| rev:text
| - First I want to say that my Son & his Bride's Wedding was 5 Stars. They are a great couple. The ceremony was Beautiful and Pure & Sweet. Their Family & Friends around them are good and kind people. The grounds are lovely. The food from "Creative Hands Cuisine" was delicious. The cake they made was so yummy. Three gorgeous flavors. Overall it was Awesome. Nothing can change that. Nothing can take away from all of that....
HOWEVER, having spent a considerably large amount of money at the Secret Garden I feel I need to review a few bad apples. Maggie, the day of wedding planner & The Secret Garden in-house wait staff from "Creative Hands Cuisine" were most definitely NOT awesome. They were less than 1 star. They put their agendas & arrogance in front of the Bride & Groom, and their guests. Not cool!!
At the beginning on the day Maggie yelled at the bride & her makeup person over where the makeup station should be before even saying hello. Who does that? Say hello ask how she's doing on her special day & then ask nicely for her to move. She also told the brides friends who were helping decorate, that if they were going to put the moss/garland and battery lit tea light centerpieces on the tables they would have to stay behind & vacuum. I'm confused. Did she really want the bride & her friends to clean up after the reception? Unbelievable! When I arrived the photographer asked me & my daughter to put the boutonnieres on so he could get some pictures. 8 guys in all. Guys I know. Guys I have watched grow up. I had 3 more to go & she blew in, snatched the boutonniere out of my daughter's hand, & began putting it on the best man. He wanted me to do it. He wanted the photo with me not her. Then she tried to redo the ones I had already done including my sons. I was NOT taking too long & I was NOT doing it wrong. She just said she knew best because she has done over 500 weddings. Who cares? This was my one & only son's, one & only wedding. It was my moment with those guys. I didn't ask her for her help. She should have stayed out of it. It was Rude. The last straw was when she was caught going through the gifts and removing the cards to "organize" them she said. What she ended up doing was making it impossible to know who gave what gift. Now the new bride & groom have to contact people and ask what they gave. Embarrassing for them. Again, What kind of professional does that? I understand she has to keep things organized and keep things moving however her butting in where she was not needed and her "hurry up and get done with this" attitude because she has someplace "more important to be" is totally unacceptable to me.
As for the wait staff, we thought it would be better to go with the Secret Garden in-house staff. However, they ALL acted like they also had someplace better to go. The bartenders told us they were out of red wine with over an hour left to go in the reception. At the end of the night there was over a case of red wine left. Really?? The servers were unhelpful to the point of being incompetent. They kept taking everyone's drink. They cleared water glasses before the toasts were even done. It's a desert in AZ. Nobody should take anyone's water glass from them. Then they proceeded to keep taking the guests drinks whenever they got up to dance, or mingle, or even go to the restroom, whether the drink was empty or full, or alcoholic or non-alcoholic. It didn't matter, they just kept taking peoples drinks. It happened to almost everyone more than once. It happened to me several times, even while I was dancing the mother/son dance. It was annoying and wasteful. There was no reason for it at all. Then at 9:45p they began to really start cleaning up the place. Removing table clothes, etc... Yes, plates need cleared but breaking down the room implies party is over. The guest thought it was over, I thought it was over. It was NOT over. They should NOT have pushed us out the door like that. We had the room till 11pm. They should not have begun that process till 11:01p when everyone was gone. Its not like they needed to vacuum the "moss" since Meggie didn't allow the centerpieces to be decorated. Again, all of it, unacceptable in my book.
If you are thinking of having a wedding at the Secret Garden I will say, Think about it carefully. It's beautiful, BUT I suggest you make sure you have a different "day of planner", and a different wait staff. Most importantly, don't allow anyone to intrude on or rush one of the most important days of your lives. You, your family, and your guests deserve to enjoy every minute. Especially at that price.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)