The Vineyards at Chappel Lodge — Attraction in Buda

As most brides this past couple years I was a pandemic bride. Got engaged Oct. 2019 then toured and signed a contract Nov 2019 for a March 2021 wedding. We specifically chose that date and venue for the bluebonnets and the 300 guest count. Obviously, no one could have predicted the pandemic and businesses and persons were put through the same predicament. I say this to not blame the business for the pandemic but more so the response to it and their brides.

When November 2020 rolled around and I realized that it would be unsafe still to host a wedding where we literally invited 300 people including 80+ year old grandparents, I knew it was time to call the venue to see if we can push the date out. I spoke with the event coordinator, Catherine, and was met with resistance. She said multiple times that she was still having weddings through COVID and they were beautiful (not my concerns). She even said at one time "I am attending these weddings and I am no spring chicken" as to imply that if she can go to these weddings, then my family will be fine. I very much understand that this is still a place of business and its inconvenient to have date inventory taken but we are in a pandemic. I eventually had to get my day of coordinator involved and the owners of the venue involved. The owners were very wonderful and understanding to work with. They were flexible and let us move our date to a Friday in February 2022 (they said they weren't allowing anyone to book March 2022 and beyond because they were redoing the packaging they were offering to potential clients.

Mostly everything is calm until we do our walkthrough in January. They agreed to a 5pm walkthrough time. As we're walking through Catherine asked us how many guests we were going to have and we said we invited 300; she then says that they don't accommodate 300 people even though in October 2019 that is what they said AND our contract said that as well. I understand changing the number of people allowed at the venue what I don't understand is proactively reaching out and letting their clients know that number has been changed. One of the reasons we even picked this place is because we were expecting a large wedding. If 80% of our guests came we would've been in a predicament. Additionally, in the walkthrough she was rushing us out of the place because she neglected to tell us the place closes at 6 and she needed us to leave. Then why agree to a 5pm time? Between this and our rehearsal dinner date, document retrieval and sending was challenging and stressful as well with my planner and Catherine.

On the day of our rehearsal, my caterer calls me as I am pulling up to the venue to tell me Catherine told her we don't have enough bartenders for the amount of people confirmed for the wedding. So although we have been communicating with her this whole time leading up to the wedding, our caterer has been communicating with her, our wedding planner is communicating with her, she says this the day before our wedding. So because this was such short notice, the company my caterer is using to rent bartenders charges extra. I had to shell out and extra $1k the day before my wedding. My caterer also told me that every time she has worked with this venue there has ALWAYS been some issue she has to go through. So also from the vendor side this venue is difficult.

Since its February we're concerned about the cold and our guests being comfortable. Catherine is assuring me it will be warm in the tent, they will have heaters going, heaters take 10 minutes to warm up, everything would be fine. Nope. Half of our guests were cold during the reception, wearing jackets, and continuously going into the bridal suite and front entrance for warmth. This venue is pretty but not worth the money. The owners are nice but this place is not professionally run. Maybe if nothing goes awry on your day, this is a good venue but I would proceed...

Here is my firsthand, fact based account of my experience with this business.

tldr; stay away, don't waste your money here, and we wish we paid 50% more for any other venue.

This will likely get an aggressive and defensive reply from the owner as this service based business does not know how to accept negative feedback. We had our wedding here ($9,326 for a Saturday in June + $2,900 for two nights in their "lodge") and for the 15 months between booking and our wedding, we made it 100% clear that we absolutely needed their advertised "High Pressure atomizing outdoor cooling system." this was made clear on many phone calls, texts, and in person meetings. First a note on what atomizing cooling means, it means the water mist becomes so fine that it should not make things wet or damp, especially on a 96 degree day in Texas. However, the venue failed to turn it on and only turned on their regular fans after enough people complained.

After the event when we raised this with the venue, they, a business based on service for the most important day in a couple's life, blames us the bride and groom for not stepping away from our wedding and tracking down the sole employee to ask why they weren't doing their job. Imagine paying 12k+ and being blamed for not asking again for what was already offered and confirmed as needed. And in the same breath said they, "do not want the misters to dampen the linens or food on the tables. It would also have likely damaged the paper lanterns throughout the tent." Cool, so please don't use the thing they advertise and that we repeatedly said we needed. Would have been nice to know during our 15 months of planning.

This was just the tip of the iceberg. They also blamed us breaking their sound system, which worked fine during the event, worked fine the next morning, and was still working just fine when we stopped by on the Monday morning to collect our rentals. I could go on about never getting keys to our rooms, door to the bridal suite that doesn't close, etc.,, but the bottom line is this venue failed to take care of their clients, refused to take any accountability for their errs, and instead of taking the negative feedback with grace and as an opportunity for learning and improvement (as two of our other vendors did), attacked us with vitriol and ended with this lovey line in their reply to our feedback, that says all you need to know about the type of people running the place, "will respond once we have gotten with our legal team."

So Vineyards, all we wanted was you to own up to your mistakes and say something like, "So sorry! We messed up! Here's a small refund and a gift card for some BBQ." Anything like that would have instantly resolved this, but you made...

Unimpressive at best. I was recently an attendee at a wedding here and wasn't thrilled at the least with this place. The ceremony got rained out last minute, but there was no real back up plan for rain other than "we'll just move it inside." Luckily, there was a tent so the reception was not ruined, but this place should have a better foul weather backup plan confirmed with the bride at least 2 months before the wedding. The bride and groom suites were nice, but I'd never pay the kind of money this venue was asking for a 2 star room. Additionally, the bride suite had a ton of windows (even in the bathroom) which would have been nice if people were not everywhere as even with the blinds closed, it felt like wandering eyes might be able to see something. The kitchen area was nice and the back parking lot was great for service providers. Parking was absolutely atrocious. As part of the immediate family, it was annoying that the property supervisor asked us to move our car to park down at the far lot across the pond area when to our displeasure, cars were allowed to park right in front of the venue anyway (we found this out as we were leaving). Not very pleased with the supervisor lady either. She was rude and wore clothing that looked like it should be on a 15 yr old out to a movie rather than an older woman at a formal event. She also did not confirm table placement with the bride beforehand as the tables had still yet to be set up when we got there and the groom helped direct where they should go and the groomsmen set the tables and chairs up, NOT THE VENUE PEOPLE AS ADVERTISED!!!!. I think the worst part about this venue was the train horn and thundering as the trains went by. No, it wasn't just once or twice but about 4-5 times that we heard this and I would have been so crushed as a bride to have my wedding ceremony or first dance interrupted by a nearby train horn (VERY LOUD!). We heard it again and again throughout the reception and were so disappointed as guests to have to put up with this obnoxious interruption. I honestly don't know how this place stays in business as a wedding venue other than the fact the outside is very picturesque. Could be nice for a smaller wedding of maybe 25-50 people but was very...