Aristide | McKinney — Attraction in McKinney

I’ve reached out to the venue twice since my wedding and haven’t even heard back. Some of the issues we had:

Mirror was broken/missing in bridal suite, made getting ready more crowded.

Day of coordinator- Had an attitude anytime we asked for her help. Made several comments about not knowing where things were (entrances/correct doors/flow) because she was new and getting used to the venue. Which is fine but more training/not being left solo yet so she was more comfortable might have made her mood better? The rehearsal practice was a disaster and she confused everyone but she was sweet pulled me to the side and apologized so I thought maybe was just an off day and was not super worried! Day of wedding it started weird and just went downhill. Upon arrival I noticed our napkins were inside out. At first she seemed happy to fix them, then seemed irritated like she didn’t think anything was wrong. Yes it was fixed but I wish I didn’t have to be the one to ask for it to be corrected. We asked for water and were told she would bring it later with mimosas, she did bring the mimosas earlier but not sure why we couldn’t have water first? Most of the time I needed something we had to track her down. We had a guest text us during our after ceremony pictures, we didn’t see it for 45 mins. They didn’t see their names on our seating chart, after talking to many guests we now think the chart from the night before event was left out causing confusion! They asked for help and were told something along the lines of “I’m sorry you can wait out here and if someone gets up or doesn’t show up you can have their seat” Why they didn’t come get us/offer to get them a chair made no sense? When I asked her about the guest table confusion she immediately got super defensive and then seemed super annoyed with me the rest of the night. Florals- My floral contract was the most frustrating thing. I feel like we were charged for things we should not have been especially since things weren’t even used. The contract is deceptive and I wanted a price breakdown in writing and got a phone call with 1/2 given prices. If I’m requesting an itemized bill not sure why I couldn’t have one. The contract I signed for was not what was given. Changing the contract from centerpieces/alter decor/cake floral/my bouquet to $1,600 credit WITHOUT informing us felt dishonest. Our floral vendor changed 1/2 way into planning without ever being told? We started getting new emails in the middle of planning and had to go through most of the design process again. A lot of time wasted then having to redo everything without ever being warned. Biggest issue was Wedding day- Pew markers were moved by my family and not staff in the middle of our reception? When we did our entrances into the reception there were just 12 empty vases on the head table which was a chunk of what we paid extra to have pew markers in. Bakery- I have documentation where I tried to reach out to them by email/phone months before my wedding with no response. I emailed venue who said they would reach out to them. Still never heard from this vendor until I requested a tasting in December 2022 (a year later). I got an apology saying they are sorry I never received my welcome info email. Then the next day an email telling me I was behind and should have picked my cake by now? Hard to pick your cake if you can’t get a response for months. Finally day of, cakes tasted NOTHING like the tasting box we had. They were so tart and dense, not consistent at all.

I’m all for staff getting out as early as possible. But to have dirty dishes piled on dirty rolling carts in the back of all my friends/families personally taken photos is pretty disappointing! Again I’m all for staff cleaning up during the event but wish they would have bussed like normal and carried what they could to the back each trip.

I am more annoyed after the fact because 2 people at the venue knew of these frustrations so I wish the venue would have taken initiative to reach out. They never did and didn’t even respond to me...

Full review is on Wedding Wire for this venue. Unfortunately, Google has a big limit but I think this is a very important portion of what happened to us. I am open to questions to give more details.

The very final part of this nightmare. We once again asked them for a refund. But not for the date, not for the cancelled wedding, but for all the items we paid for that were NEVER provided. We asked for a refund on drinks, which as far as we know, were not ordered or bought. On top of that, THEY COULD HAVE USED IT FOR ANOTHER WEDDING. It’s not like drinks expire after a week. We asked a refund for the upgraded lighting, the upgraded linen, cocktail tables, literally everything that was not provided and came at ZERO expense to them. Even more so, as mentioned above, they could still use this for future weddings. It’s not like they had to go in with a hammer and break all the lights and buy them again. They. Refused. To. Refund.

For perspective, the added venue hour (never happened), colored wash lighting, linen upgrade, and premium beer & wine cost $5,175. None of this was refunded. Beyond unethical, immoral, and pathetic they could not even give us this back. This was so outrageous that we considered hiring a lawyer to assist us with AT LEAST these things. They could have kept the other $19,000+ but they refused for even this. Let me say that again, may not be a lot for some people but it is a life changing amount for others. Nineteen THOUSAND plus.

The funniest part of this story….after we told them we were looking into getting a lawyer, GUESS WHAT HAPPENED? The manager immediately replied back and said “I have a few dates in December and January that we can take a look at. It's safe to say that involving our legal representatives can be even more stressful.” Yes. That was copied and pasted. He really went out of the way to say that involving legal representatives can be more “stressful.” What the hell have my wife and I gone through then? Seemed pretty stressful for me. It’s hilarious how the instant we said “lawyer” ALL OF A SUDDEN A DATE OPENED UP FOR THE FOLLOWING YEAR.

I told him that if they were willing to pay to hire our vendors back then we would accept. We had no money left after they took our tens of thousands. Note, these are the same vendors they forced us to cancel because they “could not offer postponement.” Please take another guess as to their response…. There was none. He straight up did not reply back for 6 days and then said “wifi and internet is bad” as his response and nothing else. Take this time to read some other reviews about their bad communication, please.

This story ends with us telling them that since they are forcing us to pay then they need to at least package the food in containers and give it to us. We will pick it up and go donate the food. Surprisingly they agreed to this. We showed up with a couple cars grabbed the food and left. So we spent the remainder of our day delivering and packaging food to our friends and family. That was our wedding.

There is an insane amount of detail I had to gloss over and this review is still extremely long. Like how we started working with a Barbara, who then left Aristide and no one told us, then we worked with Fernanda, then Gaby, then Daniel, then back to Gaby. Gaby was the only one I respected out of these bunch of fools. The other reviews can attest as to why. Regardless, communication alone was horrid. Again, I know this won’t change the minds of anyone now and we are literally just mosquitoes buzzing around the Aristide business. They took our money and we are powerless to ever do anything about it.

I am a man, but I am here to say that even men dream of their perfect wedding. I dreamed of this day my whole life. I know my wife did as well. We were so happy. And yet, every mention of just the word “wedding” this last year leaves us feeling nothing but negative emotions. The sheer thought of a “wedding” makes me want to spit. We never had a wedding at Aristide McKinney, we only had a nightmare that we will...

I only have great things to say about this venue. My husband and I had visited many venues all around the DFW area but when we toured Piazza on the Green, we knew this was the place for us. From the beginning, the Sales Director, Robin Steyn was super helpful. She was very patient and quick at responding to emails. The ceremony area was absolutely beautiful with the huge chandeliers. It was so pretty on its own that I didn’t even need my florist to do anything. We pretty much left it as is except added the LED candles down the aisle. They also have cameras around for live streaming for guests that can’t make it to the wedding. The reception grand ballroom was BEAUTIFUL and spacious. It also had the huge chandeliers. We had 200 guests, a band with a stage, a huge kings table that sat 23 people and we still had so much room. The package included all the different lighting options so we didn’t have to hire another vendor for it.

The great thing about the package we selected was it came with a wedding coordinator 90 days before the wedding. Nicole Garcia was ours and boy was she spectacular! We met 90 days prior and walked through beginning to end of how rehearsal day and our wedding day would go. We appreciate how detailed she was and she asked tons of questions that I didn’t even think of. She took charge the day of rehearsal and the wedding day and really allowed me to enjoy everything that was happening around me. I did not have to worry about a thing. Nicole and my captain Kelly made sure I was enjoying my day and not stressing. To this day, I still believe everything went smoothly. After the ceremony, we had to hurry up and take pictures with family and our party. They came in with a few staff members with the appetizers and drinks to make sure we ate and drank. After every picture, Kelly would come up to use and had us drink water. It really is just the small things that made this team so great. My husband and I really felt as though they genuinely cared about us.

Food was a big deal for us. The great thing about Piazza is that they have many different open houses so we were able to try different appetizers and entrees before we even scheduled our tasting. They were also very accommodating to our requests. The chef was also very nice and was willing to make different things that were not on the menu. After the wedding, a few things our guests said they love. How beautiful the venue was, how the food tasted, and yummy the sangria and Champaign fruit punch was. They even mentioned how good the appetizers were and raved about the mini grilled cheese and tomato soup. The salmon and steak dishes were cooked to perfection! My family mentioned how not only the quality was great, but the quantity as well. They were shocked how big the plates were in compared to other weddings they’ve been too.

Overall, this was the best decision we made. We would choose Piazza over...