To begin, I want to say I have only been to this country club once for a wedding. Normally, I like to visit places several times before writing a review. Therefore, I decided to give this place the benefit of the doubt and give them three stars as opposed to two or one. Okay, so here goes...
This past April, one of my best friends decided to have her wedding here. The grounds were gorgeous and from what I hear, it was one of the more reasonably priced wedding venues that can occupy a larger number of guests. While budget and building capacity are two main things to consider when choosing your wedding venue, I can't stress how essential the coordinator is. I understand there are a million things that go into being an event coordinator and I have the utmost respect for those that choose that profession. While the coordinator was very personal and sweet, professionally, I thought she did a poor job regarding the rehearsal and the actual ceremony.
The ceremony was outside so during the rehearsal, the coordinator explained to the bridal party that the girls would take golf carts to the location and then she lead us there. After that, it became quite unorganized and confusing. She didn't command the attention of the bridal party to explain how things were going to go. She only paired the bridesmaids with the groomsmen. I had to ask her when I should start walking down the aisle because I noticed it wasn't uniformed. People were just guessing when to start walking. Once the bridal party was in position, the girls realized the bride's side and the groom's side were backwards. When we asked about it, the coordinator said about 70% of her weddings had the bride's side on the right which seemed odd since everyone in the bridal party had only been to weddings where the bride's side was on the left and the groom's side was on the right. She didn't explain when any of the real details of the ceremony like the unity candle, singers, etc would take place. In that venue, it's quite possible those details are left to the officiant to administer; however, the officiant wasn't present! If I were the coordinator, I would be demanding to get the officiant on the phone to see why he is not there. In my mind, you really only NEED a few key people to show up during the rehearsal: the bride, the groom, and the officiant! Sure, the parents, grandparents and bridal party are important too but at the end of the BIG day, if a bridesmaid or groomsman doesn't show up, it's not a make or break thing. Not having the bride, the groom, or the officiant is!
Yes, I know it is the responsibility of the bride and groom to make sure the people who need to be present come to the rehearsal but if my job was to coordinate the wedding, making sure the officiant, the bride and the groom were there would be number one on my checklist. To top it off, we almost got pelted by golfballs three times during the rehearsal (and the golfers didn't even yell, "FORE"!! What's up with that? I thought that was golfing etiquette or something.) The coordinator's response was to not worry because that part of the golf course was going to be closed during the wedding. Why were golfers allowed there during the rehearsal? What would have happened if one of those golfballs knocked someone unconscious? Chalk it up to par for the course??
The actual ceremony wasn't much better. The parents, the groom, and at least two bridesmaids and groomsman had already walked down the aisle before the coordinator said something about the officiant not being there. Since the first couple of people were already standing in position, the rest of the party had to follow. Thankfully, the coordinator did tell the groom rather quickly that he wasn't being stood up and that the officiant hadn't shown up. While I feel there is no reason why it should have gotten to this point, I will say when sh*t hit the fan and the coordinator had to tell the guests we didn't have an officiant, she became rather bold and insistent. She asked if anyone was certified to officiate a wedding and when someone said yes but was hesitant to agree to officiate the wedding, she took charge and strongly encouraged him.
Overall, the tables she put together and the vendors I'm sure she had to manage turned out beautifully but the most important aspect fell by the wayside. Unfortunately, I feel like this situation could have been completely avoided if the coordinator was more organized and had things under control. read more