It wasn't hard to fall in love with Maplehurst when my fiance and I first stepped foot on its grounds in 2019. However, like many couples, we were forced to rethink our wedding due to the pandemic and were extremely disheartened with how Maplehurst handled this unforeseen global crisis. When we started to realize our wedding would look entirely different than planned, we began to reach out to Maplehurst, who - not only was unresponsive for some time - but then kept holding on to the fact that our wedding will be fine, over and over, stalling, and not offering any sort of concrete plan in the midst of the pandemic. This was incredibly difficult to deal with since my fiance and I have family and friends all over the world (I'm from Chicago with family in Poland, England, and Norway...and, my Maid of Honor currently lives in Spain), and it was critical we plan ahead. We're also certain they held several events in the midst of the pandemic when it was prohibited, putting the health of their guests at risk. What's most disheartening is how they were setting demands and sticking to what they thought was best, putting their views on us while we were dealing with our special day getting uprooted. We ended up getting a lawyer and I can fairly estimate that my fiance spent 20+ hours of his own time in what was probably 7-8 rounds of communication with our lawyer and Maplehurst, after which Maplehurst finally agreed to return payment minus the deposit. Why they made this so difficult was hard to understand too since they had a clause in their contract stating that if an unforeseeable crisis occurs, the customer is eligible for a full refund. I should also add that in the middle of this, they offered us the option to reschedule to unfavorable dates (i.e. Monday- Wednesday) in 2021 when we paid for a prime Saturday date to begin with. I honestly loved their venue, and envisioned my wedding there, but I can say with full confidence that they had zero plan when other vendors were so flexible and understanding, offering concrete solutions that were fair to us and them. In addition, all of our other vendors returned 100% of our payments plus deposits. At a time when we were supposed to be happy, Maplehurst made planning unbearable and cumbersome. They did not - by any means - put the customer first and were selfish in their intentions. The way they treated us did in no way translate as professional or empathetic, which is why I can confidently say that if you want to be taken care of on your most special of days, think twice before booking at Maplehurst. read more