The Roxy Event Center — Attraction in Joplin

My husband and I held our wedding reception at the Amelie on April 16th, 2016. The guests all agreed that it was a beautiful hall and from the pictures, one would think that the event went off without a hitch. This is far from true. I feel a responsibility to warn future brides of what having your wedding and/or reception at the Amelie could really be like.

The manager of the Amelie and the Roxy – Charlie Brown – presents well. We scheduled 3 meetings with Charlie Brown to go over schedule, music and plans and there was never a DJ at any of these meetings even though he kept assuring me there would be at the next.

Charlie did not set up tables as promised and the day before the wedding led a bunch of our friends to the back where they rolled out tables and chairs and they began to set them up. Some of my friends were on laundry duty because Charlie didn't have enough clean table cloths for the tables. I asked Charlie if he had looked at the chart I'd sent him and he hadn't so the first time he even bothered to look at it was right in front of me when I thought I was going to be decorating. We didn't have enough time to decorate everything because of this and when I was finally rushing out the door to go to my nail appointment, leaving behind some friends to try to finish up, I asked Charlie what it was he wanted to talk about. He said “well, we need to plan your event! Like what order do you want things in? What song do you want Michael and his mom to dance to?” I about melted right there on the bar. “We planned all of this! I gave you print outs. I emailed you copies. We met twice and went over all of this. Where are all of the plans and notes that we gave you and you took?!” He literally said, “Hm. Well they might be at my house somewhere...” I had to leave because I had an appointment, so I spent my pedicure screen-shotting all of the forms I'd made and texting them to my wedding coordinator – begging her to straighten Charlie out.

At our wedding reception, I did not get to eat dinner with my husband. Charlie pulled him to the side just as we got to our table with our food and 15 minutes later I approached them and asked Michael what they were talking about. “He wants to know what order we want things done in. Like when we want the dances and...” I was pissed. “No. We planned all of this. I made spread sheets and timelines and gave Charlie all of the information he needs. Come eat dinner with me.” We had bought 9 bottles of different flavors of sparkling juice and cider for the bridal party and family. Charlie only ever brought out 3 bottles and none of the family ever had a sip. When we confronted him a week later, he was only able to give back 2 bottles.

Most of our friends are used to public speaking and did fine with the microphone but none of our guests could understand anything Charlie said all night. After our planned dances, Charlie went back to playing oldies – not even good oldies – and the mood completely died. He even played some songs from my “please do not play” list.

Charlie Brown kept interrupting us as we greeted guests the entire evening. We spent most of our wedding reception trying to siphon Charlie off on the wedding coordinator or bridal party so that we could greet people and TRY to enjoy ourselves.

After awhile of unsuccessful attempts from our family and bridal party, I finally approached Charlie myself and said “Charlie, you haven't played anything that I have asked you to. I really want to dance with my friends. Please start playing the music on my list now. Thank you.” By that time over half of our guests had left the dead atmosphere that was our apparently unknown-oldies-themed wedding celebration. My wedding coordinator stood in the booth with him while he scanned YouTube looking for normal dance songs like the macarena (which stopped half-way through and restarted...longest macarena ever) and the cha-cha-slide. He seemed to have been using Pandora and YouTube to "DJ" all night - which explains why songs I asked him not to play...

My sister got married this past weekend and her wedding reception was held at the Amelie Event Center in Joplin. The reception hall itself was beautiful, but that is where our good experience ended. When the bridal party arrived Friday morning to decorate for the reception on Saturday, not only were there no tables or chairs set up, but the event manager/coordinator/owner had lost all of the very detailed plans that my sister had sent him. This was not the first time that he had lost the instructions or the timeline for Saturday. I believe my sister sent it to him 4 times.

At the reception itself, everything was just bad. The sound system was terrible, with static and feedback echoing in the hall that everyone could hear, except for the event manager apparently. After we pointed out to him that no one could hear the speeches because of the static, he had no idea what to do to fix it. He was also operating as the DJ, so he was speaking into the microphone himself on multiple occasions. The problem was, no one ever knew what he was saying. My father led the opening prayer, and everyone could understand him, and the other speeches were able to be understood as well (except for the static and feedback), so we know it wasn't an issue with the microphone. I'll just say it was the most energetic mumbling I've ever heard. No one knew what was going on at any time because they couldn't understand what he was saying. The Bridal Party Introduction was awkward because no one could understand what he was saying. It was awkward for everyone but him, apparently, as he excitedly told my father, "Did you see that Introduction?? It was the best I've ever done! It made my hair stand on end." My father and I both asked him multiple times to speak slower and more clearly into the mic, and it never improved.

I could keep going, but I will just highlight a few more things.

He played the wrong song for the Father/Daughter Dance. He played all the songs from the DO NOT PLAY list. The same one we sent him 4 times. He also played the wrong song for the Last Dance song, and no one knew to be paying attention to the Last dance, because, again, no one could understand him. He was constantly pestering the Bride and Groom about the timeline for the evening (the one he lost 4 times) instead of asking myself, or better yet, the wedding coordinator we employed to handle those issues. WE asked him to please leave the Bride and Groom alone multiple times, and he just wouldn't do it.

As I aside before, the venue is beautiful, but I can't in good conscience recommend it, if you are required to use this guy as the DJ and...

*Update- the venue might have switched owners so if there are any concerns, make sure to check with them.

Our wedding was on July 16, 2017 so I believe some changes have occurred- however, a friend of mine recently (2021) had her reception at the Amelie (both sides) and struggled to get clear answers and professional service from the owner, which mimics the experience we had back in 2017. I can’t speak for her experience, but I will share ours so it can help out any future brides/grooms.

We had issues with consistency on price and services, and with professionalism from the previous manager, Charlie Brown. While Charlie was extremely caring, friendly, and flexible, he did not maintain boundaries during our wedding. For example, after specifically being told to come to any of the bridesmaids for issues; he directly went to me, the bride, about not having enough glasses for guests (I was in the middle of getting dressed into my reception outfit so what the heck could I do??). One of my bridesmaids easily resolved the issue by telling him to clean the dirty glasses and use paper cups from the back… Charlie also required us to write him a check for the reception before the party even finished- he claimed that the owner was pressuring him to do it. Thankfully, I brought my checkbook with me; but I couldn’t imagine having to have someone leave to go get my checkbook so we could pay him the rest of what was owed. However, there I was before our reception even finished, surrounded by guests, writing him a check…

In terms of consistency with pricing and services, we had back and forth with the owner on how much draping would cost. He also didn’t remember exactly what we had asked for- thankfully, I had it in an email so our discussion about it ended there. I made sure that he stuck with our original agreement on the draping price- he was quoting a higher price, which is something we didn’t originally agree with.

While the venue is stunning, I don’t recommend coming here due to the inconsistent service, questionable pricing practices, and...