Weddings are emotional and overwhelming — your venue coordinator (Amy) should not add more stress to your day
I have highlighted everything below in case you would like to skip the story and get right to the point:
⚠️ Major Issues with Amy (Venue Coordinator):
• Extremely poor communication – Unresponsive for days to weeks, even during the critical & paid for “month-of” period
• Disorganized – Forgot the groom in a room during ceremony lineup; groomsmen had to stop the procession
• Unprofessional rude behavior – Rude to Mother of the Groom, shushed wedding party with hostility, scolded father of the groom and MOH
• Neglected responsibilities –
• Did not stock getting-ready bathrooms with toilet paper
• Forgot to refrigerate champagne as promised
• Mishandled marriage license
that was in Itinerary binder with tip money (worth ~$2,000)
• Disrupted wedding photos – Rushed the couple’s portraits and pressured them with unnecessary stress over candles
• Created unnecessary stress – Screamed at and made MOH cry during binder search
• Binder with license/tips left outside in the grass – Nearly lost critical documents and money
• Had the couples provided alcohol in her office with unknown people drinking it.
Now, here’s the story:
I got married on 9/28/24. Don’t get me wrong — our day was absolutely nothing short of perfect, all thanks to our loving family and friends. However, Amy caused stress beyond belief with her behavior, attitude, and lack of organizational skills.
I want to preface this by saying that The Grande Victorian itself is absolutely stunning and the most perfect place we could have gotten married. The ballroom, the getting-ready suites, and the outdoor cocktail area were everything my husband and I dreamed of and more.
We first booked the Grande Victorian in December of 2022. At first, Amy seemed amazing — sweet, punctual, and professional. She sold herself right off the bat, and we were so excited to not only book the venue but also pay extra and add her as our month-of coordinator. But as time went on and our big day got closer, we began to see the opposite.
I had a difficult time trying to communicate with her due to a lack of response — sometimes going weeks without hearing back. This caused delays with other vendors, as I couldn’t get critical details or answers from Amy. I held out hope that things would improve once the “month of” officially began. This was the first sign I should’ve just lost the money & changed coordinators for what she had done in our day—if only I knew.
But a week into the month, it still hadn’t improved. I reached out and respectfully expressed that I needed more reliable communication. She responded better — for about a week — and then it was crickets again.
The day of the wedding:
She briefly said hello when my bridal party arrived but barely checked on us after that. She was rude to my mother-in-law, who is known to be one of the kindest women many people know.
Our getting-ready bathrooms were out of toilet paper for most of the day. We let Amy know via text (because she was nowhere to be found), and it took hours to get any response. Two bathrooms + 12 women = not ideal.
I had spent a lot on champagne and Amy had promised to put it in the fridge — she never did. My maid of honor and I had to go down around 9 a.m. to do it ourselves. It still wasn’t cold by the time we drank it.
My husband and I had chosen to do private vows. While I appreciated Amy making sure the atmosphere was quiet, she rudely shushed our wedding party with a nasty expression and even scolded my father-in-law. There are much more professional and kind ways to ask a large group to quiet down. Or maybe, communicate in advance the plan to prevent this from happening in the first place.
Then came the ceremony. While the wedding party lined up, Amy separated me and my husband into different rooms. As the ceremony began and groomsmen walked down the aisle, my husband was nowhere to be seen. She had left him shut in a room and forgot about him. A groomsman had to stop the procession because Amy forgot the groom.
She walked down the aisle multiple times during the ceremony getting in a lot of key photos. She lost alcohol we had bought for our specialty cocktails and a guest offered to kindly get it from the liquor store.
After the ceremony, it was time for photos. My husband and I only got about three shots in front of the big white house before being rushed by Amy. Amy pressured us and our photographer to stop so the reception could start. I had put a lot of time and effort into prepping our taper candles so they would stay lit all night (salt water soak + hair spray on every one). Amy knew this was important to me. Her words?
“If you don’t hurry with your pictures, those candles you worked so hard on are going to blow out.”
I’ll just leave that there.
Due to only having three shots from being rushed, it opened a whole new can of worms where we needed to have redone couple portraits after our honeymoon. I cried on our honeymoon and got photos back where the White House clashed with my dress so harshly and my husband and I were not captured. I expressed how much I wanted pictures away from the house.
At the reception, everything felt perfect again — until about 8:45 p.m., when I realized we had never signed our marriage license. I went to Amy to ask where the binder was — the one that held our marriage license, the detailed itinerary, and around $2,000 in tips. I did this as I wanted to keep everything extremely important so that it was in one place and nothing would be uncounted for. While Amy knew all of these important items were in there and even praised me multiple times early on for how organized I was, she had taken it earlier from my maid of honor after the wedding party pictures and told her to head to cocktail hour. But now, Amy had no idea where it was.
I spent 30 minutes of my reception searching for it. Why did we pay for a coordinator who didn’t even remember the most important part of the day — making the marriage legal?
Eventually, my maid of honor accidentally found herself in Amy’s office searching for the binder, which had several women inside and a bottle of Rain Vodka — the same brand we were serving at the bar (an uncommonly used brand). Why was that there? Who were the people? A lot of questions.
My MOH was shoed out and scolded, and she and Amy got into a confrontation. Amy screamed at her and made her cry — on my wedding day. She even blamed my maid of honor for the missing binder & told her it was her fault it was lost.
Later, Amy found it out in the grass, in the front of the house, where she had apparently left it during the wedding portraits my husband and I were rushed away from.
⸻
Like I said, despite everything, our day was still perfect — and that was 100% because of the love and support from our family and friends.
I do not want this review to discourage you from booking at The Grande Victorian — it’s truly a spectacular venue. But my strongest advice is:
❌ Do not hire Amy as your coordinator.
Her customer service, professionalism, and people skills are severely lacking.
