Pearl Manor/Mansion is a beautiful indoor-outdoor venue that has southern charm and excellence. Kendall, one of the owners, is incredibly kind, considerate, flexible, and easy to work with. Unfortunately, her husband, Anthony, is not. He chooses to be passive-aggressive, rude, and condescending during the majority of interactions.
Before we booked the venue we let Kendall know we would like a small band of 3 members to play during cocktail hour, which she was agreeable with. Anthony said no due to concern that the band would overload the power grid from using amps. While this is a perfectly reasonable explanation, he was quite rude about it. He eventually agreed to it (have it in writing in an email), but then on our wedding day tried to say that was not allowed when the band had already shown up.
When our coordinator was late during a site visit Anthony made a snide comment about her not being reliable, and how we should've used Kendall's coordinating services instead. However when we booked in July 2023 these services did not exist, therefore were never offered.
On the day of our wedding, Anthony told my father that per our contract we were to only have 100 guests. While he was right that this was part of the contract, we were told from the start we could make adjustments as needed throughout the process as we booked the venue in July 2023, and got married in November 2024. Never mind the fact that our total guest count was supposed to be 120 (which we told them well before the wedding was the case, though unfortunately did so verbally and not in writing), and only 109 showed up. Also, they advertise being able to host 200-250 guests, which would mean our 120 guests should not have been an issue in the first place.
Anthony also yelled at one of our caterers for briefly parking in a No Parking area to unload all those items by herself (he did not help her), only apologizing after my father happened to witness the interaction, and he did not apologize to her, but rather to my dad, so it was more like he was sorry he got caught being rude.
Anthony told multiple of our guests during the reception that the whole event should have only been for 4 hours. I have an email exchange between Kendall and I from February 2024 where she said it was fine for us to have the ceremony at 4pm, music off at 10:30pm, and all guests off-premises by 11pm, which we abided to, and got the entire venue cleaned up by 12am as per contract. Not only that, but a second section of the contract that is pre-written by the owners says “alcohol service must stop no late than 10pm, music (DJ or live music) must stop no later than 10:30pm, and all guests must be off Pearl Manor premises no later than 10:59pm” all of which we followed.
Anthony attempted to shut down the bar service at 9:15pm that had been booked and previously discussed to go until 10pm. He spoke with the bartenders and told them to start packing up, but did not discuss this with our coordinator or us directly. The bar service coordinator/manager had to get involved.
We also paid an additional $450 to have both the firepit and heaters on for the colder weather at night. The firepit was shut down at 9pm, guests were specifically told they were no longer allowed to use it, and the heaters were not turned on until at least 8:30pm after I had to ask him to do so while standing beside one, shivering.
Finally, we paid to stay inside the manor/mansion the night of our wedding to avoid driving home after drinking alcohol. We were not aware that the owners lived on site until the day before our wedding. While this would normally not be a big deal, after how much anxiety Anthony caused us during the reception, we considered calling it a loss and just taking a Lyft or Uber back to our apartment.
Should you choose to use this venue go into it knowing you will receive passive-aggressive mixed messages, and I would highly recommend obtaining everything in writing through email or...
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