Oregon

Wedding Venue

Has anyone ever heard of Victorian Acres in Oregon City positive or negative reviews

Re: Wedding Venue

  • Yes, one of my friends is getting married there this summer.  They were also at the Portland Bridal Show last weekend. I think it's a fairly new venue, but seems pretty popular. 
  • I recently had a VERY frustrating experience with Victorian Acres. We had a Saturday reserved this July. We were very excited and happy about our venue choice until we read the contract. We had three main issues with the contract:


    1) Their event coordinator, Brandy Zimmerman, gave us a tour a few weeks ago. On the tour,
    Brandy disclosed that they had never actually hosted a wedding at Victorian Acres  yet, and that all photos on their website were staged with a photographer and mock couple. She also explained that the current owner, Michelle Davenport, didn't actually own the property. She has entered into a "lease to own" option with the previous owner. I didn't think a lot of this until we were emailed the actual contract from Victorian Acres. It has a clause in it that we had not seen in any of the other venue contracts that we looked at over the past few months. It explained that if Victorian Acres was for some reason “not able to make the property available” on our event date, they were not responsible for any additional costs or damages suffered by the renter (us) arising out of canceling or rescheduling the event. Which basically meant, we would be SOL when is came to deposits paid to all of our other vendors… photographer, catering, music, cake, flowers, etc. With Victoria Acres being a new venue, and recently SLASHING their rental fees, we started thinking of all of the foreclosures going on these days, and vendors going out of business, etc. This made us a bit nervous. We were worried this was a CYA in case they went out of business or had their “lease to own” option terminated. Again, this clause stood out to us because we had seen NOTHING like this included in other venue contracts. This wasn’t a deal breaker for us. We were just wary of it.


    2) Victorian Acres was willing to let us bring in our own alcohol as well as some of the food for our reception. (We planned to use a caterer for serving, set up, and a couple main course options.) This was one of the main reasons that we chose this venue. However, the contract specially stated that we could NOT bring in our own food or alcohol. When I brought this issue to their event coordinator’s attention, she agreed that they would amend the contract. When we received the amended contract, they added ‘”
    IF YOU CHOOSE NOT TO HAVE A LICENSED CATERER OR PLAN TO BRING ANY PORTION OF THE FOOD YOURSELF FURTHER REQUIREMENTS WILL BE NECESSARY.” Since this would be directly applicable to us, we obviously asked what these “further requirements” would be. We couldn’t get them to elaborate. This seemed so odd. Why not just specify these further requirements in the contract?  

     

    3) Victorian Acres says that they include tables, chairs, linens, two onsite coordinators and full set-up and take down in their wedding package. (I have emails from the venue stating this.) However, when it came to signing the contract, it didn't state ANYWHERE what we were receiving for the venue fee. We asked them to include this info in the contract…. I don’t think this was an unreasonable request. After all, a contract should outline their obligations as well.

    We couldn’t actually get someone to have a conversation with us about any of these, No return phone calls…. For 10 DAYS their event coordinator, Brandy Zimmerman, assured us (via email) that our date was “in ink” and that we would work out these contract details. However, rather than clarifying the additional requirement to bring food/alcohol into the venue, and that our wedding venue fee included tables, chairs, linens, two onsite coordinators and full set-up and take down….  They sent us an email that said, “This just isn't a good match between us.“ and “We wish you the best on your special day.”

    We were shocked.  Really? End of discussion? I’m frustrated and disappointed that we believed their “we have your date in ink” reassurances. Needless to say, their communication, customer service, and attention to detail were UNDERwhelming. Now we are back to square one finding a venue, when most Saturdays are already booked for this coming summer.  

    Good luck to anyone who plans to use Victorian Acres. I hope that your experience is more positive than our was.

  • edited January 2012
    Mariah thank you for sharing your experience, I can definitely understand why you chose another venue. I suppose using a venue that has never done a wedding is risky to say the least but maybe it can be a good thing to. Every business has their "first customer" and a business is generally a work in progress. I do hope you find a great venue for your wedding!  Its too bad they didn't address your issues before they told you it wouldn't work out, that's unprofessional. I think maybe they haven't worked out all the details before venturing into this business, I hope they succeed as a business and learn from their mistakes and I hope they eventually contact you and apologize.
  • Mariah, I work as a lawyer for a living, and all I can say is you LUCKED OUT that they cancelled on you.  It may not feel like it now, but any business that won't specify their terms in a contract and that plays games with you like that is not a business you actually want to hand over your money to!
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