Castello Brancaccio Reviews

Dear Ian & Kayla, thank you from all of us for these kind words. We did not realice you had this journey prior to confirming with us. It was a pleasure and whenever you are back in the area lpease come by for a drink with us and share your wedding pictures with us. With love from all of us.

Thank you for your review, we were absolutely delighted to host your wedding at our venue, you and your guests were a pure ppleasure to work with? We wish you the best of luck and please come to stay with us next time you are in Rome!

Castello Brancaccio Team

Dear Jeff, thank you for your positive & partial critical feedback. Truly appreciated. We try to make our qoutation as clear as possible For example : we make extra cost clear if any upgrade was requested or give an alternative within the price calculated. I tripple checked all your qoutes & communications. La Cera extra cost was clear. Pool party exclusive rent charge & non exclusive ( share with other guest . Its a choice and no hidden fee. Regarding the menu we have checked and I strongly disagree. You had a 3 course menu with set menu however an upgrade was requested on main course and a lot of individual dishes . See below. No problem but very labor intensive. Yes ,extra chef was needed and we charged 5 euro extra cost . See below the final menu . As per your feedback on upsell. Please may I remind you that you double transfered the final invoice ( very high amount and on your day of arrival I tripple checked with you and at that moment you where not even aware of the double payment. After the funds where fully cleared by our bank in Italy we immediately transfered the high amount back into your account. We did not charge for the extra transfer fee ( for your info ) We simply forgot. :-) Regarding housekeeping, we are flexibel on times as on a wedding day we wait till the ceremony starts as it does not make sence to clean if everybody is still in the room doing make up and dress up. We choose to start cleaning after guest have left so when they come back late at night the room is clean instead of half used . Yes this is not in line with hotel standards but more focused into the personal need of our couples. Nothing is more annoying then to have housekeeping at 11am come cleaning if guest are still in the middle of there make up etc. We concider it a service with flexibility. On a note This was the final menu.
Principessa Brancaccio
First Course
Stylishly presented & served per guest
Homemade ravioli filled with ricotta & nettle, white ragu, wild mushrooms & truffle cream 44x
or
Homemade ravioli filled with ricotta & nettle, wild mushrooms & truffle cream (vegetarian) 18x
or
Gluten free pasta, white ragu, wild mushrooms & truffle cream (Gluten free & Dairy free) 2x
Second Course
Stylishly presented & served per guest
Risotto with fresh mushroom cream, aromatic herbs, wine reduction & fresh tomato
Paired with crispy fried zucchini flowers "fried zucchini flowers" 64x
Third Course
Elegantly presented & served per guest en clôche
Braised beef cheek cooked at low temperature with red wine and aromatic herbs,
served with a side of potato millefeuille 44x
or
Fish fillet in citrus and basil emulsion served with a side of potato millefeuille & vegetables 10x
or
Venus rice pie with ratatouille of seasonal vegetables,
grilled cheese, rosemary oil and confit tomato (vegetarian) 9x
or
Venus rice pie with ratatouille of seasonal vegetables,
rosemary oil and confit tomato (vegetarian & dairy free) 1x

Dear JS,

Thank you very much for your review and constructive comments! We are very happy that besides certain things you enjoyed your big day, it was a pleasure hosting your wedding at our venue!

Just to respond and explain certain issues you have touched upon.

Thank you for understanding that we are very busy during the high season and obviously not able to reply as quickly as during the low season. We however are normally available at a short notice for any calls that might arise.

About the last point meeting. The last point meeting normally takes place three weeks before the wedding, we send you some papers to fill in and it serves to go precisely through the programme of the wedding following chronological order and for us to take notes so we can follow your instructions as precisely as possible. It is obviously normal to also discuss the prices and include all the optional items which we always do exactly at the last point meeting. We regret that you took it as an offence to talk about the costs and perhaps caring less for your wedding, we assure you that the meeting is structured in a way that we do not diverge from the main focus – making sure we do not miss any details of your wedding. The nature of the call is to be efficient and practical for your own benefit. It is also the purpose to talk through all the costs so you have no surprises later. After the meeting we send you the updated proposal with all the costs clearly marked. If you had anything to pay on the day of the check out it means you either extended the party last minute or for example if you still had us buy hard liquor which we buy on your behalf, there are no other scenarios as the wedding must be paid in full 7 days prior its taking place.We are sorry that there was a misunderstanding.

As for the event manager, we always have one and he is responsible for making sure your guests follow your timetable. We serve table by table, 5 waiters at a time, so it is normal that if you have say 10 tables the table last table will be served several minutes later than the first as otherwise we would need an army of waiters to serve everyone at the same time. We however are glad to hear that you have no complaints about the quality of the food which means the waiters and kitchen did their job successfully. Desserts are normally served downstairs on the same floor where the party takes place, and it is clearly written in the quote (each section of the day has a location indicated for it). Also the manager is present at all times and guides your guests to those places. We cannot comment as to why your cousin had to do it but perhaps you refer to the the last 15 minutes of dinner when manager goes downstairs to check the party area is ready and prepare the cake for the cutting, only once he has made sure everything is ready does he go to the couple and shows them all and when they give OK do we then invite all the guests downstairs for the cake cutting, desserts and the party. We cannot comment on private initiatives of guests.

As regards your hotel accommodation, we would like to clear that half of your guests booked rooms all over the province of Rome, in some cases in the outskirts of towns far away from the venue without first occupying all our hotel capacity. We are also unsure why they chose to go to certains B&Bs in the middle of literally nowhere where even the taxi driver we normally work with refused to go because it was a small countryside road where he couldn’t pass. I think the issue I am afraid was that you offered your guests to pay for the shuttle and gave them opportunity to book in the most improbable places they could find which obviously understandbly enough bloated your transportation budget. It is not for nothing that we invite your guest to stay in one of the partner hotels or take B&Bs in the same town where the venue is located, your guests had clearly chosen not to make use of our cottages and not one B&B next to the Castle (out of 5 available) and instead go to unexpectedly badly located hotels. We normally help you with booking shuttles for guests staying in partner hotels, in this case we actually still fixed the transportation for you even if the guests should have thought better when booking their accommodation at very distant places. We have in fact personally driven some of your guests for free of charge because there was no taxi available or willing to pick up your guests, we thank you for recognising this.

Once again we are really greatful to your compliments of our team and the venue itself, we are very sorry you had the added stress on the day of the wedding which is surely not what we wanted to create for you. Whilst we recognise that some issues could be improved and we are thankful to you for your precious feedback, in our modest opinion the major stress factor arose from the guests booking their accommodation in very impractical hotels, we wish they also followed your and our advise to book either at the castle or in the town and for evenual excess capacity in the two partner hotels we work with to make life easy for everyone, especially for you. Thank you for your trust in us and down the line you and your guest had an great experience.

With sincere gratitude,

Castello Brancaccio Team

Dear Breanna,

thank you for your review! I would like to reply by pointing out that our donpayment policy states clearly in writing and during our calls that it is non refundable, as per industry practice world wide. Although in exceptional circumstances we may decide to return some of the money. In this case it was communicated to you that if we managed to sell the date you had booked we would refund you some of the money, unfortunately for you and for us the date was not taken by another couple, and therefore we did not return the non-refundable downpayment. We are sorry for your unfortunate circumstances and hope you all the best in your life.

Kindest regards,

Castello Brancaccio