Absolute worst experience with a wedding venue. Additional hidden fees for EVERYTHING- turning a grudge on, lights, curtains.. ridiculous. Not to mention, the lady in charge is the rudest person I've ever met. Lied about taking our supplies and even found a way to kick everyone out early by lying to the cops. Think twice before booking here! read more

There were NO hidden fees at all. Sharon was the most transparent about any fees and ensured we approved them all prior to payment. I couldn't have asked for anything to be any better. The venue is stunning, the bridal suite was spectacular and working with Sharon was a true joy. Sharon made so many things a thousand times easier. She understood my vision and helped make it a reality. We had so many compliments on how pretty everything was and that work was almost entirely done by Sharon. We enjoyed her so much that it was a bit sad to not get to meet with her anymore. I seriously couldn't say enough wonderful things about this venue and Sharon! read more

My college graduation party was held at Dupont Downs. Sharon bent over backwards to make sure it was elegant, stress free (for me) and reasonably priced. I highly recommend this venue and will utilize the space and awesome service for my next event. Couldn't be more pleased! read more

PLEASE DO NOT RENT THIS VENUE! You will be very unhappy with all the hidden fees that Sharon ( the owner) charges. She should be shut down for bad business practices. She treated my family terrible. At one point my sister went up to her at the reception to tell her that the women bathroom was out of TP. She was not even accommodating about that! She tacks on a 16% surcharge for every outside vendor you use...including a CASH bar. Yes, that's right, a 16% upcharge that you will be billed for after your wedding guests already paid for their drinks. We decorated our own tables because her prices were so outrageous, but even that did not go smoothly. Sharon was in charge of the head table only, but when we got there, she did not have any table linens for that table. We had to go out and rent them. Who does that? Wouldn't you think if the head table was hired to be done, that would include linens? She charged us $50/hour to go in to decorate, but since we had to run out to rent linens, it took an hour & a half. So we had to pay her for 2 hours. She even was overheard telling our bartender to "shut it down" at 9:30 when I hired them till 10:30. She is a very unhappy person & should not be in business. I have many more examples of bad business practices and rude behavior. read more

HIDDEN FEES!! I wish I had read the online reviews before booking here. Unfortunately, too many things went wrong/were not what I had been promised by Sharon!! BEWARE! Everything needs to be in writing with this place in order to back you up! Half the things we agreed on or spoke about did not happen and when I addressed these issues she denied them all! read more

My husband and I held our wedding reception at Dupont Downs in June 2014 and I won't lie, after having read some of the terrible reviews about Sharon and how she operates I was a little apprehensive but I fell in love with the venue and figured I would take a chance by booking with her. My biggest concern was getting overcharged, considering how expensive planning a wedding is, and I didn't want to deal with any surprises. I will say that our experience with Sharon was a very pleasant one. I couldn't be happier with how the venue turned out for our special day. Sharon offered great advice when I needed it and she was completely open to my vision. I did all of my own centerpieces and extra decor throughout the venue. I did use Sharon for our cake table, tables and chairs, backdrop and cake bureau, all of which she priced very fair and reasonable. I never felt that she treated me differently when I expressed I was going to do some of my own decorating. We also used a caterer who was not on her catering list, Rack and Helens, and she was a huge help when working with them. There were many times I was unclear on what was being provided by the caterer and instead of having to call them to clarify myself, Sharon would call them and get back with me. If there was anything that didn't necessarily go as planned it would be that when I arrived at Dupont Downs to get ready the day of the wedding, our backdrop was different than Sharon and I had previously discussed. It was a small problem that was fixed immediately and our backdrop actually turned out better than what I originally hoped for. Also, many weeks after the wedding I still had not received the deposit from the bridal suite. I emailed Sharon and received a check in the mail that very week. The small "problems" I had weren't really problems in the grand scheme of things. If I could offer advice to anyone considering using Dupont Downs as their venue it would be to communicate VERY WELL. I think that communicating with Sharon about literally EVERYTHING is what made my experience with her so pleasant. When getting prices from Sharon, write them down. At every meeting I had with Sharon I wrote down everything we talked about, what prices she gave me and that is exactly what we paid.There were no surprises, no hidden fees and I received exactly what I was told I would. Sharon does beautiful work and our wedding reception was everything we had hoped it would be. If given the opportunity to work with Sharon again, I would gladly do so! read more

Our wedding was one of the very first ones held at this venue back in 2012. DON'T let the photos mislead you, as 99% of the photos shown on the website where NOT her ideas, Not her decorations as we did our own decorations 100% and she HAD Nothing to do with them. I agree with all the negative comments regarding being rude, very poor management and hidden cost. She never would give written estimate, never wrote anything down and never could recall prior conversations. Yes it was beautiful but NOT because of the owner Sharon. In fact her boyfriend said, Wow she should hire you as it looks beautiful. In fact, we sold the majority of our decorations to her after the fact and she had the nerve to contact us afterwards and said we owed a couple hundred dollars. I keep very good records and knew that I owed her nothing and she got nothing more. We have since asked her to remove our photos from her website as we didn't give her permission to use them, She has not yet removed and we are considering contacting our attorney over this matter. Run while you can! read more

BEWARE!!!!!! Don't get me wrong Dupont Downs is a beautiful place and when we saw it we fell in love with it, little did we know what was ahead. My daughter posted on here as well and yes, do check out the other websites she listed for reviews. Sharon the owner makes it not so pretty. She is all about money. If money is no object for you, then by all means go here, BUT if you are on a budget and know what you can spend, then this isn't the place for you and RUN! My daughter was married here on June 21st, 2014 in the garden area. You want your wedding day to be beautiful and memorable, but not for the wrong reasons. We wish now we would have went somewhere else. When my daughter paid for the rental of the building. and she had to pay extra for the garden area as well, she also had to pay a $100.00 deposit down for Bridal suite. As long as suite was left undamaged she would get that back. She didn't, Sharon kept $25.00 to clean up petals in the garden area, she said someone had to pick them up one by one, that's Bull Crap, she has a leaf blower and i'm sure she used it. Anyway that had NOTHING to do with Bridal suite. She should have gotten it ALL back. My daughter had 2 colored handkerchiefs that her Husband had given her when they got engaged, So Sharon wanted to use them to help match colors, When my daughter arrived back from her Honeymoon to talk to Sharon about some issues she had, she asked Sharon about the handkerchiefs and she told my daughter she threw them in the TRASH. She also told my daughter that she could find her own caterer, but they would have to be approved. My daughter knew that if she went with someone other than Sharon's caterers she would be charged 16% of catering bill. Well then later come to find out she charged an extra $500 to caterer because the catering bill didn't come to a certain price. Well what caterer is going to eat $500, so they charged my daughter therefore Sharon got another $500 out of my daughter, JUST BECAUSE SHE CAN!!! She was horrible to the caterer, demanding her money as soon as he arrived. He was a very nice gentlemen and his food was awesome (Bluestack Smokehouse). He told my son-n-law what she did. I WAS NOT HAPPY!!! I apologized to him. She said she didn't do that, but he had no reason to lie. I believe him. She ate the food and the other gentlemen that worked for her and the sheriff ate too. We didn't pay for them to eat. She said he wanted her to try it, bull crap, if she treated him that way that would be the last thing he would say to her. Also we decided to do the decorating ourselves to cut down on costs and Sharon didn't like that too well. Talk about an attitude change, and it wasn't for the better. So she would look for other ways to get more money from my daughter. We thought tables were included in Price of rental of building WRONG! Sharon acted like she had to rent them and if we didn't need all of them we couldn't get any money back, THEY ARE HER OLD WOODEN TABLES. So had to pay for tables. Had to pay for chairs and they would have to be moved from garden after wedding to reception. Family and Friends moved the chairs because I wasn't paying her $100 to move chairs. Speaking of chairs, the gentlemen working for Sharon setting up chairs in Garden area for wedding, sucked at it. He was setting chairs on an angle(hill) if someone would sit down they would fall on over. So my husband and sister-n-law and other family members fixed the chairs after he was done. The day of my daughters wedding, she paid for the rental of the building for all that day, Sharon had the NERVE to bring 2 sets of potential clients, Men and Women, through while we were decorating and she also took them through the Bridal Suite where my daughter and her bridesmaids were getting ready, VERY UNPROFESSIONAL. That was my daughters day, she paid for it, Sharon's attention should have been on MY DAUGHTER AND HER DAY, not being so money hungry. If this business had a different owner and our experience was a good one, I would highly recommend this place. But until then, Go somewhere else. Just up the road from there is SOLOMON FARMS and it is beautiful! Don't go through what my daughter and her husband did. Your wedding day should be remembered for how great it was, not all the crap you had to go through to get there. read more

Where do i even begin? This place seems like the perfect venue, until 90 days before your wedding and then you're told the ACTUAL price and you have to scramble to get an extra $1,500. When i first met with her to consult and get pricing we asked if tables and chairs were included, she informed me that they "take care of all that." She presented me with a price of $1,400 for the ENTIRE venue, which was supposed to include the bridal suite and the entire downstairs. I agreed to have my and ceremony here. When i signed a paper that is headed as "Facility Contract" i was told i had to pay 50% of my total rental fee as a deposit which according to my contract the total rental cost was $1,400. Now, 90 days before my wedding my total rental fee is just under $3,000. She is charging me $150 for the ceremony because she "didn't know we were doing it there." even tho she was told that when i signed my contract. Plus, now chairs and tables aren't included. $175 for security which is only needed after 7. My wedding is 5-10 and she told me she had to check with the security and make sure its okay that i end my wedding at 10 and not 12. She also never added tax until this 90 day prior bull shes pulling. Her excuse for that was she wanted to make sure i wasn't tax exempt. Most people ask these questions prior to giving a total. If you or anyone you know is considering this place change your mind. Sharon Iovino is the most rude, money hungry, crook of a woman i have ever met in my life. read more