable fashion for our wedding. There were missing ceiling tiles in the ladies room and water leaking on the floor the entire night. The bridal lounge is absolutely disgusting and in desperate need of a remodel.
The icing on the cake was when I found out from a bridesmaid who decorated for me before the wedding that Bentley had 2 other couples come into the venue to get married, while we had paid for use of the space, and that they used my decor and background for photos. I can't believe he conveniently left this out of any conversation.
In short, this is a man who has a great historic building, but has not invested in any remodeling or upkeep, and obviously cares little about the experience the customers have. He has completely ignored my feedback, even despite the fact that he overcharged my credit card for the bar invoice and owes me money.
So if you're looking for a venue that has professional, courteous staff and clean well-kept rooms on site, this is not the place for you. You'll get the "I'm so flexible, I help my brides with whatever they need" speech, but when it counts, you'll be thinking "you get what you pay for."
There is so much more I could share, including photos, but unfortunately I'm out of space.