Chapel Dulcinea — Attraction in Dripping Springs

PLEASE READ BEFORE BOOKING WITH THE CHAPEL: A warning to brides and grooms. 13 days before our wedding, I went on the Chapel's public calendar to see how many couples were booked the same day of our wedding. To my surprise, I didn't see my or fiancé name in our scheduled time slot and began to panic when I saw another couple's name booked for July 31, 7-8:30 PM where our names were just a few months prior. I double-checked our confirmation email to make sure I hadn't booked the wrong date and also checked my credit card to make sure that our deposit had been paid - everything cleared out. We had booked in February, made travel arrangements, and all of our vendors and guests were confirmed. My fiancé and I were flying from CA to TX in just a few days and realized that the there was now a chance that we no longer had a wedding venue. But I thought, "it must be a mistake and I have a confirmation email from the Chapel anyway."

The next morning, I was able to get a hold of The Chapel and they claimed that we had canceled our reservation on 6/20. Huh? I explained that I had a confirmation email and proof of payment and they brushed my fiancé and I off and said "they didn't know what happened and couldn't do anything because another couple was already booked." They offered to give us a time slot at 1pm, 9pm (what a joke), or move our ceremony to another day. Do they not understand how weddings work? We had signed contracts with all of our vendors and WE WERE NOW SCRAMBLING TO FIND A NEW VENUE LESS THAN 2 WEEKS BEFORE OUR WEDDING.

The next day, we called again to see if they had notified the other couple and they refused (it's better to just screw over one couple instead of 2?) and also explained that they were able to figure out what happened - another couple had called their office on 6/20 to cancel their reservation and instead of canceling their reservation, they accidentally canceled our date instead. Again, we were given another cold "sorry" with a "too bad so sad" attitude. They said that they would have a "meeting with their staff to discuss the mistake" and asked for our email and phone number - but we never heard from them again.

It was excruciating having to find a new venue (in less than 2 weeks), amend agreements with all of our vendors (some which required last minute change fees), communicate and coordinate the changes to our guests, and pay the new venue the extra fees for last minute reservations and rentals. Can you imagine if I would have never checked the website and if my fiancé, guests, vendors, and I would have just shown up on the day of only to see a whole other wedding in session? Today, we are looking to pursue legal action to recover money lost for last minute reservation fees and late change fees we had to make to vendors and having to book a new venue just a few days before our wedding.

Chapel Dulcinea turned our special day into a logistical nightmare. Please learn from our experience and do not put your trust in the staff at the Chapel. They will have you worrying until the very last minute if they have their act together. The Chapel does not care about your "special day" and function solely as a vendor to keep money flowing in through rentals and hoping that couples donate their deposits.

Find another venue and give your money to staff that will give you...

A wedding is supposed to be a joyous occasion, but after getting married at Chapel Dulcinea and using one of their reception venues, we were almost unable to enjoy our special day. The customer service at the Chapel, after they received the full payment for the reception venue, was poor, to say the least. They were so helpful when we arrived to visit the chapel the first 10-20 times to show our mothers the venue and to ask questions. Once they got the money, they seemed to stop wanting to help and went back on what multiple employees had told us about the costs of adding time or upgrading from the smaller venue to the bigger venue on their property. While it is called "the free wedding chapel" that is about the only thing they hold up on their end. If you ever want to use their reception venues, just don't. It is a much better idea to move your reception to another venue, a restaurant, or even your back yard before shoveling out any extra money to these folks, especially when you can't even go to the reception venue early (when there are no other receptions booked) to set up and decorate, since they don't do any of that either. We actually had to get friends to come decorate while we were getting married because, unless we wanted spend an EXTRA $350, we only had an hour to decorate and it was the time when our ceremony was. Unfortunately, we were not in a place to cancel our reception with them since we wouldn't even get a full refund and, of course, all of their drama started about a month and a half from our wedding date. That's the time when we should be finishing off all of the different things that we have to pay for and schedule and just enjoy the excitement, but instead, the poor customer service and management put even more stress on top of everything else. Once the reception was over, the host that we had was just trying to force us out, even throwing away some of our decorations in the process. She was very rude!

The weekend before the wedding and reception, we went up to let my niece practice since she had never been a flower girl before. We stopped in the office to ask a few last minute questions. We saw that the smaller venue already had the tables set up in their places and with the linens already on them. When my wife asked about when the event was, the girl in the office told us that the couple paid for the whole day and came to decorate. Well, there were no decorations so I had a hard time believing her. I checked the website since they have all of the events posted there. The couple only had the event for half of the day so the people in the office set the tables up. Since we spoke to the manager about the difference in cost to upgrade to the bigger venue, they treated us like we were dirt. When our decorators arrived, the tables were folded and leaning again the wall. Every event that I have seen set up there, has had the host setting up the reception tables and linens, except for ours. We were never rude to them when we were trying to figure out why we were told one price and then forced to pay another price, but even the operations manager treated us poorly.

Thanks Chapel Dulcinea...for trying to ruin our...

Chapel Dulcinea's mission is beautiful & altruistic. The venue is romantic with breathtaking views and the open air makes it safer during Covid, but their staff member RUINED our wedding.

Our only staff interaction was with a lady who was WAY more RUDE than necessary, telling us our time was up and we needed to leave. It was 8:38 - our reservation ended at 8:30. We dropped our hopes for photos, and since we had already swept up our flower petals, we immediately began to leave. But that woman followed us down the pathway harassing us all the way to our cars! As I, the bride, explained as politely as I could, harassing us was defeating her purpose by slowing us down as we were trying to leave. I also pointed out that my 77 year old father could not go any faster down the trail with his walker no matter how loudly or how many times she berated us for going over our time.

Our little flower girls asked me with TEARS in their eyes why we were in trouble because they thought we had permission to be there. That is how AWFUL she was. It was uncalled for, and it is very hard to forgive or forget.

That woman was beyond unprofessional - she lacked basic human manners. Honestly, the woman seemed to be getting some kind of sick sadistic kick out of pissing all over our love & joy.

I wouldn't wish anyone fired during these challenging times, but I do hope Chapel management sees this review and reassigns that employee to a position that does not involve any public relations. Our wedding was 11/23/20 if that helps y'all figure out who it was. According to other reviews, rude staff is a frequent complaint that y'all would be wise to rectify.

We had raised money for the Chapel Dulcinea on our wedding website among our virtual guests prior to the wedding, singing praises of their beautiful mission. So it felt like a slap in the face to have their staff member literally chase us away from the Chapel with her bitter ire. It hangs like a dark shadow over what would have otherwise been the happiest night of my life.

My advice: go ahead and get married here, but do NOT go over your time.

For more context, we had reserved our date/time 10 months in advance, and we had chosen the last time slot that day so that we could have a big reception at the Tuscan Hall on the property. However, due to the pandemic, we cancelled the reception hall along with our wedding planners who would have been the time keepers, and we cut our guest list dramatically in order to have a Covid safe wedding (forfeiting half of our deposit because the "non-profit" was unwilling to part with any profit during the pandemic, plus we had donated our $200 deposit toward upkeep).

Bear all this in mind when making your wedding plans: 90 minutes is a VERY small window of time in which to get married. There's no staff facilitating things between weddings, or even sanitizing the dressing rooms. The closing staff is unbelievably unprofessional, RUDE, and just might ruin...