Aristide | Mansfield — Attraction in Mansfield

I booked my wedding here for 11/23/2020 and the venue was booked in mid-July 2020. My original plan was to have a wedding in Mexico during this period but those plans fell through and I looked for local venues to plan a micro-wedding because by my sheer will it was still going to happen this year. I would say, overall, the experience with Aristide Mansfield was good, but not great. Everything leading up to the wedding date was perfect until the actual day of the wedding when the venue staff dropped the ball on me.

Booking the venue:

We toured quite a few venues around town and worked with Andrew Dalton for Walters Wedding Estates to see what kind of venues we would like with their group. Andrew was very responsive (9/10 would respond within an hour) and I really appreciated that kind of detail when reaching out to multiple vendors. We ended up signing the contract for Aristide Mansfield because the venue provided the most scenic look that matched our updated wedding vision.

Working with the venue:

Once we were booked with the venue, Andrew was hands off and Samantha was introduced as our event manager. When I had questions regarding the event, Samantha was very accommodating and assisted us timely.

Come the day of the details meeting, Samantha informs me that she will not be assisting us the day of as she will be transitioning to a different role and she would be succeeded by Kayla. Kayla led the meeting and was nice but a bit all over the place so I was not confident but I had faith in my interactions with Samantha thus far that she would be trained by the day of the wedding.

Day of event:

This is where things go downhill (a day you don’t want it to go downhill). We arrive at the venue and nothing has been prepped for our event. Things we requested: ceremony seats for 30 guests, long table set up for our guests, and furniture moved. Things we saw when we got there: ceremony seats set up for about 100 guests, long table set up with skinny tables (really awkward for guest seating), and no furniture moved as we had discussed. Not only that, the event manager who was supposed to be there (Kayla) was no where to be seen (with no notice given either so this was quite upsetting).

Really the star of turning this whole situation around was Daniel. My team was upset and we needed things to get turned around ASAP because there was less than 3 hrs to the event starting and lots of changes needed to be made. We had the groomsmen assist him on putting down chairs but he gave us access to tables and chairs as we needed to make sure the area was set up to how we had discussed in our details meeting.

Overall, I want to give thanks and props to the Aristide staff that was assisting us that day for their positive, can-do attitudes in getting things done effectively and efficiently and for saving the day for us on the venue side. Daniel (real venue MVP staff) was integral in turning it all around for us and had he not been there I probably would’ve been raising hell right now with these people. Not only that the bartender (Aaron, I think?) and waitstaff (Adrianna) were phenomenal! Not only did Daniel help us out with fixing things, he constantly made sure that I was attended to (as the bride) and that any issues I had were resolved ASAP. I’ve heard from my photographer (who works with this venue frequently) that they have high turnover rate resulting in some of these scenarios and I truly hope for future brides that they have a Daniel on staff for their big day. I really wish I could get them 5 stars but can’t help but feel that I was a bit shafted as a micro-wedding bride celebrating on a Monday, but it is what it is and we still ended up having a good day despite the mishap so 4 stars it is because it was good but...

We had our wedding/reception at Aristide Mansfield on Saturday, April 3, We had approximately 280 guests in attendance. While we had turnover in the staff during our 15 months of planning, our final contact (Kaci) was a blessing from her organization and responsive communication skills.

The venue is beautiful. The general housekeeping could be improved. We had to dust the bar area and steps before our event. They had recent renovations that I know contributed to that. However, there is no one to take care of general housekeeping, even throughout the event. Trash cans were overflowing and empty soap dispensers in the restrooms were just two of the issues we encountered.

We had the venue from 11 am until 12:30 am. Our ceremony was at 6 pm and the grand exit at 11:45 pm. Based on this, we purchased an additional hour of bar service, so our guests were accommodated throughout the evening. In our planning meeting, our major concern was having sufficient supply of beer and wine. We knew our group, and this was one an area that we could not manage as the bar was handled by the venue. WE DID NOT RECEIVE THE 4 HOURS OF BAR SERVICE FOR WHICH WE PAID. We were told that every bottle and can of alcohol in the venue had been consumed. WHAT’S EVEN WORSE, finding out after the event that that statement was a TOTAL LIE, as Management confirmed they still had beer in their inventory after our event! We are embarrassed that guests were turned away from the bar with no beer or seltzers for close to an hour FOR NO REASON OTHER THAN THE COORDINATOR (KAYLA) DID NOT WANT TO BE THERE. In addition, the bartender had an attitude problem all night and responded well to those guests stuffing money in her tip jar or her hand.

The next issue is the wedding coordinator (Kayla) making decision on our behalf to the detriment of our guests. I was told the cakes were too big for us to cut. She would take care. There were not enough pieces of cake cut to accommodate our guests, only find out that portions of the cake that were “too difficult to cut” were SIMPLY THROWN AWAY! My caterer informed me that his staff pleaded to take the “trash” pieces home with them. Our cake stand was thrown away as part of the cake cutting fiasco lead by the venue’s wedding coordinator, Kayla.

While the bouquet and garter tosses are happening, the wedding coordinator (Kayla) and security decided to begin cleaning the bridal suite cleaning. Upon walking into this and inquiring why, we were informed that she “did not want to be there at 2 am cleaning.” We now had bridal party members cleaning rather than witnessing fun parts of the evening. It really makes no sense as the bride’s family had paid for the additional time after the exit to thoroughly remove all personal items from the venue. Again, though, she was not interested to be there that night and made the evening hard on anyone around her. Secondly, security should have been with the guests and not cleaning the bridal suite. Something just wasn’t adding up. Further, our caterer and photographer made similar statements to us about her lack of interest in our event. The things she should have attended to (bar service, dimming of lights during dancing, access lighting, etc.) were ignored to “not be there all-night cleaning.”

I lay awake at night angry and embarrassed. I have tried to talk through the issues with the venue staff and regional manager. They acknowledge things were handled poorly and lies were told. I just want those considering Walter’s Wedding Estates to do their homework and beware based on our recent experience. I don’t want anyone to feel the way I do after so much time, money and effort has been invested in one of the most important days...

Overall 5-stars, this venue is GORGEOUS and we are so happy we went with this location. If you are looking for a quaint venue that is different from most that you will find in DFW - something like out of a fairytale - this was perfect. We got so many compliments from our guests! Additionally, the venue was VERY well managed and our night went so smoothly - any hiccups that did occur were not even noticed because everything else was great. Just to sum up everything:

PROS:

-Beautiful Italian style exterior and romantic, cozy interior with plenty of opportunities for photos. Great lounge space both inside and outside. -Venue rental itself is affordable (especially if done on a day that isn't Saturday!) -Food was great. -Service was amazing, lots of compliments on bartenders especially. The day-of-coordinator was very helpful in making the day go smoothly and responding to my last-minute requests. -Again, great management, everything was very well organized. It rained the day of my wedding and the front entrance was very slippery and wet, my mother in-law brought this to the staff's attention and they had the floor cleaned soon after! -Plenty of hotels to stay at in the area and near major highways for easy access to transportation.

CONS:

-If you are trying to save money for your wedding, having to use their in-house caterer + bar/bartender package really makes things very expensive, especially if you’re having a large wedding. If you want appetizers to be served for cocktail hour, that is an additional charge per head per appetizer. So yeah, for food and drink alone it adds up real fast so that may be something you want to seriously take into consideration. This goes for all Walters Wedding venues though!

-The only form of communication with the venue I’ve successfully had is via email or talking to them in person (and I've only seen them twice in person). I tried calling a few times but never was able to get ahold of anyone. They thankfully respond on the portal usually within a day or two, but it’s inconvenient when you have a time-sensitive question, or if you have a lot of questions sometimes it’s difficult to get answers to all of them (which means asking the same question multiple times sometimes).

-While a day-of coordinator is provided by the venue and one of their duties is to coordinate the entrance processional for the ceremony, I was not informed until a couple of weeks before the wedding that they do not coordinate ceremonies that take place outside of the Aristide. Basically it's just assumed everyone is getting married at the Aristide which I thought was not very inclusive to those of us who are of certain religions and have to get married at religious institutions. With not much time left until the wedding, this left me out of a coordinator for the actual ceremony and the processional was almost a trainwreck because we didn't have any guidance and were left to figure out timing on our own. Thankfully it was mostly fine, but if this was made clear to me well in advance I would have made proper arrangements to find someone to coordinate our ceremony processional to save the unnecessary stress this caused me at the rehearsal and leading up to the ceremony.

The cons weren’t enough to outweigh the pros in my opinion, it was still the most perfect day ever. I just want to make future brides aware of these few things! Otherwise, I highly recommend...