The Rippon Hall — Attraction in South Island

A beautiful view but an ugly experience.

We booked our ceremony only package in July 2024. When we initially enquired, the existing event manager made it clear that she was due to leave shortly and we knew that there may be hiccups along the way as the new team established themselves.

Errors understanding the contract and mixup with the processes made it challenging at the start of the handover but once the deposit was paid, we were reasonably confident going ahead.

However, from there it was ghost town. We wanted to visit in October 2024 as we hadn't seen the venue in person but getting hold of anyone on the phone to arrange a viewing was tricky. I tried emailing, but like every email I received even to the week or two before our date, it was the usual "We are busy" automated email. We turned up to be told we should have been invited to a wine tasting as part of our wedding experience, which we had not received any invite to.

We attempted several times to correspond with the team via phone call with great difficulty but once we managed to get through were advised that at 60 days out, we would receive the notice for the remaining payment, as well as questionnaires for our updated ceremony details.

At 60 days, they wanted our money, but we did not get any correspondence about our ceremony details. We also did not receive a receipt for this payment, as we had done for the deposit. I chased this us. To date, I still have not received this receipt.

There was radio silence from Rippon until less than 48 hours before our ceremony was due to commence. Not only had we already felt neglected when it came to getting answers to our queries, leaving it until just over a day before we were due to host our ceremony was stressful. Every time it was "we are prioritising 2024/2025 weddings". We did not feel at any point a priority, I guess we didn't spend enough to matter?

My husband went to purchase some wine the day before to take back to our reception venue and wanted to pay the outstanding bill for 2 additional bottles of champagne, which the staff made very difficult to do, seeming reluctant. Once he came back, he disclosed how staff had also set aside additional alcohol for our wedding party that we had categorically NOT agreed to having. We specified on a number of occasions in our email correspondence what we wanted and they went out of their way to be snide, encouraging our guests to drink more in order to make more money out of us.

Of course, Rippon actually did get more money out of us in the end, as the 2024/2025 drinks brochure they provided to us when choosing the alcohol stated that bubbles were $39 a bottle and they charged us $50 a bottle when we paid. At no point was it mentioned to us that there had been price increases- no updated brochure, no emails, no prices on the 60 day out drinks questionnaire. When we eventually were able to get through to someone on the phone after the wedding, again after a number of failed attempts, we were just told bluntly that the prices could change at any point and the $11 a bottle increase was correct. Honestly, just disgusting practice all round.

On the day, we arrived to a fairly full carpark. Having shared how many vehicles we would have on site, I would have hoped for a section of the carpark to have been made available for us to use to make it easier for our guests.

On site venue management was somewhat lacking. There appeared to be no awareness from other people visiting the site that our wedding was happening, so staff clearly had not said anything to anyone- staff members were still showing people around making it tricky to get uninterrupted photos. We even had to shout down to people who had decided to make use of our ceremony seating, which was highly frustrating, and when we politely asked staff to ensure that this didn't happen (as any damage would have been charged to us!), it was brushed off, zero apology given and it felt like it was not taken seriously at all.

So I'll end where I started. The view was beautiful. But the...

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