Sandalford Wines — Attraction in Caversham

I recently had my wedding at Sandalford Wines, I will say the lead up to the wedding was amazing Megan the wedding coordinator was absolutely amazing, however after the ceremony Megan finished her shift and handed the night over to a different member of staff.

I was not upset about that as I was informed that the new member of staff knew everything that was meant to happen, we soon realised that was not the case. We pre ordered specific beer for the wedding and when my wedding came around they changed vendors and those beers were no longer available. They did pre order our drinks that we chose but they did not load those drinks into the bar until half way through the night when my Groom went up to order a beer and they said we do not have them anymore and this is what is available, that is completely unacceptable as no one let me know prior and we had to get the manager out to swap it over.

We also had an elevated bridal table, the staff were not attentive to serve the bridal table throughout the night they were attentive to our guest which is amazing but not the bride and groom who are paying, I had to mention it a few times to the bar staff to watch the bridal table to take our drink orders when we needed. I would highly recommend if you have a separate bridal time to have at least 1 member of staff working on that table for drinks and whatever the bride and groom need.

The icing on the cake was at 11.30pm when the member of staff Megan handed the night over to started to tell my DJ to stop playing the music at 11.45pm for the night to finish. We paid for the venue until 12am and they tried to kick us out earlier, I did mention to the member of staff that on our run sheet it says Bride and Groom exit at 11.45pm which is a goodbye exit to all guests at the wedding and we will be staying till 12am as that is what we have paid for, she said that is not allowed and we can start kicking out at 11.30pm and that is what we will be doing. I mentioned to this member of staff if you are kicking us out at 11.30pm you will reimburse me for the 30 minutes that we are losing and paid for. I do know so guests brought things to the wedding that I was not made aware off and they were confiscated which I totally respect but that also does not constitute the venue and staff trying to kick us out prior to the time we paid for.

I really hated writing this review due to how amazing Megan, Penny and Donna were through the whole process leading up to the wedding, there were just these few instances that happened that I feel that people need to be made aware of if you are wanting to book Sandalford for your wedding.

The only reason for 3 stars is for that member of staff but all in all the venue...

Upon arriving at the venue there was no signage anywhere to say where the ceremony was being held or anyone around guiding people where they needed to go. The bar outside the reception area had no service and we had no idea at this stage we could buy drinks somewhere on site.

We finally wandered through the vineyard and stumbled upon the ceremony.

The ceremony was beautiful and obviously well planned out by the bride, groom and their celebrant.

Heading back to the reception area we were told no bar service till 5pm. Still no instruction where we could buy drinks at the venue. Finally after asking we were told the restaurant will sell drinks we could pop over there. We were rushed through at the restaurant bar and strictly told it was closing and that we could not buy anymore drinks.

Seated at the reception on wooden seats which I cannot begin to imagine would be comfortable for the elderly that were attending. We were served cherry tomatoes on vita wheat crackers, arancini balls and some seafood Hors d'oeuvres. None of which had any pleasurable flavours.

A small dinner roll was then served with butter.

Following on was a chicken pastry which would have been nice if the bread roll had been served at the same time as it was mostly gravy with a few pieces of chicken and carrots. The flavours were nice.

The main meal. To be honest this is where I questioned what this cost the bride and groom as the food on my plate was of the poorest quality I think I have ever had from a venue, be it a restaurant, pub, wedding venue or even my local deli. At $168pp I was shocked. An overcooked steak that was grey outside and inside with absolutely no crust. It had the feeling and flavour of a steak that had almost been stewed but not for long enough for the meat to go tender just to be chewy. I'm rather glad I don't have false teeth as I would have gone hungry that evening!

2 of the waiters Blake and Calvin were attentive and pleasant to deal with however we realised they must have finished early as our drinks stopped being poured early. We had to request other waiters over to fill our glasses for the remainder of the night.

The dessert was average at best, a passion fruit, white chocolate & meringue slice. Unusual texture like bread separating the layers. The passionfruit flavour was not too bad.

I'm extremely dissapointed for my friends who should have had a far superior wedding experience than what Sandalford offered.

Thankfully the beautiful bridal party, family members, guests and the fun speeches made the night a special one.

However, I would never recommend Sandalford Wines to anyone wanting to...

Myself and 3 guests came in to visit the Sandalford winery, the place was gorgeous internal and external and we thoroughly enjoyed the arrival experience.

However that was completely overshadowed by the hospitality of the cellar door staff. We looked at the tasting options and received very little guidance on how this winery conducted its tastings. All that we had to go off was that it would cost us $10 per head to try 5 different options from the listed wines. We were not sure if that meant 5 different wines per person, or 5 different wines total with us all trying the same wines (this option didn’t really suit us as we had vastly different tastes when it came to wines). Assuming we could have more variety, we chose a combination of 5 different wines each. The staff pretty much laughed at our face as our request appeared funny to them. They gave us more time to amend our choice and while they moved to the other side of the bar, it was easy to overhear them making fun of our mistake. This was when we questioned them and told them we could hear them making fun of us, they defended themselves and mentioned this had been happening all day.

My advice is to perhaps amend the instructions for patrons regarding to their 5 choice limit per head or to teach their staff to adequately educate patrons on the rules. I would also suggest when making fun of guests, to do so outside of earshot of said guests you are making fun of or even after all patrons have left the venue.

Unfortunately we never sampled any of the wine, which were all likely delicious.

Thanks for creating a lovely atmosphere, however I am sorry we could not enjoy the winery as it was intended...