Life Arts Center Reviews

I cannot say enough great things about my experience at LAC. I had my wedding there a few days ago and it was nothing short of perfection.

My husband and I had to cancel our previous venue for COVID reasons. We were three months away from our wedding and we’re definitely worried. I reached out to several venues in hopes of finding someplace fast.

Elvia reached out to me and we set up a tour. She was so patient and answered all of our questions. We fell in love instantly and booked right away.

Our planning process was so smooth and worry free.
Elvia was always available to answer my calls and we always found someone at the building to talk to if we dropped by. We met another coordinator, Marie, who was also super helpful and kind. She helped setup my timeline and put me at ease.

The day of, everyone worked so hard to make sure we had the best day possible. Our room was beautifully decorated, security and the bar tender did a great job.

I have no regret in choosing this place to host my wedding. I will always look back and remember it as the best day ever.

It was a beautifully scortching day and the life arts center kept the room nice and cool.

I loved this place from the moment I walked in its so vintage , I did hire my own caterer, and other things but the price was reasonable

The venue was spacious and beautiful! The staff is friendly and accommodating. You can choose what you would like to add and take away to make the price right for you. We just paid for the space itself and tables and chairs. They allow outside vendors for food and you can bring in your own drink to be served by a bartender provided by the venue. Perfect venue for a bride on a budget who wants a beautiful wedding.

We had our beautiful wedding here and I couldn’t have had a better experience with how flexible and organized the event planning was! I would encourage anyone who’s looking for a venue for guest to be in awe and have a good time

The Life Arts Center was an amazing place for my wedding. We had our reception in the Florence Room. We chose it because of it's location and the beautiful architecture. The staff was amazing and the coordinator they gave us the day of the wedding was excellent. It was a little hard getting details from them from time to time but at the end of the day, it was a perfect choice. Big selling point for us was that we could stock our own bar! We went with one of their packages that included everything except the cake, DJ, and alcohol and were pleased with everything! Beautiful building!

Decorator was helpful and receptionist however communication was difficult and no one returned my calls or emails or coordinated among themselves so wedding day was chaos among bartender and coordinator also manager does not know what he is doing but price is right and building is historic and beautiful

The manager is a nice guy, the lady in the office is not very consistent. I was told I can decorate set up the night before. They ended up renting the hall the week before and I was not able to set up until 10:30 at night. She had promised 10:00 pm. The morning of the event I went back to set up flowers, I had favors missing from the tables. The waiting staff was good, but I had things taken from the kitchen (extra favors I had set aside). I was also told I could use mason jars and the bar tenders did not use them. I was promised a wedding planner for the day of the event. I emailed the agenda and food set up, it was not followed I had to coordinate with dj and waiters for bride and groom dance, cake cutting, bouquet toss, etc

No professionalism. Get everything in writing. Deny anything given for “free”.

In the beginning everyone was friendly and helpful. It was completely different after deposits were made. We thought it was weird that we had to contact them regarding décor, payments, finalizing the menu and times. They recommended bakers so we tasted cake and chose one. A few months later we made an appointment through the venue to meet the baker to discuss design and payment... they sent the baker we rejected! We rescheduled and asked for chocolate cupcakes and peanut butter frosting, but we got chocolate and chocolate. She said she'd use fresh strawberries for our strawberry cupcakes, but we got a jelly filling instead. They were dry and not what we asked for! I asked if I was responsible for the cake table décor and she said no. She said she'd use ribbon and a cute sign, but we had nothing. It was a white cloth with a tower of cupcakes. We were told we'd have an event coordinator, but when our day arrived no one knew where the coordinator was. The servers and bartender asked my bridesmaids if they knew where he/she was. After the wedding, the venue told us the head server was our coordinator. Funny because she asked my wedding party and DJ if they had seen the coordinator. We asked the manager to contact us regarding this issue, but no one's returned our call.
Other things that went wrong:
- Food was cold so we didn't eat. Neither did our bridal party & many of our guests.
- We'd make appointments to meet with the decorator & baker, but have to reschedule b/c no one notified them.
- Everyone tells you something different and you don't work with one person.
- I made a change to the menu 3 months before our event & confirmed it weeks later. The caterer called me 2 days before my wedding asking if I changed the menu & that no one told him.
- Was told my father, who is handicapped, could use the side entrance & parking lot, but he couldn't.

Beautiful building, but lacks professionalism!
*Elvia, the decorator, did a good job.

My husband and I paid upfront to secure a banquet hall at the Life Arts Center for our wedding. The services we paid for were not provided and several contractual promises were not met on the part of the staff at the Life Arts Center.

While there were many issues throughout the day of the event, the most notable was that they double-booked our venue. As per our contract, we were to have access to our paid portion of the building from 10:00am until midnight. However, because they also signed a contact with a local church (after our event was booked and paid for) we did not have full access to our space until 1:00pm. Naturally, this caused a long list of issues for us as our ceremony was scheduled to start at 3:00pm. I’m addition to this, we paid additional money to use preparation rooms starting at 8:00am. Again, we were not able to access the rooms until 9:30.

On top of all of this the service was poor, the space unclean, and the decorations that we set up with the decorator were incomplete due to the lack of time available for prep.

My husband and I met with the building manager, staff, and COO after the event to discuss our problems and request a partial refund in order to avoid legal battles. They refused and instead offered us a weekend hotel package. We informed them that we consider taking legal action before immediately accepting their offer. After a week, we responded and accepted their offer, mainly to avoid sacrificing time that we did not have. At that point the office manager began avoiding us. Finally she responded saying that she did not know if they would still give us the hotel package because we considered legal matters after their offer.

The staff and management treated us with disrespect the entire time. The planning staff was grossly disorganized. No business, especially a special event venue, should get away with treating customers so poorly and not even attempting to recover for their own contractual mistakes.