Airlie Center Experience

mikeandsiobhan

Hey,

Has anyone been married here or have experiance with the events coordinator and the venue they'd be willing to share?

My fiance and I just visited the Airlie Center in Warrenton, VA and we loved it but I'm getting a little nervous about the unresponsiveness and we're having trouble confirming a date.  The events coordinator doesn't work weekends so we're banking on the fact that we'd need to hire our own coordinator, at least for the day of.  If it turns out she's just slow to respond but our outside coordinator that we hire can run the ship smoothly I'm fine, but if she's going to drop the ball on important stuff later I might want to stop falling in love with Airlie :-/

Thanks!
S

mikeandsiobhan

anyone have any helpful information to share?

Thanks!

con_corazon

I've had the exact same experience.  I recommend dropping airlie and choosing another place. 

con_corazon

ultimately, my groom and I decided, "how could we trust a place where the special events coordinator refuses to take calls, and consistently does not return calls for a week or a week and a half?"  She also uses the same response time for emails.  When she answers them.  We recently asked for an in person meeting.  She hedged for 2 weeks.  Then told us she could only give us 20 minutes. 

We've visited the site a total of 4 times now.  She gave us 4 draft contracts.  All of them seemed like she literally pulled them out of thin air.  They did not remotely reflect our email or in person conversations.  I often wondered if she confused us with other couples. 

I can confirm that she does not work on weekends.  This special events coordinator will not be present during your weekend wedding.  They will tell you that you do get to meet with the whole staff one week before your wedding.  But other wedding venue sites in the area and in the surrounding dc metropolitan area will include the special events coordinator as part of your wedding package.  It's a little startling that this one won't be there.  Especially for the prices of the packages.  This wedding event planner is never available to be reached after 4pm on weekdays.  The staff that answers the phone at Airlie has confirmed this for me.  She apparently leaves the office every day at 4pm.

This Wedding Coordinator's favorite excuse when she FINALLY does return a phone call or email (usually after the 3rd call with no response, or, the last time I tried to get ahold of her, I called her every day, sometimes twice.  I left a message at least once every day.  Again it took about a week to get back to me.)  is that "Wow, so sorry it took so long to get back to you.  We are right in the middle of the wedding season you know!".  She's been saying that to me for about 7 months.  Seriously.  Also, all the site coordinators I've worked with never use this excuse.  Or any excuse, really.  They just call me back right away. 

This wedding coordinator gave us a list of prices for a special event.  The cover sheet said "2010", every interior page said "2009".  No attention to detail.  That's a little disconcerting.  She's given me 4 contracts.  The first 3 weren't even remotely close to what we'd asked for.  Since Airlie is a "cookie- cutter" wedding site, we weren't asking for much.  Just specifying whether we wanted plated or buffet, etc.  The only contract that was correct was the last one.  Where we sat down with her for our "twenty minute meeting".  She walked in, shook hands with us, sat down and stared us down until one of us said something.  A classic negotiating trick.  The first person who speaks, essentially, "loses".  We clarified our requests and asked her to bring down a corrected contract.  She originally balked at this, saying it would have to be cleared through their contracts departmen first.  But she did this right away. 

Airlie was a completely frustrating experience.  We loved the site too, and we would have put up with all the inconveniences and the expenses, but it came down to not being able to trust our coordinator.   We were ready to write out a check the first time we saw the place, but I wouldn't trust her to coordinate a play date with toddlers.  No way am I spending thousands just to put a special day in her hands.  We'll be having our ceremony and reception at a site that is much more responsive and professional.  Let me know if you have any specific questions.  I will try to answer them.

danad813

Woo Hoo!  Nice!