Carmelle Reception Center — Attraction in Holladay

(edit) RESPONSE TO OWNER: My step dad was the one cleaning up after and getting all the food and the girl that we had working with us there that day told him that he could only have the ice cream and not the toppings because all the toppings were going to be reused. As far as the extra food goes, your employees may have had extra brownies for their ice cream or whatever it was, but they also ate all of our brownies because I think I was the only one that got one out of my entire wedding. Literally no one else got brownies because your employees ate them all (and I know this because we weren't sent home with any even though we had them in the ice cream bar and no one else ate brownies). And were we charged for your employees to eat our food that we paid for? Because it sure sounded like that. My experience with Carmelle was absolutely awful. They charge $50 or $60 extra to let your guests dance (its a charge for the floor to be put up, but ridiculous regardless), they also charge for outside vendors as far as food goes--it's $100. They charge at least $6 per person for food, more if you decided to do a luncheon, and we had the ice cream bar: they only let us keep the ice cream and the waffle boats. They had brownies as well (which we also paid for with the ice cream bar), but they gave them to their employees (excuse me, but I didn't pay to have your employees eat the food?). They also let us know that they had a wedding earlier that day that they had reused the toppings for the ice cream from. REUSED toppings. That's a health violation in and of itself, not to mention someone could have gotten really sick, AND WE PAID FOR THIS. I don't know the people at the wedding before me but if one of them was sick or had the flu, or had the Measles outbreak that's going around? That is ridiculous! They give you a slight discount on your cake, but they don't have updated books, the person who was showing us the book had no idea of anything about the cake or if we could do certain designs or just get a plain one or anything. Most of the staff are not up to date with a lot of anything, their player piano broke 2 weeks prior to my wedding and they didn't fix it or let me know beforehand, and the staff are usually condescending. If I could give negative stars I would. DO. NOT. GO. HERE. If you are on the hunt for a wedding venue, I recommend avoiding this one. I promise you, you'll thank me. If I could give them zero...

@Carmelle in response to Maddie’s chain. While we understand that things break, it would have been nice to have a phone call saying “our player piano broke so if you were planning on using it for your event, we need to make a back-up plan.” In comparing to other venues prices are affordable. But I will attest as a witness that when asked about saving the toppings that we paid for (blue M&Ms, butterfinger crumbs, assorted candies and other save-able toppings) we were told “no”. When inquiring why, since we did pay for it, we were told that those toppings are reused. There was not an event prior to ours that day, so I don’t know when they were last used. When we suggested that was unhealthy, we were told that the guests were supposed to use the spoons so it was “ok”. Not sure how many kids fingers were grabbing gummy bears and M&Ms at other events, but pretty disgusting to me. In addition, when discussing the cake we were never given the option to go online and view the options. We were told to contact the vendor themselves and the vendor became frustrated that the staff at Carmelle were not doing “their job” helping with the cake order. We felt caught in between. Lastly, every time the staff called the bride they acted as if she was a child, used condescending tones and stated things like “you kids need to do this or do that.” Not helpful. When they called and told the bride that she needed to finalize plans, we totally made arrangements to visit a few days later on a Saturday at 3pm. When we arrived, we were asked to wait until 3:30 since the only staff member was showing the place to someone else and then that staff member rushed us through selecting all of the options (linens, dance options, cake, music options etc) so she could leave for a family party by 4pm. I was appalled that she basically opened their storage closet and said let me know what you want for centerpieces, without allowing for time to set things out or get any sort of visual on what the centerpieces would look like. 30 minutes to plan a wedding is not sufficient nor is it good customer service, especially on the biggest day of someone’s life. I think you have forgotten who your clientele is and the care that this clientele needs for their...

We had a wedding reception for our son and his bride from Oregon, knowing we would likely have greater expense with an additional reception in OR. From start to finish, the Carmelle staff were remarkably involved and excellent and counseling, guiding, and providing ideas and adapting to our needs and wishes. They kept everything on track and in good timeframes leading up to the reception, while letting us thoroughly know what amenities we could access and what adaptations we could make to the menu and allowed us to bring cake and still had excellent services at the elegant foodbar. The food was excellent and reasonably priced. They provided at least what we wanted because there were some leftovers. The food never looked empty, despite an excellent turnout from guests. The wait staff was professional, clean and sharply dressed, and respectful. The lead catering supervisor ensured the food table (which was lit from underneath the white table clothes and decorated beautifully) was excellent at engaging with her staff and with company without being intrusive. She was professional, very observant, efficient, and very nice. I was glad I took a moment to speak with her and compliment her on her excellent demeanor. The whole process turned into a convenient and well-run experiences that many guests exclaimed was the most elegant and beautiful and well-hosted and FUN reception they had ever attended. Many enjoyed the fresh air in the outdoor garden which had a flowering magnolia tree and bulbs popping up all over. I very highly recommend Carmelle and all their staff from sign-up to payment to catering to decorating to providing a very lovely venue that is easily accessible and comfortable and high-class all at the same time! They really went the extra mile to ensure a smooth occasion that turned into a truly...