Holstein House Gardens

hgundy

Anyone have any reviews of The Gardens at Holstein House?  Looks nice and affordable.  Wondering what places there are for people to stay the night around there also... Thanks!

joyfulhappy1

checked into this and very reasonable, but they are booked for the 2012 year!

achleejohnson

I JUST had my wedding there this last weekend (10/01/11) and I would NEVER recommend Holstein House to ANYONE! Bonny Bowens, the owner, was extremely rude and unprofessional to several of my family members and my husband and I.

Several days before the wedding, my husband and I were at Holstein House getting ready to start setting up decor. Bonny walked into the reception area and told us it was going to rain on Saturday, and that we should consider doing the ceremony indoors. We didn't like that idea and said we would rather take the chance and have it outdoors. She then completely changed her tone and said, "well then I guess we'll have to set up the canopies and thats not going to be pretty at all. It will completely block the arbor and will look terrible for pictures". She then began trying to troubleshoot how to move around our tables to make room for the ceremony even though we had said very clearly that we did NOT want to have the ceremony indoors. She then told us that the band won't be able to set up outside, which we were fine with, but then she told us that there wouldn't be room for the band AND the tables. As if to imply that we couldn't have a band at all. She was honestly doing everything she could to make it difficult for us. I can only imagine that she was upset that they would have to set up the canopies for the ceremony. She proceeded to scold us for taking down some of her dollar-store decorations. We only took them down because they didn't fit in ith our wedding colors AT ALL, and they were easily replaced with little effort.
 
During the rehearsal on Friday, she started shouting at my aunt (the officiant's wife) about table placement in front of many family members, and threatened to back out of the wedding if we didn't do things her way. Everyone was completely shocked at Bonny's behavior and could not believe she had the nerve to talk to people in such a disrespectful way. A while later, while we were all gathered for rehearsal, she had another meltdown when we didn't want to do the walk HER WAY. My husband and I told her we wanted our bridal party to walk out to a specific song, and we were giving them all the queues on when to start so we would all reach the gazebo at the right time. She didn't like that at all and told us it wasn't a good idea to to have them walk that way and that we should change the song or just have them walk when SHE told them to. After we practiced the walk a couple times OUR WAY, we all gathered at the front near the gazebo and the officiant's wife was walking us through the ceremony. At that point, Bonny stormed off to her house without saying another word to anyone. I was completely floored by this, because she was supposed to oversee the rehearsal so she and her employees would be on the same page and know whats going on when it happens. If you can believe it though, it doesn't end there.

The day of my wedding, most of the family showed up at around 10-11am so we could wrap up the rest of the decor and shoot some family pictures before the ceremony. Bonny offered no help finishing the decor and kept to herself until about an hour before the ceremony. At that point, she and her staff scrambled to try and finish what decor we didn't have time to finish. When 4 pm rolled around and we still had a couple family members that hadn't showed up yet(they were from out of town and got lost) she started getting frustrated and impatient. At about 4:08, she said into her earpiece that they might have to start the ceremony without the bride's uncle because they were going to "lockdown" the parking lot. She kept asking where he was and we had told her several times that he was only a few minutes away. He arrived shorly thereafter and the ceremony began. All the family walked and was seated, and the bridal party walked perfectly and it was beautiful. When it was time for the ring-bearer(the 2-year old son of one bridesmaid) and flower girl(2-year old daughter of the bride's cousin) to walk, Bonny's employee was waiting for Bonny's queue to send them to the front. She looked at Bonny and asked, "Is it time to send them?". Bonny then said quite loudly, "WHATEVER". She said it loud enough that several of the guests could hear her. After that, she didn't even bother to give the queue to the Bride and mother. During the reception, my husband and I received several complaints about Bonny making rude comments to her staff about the bride's mother while they were behind the curtains in the "employee area". The most hearbreaking part, though, is that she made my mother miss our slideshow, cake-cutting, garter-toss, and bouquet-toss. She told my mother in a very firm tone that she, "NEEDED to move her car so the band can load up their equipment". My mother walked outside in the pouring rain and moved her car from the side entrance near the rear door of the reception hall to the back of the parking lot. My mother does have a medical condition that makes her less mobile than most people, so this was an ordeal for her. Bonny also had one of her employees FOLLOW my mother to make sure she moved her car as requested. The band had never been asked to move the equipment out, and we didn't expect them to clear out early because they are friends of the family and were staying for the entire event. As a result of this request from Bonny, my mother missed some of the most wonderful parts of her daughter's special day. Based on the comments from several of my guests and family members, I can only assume that Bonny had some personal issues and feelings about my mother that made her feel the need to lash out at her the way she did.

The day after my wedding, we(my husband, myself, and several family members) arrived at Holstein House to find all our decor thrown in a pile on the floor. Many of our chair covers had been damaged in the process, and the 10-foot velvet wall-panels we hung up had been mashed and wrinkled to the point that it will take several days of ironing to get them straight again. Some of our decor couldn't be found, and we were told by a family member that Bonny had threatened to throw away some of our decor if we didn't get it out of there immediately. We are still missing several pieces of decor, including quite a few craft items and antiques that cost a lot of money. While we were packing up all the decor, remaining food, etc.. Bonny and John were constantly "looming" around trying to usher us off the property even though we had been told several times prior that we had until 5 pm to get everything packed and moved out. As we were packing the last of our things, Bonny walked into the "employee area" where we were and started poking around looking at everything. She than exclaimed quite loudly and in a very rude and accusatory manner, "There are two coffee mugs missing, where are my coffee mugs?!". Three of us looked at her completely baffled and pointed to the shelf less than a foot away from the rest of the mugs she was looking at and said, "They are right here Bonny, we aren't trying to steal from you". She then began to throw a fit about missing coffee and creamer. We had mistakenly packed a single container of powdered creamer and a half-full bag of ground coffee in one of our boxes. We put them back and continued packing boxes. All of our family's cars had been packed up and we began to head out. My husband and I were the last to leave and we started walking to our car. Thats when we heard Bonny YELL at us from accross the room, "Its about time you got out of here, we've been waiting for you to get out of here all day!". My husband and I were just astounded. We still had almost a half hour before our official rental period was over. I had a few choice words for her about making my mother miss half my wedding, and that she had been making us uncomfortable trying to usher us out all day. As upset as I was, I remained professional, and dignified. She then screamed at the top of her lungs, "YOU JUST SHUT UP AND LISTEN!", and began charging at us very aggressively. She then began screaming insults at me, calling me crazy and saying that I was stupid. She even said I was, "as insane as your mother!". My husband tried to intervene because she was being very aggressive and looked like she might try to inflict physical harm on me. She then yelled at him, "my issue isn't with you, its with HER!". My husband told her, "If you have an issue with her, you have an issue with me too! You are being completely irrational and unprofessional! Is this the way you talk to all your customers!?". Bonny responded, "NO! JUST YOU!". She was yelling so loud and with so much intensity that she blew a blood vessel in her eye and her entire eye was blood-red. She then started to threaten to call the police on us and told us we need to leave her property at once. My sister in-law walked up at this point and told Bonny, "This isn't the way buisinesses are run Bonny, you aren't making a very wise decision here as a business owner". Bonny just kept calling us all crazy and told us several more times to get off her property. Thats when we just decided there was no point trying to reason with her or even waste our time trying to talk to her any further, so we walked to our car and left.

We have several witnesses for this ridiculous event. It was appalling that she would even have a personal opinion about us after we gave her almost $4,000.00 to rent her facility. It seems to me that if you have personal issues with your customers, you need to leave those issues at the door because you have been paid to provide a product/service, not to have a personal opinion. After all the complaints we received from our guests about Bonny, and the way she treated us and our families, its apparent to me that she was trying to sabotage our wedding. Maybe she was upset that WE did all the decor and made that place look absolutely stunning, and not her. Maybe she had personal issues with some of the family members. Maybe she didn't like being in total control of every aspect of the wedding. Maybe all of the above. All I know for sure is that this woman was an absolute terror for everyone at our wedding. Despite her shortcomings, though, we were able to pull off one spectacular day and the only regret we will ever have is that Bonny was in any way involved. We were fooled by her cutesy talk and overly enthusiastic demeanor, but that all changed after she had our money. Then it was her way, or the highway. For your money, there are soooo many other more worthwhile places to get married. If you do consider having your wedding there, you should ask her one question: How was Caylen and Achlee's wedding?. I'm sure her true character will show through. This also isn't the first time something like this has happened. Google it, Citysearch it, Yelp it.. Doesn't matter where you look. You will always find some VERY bad reviews about Bonny and how she was either rude, or overly controlling, etc.. Of course you will also see the responses from Bonny at Holstein House saying that those reviews are, "full of untruths", and "legal action pending". This should serve as an indication of how she conducts her business. All we ask is that you do the research, read ALL the reviews, and make the EDUCATED decision of whether or not you want her to have been a part of the most important day of your life. Thank you for reading, and beware.

joyfulhappy1

Wow your post was very alarming, Im sorry you had such a horrible experience. Interestingly I found her to be quite curt in her responses to me, but I shrugged it off as internet responses.  The website shows a beautiful property and a beautiful experience. 

rosemariephoto

The Holstein House is a Beautiful venue!  Although there will be no weddings there this year!