I don't do well with confrontation or standing up for myself, even when I was promised something and held up my end of the bargain. I really liked the venue reps and can tell they love what they do, but I was incredibly disappointed that I ran myself ragged during the reception and it still went badly. I don't want to mess up the venue's nearly perfect reviews too badly with a 3-star review if it's not fair to do so, but I feel like having 3/4 of the day go badly warrants less than 4 stars. It's tough though because the ceremony (the most important part) did go well, just nothing after that. This place wasn't extravagantly expensive, but it certainly wasn't cheap either, especially when a large part of the reason I went with them is because I trusted them to be organized and for me to finally be able to breathe when the ceremony concluded and the celebration started.
I went through a ton of stress before my wedding and was very on top of all the mountain of paperwork I was assigned (and even sent email confirmations of important changes to the venue in the weeks prior to ensure that they were noted) and much of it went to waste because the venue's DJ (who was an employee of the venue, not an outside vendor), whom we'd hired for convenience, was incredibly distracted, rushed us through everything, and needed to be given instructions by us all night. We didn't have live entertainment or a million formal dances or anything - There were a couple of special requests, but they were spelled out to the letter and the venue agreed that they'd be no problem.
If you read through this, can you tell me if I'm being too harsh?? Or is 3 stars fair in this situation?? I'm not online much, so I'm also kind of confused as to what is appropriate in reviewing, as well. Thank you for your kind advice.
Here are the details (copied from my feedback form to the venue)...
We'd met the DJ several times before and had known him to be kind and helpful, but he seemed incredibly distracted all night (very attached to his phone) and as the person largely in charge of steering the reception, this made the evening stressful and challenging. I wrote very detailed instructions in the portal paperwork, sent follow-up emails to clarify it and provide timely updates, and even printed out a piece of paper with the basic instructions on them that I brought to the event, so I don't understand why so many things went wrong. I will provide a few examples. Music was supposed to start playing 15-30 minutes before the ceremony to let guests know to start taking their seats; when this didn't happen, my husband had to tell his mother (our day-of coordinator) to tell someone. Later after dinner when we had asked that a microphone be passed around for speeches, my father spoke, gave the mic back, the DJ quickly asked if anyone else wanted to speak, and then he immediately (quite literally fewer than 5 seconds later) turned around and left with the microphone. Several people came up to us later and said that they had wanted to speak and were disappointed that they hadn't been given a chance to. My husband and I had also wanted to say a few words, but we were waiting to make sure our guests got to speak first. I was very confused and tired and felt too embarrassed to shout at him from across the table to come back with the mic. After the meal, the dinner music (smooth jazz) played for at least an hour or more instead of switching to the reception/party music and putting the dance floor lights/effects on. I was so tired and busy with vendor questions and guest conversation that I kept forgetting to go over and ask him to change it until I saw people sitting around looking bored. Every time I started to go over to ask, someone else would pull me aside so that people started leaving before the party part actually started happening. Finally, I'd emphasized many times previously that for the anniversary dance, the DJ had to watch carefully and give people time to get to the floor because we had several guests with mobility issues who wouldn't be able to move quickly; however, the anniversary dance was announced and started immediately, so my husband had to run out the door to get his grandparents, who struggled to get there and felt too embarrassed to join partway through, all while I danced with an aunt in his absence. We laughed it off for the sake of our guests but were quite frustrated as this was supposed to be an important moment for us and we didn't like his grandparents feeling that way. I know I asked for a lot in terms of considering mobility challenges and had to make some changes in the weeks leading up to the event, but I tried very hard to communicate these updates and requests clearly leading up to it and was very sad that things turned out this way. If he was truly just distracted, I pray it was nothing too serious, but I'm disappointed that our reception was so stressful and that I can't give you the perfect review I had expected to.