Compromising Service for Venue Beauty
Let me start by saying this venue is absolutely beautiful. The ceremony site is breathtaking, the reception space is great, and the houses for overnight stays are top of the line. For all of these features, I would give Twin Creeks more than five stars if I could.
The reason this final review is three stars is entirely because of our experience with the staff (besides Anna, who was very sweet and helpful). From very early on, my husband and I felt as though we were bothering Cindy when we contacted her or asked her questions. Communication was usually short and not exactly friendly. Additionally, professionalism in correspondence was severely lacking. We ignored this and continued to plan, though. I would like to note that a handful of family members accompanied us to in-person planning meetings and had the same takeaways regarding attitude and weird vibes as I had picked up— despite me never making mention of my own impression to anyone besides my husband.
Our frustrations began to mount when catering discussions began. Twin Creeks has a required vendor for catering, which is perfectly fine. Cindy initially sent us a very small menu to choose from with pricing packages that surprised us (many options were more expensive than what we had been quoted in the metropolitan area we live in, despite being really casual meal plans). We had previously viewed the required caterer’s personal website and menu and had seen options that we really liked that were not provided on the menu from Twin Creeks. When we asked about this, Cindy insisted on being the middleman and communicating with the caterers for us. After days of silence, we finally reached out to the caterers, who told us we were not in fact required to use that pre-set menu. Silver Spoon Catering was so helpful and great to work with directly and together we came up with a menu and pricing that we were very pleased with. Cindy did not seem happy that we had direct communication with them. This was frustrating because overall, communication seemed to be a weak point. I often had to initiate scheduling the meetings that Twin Creeks suggested we have at certain points in the planning process.
Again, my husband and I shook most of this off and it wasn’t a huge deal. This all changed during our wedding weekend. Mind you, our weekend was still everything we dreamed it would be. Everyone we loved was in attendance, the spaces were beautiful, and at the end of the day we were married. The only outside stresses that I felt that weekend were related to the Twin Creeks service. First, it had been mentioned to us that we would possibly be able to do early check-in at the two houses we rented for the weekend, which was awesome. I double checked on the Tuesday before that we could still do early check-in and it was confirmed. I told them that we would be there on Thursday afternoon. The words “check-in” were explicitly used. Once we got there, they seemed thrown off or surprised to see us despite this communication. We were trying to drop things off when they informed us they had multiple tours to give of both houses that day and despite that, we would still have to pay full-price if we wanted to stay overnight. This threw us off, but we improvised. They told us that their tours would be over by 5 pm and we could come back by then with our stuff but once they left for the day, we wouldn’t have access to either house. When 5 pm rolled around, I sent a text to inform them we were coming back by and got no response. When we showed up at 5:15 pm, everyone had already left for the day. We tried the code that we had previously been given and it worked, which was pure luck because we had brought over a ton of stuff on the promises that we could. I never received any response back or follow-up. This was so incredibly frustrating because, 1) Why would you offer “early check-in,” if what you’re actually offering is just an early drop off, 2) Even if drop off was what they meant to characterize it as, they made it impossible for us to do so, 3) Despite my best efforts to communicate, their knowledge we were trying to drop stuff off, and the fact that it was officially our wedding weekend, we were completely ghosted and left on our own. Like I said, I got no kind of follow up on this incident. The first and only communication I got on our wedding day was to get someone to deliver some decor items to them, which we had been trying to organize but was a little chaotic with everyone trying to get ready. They insisted on being the point of contact for all vendors, but still didn’t initiate any communication with us as far as updates. They were otherwise absent until our ceremony, which is fine because there’s not really anything for them to help us with at the point.
My husband’s first communication with Cindy that day consisted of her snapping at him to get started down the aisle as he was trying to help his mother fix her eyelashes. This put a bit of a damper on his mood as he was literally trying to walk down the aisle to be married. At the reception, several family members and friends also had some not-so-positive interactions that were reported back to us as well. This was really frustrating to hear considering the investment we made in this venue (over $30,000 paid to Twin Creeks), which includes the service. One piece of information that we learned after that fact that really upset us was that we paid for four hours of open beer and wine. Cindy took it upon herself to shut down our bar before the contracted time without consulting anyone on either side of the family. She made a comment to the Best Man that it was because everyone was getting “too drunk.” Firstly, that’s offensive. My parents are fairly conservative when it comes to drinking and took steps to keep an eye on people and ensure it didn’t get out of hand. My mother, who does not drink and was completely sober through the entire night, thought everyone was fine. Even if it was someone’s perspective that things were getting out of hand, someone needs to be consulted/informed before that executive decision is made. Nothing was said to us (bride, groom, either parents, NO ONE) and we were still charged for the full time despite at LEAST 30 minutes being cut off from it. We have suspicions that the “over-served” guests were the multiple wedding crashers who wandered from the marina into our reception and began helping themselves to our bar. Not okay in the slightest. This was never addressed after the fact. The workers started tearing down our reception space while the reception was still going on. Lights were immediately turned on as soon as the clock hit 10:30 pm and everyone felt rushed to leave, and frankly, unwelcome. This didn’t match the claim that my husband and I heard in initial meetings that the party could continue as long as we wanted it to (For the record, we didn’t want it to go on all night by any means, but the hard stop at 10:30 was a bit jarring. We knew this was the scheduled last call time for the bar but didn’t realize it was also the end of our event). We heard radio silence from Twin Creeks at the conclusion of our wedding night and this solidified our perspective that they continuously treated us like they were uninterested and ready to be done with our wedding weekend. It truly felt like we were a burden or inconvenience throughout most of our interactions, which no one wants to feel at their wedding. When I reached out with feedback about our experience, explanations were provided that did not align with firsthand guest encounters.
In the end, amazing space to get married but adjust your expectations on service if you choose to follow through on booking here.
