I tried to write this review in October but for some reason it's not showing up...
I've went back and fourth about writing this review. I decided to give chapel of the flowers 3 stars for the following reasons:
Pros:
- Pastor Al was AMAZING. He spent 5 minutes with us before the ceremony and our family and friends who watched it online asked if we spent more time with him. He included a bunch of information about our home lives and our children and made it very personal. It didn't feel like a rushed Vegas style wedding it felt personal and warm. I was so very pleased with him. He is also a huge military supporter and made that known to my husband and I and we truly appreciate him and what he does for all service members.
- Photos were AMAZING and our photographers were over the top amazing. They also made it feel like they were our friends and not just doing their jobs to make a buck it was really fun and they came out great however their photo policies I have major issues with so that will go in cons.
- The grounds and chapel were beautiful which is surprising given the location it is in.
- Everyone we came across was professional and courteous.
Cons:
- To go back to view pictures we had to pay 65 dollars in a round trip taxi fare from MGM. This isn't their fault but they should offer an online experience to people even if they can't make it back the next day. I would have rather done it from my hotel anyway.
- The photo building is bizarre. The rest of the grounds are very well kept but the building where you do your photos is very shoddy. The leather chairs are cracked and the stuffing and padding is sunken so you sit in it and basically fall into it. The details that are made to have it look high end looks like someone rushed through it. Cabinet handles are not centered, paint is peeling, flooring is coming up, etc. It's not a big deal but I just found it to be odd that they seem to keep up the rest of the areas but this one looks like it was tossed together at a moments notice and they wanted it to look high end but they failed in that.
- Now to the photo issues. We purchased a photo package that entitled us 30 minutes with our photographer and 35 4x6 prints, 2 5x7's, and 1 8x10. I knew there was an option to purchase digital rights before I went in. When we got there we were a bit early but they took us as early as they could. They took us to a booth where we were privately able to look at our photos. We had a few hundred to look through and they were all beautiful. We then got the sales pitch about buying the digital rights and they would knock 100 dollars off of it because we purchased a package that printed photos. We would not get the printed photos but the $100 credit. We weren't planning on getting digital rights still at this point. We were told to pick our photos. There was a second life style photographer also taking pictures. I was curious when I saw her as to why we had 2 photographers as we didn't pay for 2 but didn't think much else. The photos are inside of blocks on the computer screen with 3 different background colors. The main photographers photos have a light grey border and the life style photographer have a light grey border. Unless you are looking closely you will miss this.
Well I was unaware that we could NOT choose photos from our life style photographer unless we either wanted to buy the digital rights or pay for single shots at at the cost of $10 for EACH 4x6. My husband and I spent over an hour choosing our pictures only to find out that we had chosen 15 from the lifestyle photographer so we'd either have to buy the digital rights, purchase them separately for $200.00 for 20 4x6's or choose again from the light grey pictures.
The chapel NEEDS to be more clear about this and they need to change their colors to more vibrant primary colors. The life style photography shots shouldn't even be able to be viewed when you are choosing photos that can be printed from your package because now we were in a situation where most of the photos we loved would NOT be included in our package that we had already purchased so we'd have to buy the rights for $800 dollars or purchase 20 prints for 200 or forget about it.
If they had said "The RED ones are your life style you can look at them however they are NOT included in your package but they can be purchased separately, the BLUE ones are included in your package to choose from" that would have made our experience much better.
We ended up buying the rights to the photos which I think is outrageously priced but the woman we worked with was very kind and even though I was very unhappy with what was going on she really did a good job of trying to handle the situation. I just felt really "dooped" with this practice. They don't make it clear that you can't choose certain photos with your package and then you're already emotionally invested.