I recently had my wedding here and it is fair to say that it is one of the most descent, if not, breathtaking venues in the area (although far in the outskirts of El Paso). In the initial meeting, you sign a contract with a random person. Later, they pair you up with an event planner and the process goes from there. The person we initially signed the contract with gave us a lot of wrong information that later caused us to argue it with our event planner. The hall is typically rented for 6 hours, but the person we signed the contract with had told us for 7 hours, and it was written in our contract (this was honored though, whew, since invitations had been made already with the 7 hour span). Our event planner Araceli was amazing though, however, whoever is behind their policies is not so much. I understand the event planner has to abide by their rules and policies, but gosh darn, they charge for everything! When I say everything, I mean everything. You would imagine that you are already paying so much for the hall that maybe they would be flexible with the additional cost, but no...Their prices are equally outrages and terrifying! They charge for the use of charger plates, even though you are using their sit down dinner option. When I asked how much per charger plate, she mentioned $5 ea., their coffee and tea are overly priced (not to mention that their coffee and tea are average, I don't know why they charge so much for it when I buy a whole box of tea with 100 packages for a lot cheaper than what they charged their basic coffee/tea), they charge $0.40 per plastic cup, they charge the same amount to use their glassware and the list goes on...Their dessert buffet is ridiculous expensive, not to mention the chocolate fountain. What's worse is that they don't allow you to bring in outside vendors! You have to go through them for your toasting drinks...you have to go through them for anything food related to include desserts. And for wines/sparkling wines/champagnes you have to buy it by the box through them, although we only needed several bottles. For the budget friendly bride stay away! If I would have known this prior to signing a contract with them I would have looked elsewhere.
For the cost of the hall and its amenities you would think they have more than enough in stock, but sadly they don't. They only had so much linen of one style. So if you like one style they might only have 5 linen or 10 and to order more they charge you!! My wedding included 300 guests, which means that I needed at least 30+ linen. In the end, I had to combine two different kinds. Regardless to say, it looked beautiful the day of the wedding! Their linen is beautiful and well taken care of. Doing combinations works wonderful because their linen is just stunning. They also lack centerpiece mirrors of the same style (and I was charged as well for the use of their mirrors). This was never mentioned to me and I was led to believe that they were all the same size. When I went to go decorate part of the hall is when I realized that they were different sizes and some were even chipped and/or broken on the sides/corners. Not in the best conditions to say the least...
The day of the wedding went perfect. The food was delectable, the staff was amazing, and I must commend Araceli for her magnificent job. To get a hold of anyone though on the day of your wedding (prior to starting time) was very hard. My event started at 7pm that day, I must've called the hall more than 10 times throughout the day, and was only successful once with some random person. She couldn't help me and mentioned that she would pass the message on to Araceli our event planner, but I never received a call back.
Now...after the wedding...they charged us MORE and AGAIN for some broken mirrors that could have been broken by their own staff. They also charged us for damaged linen. We were able to get the stains off with no problem and have decided to keep the linen since we already paid for the damages (they are just so lovely). We were also missing a Courvoisier bottle, but they covered themselves saying that we had signed off the inventory list and there was nothing they could do about it. They provide a list where you do your own liquor inventory. At the end of the event you do your own liquor inventory again and sign off for it. As the bride and groom we didn't bother to do it, and the person who signed for it (my father in law) was somewhat tipsy that inventory was not even done. He just signed off for it. The box was brought directly to our house from the venue.
I understand that the staff is only following a company's policies so I don't blame them. I'm not happy with whoever is behind their policies. As I mentioned, if you are the budget friendly bride stay away and make sure you get everything in writing and a price list as well before committing to anything. Would I have another event here in the future? No. read more