White Chimneys

Beautiful Venue, Poor Coordination

I want to start this off by saying that the venue itself is absolutely beautiful & the supporting staff was wonderful. However, I was assigned the co-owner of the venue (Jessica) as my coordinator last minute. I had not worked with her in any planning meeting beforehand (I had previously been working with Miriam and she was great). I assumed my previous meetings would be fed to her regarding what I wanted & my vision, but the rehearsal would figure everything else out. At the start of the rehearsal, she was nowhere to be found to give direction. Once she finally showed up, she was texting on her phone the entire time and offered no suggestions or feedback as to how people should walk, where they should stand, etc. She generally looked miserable the whole time & I have her in the back of many pictures just on her phone. She then rushed us out after exactly 1 hour, even though we started late because of her. On my wedding day, it was raining all morning & I could not set up the outdoor portion for the ceremony, to which I was told multiple times “don’t worry about it, I’ll handle it.” She was again nowhere to be found all day, except for when she was giving tours to other prospective couples. She was walking around in the parking lot on her phone when the ceremony was to begin & my husband had to run up to her to ask if everyone should start (she was supposed to escort us all to our stations - I had to send a bridesmaid to figure out how to get to our starting point without having guests see me) to which she just shrugged and said sure. She had the DJ set up in a totally different place than originally discussed so I couldn’t hear my cue to walk down the aisle. Once she finally arrived, I asked her if I should start walking and all she said was, “well is this your song?” Once it was cocktail hour/reception time, they also did not light a single votive or candle or string light. We were also told she would have heaters outside if it was too cold & my mom had to find her to demand where they were, as people were outside shivering (surprise, she was inside on her phone). I had MULTIPLE people (including multiple vendors, bridal party, parents AND some guests) complain about her attitude & inattentiveness. We also went through 2 “preferred” DJs, one who took our money and ran & another that never responded to us. The DJ we finally chose (from friends) then had problems hooking up to their equipment, even though we had to pay an extra fee to “allow” him to use their sound system. Luckily, most people did not notice the things that went wrong, but I spent lots of on all these details that were completely disregarded & she was nowhere to be found for the majority of the day (and charged a hefty fee for her “services,” which was not quoted ahead of time & we were told to just bring her a blank check). So overall, again, beautiful venue, the rest of the staff (and Roaming Libations led by Miriam as the bar staff) was absolutely amazing, but the owner really put a bad taste in peoples’ mouths. I had heard negative things about her from other weddings there but I didn’t really have a choice & thought she would want to do a great job as the owner. I was wrong to not push back & request another coordinator (and if you have your wedding there, request anyone other than Jessica).