The Windmill Winery

Reviews 3

J

J Howell

Please take the time and effort to read this review in its entirety. Here are some key points: 1. Venue was beautiful 2. Event Coordinator was rude, gave us false information and unorganized. BTW: Do not leave your vehicles unattended after the event despite whatever your coordinator tells you. 3. We were very rushed by the staff 4. Food was excellent I first want to point out that my wife and paid for this wedding out of our own pockets so this review is coming straight from the person who paid for the wedding and not my parents or a relative. I also would like to add that we preplanned this wedding with the Windmill Winery 13 months before the wedding. We were originally assigned to Whitney as our wedding coordinator. We tried to get a hold of her on several occasions but received spotty responses or no response at all. We have never had a wedding before so we just chalked it up to we did not understand the process and we still had enough time. About 2-3 months before the venue, we still had not heard anything. We finally called a couple of times and finally got a hold of someone saying that Whitney was no longer there and we had a new coordinator named Dayleen. ***NO ONE CALLED US TO LET US KNOW***. We set up a meeting with Dayleen to go over everything. In our meeting, Dayleen just went through a checklist of everything we were doing a made several comments saying that "we were easy to deal with" and "this wedding should be very easy to put together". We asked if we should do an actual rehersal with our family at the venue just so everyone knows what to do. She mentioned that since our wedding party was so small, we did not need to do a run through. Despite the location of Florence, the day of the wedding was beautiful and the Lake House looked awesome. We got ready in our separate women and gentlemens quarters. Fifteen minutes after the ceremony, Dayleen (wedding coordinator) walked up to me (the groom); while I was getting pictures with a few guest and said "you need to clean out the gentlemans quarters". I said ok. She coninued to stand there and look at me with a blank stare, so I asked "right now" and she said "yes". I had a small wedding party so I told her I would try to find some people to help out. She just walked off. I thought her timing was terrible as we were still getting pictures done and talking to family. I reapproached her and "said listen, I am getting pictures done and talking with family. I am not going to deal with this right now, you need to go figure it out." Dayleen approached several of my family members and said that I yelled (which did not happen) at her and was angry. Several people approached me at once asking me why I was angry. I was not angry and was just telling her that she needed to help figure it out. We did what she requested immediately. I approached her later in the evening an apologized if I came across as angry. However, even after I apologized, she STILL complained to some of my guests that about the same interaction. Completely unprofessional! Our overall reception was very rushed by the staff and it did not help that the DJ made a mistake announcement the venue was coming to close at 8:30 PM while we paid for it to go until 10 PM. Our wedding coordinator also told us that we could leave our cars there overnight and we could retrieve them in the morning. We arrived the next morning and they were having a cowboy church event that they blocked our cars in. Some members of the wedding party had flights to catch and had to wait several hours to get there vehicles. When I called the place the first time to get a hold of someone to get the cars, a woman answered and was completely unprofessional and rude. I called back and spoke to a different woman and had to demand us to be able to get our cars. The owner called me and said "well we do have other events". No apologies were ever made by the staff for mistakes. Location was beautiful. We ended up making it an awesome wedding for us and our guests despite the coordinator. PLEASE BE AWARE for your wedding.

A

A Private User

This is an exact quote from the owner of this establishment DURING my nieces wedding! And it really sums up the owners entire attitude. At first everyone was quite nice and very agreeable but it seems after you make that last payment the rules change. Firstly 20 minutes into the cocktail hour all the food was still covered by plastic wrap after. Once we headed inside for reception they moved everything to a cash bar despite the fact that we had payed for all the alcohol in the contract. The guests were charged an astronomical amount for beer and wine and we also expected to tip even though not only was the alcohol payed for with our payment but the bartenders were as well. The caterer (who was awesome) showed up with more staff than this establishment. The owner and his wife were working the 220+ people event (along with 1 other staff member) and I am not sure if they were both drunk or just always this incompetent and rude but they were horrible. We had previously agreed to move tables after the reception dinner to give the guests more than the 6 feet available to dance. I was surprised that after the dinner no one came to move the tables, it was so bad that guests were bumping into chairs and waiting for space to dance, no one could go outside because this place is literally LADEN with mosquitoes, I asked the owners wife to have the tables moved, I asked the 1 staff member to move them. I was totally ignored. When my husband asked the owner 3 times the owner told him "I dont have to do anything!" Despite the fact that while waiting for payment we were told it would not be a problem. My husband (who hadnt had a drop to drink) mentioned that we would not be leaving a very nice review he was told, "Like I give a fu%k!" And all 3 staff other than those at the bar disappeared for 30 mins. Later the men in the party decided that maybe we ought to move the tables over ourselves at which point they proceeded to ask 3 member of our family to leave, claiming we could have scratched the concrete floors in the barn!!! Upon return they bicycle locked the side exit doors (not sure why but this was a massive fire code violation) and turned off the air conditioning with 2 hours left in the reception. The owners cursed repeatedly at guests and refused to speak to anyone about it. Even the DJ was shocked! We left early and the mother of the bride cried for 2 days! Stay away these people are terrible and should not be running a business.

RO

Roger Pugh

I was very disappointed. I called ahead of time to ensure they were open and I got a recording that stated they were open Saturday 11-4. I left a message just to be sure and asked them to call back as I was driving a considerable distance to meet there. I did not receive a call back but after checking the website and calling again the day of everything said theyd be open so I went down from Phoenix. I arrived to find the gates closed and chained but there were people walking around so I parked and tried calling again but there was no answer. I found an opening in the fence and went in to inquire if they hadnt unlocked yet. I was told they were closed for the summer and they dont know why I hadnt gotten a call back. They suggested that we could come back Sunday as they had a wedding scheduled. I dont know if that meant they wanted us to crash the wedding or if they were opening for that day because they would already be there.

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