My wife and I got married at Gruene Estate on January 2, 2022. Being that this is out an outdoor venue, we understand that we took a risk with the weather, so know that the weather does not play a factor in this review.
That being said, DO NOT get married here. That's our review.
If you feel inclined to learn why, feel free to keep reading. Below you'll find our honest experience of both the good and the bad as we went through the process of planning a wedding/getting married at Gruene Estate.
The good: The venue is beautiful. Every person we interacted with was very kind, and the venue manager, Marie, was a HUGE help on the day of our wedding. She ensured the venue was clean, helped guide us on where we could/couldn't put chairs. Overall, we greatly appreciated her.
The bad:
Communication. The communication from inquiring to the day-of was not pleasant. We would reach out and not get a reply until weeks and sometimes months later. Leading up to the wedding, the communication was only via text through the wedding manager. We had many questions about our day and would not get responses at times. We did try to call multiple times and would only get sent to voicemail but the voicemail was too full so we couldn't leave messages.
Wedding Coordinator:
The venue requires you go through their vendor list of coordinators ranging from $1,400-2,000. We, of course, chose the cheapest (In-Ink Weddings) as we discovered outside vendors range from $1,000-1,400 on average. We were told our coordinator would contact us about a month or two's time prior to the wedding date but we were contacted about 3 weeks out. We were also told our coordinator would contact all of our vendors (photographer, getaway driver, caterer, etc.) two weeks in advance but 1. not all were contacted, and 2. if they were contacted, it was 3-4 days prior to the wedding date. Our getaway car driver was not contacted, and thought the wedding was canceled and almost didn't show up. We were told that ALL vendors had been contacted, when they were not.
For the day of the wedding, the coordinator would not have visited my wife before the ceremony if it wasn't for my mother tracking her down. There was no discussion of the "game plan" for the wedding as we fell behind schedule, resulting in our photographer assuming the roll of the coordinator. During the ceremony, I requested a particular song to be relayed over to the DJ but the wrong song was played. All music decisions (and wedding decisions) were discussed prior to the wedding. Post-ceremony, our family and bridal party tables were not released by the coordinator to be served first as requested.
Heaters:
With the potential of cold weather, we were guaranteed that the heaters ($600 extra by the way) would make our event comfortable. This was anything but true. Why? Our coordinator had the heaters set on the lowest setting. I kindly asked her to raise the heat because myself and all guests were so uncomfortable. Many people left early for this reason.
Chair Removal Process:
We had to pay an additional $200 fee for the removal of excess chairs, but this did not include tables. That was NOT communicated to us until the day before our wedding. By that time, it was "too late" to cancel. We ended up having random tables scattered all over the venue grounds as our wedding was around 75 guests and the tables accommodated 200 people.
Overall, the experience as a whole was not great. The mishandling of the controllable and the poor communication left us wishing we had chosen a different venue. read more