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I have thought long and hard about what to write regarding our venue, and have decided to be really honest about it. First the good stuff. The Fred Heutte Center is an absolutely gorgeous garden in the middle of one of Norfolk's nicer neighborhoods. It is lovingly tended by Norfolk's master gardeners, and is charming in every way from the heirloom vegetable garden to the lathe house surrounded by camellias. They have a building on site which is normally used for gardening classes, yoga classes, community meetings, that sort of thing. The price is extremely reasonable. All other outdoor garden venues in the area were thousands for just a few hours, and fraught with rules about what caterer to use, what rental company, etc. We got the entire grounds of the Heutte center for $375 from 6am to midnight and we were able to use any vendors we wanted. The grounds were gorgeous and in pristine condition. No complaints there.
My difficulty came in dealing with Bill, the contact person at the venue. When we booked (many months in advance) he was very courteous and helpful over the phone. He was certainly happy to take our security deposit and hold date fee. The problems started when I needed to nail down a time for the rental company to deliver our tent and rentals. I experienced a very upsetting phone call where he was rude to me, spoke (yelled) over me and was very uncooperative, just because I wanted to nail down a date (could they deliver Friday or did it have to be Saturday?) and he had the possibility that someone might want to rent the venue for a wedding on Friday. He did not have this person's name or phone number to be able to confirm with them whether or not they wanted the venue, but could not give me (who had booked months in advance and paid for that privilege) a time to have the tent delivered since there was a possibility they might call back. I ended the call extremely frustrated and somehow Shayna, our wedding coordinator was able to nail down a date with him over the phone later.
The other problems came the day before the wedding. I had spoken to him on Thursday when I got the keys and told him we'd be bringing by some decorations and things to set up on Friday. There was no event booked and he said that would be fine. We showed up Friday around 1 and he told us we could set a few things up as long as we didn't turn on the air conditioner. We were fine with that, and brought some things in. About twenty minutes later he came into the room and just stood there, staring at us for several long moments. Finally someone looked at him and said, "Yes?" He angrily said that he had to go to the bank, and that someone needed to lock up when we were finished. We said okay and he left. He had not returned by the time we left a half an hour or so later.
We were scheduled to hold the rehearsal outside in the garden that evening at five, which was already cleared with him. Everyone arrived and when my father needed to use the bathroom, I went to the door and began to unlock it. The door swung open and suddenly his face was about six inches from mine. "What do you want?!" I took a step back, startled. "My father needed to use the bathroom." "Look, we already had this conversation!" "I'm sorry, what?" "You did not rent the venue for today!" "I know sir, we are going to have the rehearsal outside, which we already cleared with you, my father just needed to use the bathroom." "I don't understand why you are trying to get another full day's rental out of us that you haven't paid for!"
At this point he was very visibly angry and yelling and so I asked him to give me a moment. I was really rattled at having someone in my face yelling when I had been given permission by this same person to do everything we did that day. I stepped outside and asked Shayna, our wedding coordinator if she would deal with him. She stepped inside and handled him swiftly and professionally. The gist of the conversation they had was that he was going to charge us $50 to use the bathroom (which I gladly would have paid to avoid the unpleasantness). Shayna assured him there would be no problems, and we did not see him again the rest of the time. After all was said and done, they did not charge us anything extra.
I would have loved to give them a glowing review since everything else about my wedding was so awesome. It's a shame I really can't due to the very unprofessional manner in which I was treated on multiple occasions. So how about this. Venue: 5 stars. Representative: 1.5 stars.
The Gourmet Gang did an awesome job catering our wedding. Lucy was terrific to work with, very responsive to every request and helped me put together a creative menu that met our specifications. We thought we'd have a hard time finding a caterer since we wanted an all-vegetarian (mostly vegan) menu, and we wanted our guests to be impressed with the food. They wowed all of us. We got so many compliments on the food, not one person asked "where's the meat?", the food was top notch. The presentation was gorgeous, the staff was courteous. Our wedding was outdoors in 101 degree heat, and the staff coped with it flawlessly, brought the food inside the building and no one was ever the wiser that it should have been set up otherwise.
The staff also set up all our tables, chairs and rentals and when an invoice came back from the rental company for some broken items, Lucy took care of it immediately.
I would very highly recommend Gourmet Gang for any event you have. They cater everything from small meetings to huge events, plus their deli locations have delicious lunch options as well. I visit the downtown one frequently.
Norfolk Wholesale Floral is a lot of bang for a little buck. I shopped around and the quotes I got were vastly, vastly different depending on where I went. Not only did Norfolk Wholesale come out to be the least expensive, they also came up with the quote on the spot, I didn’t have to wait a week or wonder if what I was dreaming about flowerwise was going to match up with what I was willing to allot to flowers budgetwise. I was able to say, I don’t want to spend more than $30 on each bridesmaid, and Sandy told me what my options were in that price range. She designed a gorgeous bouquet for me and I was very pleased overall.
They made wonderful bouquets, boutonnières and corsages for everyone, the flowers were ready on time and the order was 100% correct. I would highly recommend this vendor.
Gourmet Bake Shoppe Virginia Beach, Virginia 23462
Chef Emily De Long truly is a cake artist. Besides her gorgeous sugar artistry, she was able to accommodate my special requests for the cake as well. I am vegan so I don't eat dairy or eggs, which to many people would be a challenge when baking a wedding cake. Not Chef De Long! She got right to work making a vegan version of the delicious almond Chambord cake with buttercream icing. Our top tier and small cutting cake were vegan and the most delicious cake I have ever eaten. My vegan guests raved about the cake (we usually are stuck eating nothing when wedding cake is served) and so many guests commented on how lovely it was AND how tasty. I was so pleased.
She made my vision for the cake a reality and made something delicious I could enjoy on my wedding day despite my dietary restrictions. Thank you Chef De Long!
All I have to say is WOW! Daley DJs far surpassed my expectations. Working with Liz was wonderful. She was the consummate professional, responded quickly to all my requests and went far above and beyond the norm to make sure my wedding was exactly what I wanted and more! My husband and I are both involved in the local music scene, he is in a band, music is very important to us. I met with her to discuss music for the reception and she provided extremely helpful feedback on how to fit the songs we loved into the party so it would flow well.
We also worked together on a grand entrance, and it was SO FUN. I highly recommend doing this if you book with Daley DJs. We selected a short clip of music for each person in the wedding party, everything from "I'm Too Sexy" to George Thoroughgood. Some were funny, some were just awesome. I didn't tell anyone in the wedding party about it so it would be a surprise and when each person marched out to their own tune, there was huge applause and roaring laughter the whole time. I could NOT have been more pleased with how it turned out.
Peter was our DJ on the big day (Liz was booked) and he was awesome. Extremely professional, wore a tux in 101 degree heat and made it look good too! Everything went smashingly. We had a wonderful time and I would recommend this vendor to everyone.
All I can say about Shayna is THANK YOU! She made our wedding run seamlessly and with seemingly little effort! Let me brag on her and her staff for a minute.
I hired Shayna to be our day-of coordinator. We worked together for months leading up to the wedding, she responded via email and phone to recommend vendors and we prepared my big timeline for the day. She gave me honest feedback regarding the flow of the reception and ceremony, and was valuable in assisting me in making choices about the wedding party and seating.
She ran the rehearsal smoothly and quickly. She diffused a very stressful situation in which the venue manager actually got hostile with me. From the time she handled him so effortlessly, she put my mind at ease and it was smooth sailing all the way through til the end of the wedding.
The day of, while my girls and I were getting ready, her staff was picking up flowers and setting up decorations. When the 101 degree heat proved to be too scalding for our original ceremony location in the garden, she orchestrated moving the whole ceremony setup into the shade. She fielded vendors, directed family, assisted the photographer, told people where to go and what to do. Her staff even ran back to a local hotel to fetch my wedding band which I left in the room when we were taking photographs! Everything was perfect.
Afterward, my mom had to do very little, Shayna and her staff handled cleanup and lockup, we didn't have to worry about a thing.
I was dubious about spending money for a coordinator, but let me tell you it was worth EVERY PENNY. Contrasted with my sister's wedding where there was no coordinator but plenty of stress, mine was stress free, and we were able to just sit back and enjoy the day with family. We are so pleased we hired Shayna and her staff. Hire her, you won't be sorry!
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