Like all bride and grooms, organising the structure and lay out of your special day in hope that everything goes according to plan, boils down to a bit of good organisation and a bit of luck on your side too with the weather also playing a big factor. We were expecting slight down pours of rain throughout the day but to our delight, it held off...
There were a few issues from our point of view as well as our guests.
We had individual co-ordinators as a first point of contact for any issues, the co-ordinator should be on hand to iron out any glitches that may be raised through out the day...
The grooms co-ordinator was only on site until 4pm, this was around the time of the sit down wedding breakfast, just after the speeches...
The speeches went down well, if not too well... but the issue was, the bar staff took it upon themselves to close the bar without any notice to ourselves and guests in honour to proceed with speeches, not the best idea for 60 odd thirsty adults...
We had purchased 4 bottles of wine per table ( 7 tables ) to use for guests during toasts for speeches and during our meal.
We never received an explanation as to why we were unable to receive the bottles... even though we had paid for them. When we asked where the bottle of wine were, we were told bluntly that the wine was for meal time only (surely this was our choice as it was already prepaid for).
All guests had empty glasses during toasts (embarrassing!).
Whilst the bar was closed, all staff were chatting, laughing and on their phones, no reason for the bar to be closed!!
This caused everyone to get up and form a large queue at the bar after speeches whilst food was been served which made the meal time feel rather chaotic rather than formal.
There was a lack of co-ordination, our photographer had to announce us back into the venue after photos from outside in the gardens, to be introduced by a standard ovation from our guests, our coordinators were no where to be seen, this resulted in a time lapse on our video recording from our videographer.
Bar issues - Guinness sold out, this was raised prior to the day as we had mentioned that this would be a popular choice.
Guests were refused wine as they were told there were no wine glasses left, yet there was loads on the top shelf that had been pointed out to the staff but were still refused this.
One guest bought drinks and told one of the bar staff to get herself a drink in which she then took it upon herself to get all the bar staff a drink and he was charged a huge amount for this.
Several complaints about one particular member of staff, her attitude and lack of people skills this happened to be the main organiser. Stories we have been told from our guests sound like she was telling them off.
At the end of the night when the staff packed our decorations away, items had been thrown into our boxes and several items either broke or damaged.
We was advised the room turn around after the ceremony would take around 20-30 minutes however this took about 45 minutes resulting in everyone outside getting cold and frustrated.
Although ourselves and guests enjoyed the day, when we are getting negative comments about parts of our day it kind of puts a downer on the day. When people ask if we had a good wedding we are kind of hesitant to give a positive answer. A wedding costs a lot of money and is only done once, this is not the way we wanted to feel. We are trying to ignore the negative parts and focus on the good points.
If green estate do read this comment, please take this on board as constructive feedback to prevent any reoccurrence for future events.
Response from the venue
We very much value giving all our couples a fantastic wedding experience and would love to talk with you about the points you have raised in your feedback. We are sorry that you didn’t feel able to reach out to us directly. Please do get in touch if you would like to discuss any of these issues further and we will of course undertake a full investigation.
All the very best,
The Sheffield Manor Lodge Hospitality Team
Venue responded