Millennium Gate Museum and Event Venue Reviews

Thank you so much Nate! I am looking forward to our continued relationship through your big day. It is my pleasure to work with amazing clients such as you all!

Thank you so much! We enjoyed working with you as you were a fabulous client! Wishing you all the best!

Thank you Ja'nay! It was my pleasure to be a part of your most special day. You were wonderful to work with and I wish you the best always.

We are sorry to hear you have been so disappointed. Allow me to clarify a
few points.

With COVID-19, our policies and procedures have continued to be in flux. In
the wake of another record for new coronavirus cases in a single-day
reported across the state of Georgia, the City of Atlanta has rolled back
to a Phase I status, the mayor's office confirmed. Georgia has shattered
the single-day record with nearly 4,500 new cases.

Under Phase I recovery conditions, people in the city are asked to stay at
home except for essential trips, wear face coverings in public, practice
frequent hand-washing and to follow social distancing where practical.
Other businesses are asked to continue to practice teleworking. For this
reason, we have not been allowing events to set up indoors, and we shared
our policies with Videria.

Georgia was one of the first states to begin reopening its businesses
following its prolonged shelter-in-place orders. Gov. Brian Kemp's office
said that the mayor's order is "merely guidance - both non-binding and
legally unenforceable."

"Once again, if the Mayor actually wants to flatten the curve in Atlanta,
she should start enforcing state restrictions, which she has failed to do.
We ask citizens and businesses alike to comply with the terms of the
Governor's order, which was crafted in conjunction with state public health
officials. These common-sense measures will help protect the lives and
livelihoods of all Georgians."

The Millennium Gate is trying its best under difficult circumstances as
stated above that are in the best interests of public health.

In an effort to be transparent and let Videria know how we have been
handling events during COVID-19, I told her what our current policies have
been. We have been limiting use of the indoor spaces to the restrooms and
kitchen for catering needs. I let her know that a year from now, it is
likely that this will be over and everything she needs would be available.
But, should COVID-19 still be as much of a threat as it is right now for
her wedding in September 2021, we would still be limiting access to the
indoor spaces. She would have access to the indoors, perhaps on a limited
basis.

Additionally, the need for a tent was mentioned in one of our very first
emails (and it is mentioned above in the description of our facility). We
tell all our event rental clients that for events larger than 40 guests, a
tent is your only option since space is limited inside the museum
galleries. With COVID-19, this has now been implemented for all events,
including small elopements since our galleries are intimate and COVID-19
social distancing is our concern. We discussed capacity at one point for
the bridal suite, as you wanted to hold your wedding there on the roof. I
explained that the bridal suite is our president's office and there is no
space for a ceremony on the roof. In this time of COVID distancing, a
ceremony on the roof is very tight, and her numbers would have been
dangerous.

It is true that at this time we are not refunding deposits. All event
rental clients are told that their deposits are non-refundable. Our event
contract state the same thing. It is common practice for wedding venues to
require a non-refundable deposit in order to hold a date. I apologize if
she felt rushed as we have had lots of demand for next fall. My telling her
this compelled her to pay her deposit, evidently, before all her questions
were answered.

The options that were presented to Videria are as follows -

1. Move forward with your event rental as planned, hoping that COVID-19 is
not an issue and we can proceed regularly.

2. Reschedule your event - As a courtesy, we are not charging any
rescheduling fees at this time due to the pandemic. Should you like to move
your event to a later date, or hold off on rescheduling for the time being,
we can apply the deposit to the new event date easily. Your deposit would
travel with you and be applied to your new date, whenever that would be.

3. We offered to downsize her event to our Petite Ceremony, which is a
$1000 fee, since she had already paid her $1000 deposit. Our full event
rental fees are $3500. This is why I offered this as an alternative, so
that she would not have to pay any additional funds. They could proceed
with a smaller ceremony (as many couples are doing right now) and would be
free to work with us, or another venue, and schedule a larger event when
COVID-19 is not a threat.

4. We are allowing deposits to be transferred. In my email, I offered that
perhaps Videria had a friend or family member who has an event coming up
that we could offer at the Millennium Gate Museum. With written permission
from Videria, her deposit would be applied to this new event, and her
friend or family member could pay her back the deposit.

5. The final option we presented, if she did not want to move forward with
the event rental in any way, was that we could write Videria a donation
receipt for the $1000 deposit. We are a non-profit museum, first and
foremost, and donations to our institution are tax deductible.

We are very sorry that our client felt that she was not completely appreciated and taken care of for her Intimate Ceremony. We do everything we can to accommodate our clients to the best of our ability including date changes. Not only do we not charge for date changes, but just the fact that we accommodate short (1 day) notices is relatively unheard of at other venues. Our policy is to have a staff member present to dedicate their time to the clients contracted time frame. The first date change was logged with no issues on our end. The second date change which was a one day notice, was impossible for us to staff. The client was told that our onsite staff member would be notified that she was onsite but was not guaranteed to be available to her due to other responsibilities. At the time, the client did not care that she would not have my help; she just wanted to come on property to perform the ceremony and take photos. We were very surprised to receive the negative feedback and, of course, we offered to her an opportunity to visit the museum at no cost.