The Villa Banquet Center — Attraction in City of Lackawanna

I am only giving 1 Star for the fact that the food was good. My mother and I booked this venue for my shower. I knew I wasn’t going to have more than 35 guests so their small banquet room was perfect and their brunch menu seemed like a good fit. At first, I will say it was off-putting that we needed to bring paper plates if we were bringing a cake however I looked passed it. My mother was in touch a week prior to confirm the count, etc. I did however personally call the day before because I wanted to make sure the tables were set for a specific seating arrangement. Upon calling, i was told that this would be marked down, no problem. I was also reminded about bringing my own plates AND forks for my cake or else they would charge $1 per person for use of a fork?!?? I would’ve felt better had they charged for a “cake cutting fee” but specifically that it is for use of their silverware that my guests would be using for brunch seems ridiculous. Fast forward to the day of the shower. We were told we could set up an hour before the shower (shower at 11am). My sister in law arrived earlier than us at 9:45 and was shown in my an older gentleman that led her to the room. As she was setting up, a woman came in screaming at her (not put together at all, with her shirt inside out looking as if she just rolled out of bed), saying she needs to leave and pretty much come back in 15 minutes. She sat outside in her car until we came. Upon entering the room, I immediately noticed there were way too many tables set and for more than my count was even confirmed. Also, the “extra” tables for gifts, prizes, etc were arranged differently than when I toured. The disheveled woman appeared and I told her what I needed changed. She immediately snapped back and said I needed to have let them know in advance. Which I simply replied back, “I did”. They start arranging tables and I point out one that I’d prefer set and now is the time they tell us “we can’t have anyone sit here because there is a roof leak above”. So now we clearly understand why a waiter tray with bucket has been awkwardly placed in the middle of the room and the tables have all been pushed back away from it. I clearly become upset and this is when the disheveled woman goes missing ... FOR THE REST OF THE DAY! Yes. We only saw one server and the “meat carver” the whole shower. All during the time multiple leaks started to show on the ceiling which was made obvious by the roofing company being called in to REPLACE TILE 5 MINUTES BEFORE THE SHOWER STARTED. The room was freezing, the heat kept shutting off. Coffee was self serve which the amount of gratuity and fees you pay you’d think the least they could do would be to walk around with a pot of coffee or clear plates? A waiter tray was initially put down and my guests were walking their dirty plates up to the tray. Not to mention watching them whisper about the condition of the ceiling. I will be completely honest in saying I was MORTIFIED. I understand things happen but it was HOW it was handled and continues to be handled. We called the next day to address our concerns with management and after having to follow up multiple times, we’ve been sent a check for $45 to compensate for the mimosas? It’s not even about the money at this point, it’s the pure fact that they refuse to take ownership of anything. They claim to have watched videos of the event which shows the contractor fixing the tile and out of the room in 5 minutes. Right, but watch the rest of the footage.... multiple guests flagging down the waiter to point out ADDITIONAL leaks throughout the room. I truly am embarrassed and hope this does not happen to anyone else as it...

Bride here! Made me sob at the end of my wedding day, the absolute worst decision I’ve made planning my wedding was choosing this hall. Staff and management was very hard to work with, I came in there looking to only rent the room so I’d have the option to bring my own catering since it was an african traditional wedding, we needed african food , I think that decision alone was was when they decided to charge me for literally everything extra that should’ve been included with the room( I understand all receptions don’t have the same policy) from the chairs, chair covers etc, I think they’ve never had rented the room before without their catering so they were creating rules and policies on the spot. They told me the person decorating couldn’t come the day before to decorate and only gave her 3 hrs “free of charge”the day of the wedding to do everything, And any extra hours would be $150 per hour. I recently found out another lady who got married there recently after my wedding, they gave the person decorating the Friday before and the Saturday before her wedding to decorate with noooo charge!!!! I couldn’t even have my wedding rehearsal the Friday before the wedding because they said I’d have to pay $250 per hour.. and I was already over my budget. I booked for the bigger room at the villa, however the day of my wedding, the lady decorating found out that half the room was filled with unused chairs and tables that they were supposed to remove and cover that part with a black curtain.they try to gaslight me saying I never said I wanted the full room, like what???? Why in the world I would pay full price and only use half the room? I did tell them I wanted the cleaning crew as well, I thought they included that in the bill, comes to find out at the end of my wedding that I never booked for the cleaning crew, I didnt planned for anyone to clean after, but a few people helped me. I had to be taken away since I was crying so much, so the garbage bin they wanted my people to throw the garbage at was all the way at the end of the parking lot near the bushes.Mind you, there was no light near that garbage bin, There was another bin near the door so all the garbage bags were put there cause it was scary to go all the way there,So I was charged for leaving the garbage out. So so many things happened and I barely got any change out of my deposit. I never met the owner. I was only working with Amanda and I forgot the other ladies name .its like they pick and choose who to treat well and treated me horribly, Everything was charged for. DO NOT BOOK, unless you want to use their catering service maybe I would have had a better experience. I was absolutely...

We chose Lucarelli’s as our caterer for our wedding on Nov 2nd at HayLoft in the Grove. While the food turned out amazing at the wedding (which we expected), the service and communication leading up to the wedding day and day off was a little subpar. We had a little trouble throughout the planning process with getting ahold of Amanda (our wedding coordinator) whether it was email or phone. I feel that this issue could be resolved by the company not utilizing one main email for all employees and having personal emails for all employees so our emails didn’t get lost or read and then discarded. We had some issues with linens for our venue as well, although the venue and caterer communicated many times via email and phone, we were still shorted a few table cloths which resulted in a conflict just a few days before our wedding. We ended up having our venue rent the linens through their supplier which was both cheaper and quicker. The day of the wedding we had a few issues as well. First off, the biggest issue was that the bar ran out of whiskey and vodka right at the end of cocktail hour. The head lead claimed this was because they caterer didn’t know that we were having signature drinks which resulted in more than usual alcohol usage but to me, you shouldn’t be running out of whiskey and vodka of all things, especially when you are having a wedding off-site, this should have been better coordinated by the caterer and supplier at the time of order. The bar also ran out of bottled water about 90 minutes before the reception concluded which resulted in guests having to drink out of a tap outside (mind you it was 30 degrees out and snowing) or they were told to drink the melted ice water from the coolers… a huge no no in my opinion. We also had to pay for 2 bartenders to work our wedding as per our coordinator, yet we only had one during the entire day (working on getting a refund on that now). Other than these issues, we did enjoy the food as did our guests. Shawn behind the bar did a great job of serving guests and clearing up the alcohol issue while the bar was closed for dinner and head lead Chantel did a great job as well making sure the food was properly prepared and all guests needs were met. Lucarelli’s is a great caterer with a long history of weddings but the communication needs some improvement if they want to be the...