Kristen Z. Sent on 05/04/2023
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Quality of service
3.0 out of 5 rating
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Average response time
2.0 out of 5 rating
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Professionalism
3.0 out of 5 rating
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Value
3.0 out of 5 rating
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Flexibility
3.0 out of 5 rating
Beautiful Venue with Subpar Service
This venue is a truly gorgeous location, and we were so glad to be able to have our wedding here! Everything was stunningly beautiful, and we got tons of compliments on how good everything looked. One small downside though was working with the staff throughout the later stages of planning the wedding. We’ve obviously never planned a wedding before, and when we went over everything with them at the final consultation, they seemed a little mad and annoyed that we didn’t have all the answers to questions that we hadn’t even thought of before and didn’t realize that they were going to ask. We needed to use the loft for the reception because we had too many people attending (250 guests) to put them all on the main level. During dinner and all the formal activities (cake cutting, first dances, etc.) they felt a little bit removed from all the festivities being so far away. Once the dancing started and everyone was up and moving around, it didn’t make that much of a difference, but that was something we weren’t aware of going in. We feel like they weren’t completely transparent on the costs of everything either. After paying 6 $1,000 deposits to the barn over the year and a half before the wedding, the week of the wedding, we were shocked to get the final invoice and see that we still owed almost $10,000 to them! Keep your receipts of any deposits you pay as well, because they didn’t go far back enough in their payment history, and if we hadn’t kept our records, they would’ve cheated us out of 1 of our $1,000 deposits. With the alcohol package, they include everybody over the age of 4 as a “person,” which to me seems absolutely ridiculous. I get that they wouldn’t have any way to verify how many people are drinking, but we ended up paying for alcohol for over 40 people at our wedding who were under the age of 21. That ended up being an additional $800 that we paid for people who legally aren’t old enough to drink. Everything did go smoothly on the day of the wedding, and we are still very happy that we had our wedding here, but the service left a little bit to be desired.
This venue is a truly gorgeous location, and we were so glad to be able to have our wedding here! Everything was stunningly beautiful, and we got tons of compliments on how good everything looked. One small downside though was working with the staff throughout the later stages of planning the wedding. We’ve obviously never planned a wedding before, and when we went over everything with them at the final consultation, they seemed a little mad and annoyed that we didn’t have all the answers to questions that we hadn’t even thought of before and didn’t realize that they were going to ask. We needed to use the loft for the reception because we had too many people attending (250 guests) to put them all on the main level. During dinner and all the formal activities (cake cutting, first dances, etc.) they felt a little bit removed from all the festivities being so far away. Once the dancing started and everyone was up and moving around, it didn’t make that much of a difference, but that was something we weren’t aware of going in. We feel like they weren’t completely transparent on the costs of everything either. After paying 6 $1,000 deposits to the barn over the year and a half before the wedding, the week of the wedding, we were shocked to get the final invoice and see that we still owed almost $10,000 to them! Keep your receipts of any deposits you pay as well, because they didn’t go far back enough in their payment history, and if we hadn’t kept our records, they would’ve cheated us out of 1 of our $1,000 deposits. With the alcohol package, they include everybody over the age of 4 as a “person,” which to me seems absolutely ridiculous. I get that they wouldn’t have any way to verify how many people are drinking, but we ended up paying for alcohol for over 40 people at our wedding who were under the age of 21. That ended up being an additional $800 that we paid for people who legally aren’t old enough to drink. Everything did go smoothly on the day of the wedding, and we are still very happy that we had our wedding here, but the service left a little bit to be desired.
The Barn at the Ackerhurst Dairy Farm's reply:
Hi Kristen,
We are happy that, overall, you were pleased with your wedding day, and we sincerely hope it’s a day you will remember fondly for years to come. We would like to respectfully address your review. To begin, when we conduct our final detail meeting a few weeks ahead of time, we don’t expect our couples to have all the answers. That’s the reason it’s held in advance, so we have time to tie up any loose ends. We are also used to conducting these meetings, so they don’t cause any annoyances on our end. What we do notice, however, is how stressful it can be for the clients since, like you said, you haven’t planned a wedding before, and we do ask for a lot of detail to provide the best service. If you felt that way, you are perfectly normal! And it could have reflected on how you felt about the meeting. We wish it was a better experience for you but thank you for providing the detail as that is the reason for everything going smoothly.
For the guests in The Loft, you were smart to overflow to that space to provide more comfort in the Haymow Room, we do feel like that is the best guest experience during dinner service over a more crowded space. It’s not uncommon for the guests to gather on the railing in The Loft if they really want to watch certain formalities, and then move around the space afterwards as you mentioned.
We began our working relationship in late 2021 and it’s hard to remember everything! In referencing the proposal sent to your mom on 10/12/21, the estimated cost was transparent. Your final invoice reflected a higher guest count, a flip fee, the lighting/draping, etc. Items unknown at the time of the proposal. The quarterly payments that were made are meant to keep you on track and to have a lower balance due. Some clients enter their guest count into the proposal as they receive RSVPs, so they have a better idea of the final bill. It’s a handy tool for that!
On that note, in the contract Paragraph 8. BEVERAGE SERVICE. (Initialed - indicating it was read) mentions how the Beverage Packages are calculated on guaranteed guest count. The minors and non-drinkers consume the Non-Alcoholic part of the package, which remained available to all 247 guests for the last two hours (even though you were off package after the 3-hour package you selected was over). If you don’t have these documents to reference and would like a copy, please let us know and we will forward them to you.
Finally, all payments are logged to the invoice as they are received, but on occasion one can get missed. Human error happens with manual entry. Sometimes the client enters the wrong date on the electronic payments, again, human error. If that happens it is usually resolved during the final detail meeting. If it is discovered later a refund is issued as we are not in the business of cheating clients out of payments as you noted.
We hope you have a different set of feelings after reading our response and continue to focus on the joy of your newly wedded life. It was great working with you and Jake! Best wishes.
