Rehearesal Lunch - Baiting Hollow Farm and Vineyard
Our initial experience felt to be positive, but unfortunately as the event drew near it was one nightmare after another. We were actually holding a luncheon for our wedding rehearsal. Little did we know that what was supposed to be a relaxing afternoon for us and our guests would be the one and only source of great stress for our wedding. After meeting with them I made a number of attempts to confirm the party and give a deposit. After many attempts I received a call back. The follow up was fair below acceptable. Once confirmed, I requested an email confirmation on countless occasions to confirm what our package included. Since contracts are not provided for private events an email would have to do. I was promised that I would receive one during the second week of July. Not only did I not receive that month but I had to actually emailed a detailed list and pushed for an email response before the event. Finally, the day before the event, it was confirmed after I pushed and demanded. This confirmation was extremely important to us since we were advised a week before that party that what we were told was included was not. To make matters more uncomfortable when I addressed it with the owner she blamed me and told me I was wrong, no effort in the least to ease my frustrations. In fact, she got quite hostile on the phone and told me she would just refund my $500 deposit. Cancelling was not an option as finding a site that could accommodate our party on a holiday weekend would be next to impossible, and believe me we tried. The day of the event was not much better – in fact it only got worse. Not only was there not enough seating for our guests, but when I asked for more tables the owner insisted on counting the tables. All while we had guests standing in front of us with plates of food in their hands waiting to sit. Once I finally asked that we stop debating it was more than 20 minutes before the table and chairs arrived. This happened TWICE. We had the exact number of guests arrive that I provided in our final count, not one additional person arrived. On a number of email exchanges I requested that a special sandwich be prepared for my father with no cheese as he has an allergy. As lunch was being setup I was told it was wrapped up for him. When he was ready to eat I went to prepare is plate and saw cheese. I let the server know the point of wrapping a separate sandwich was no cheese. There was a second sandwich wrapped up for him as well, low and behold there was cheese on that one as well. The server offered to go prepare him a fresh one. 20 minutes later, after he had made do with the other options on the table she came with his sandwich…it was a little late. We were told that hotdogs would be available for the kids. We asked for 4 hot dogs, the owner let me know she would go to the grill and get them. One hour later, no exaggeration I finally went to the grill myself to see that the kids could eat. The guy at the grill said, “oh these, they have been here for you for almost an hour”…are you kidding me?! Lunch was served outside, in the hot summer at a farm/vineyard. Rather than displaying the food with net screens/covers we had to rely on the server to swat the flies away from the buffet. How can she manage that when she is trying to serve lunch? It was repulsive. When we first arrived the owner noticed that the sign they made for the party had my husband’s name spelled wrong. Did she have it corrected? No. It was simply printed on standard 8 ½ x 11 paper upstairs in their office, out of respect for the guest of honor I would expect this would be addressed. And to top off our feeling of being nickel and dimed to death…there were about 10 cans of soda left in the ice bucket. As the party was finishing up many of our guests were touring the property. I wanted to grab the drinks, which we paid for to give them to the guests as they gathered back in the parking lot. I was told that we were not allowed to take what was left, those drinks were simply “thrown in”. Really? We paid more than $45 a person for a fly infested sandwich and some salad…oh and a small glass of wine per adult and I can’t take 10 cans of soda? And not that this is a big deal but after the day that we had it really did top the cake. When we made the initial arrangements for the party I asked if we could take pictures on the vineyard the day of our wedding. Sharon was more than welcoming to the idea and offered to have 2 GROOMED horses ready for us for the pictures. Well, we did get ONE horse, who was not groomed and “dressed up” as she promised. There were so many little things that I just don’t have the energy to get into beyond this. We were promised that they would take care of every last detail for us – this was simply not the case. We really could not be more disappointed…thank goodness we had an amazing wedding at Giorgio's! The rest if our wedding was amazing - I will post a review of all vendors soon with pleasure. I wanted to get this posted before anyone else was subject to their nightmare!!
