The Modern — Attraction in Long Beach

RANT INCOMING - READ BEFORE YOU BOOK

Let me start off by simply saying that this review is NOT to take away from the venue itself or the catering. The venue is GORGEOUS, with great views, a great setting & versatile for different types of photography, with optional access to the airport hangars for an additional fee on behalf of their preferred vendors. Additionally, Mary at Catering is INCREDIBLE. She’s well-mannered, respectful, shares the details with you & is the GREATEST COOK EVER. So for clarity, those things I’ve noted are exempt from my 1-star review.

Where things go south, is where many others also share their grief and conflict. Abel, the on-site coordinator, is a NIGHTMARE to deal with. In the meetings, calls and appointments leading into the day of, one thing I can share is that he is VERY communicative and responds in a very timely manner. We never found ourselves waiting more than 24 hours for a response, other than the weekends, when they had events booked at the venue. Apart from that though, he was & is an AWFUL person to deal with. Almost every encounter, every message, meeting & phone call resulted in at least ONE moment where his horrible attitude and condescending tone was on FULL DISPLAY. I can have AT LEAST 10-15 guests that can pour into this review within their own experience on the ACTUAL wedding day. He was disrespectful in his treatment towards guests. We understand that this venue is STRICT; we are FINE with that. However, it’s one thing being strict & another thing being outright disrespectful. I have vendors, band & sound techs that were present that ALSO let me know of their negative experience with him. You couldn’t ask him a simple question the day-of without him being short-tempered & dismissive. Refused to make simple adjustments. Even during the breakdown post-reception, he was disrespectful towards my guests and vendors. The venue & catering was pretty pricey, which we were fine with paying since we REALLY wanted to hold our wedding here. Even after the reviews we read, we gave it the benefit of the doubt. You would think that after paying as much as we did for 70 people, he would be accommodating, respectful & kind to our guests and vendors. I strongly believe he needs to take a background role & they should really consider having a more welcoming person assume his position. He micromanaged, demanded & policed every single person on our wedding day and made COUNTLESS guests uncomfortable with his character. We couldn’t even move some lounge furniture for photography purposes, without him moving everything back before even getting the photos & mugging us with a negative look. Even worse, his attitude when Mary (the owner) was around was completely different! Quiet, reserved, respectful. When she wasn’t there - an ENTIRELY different persona.

To make matters worse, my wife was in the mechanical room upstairs awaiting to make her entrance. Abel himself admitted to my coordinator after that the room hadn’t been swept in 3 WEEKS. She severely stained her dress prior to walking down! We have pictures & witnesses as well that CLEARLY noticed the staining as she made her walk down. When I addressed it with him after we got back from our Honeymoon, He lied and said my coordinator said it was just “dry dust.” However, that was a lie. My coordinator had to take her shirt off, wipe as much as she can & fix the dress inwardly, to hide the staining as much as possible. We called her about it & said he was being dishonest. He refused to comp us for the incident and instead blamed the tarmac we were on, when in reality, we kept the dress unraveled because it was already a lost cause anyway. It costed us $300+ to get it cleaned up.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. I can’t & will NEVER recommend this venue to anybody, literally just because of the experience with Abel. As mentioned, I can 10-15 people MINIMUM that can attest to their experience with him. Avoid this nightmare; take your services elsewhere. To Mary : me and my wife absolutely LOVED you. We’re sorry if you find yourself reading...

Our wedding was a perfectly executed dream come true that was orchestrated by The Modern, and its wonderful team led by Abel and Mary.

My wife and I discovered The Modern during a special event right before I proposed, and we knew that if we ever got married, this would be the place. Following our engagement, we had a tour of the place with Mary, and we were 1000% convinced with the place since Mary came with the package lol. The communication throughout the course of our planning was outstanding, and both Abel and Mary addressed all our inquiries and concerns without hesitation and with clear answers. While the conditions of the contract initially seemed rigid, all guidelines and expectations were stated clearly, and both Abel and Mary provided all the support necessary to ensure the vendors understood and executed per the contract accordingly. All terms of the pricing were transparent, and we found the costs to be worth every penny, as we were 1000% satisfied with the venue. Through the course of our two-year planning, Abel and Mary were available and offered the walkthroughs necessary for the vendors and us to plan accordingly and execute an impeccably perfect wedding.

Mary did an outstanding job and exerted so much patience with both my Wife and I through the course of food and drink tasting. She assessed our preferences and perfected our specialty cocktails and food menu to reflect my wife, our guests, and I.

We appreciated the opportunity to host our rehearsal brunch at their Kitchen and Bar located below the venue. Our guests enjoyed getting a small taste of the delicious food and drinks they'd be having the following day at the actual wedding.

The day of the wedding could not have unfolded so perfectly, both aesthetically and logistically. Abel and Mary coordinated and collaborated in unison with our group of vendors, and they really outdid themselves by providing the foundation to our dream wedding, literally. They did an amazing and efficient job at flipping the venue space for the reception. All while our guests were enjoying themselves in the lavish lounge during cocktail hour.

The venue itself is perfect. It is very modern, clean, spacious, classy, and their furniture and greenery were the perfect accessories necessary to complete our wedding day. And that's not all. The VIEWS are one of a kind as the venue has an entire wall space made up of windows that overlooks Long Beach Airport and an outdoor terrace that allowed us and our guests to enjoy the views. We literally had airplanes flying up and down during our entire wedding, with a grand exit of us flying off in a helicopter.

My wife, our guests, and I cannot believe how perfect the entire day turned out. They will not stop raving about how perfect and beautiful everything turned out. From the food to the drinks and the wonderful bartenders, and of course to how magically, beautiful our wedding was. None of which would have been possible without the fantastic venue, Abel, Mary and their team. While we are saddened to turn the chapter from the wedding planning and wedding, we are so so so happy we chose The Modern. The Modern and team will forever be embedded in our hearts and beautiful memories that will last a lifetime. Thank you, Mary, Abel, team,...

I was supposed to have a wedding at this venue a month ago and 5-6 months leading up to it, we were given the run around of "we have no updates because we are still restricted due to covid". I completely understand that the wedding and events industry has taken a huge hit due to the pandemic. I myself was laid off because that is the industry I worked in. Regardless, their communication was very minimal to none. They don't reach out to you, you have to reach out to them. When asked about a refund, their immediate answer was no. I understood that signing a contract before the pandemic, it was non-refundable. But things have completely changed, and why should we be forced to lose our money if the venue does not allow us to have our wedding on said date? I asked if we could even come to a compromise. That is when they started sending legal letters instead dealing with me as a human being who paid them money. They told me that because I have reserved my date, they were no longer selling that date to future bride and grooms therefore, they could be losing money this entire time and for that reason, they cannot give me a refund.... If your venue is temporarily closed, you really can't give that date to anyone. My original wedding has passed now and I heard nothing from them. They were simply going to take my money and never say a thing. I reached out and they slapped me in the face with another legal letter that said I didn't fully pay therefore I am in breach of contract. Why would I pay MORE money when your venue is STILL not open and then I am out even more money than I was before. They also had the nerve to tell me "we're hosting indoor ceremonies up to 25% capacity, but we never heard from you so we did not host your wedding"....EXCUSE ME? They never notified me of that and I have emails to prove it. If you are accepting small indoor ceremonies, why wouldn't you tell the people that are currently booked with your company? Why do I have to reach out to you to get that information? Where is the customer service in this situation? It felt very shady to me and I was very hurt that if I can share some compassion for their venue and what they're going through, why can't they share any empathy for bride & grooms during this time? They just do not seem to care. When planning a wedding, it is stressful especially during a pandemic. You want to be made to feel like your feelings matter and that you are in good hands. You want to be treated like a human being not a number. I feel terrible for anyone who may be going through the same thing. It is...