We got married at the Berkeley Church and despite a family member's trouble with her wedding there 3 years earlier, we decided to give the venue another try. We were very disapointed and would like to warn others who are thinking of getting married at the Berkeley Church. The venue looks good but they are disorganized, and we truly beleive, at the end of the day- they don't really care how smoothly you wedding day goes.
Here is an excerpt from a letter we wrote to the owners after the wedding- and never got a reply.
To the owners of the Berkeley Church,
While we enjoyed the venue we were very unsatisfied with a few key details
1) Food portions and presentation:
Portion size: Many guests complained (to us at the dinner itself and also afterwards) that the portions were too small. The mother of the bride very hesitantly told us (so as to save us from being upset) that she received only two short ribs and another guest received a vegetarian wellington (the vegetarian course) with nothing inside the pastry.
The food was delicious but the portions and presentations were totally unsatisfactory and not what we committed to at the tasting. We even specifically discussed with the chef and coordinator that we feel enough food is very important to guest’s enjoyment of weddings, as we are sure you would agree.
2) Cake topper: After specifically mentioning to the wedding coordinator that the cake topper (two birds on a bell) was a family heirloom for over 50 years, your venue lost this. We suspect that when the cake fell over (after the maid of honour asked it to be put on the stage because its position was precarious), the topper was thrown out as garbage. This heirloom can never be replaced and it makes us both very sad to think of it. It was on the bride's parent’s wedding cake and had been saved for 50 years and then refurbished for our wedding. We had planned on saving it too, in case one day one of our sibling’s children, or children of our own would continue the tradition.
3) Lighting: We asked the staff repeatedly to turn down the lighting to the tone for partying during the dancing but it was only after five requests from the groom, groomsmen and bridesmaids that they actually did so. We danced for about 2 hours in bright lights.
4) Key to the gifts: The bride and groom's siblings were told that the key to the gift room was to be held by a third party. While we realize this was someone assigned by the Berkeley, this was never explained to us and nor did this appear anywhere in our contract. Since cash gifts are common, we found this to be uncomfortable- especially because the key was passed between 3 different staff members throughout the night, none of whom we had met.
5) Place settings: After we spent about a day detailing the seating plan for the coordinator on a spread sheet, we arrived on the wedding day to find that tables that were supposed to have 12 places only had 8- not at one table, but at all of them! The bride had to re-arrange tables with her wedding party for the hour leading up to the ceremony to ensure there would be a place-setting and chair for each guest. When the groom arrived he and the groomsmen had to continue re-arranging place settings. Not the nicest way to spend time before the ceremony. For some reason children were not given space at the table and babies (despite a conversation about booster seats) didn’t have seating either. Where babies expected to stay on their parent’s laps during dinner even though we were told to ask our guests to bring their own booster seats?
6) Payment to the church for guest changes: Two days before the wedding we wrote to inform the coordinator that we required an extra guest. Within a very short amount of time, after receiving news of a death in the family we wrote back to her stating the new setting/person wasn’t required because one family member obviously would not be attending, however- even though it was within the same day, we were still charged $137.30 for this setting. We find this (coupled with the small dinner portions) to be very ungenerous and very much in conflict with the perception we had about the Berkeley prior to our wedding day.
We chose the Berkeley not only because of the venue but also because of the staff - who we felt were friendly, down to earth, attentive and professional. After spending months planning this wedding and spending thousands of dollars on it, we are very upset.
When the bride's sister was married at the Berkeley a few things went wrong but she did not write about the problems since she felt what was done was done. What nags at us now is that perhaps if she (and others) did share the negatives with you, maybe less problems would happen to other people on their very special day.
