Christine O'Neill
1/5
RUN away - no attention to detail, no designated event manager, and if something goes wrong, you will receive no apology or explanation. Their glaring incompetence was shocking and unacceptable.
We booked our October 22, 2022 wedding in May 2021. The event managers at the time were knowledgeable and able to answer all of our questions and concerns, so the decision seemed right (sadly, they both ended up leaving before our wedding).
After that, getting any answers from the venue was like pulling teeth. From March 2022 to May or June they had a new event manager named Kevin who was entirely non-responsive so I started including the restaurant group manager Adam on emails. Eventually, Kevin disappeared.
In July 2022, I met Adam in person. He assured me that he would adhere to all the promises made previously and we went through a list of questions I had. I asked to schedule a tasting and finalize the menu/pricing for our October wedding and he explained that they should have a fall menu by mid-August. It seemed like we had turned over a new leaf and were moving in a positive direction.
Mid-August came and went, and I reached out asking about the menu which Adam indicated would be ready by September 2-3. From 8/30 to 9/7 multiple emails were sent without anything being scheduled. Somehow, my wedding planner got contact information for another staff member from another wedding planner and was able to get us in for a tasting on September 22.
We did not receive final menus, alcohol lists, or pricing until literally the week of our wedding. In multiple forms of communication, the venue assured us they had enough tables for our guests and that they could provide freezer storage for our custom ice cream cakes.
On Friday 10/21, I personally delivered the cakes out of a cooler bag to a member of the Kolo Klub staff and told them they were ice cream cakes and they needed to go in the freezer. She took them into the back herself and made me wait in the hallway so I did not see where were stored.
Come wedding day, we had issue after issue. There were not enough chairs set up for the guests for the ceremony so people were standing all over the back of the room. The venue had promised they had enough tables to seat our guests, yet two tables were sat around coffee tables. The bartenders were all making the specialty cocktails differently. During the speeches, there was loud music BLARING from the Pilsener Haus downstairs so people could not hear the speeches. The buffet took forever to be re-filled.
And finally, the venue RUINED ALL FIVE of our custom ice cream cakes AND DID NOT TELL US AT FIRST OR APOLOGIZE. These were gorgeous, custom cakes from Torico in Jersey City that looked like amethyst geodes. I only found out because I asked a server to have the cakes taken out so my photographer could take pictures of them before they were cut and I was told something like “there was an incident and there were no cakes.” As you can imagine, I was irate. The venue had upheld ZERO of their promises and now had destroyed our desserts that we paid for out of pocket and hand-delivered. I had NO WEDDING CAKE.
There was no manager or head staff member on hand handling this situation and no apology. There were no proposed solutions of how they were going to provide dessert for our guests. In fact, my brother-in-law went out to a bakery and purchased cookies with his own money. I demanded to be repaid the money I spent on the cakes, and my brother-in-law insisted a staff member retrieve cash to compensate us, which thankfully happened. At some point what looked like a supermarket ice cream cake appeared. I am not sure if the venue eventually sent someone to get the cake or one of my other relatives got it.
It has been two months since the wedding and I still have received no apology or information on what happened, despite a staff member saying “someone would be in touch.” If I could do it over, I would never have hosted my wedding here.