Waterville Valley Resort

Our wedding day went absolutely perfect, and our experiences with the Waterville Valley staff on the day of our wedding was very accommodating and pleasant. All of our guests had an amazing time, loved the location and thought the day was spectacular. Positives that stood out: -While the get ready suite is typically not open until 9am, the staff graciously made an exception to allow us into the room at 8 am to ensure the bridal party were ready for the first look - Bri accompanied me to the first look to make sure timing and communication worked out perfectly with our photographer and capturing the first look moment as well as assisting with my dress and veil - The day before our wedding they were very patient and kind despite members of the wedding party getting lost or not arriving on time for the rehearsal. I am especially thankful for their understanding as we were all standing in the freezing rain waiting for them. -Our desserts unexpectedly arrived a day early, they quickly made us aware and helped us problem solve how to store everything for the next day - They kept us on time and really guided us during the day - The sandwiches and other food they brought throughout the day to the bridal suite was really excellent and kept the bridal party fed - The next day for clean up all of our decor was nicely consolidated and since there was no other wedding that day we were given some extended time to gather it. (they are under no obligation to do this it was just a nice consideration by them). Some of the concerns leading up to the wedding and other reviews: - We did experience some of the frustrations experienced by the other recent reviews I would like to mention these but also point out a few things - We did experience some pricing changes but I will note that it very explicitly stated in the contract that menu pricing is subject to change and the changes made were reasonable with current inflation. - The final invoice is due rather quickly but the timeline for payments are also clearly outlined in the contract which also lists that they don't individually invoice along the way. As long as you are paying attention to the numbers and quotes you have been given the final number shouldn't be a surprise, my estimate of the final number was within $500. - I would say the biggest concern for us in the planning process was the non-responsiveness. This was something we definitely experienced but ultimately everything worked out and when our wedding was closer we had no problem communicating with our coordinator. - We did not really experience the more rude behaviors but we also took the kill them with kindness approach for our whole wedding process. All in all the staff really pulled out all of the stops for our wedding day and were extremely kind. I would not change a thing about our wedding.

I would love to give Waterville 5 stars because we truly had a beautiful wedding and we have nothing but good memories from the day - the actual venue itself is beautiful and being in the town for the weekend with all our friends and family was so fun. Our campfire the night before was a blast, our rehearsal dinner at the Waterville Valley Clubhouse was picturesque and the clubhouse helped us organize a golf scramble for the guys the morning of the wedding that was a huge hit. So 3 stars feels fair but in retrospect, I could have booked elsewhere for a similarly great weekend without all the headaches. They have so much going for them that it’s a shame how poorly they manage this venue. The logistics leading up to the wedding left a LOT to be desired and if you aren’t organized and/or don’t have a good team of outside vendors, it could see it being very easy to have an unnecessarily stressful wedding experience at Waterville. I’ll leave a few notes to beware of: - Communication with Jen was shockingly inconsistent, I cannot emphasize this enough. With 2 months to our wedding we were waiting 3 weeks for an email replies (despite multiple nudges) for fairly straightforward questions. - We were told fairly last minute that Jen would not help set up any of our personal decor. Thank god we had already hired an outside wedding coordinator because that was not what we were told when we booked - The menu and pricing completely changed between booking and if you weren’t carefully reading contracts, you’d end up owing a lot more than you signed up for. They did not tell us this until we went to their once a year wedding tasting for all of their couples, which didn’t happen until the end of April. They also didn’t even have all of the options available to taste. - The wedding packet form they send out for detail planning is long and redundant which is fine except for we literally reviewed it via email, then on the phone and then again for an entire hour in person the day before the wedding (when I’d rather be with my family!) and each time things were wrong. - Our original contract said we could access the bridal suite as early as 8am. This is no longer the case and I had to email back and forth so much about it that I just lost so much faith in Jen that I canceled the entire bridal suite and got ready in our hotel (which was still great!) - Everything we relied on her for had some issue - we wanted to do a private cake cutting and Jen had no cake knife ready despite promising us she had one so by the time she brought it out we had wasted 15 minutes of our evening and everyone had gathered around us to watch something we wanted to do without fanfare. We also spent $150 to rent Jenga and corn hole and those were simply never put out by the venue. - They assured us they had an indoor backup room but the room they showed us 2 years ago when we toured was renovated to add an entire wall that made the room super narrow so thank god it didn’t rain because it really would have been a tighter fit than we ever anticipated. These are all things just off the top of my head so there were definitely other issues I'm forgetting. There are a lot of great venues in NH that offer a similar vibe without all the headaches. If I had to do it again, I’m not sure I would pick Waterville but despite it all, we had an amazing time. I hope they find a better coordinator who can really bring this place back to life because there is SO much potential.

Although my guests all enjoyed themselves, there were many aspects of my interactions with the Event Coordinators that has me regretting my choice to have my wedding at WVSR. One big issue (in my opinion) was that the invoice was sent to us two days before it was due with incorrect amounts on it. I was asked for a sober list (I had two pregnant guests and a couple of relatives who do not drink and was told they would be deducted from the total) but when I received the bill, it included the entire guest count and was only told after inquiring that it’s their policy to charge for all adults whether their drinking or not. They had also included minors in the count, which I had to ask to be fixed. I was also charged the incorrect amount for our Welcome Bonfire and the amount was only fixed after I questioned it. Weddings are not cheap by any means and although we had an idea of what we’d end up paying, two days out is not a lot of time when you’re shelling out tens of thousands of dollars. This was also the first invoice we were even seeing (aside from our initial contract and prices has changed since we had signed). It would be helpful to have some sort of portal where you can mark off items and quantities of the things you want along the way so that you know exactly what you are going to owe and have a better idea for budgeting (most of my vendors had something like this). Bri was incredibly unhelpful and unprofessional. Most of my questions were met with rude and snide remarks. Bri was openly rude to my family and bridal party on several occasions and was barely present throughout my wedding day. I saw her once in the afternoon and didn't see her again until several hours later when it was time to line up. She came up to us at 6pm to tell us she would be leaving, which the reception had barely started at this point. There were many experiences with Bri and Jen that left a bad taste in my mouth, but one stood out. I had purchased my get ready space at the venue, which included breakfast and lunch. We were only supplied with lukewarm coffee and mimosas and no water. We asked my brother-in-law to bring us some water to the get ready space, so he brought a cooler that we had used the night before at the Welcome Bonfire. There were alcoholic beverages in the cooler that were left over from the night before (which we did not drink because of their strict no outside alcohol policy), however while we were taking photos outside, they went through the cooler and confiscated it. When we came in from photos to line up, Bri decided that that would be the best time to tell us what they "found" and said they were trying to figure out if we would receive a warning or would be getting a fine. I fully acknowledge that outside alcohol is against their policy, however we were not drinking it and, in my opinion, this was the worst possible time to be disciplining us and threatening us with a fine. I was pretty upset the rest of the night because of this interaction. If it wasn’t for my other amazing vendors, I don’t think I would have enjoyed my wedding as much as I did. My photographer and DJ did the bulk of the organizing, which should of been Bri's responsibility. I loved the venue and the event staff were all super lovely and great, but if I could do it over again, I would probably pick a different venue just based off of my experience with Bri and Jen.

Please note all previous positive reviews are from a past coordinator and the new ones will ruin your entire wedding planning process. If Jen and Bri are still there I highly recommend you look elsewhere. I was fortunate/ unfortunate enough to work with the old and new coordinators. I was so excited to have my wedding here because it is an absolutely beautiful venue. Unfortunately, the entire process was horrific. We booked Waterville because the communication was amazing they replied within hours. Then the original wedding coordinator left and it’s all down hill from there. The new coordinators ruined our entire experience. Jen will be quick to reply to get the sale then takes weeks, even MONTHS to reply to your email once you’re booked. (We tested it by having a friend do a fake inquiry. I was waiting on a reply for 2 weeks with numerous follow up emails and she replied to my friend within a hour and emailed her back a few times meanwhile I’ve been waiting on a response for weeks.) It was so bad I made an appointment to meet her in person instead, and messaged her a hour before to let her know we would be there soon and she replied “remind me again why we are meeting” and never showed up (I live 2 hours away so I was not happy). I was hoping that when we got closer to our wedding that the communication would get better and that they were focusing on the current weddings. I was wrong. This place does not care about you or your wedding. They just care about the money they get from you. We also had a higher than usual price increase because apparently the old coordinator was writing contracts wrong so we had to pay more because apparently we need to make up the difference of their employees mess up. We reviewed our wedding day packet at least 4 times and Bri acted like it was the first time we reviewed it every time. Stuff was wrong EVERY TIME. I truly don’t think she paid attention once. I asked for a copy of my final invoice before making my final payment and again it was wrong and needed to be corrected multiple times. I reached out a week before all my payments were due to pay them and would get no response then get a email saying I was passed due. Our guest also said they kept changing the price of drinks at the bar and over charged them numerous times. Bar tabs didn’t add up to what people actually drank. Note they will not help you with any decorating. (Which we knew and were fine with; it’s in the contract) The one thing they said they would do is light the candles and they didn’t even do that. I had to find them to get it done. They also said they would wipe down the seats if it rained and they didn’t do that either; our DJ stepped up and did it. It is a gorgeous venue don’t get me wrong but it is not worth the headache. When it came time to get our things the next day we agreed on 8am (per the packet we reviewed FOUR times). My family waited there for over an hour for Bri to show up saying “oh I thought it was 9” while my family was walking around in the rain trying to open every door. Then she proceeded to say she had a late night and had people over and that she was “exhausted”. While my family was up late enjoying themselves are OUR wedding and managed to make it there on time. On the plus side… the food was really good and the venue is beautiful. But that does not make up for the horrible experience this place causes.