Drakewood Farm — Attraction in Nashville-Davidson

My experience

Initial meeting: My introduction to Drakewood Farm was an absolute dream. I was shown around and I instantly connected with my host. Her energy and excitement throughout the entire tour made me excited and I could truly picture myself getting married there.

Six months before wedding: The planning meeting. My fiancé and I met with our assigned wedding coordinators. This was a seamless experience. We felt heard and they knew exactly when to jump in and support us with decision making. This two hour meeting felt like five minutes because we were having such an enjoyable time planning the most important day of our lives. We left the meeting feeling extremely excited and ready to go. They also assured us they were able to make changes, talk through any worries or add to our original plan. We could email or call any time!

After this meeting I was able to communicate any small changes, detail questions, or concerns via email. They were quick to respond and instantly made changes to our planning sheet as requested. This entire process was seamless and I was never left hanging.

Two weeks before the wedding: I sent an email that was left unanswered for several days. I finally received a response from the owners, not the coordinators who I had been communicating with since day one. Then the owners began asking me questions that had been gone over in detail in our planning meeting. Instant red flags started popping up. I sent another email asking why I was no longer communicating with my coordinator. I received the response: “when you sign with Drakewood you sign with our team as a whole.” This is completely reasonable, but not a single person introduced themselves or offered any sort of explanation as to why I was all of the sudden moved from one person to the owner. The owner, assured me that I would be working with her most experienced coordinator and that she herself would be supporting us the day of our wedding. Frankly I wish the owner had not been there.

Day of: The owner did not once welcome me to the venue or introduce herself. The groomsmen, father of the groom and the groom were unloading cars due to no staff there to help. They stacked bar stock in the venue. They were even asked to move the bigger boxes behind the bar once they were already placed inside, to which my husband responded “you can have your staff move them to the correct location. We are here to celebrate our wedding not work for you.” The owner had no clue what was going on and was walking around asking questions that had been gone over when I was working with my original coordinators. This was extremely unprofessional and very upsetting.

During the rehearsal, the owner told everyone how they would walk in when we had already explained how we had planned to do it. She said we don’t usually do it this way and was met with my mother and sister telling her this is how the bride wants it done.

Finally an experienced coordinator showed up who actually had her act together. I am absolutely positive if she had not shown up, our day would have been a disaster and a complete disappointment. This coordinator was professional, dressed appropriately for a wedding (unlike the owner who walked around in a bright pink T-shirt for the entire day) and made sure to check in and keep me in the loop from start to finish.

They were completely understaffed and it was evident. I am grateful for my new coordinator and all of her help. She truly pulled the entire day together and turned it around. I would hope that in the future, the owner would make sure to communicate with the bride and the families when big changes happen. The entire staff that I worked with leading up to the day was no longer there and I was left in the dark until I started asking questions. This is not how any bride should feel especially when you are spending a LARGE amount of money.

In the end we had a beautiful day surrounded by everyone we love! Shout out to our photographer Alyssa Flake who made sure to keep the energy high and was just an absolute dream...

There were quite a few things we did not like about Drakewood. Once we signed the contract and paid, Drakewood’s communication became nonexistent unless it involved money or when I reached out with questions. They never checked in, offered help, or showed interest in our experience. The planning meeting was so disappointing. We couldn’t fully design a table (only one place setting), leaving me anxious about the look, which I felt looked terrible by the end of the meeting (pic attached). The team lacked attention to detail—I had to update my own planning sheet multiple times because email changes weren’t reflected. Next, they are NOT all inclusive. They will nickel and dime you once you have signed a contract. Stump wall? $150. Draping? $375, sparkler exit? $150. Our personal example: the sheet we received during our first walk-through said “Floral – Our in-house floral team will design any bouquet, arch, or centerpiece you can dream of right here on property.” Awesome, right!? WRONG. Greenery is included, but if you want a floral arch that is $550! (and mind you this was BEFORE they added the asterisk (*) with fine print on their website). They also gave us a different physical brochure the day we toured their venue that says floral is included, but they ONLY meant the bouquet/boutonniere. Pretty big difference if you ask me. Hors d’oeuvres were not included either and cost an extra $400 – even though, again, it clearly said on the sheet we received and on their site at the time that catering was included. They did not honor the sheets they gave us, and when I brought it to their attention they could care less! They didn’t do a single thing to rectify it and didn’t even apologize about the misunderstanding until I made a stink about it. They just threw our contract in our face and basically said this is what you signed. UPDATE: they did end up giving us a credit for one extra hour free because of the hors d’oeuvres issue… but yes, you heard that correctly, they charge you $550 for every additional hour you spend on the property. This includes getting ready, so BRIDES, just know that access to the bridal suite is NOT INCLUDED. Wedding Day - Several red flags: • The owner ignored our no-phone policy, her phone rang as I was about to walk down the aisle, and she disrupted photos. • Candles weren’t lit on tables until we asked. • The violinist (hired through DW) was practically inaudible. • The DJ (also photobooth operator, hired through DW) picked terrible photo frames (he never asked us about them) and failed to set up the neon sign as promised. • With our package we had to provide ALL beverages and when it came time to pack up the soft drinks the bartender said they were Drakewoods? How? • Our DW coordinator took our desserts! We had a full dessert table that my husband and I did not get to enjoy. Someone had told us there were plenty left over and to go grab some – we went over to the table, and everything was gone. The coordinator overheard us talking and asked what was going on and I just casually said, “oh we didn’t get to try any of the desserts.” She said oh ok hold on, goes somewhere and comes back with a box of each dessert!!! WHAT?! WHERE WERE THEY?! WHY DID SHE TAKE THEM!? • THE WORST PART: MY HUSBAND AND I HAD TO HELP PACK UP AT THE END OF THE WEDDING!!!! We were told that we would have 2 coordinators the day of and by the evening there was only 1. It didn’t seem like she had any clue what was going on and it was too much for her to manage on her own so I, THE BRIDE, had to go around and check every table for our belongings. I was organizing and packing up our things in boxes that I then had to load up in our truck, etc. I did a final walk-through of the venue and only then we were able to leave because I didn’t trust they would get everything. It was humiliating and completely unacceptable. We paid over $18,000, expecting a seamless experience. Instead, we left feeling ignored, misled, and regretful. My husband and I have both said if we could go back in time, we would NEVER book...

The venue is beautiful. We did an elopement package with guests. I do think communication needs to be better. I had been emailing with I think multiple people. I mentioned I was coming from another country to view this venue before signing a contract, but that I wanted to. I make it there and was unable to sign the contract because the person who handles this wasn't there. I was still able to get the date that I wanted, but I worried the whole time that someone else might snag it. At the time of viewing the venue I was given a pamphlet of the company they get the cake from to look over the cake options. We decided on a cake by the time the venue sent the options to me, the option we wanted wasn't on there, I'm thinking it was a higher price. I explained we had our heart set on another cake and we could make changes if it needed to be altered to be in the price range. I don't believe they charged us extra for this cake, I'm not sure if that's because we lowered the cost of it or if they were being nice. At the beginning, I wanted to sign with the photographer but then decided to hold off on signing a contract with the venue photographer because I was still hearing back from other photographers. Later on I let them know we would like to go with the photographer they work with and was told they added it to my profile. At a later date, I was asked if I had chosen a photographer, when I explained it was already discussed that it was theirs, I was told I didn't sign the contract for the photographer and they sent a screenshot of my contract, but that the photographer was still available. I had the screenshot the previous person sent saying the photographer was added to my profile. I'm not sure if this person didn't check my profile before reaching out or if you have to sign a whole new contract when adding the photographer, but I'd just double check. With the elopement there wasn't a walkthrough of the wedding, they did send a timeline, for the time we had. I'm not sure where the coordinator and photographer were, I'm assuming with the groom or guiding the guests. I knew where my dressing room was because of the walk-through I did. but it felt very chaotic and I was a little disappointed the photographer wasn't there to get pictures of my dress hanging. The photos are edited to where the groom's suit looks brown. I specifically chose a maroon/red suit because I didn't want brown, so that was a little disappointing. Maybe that's something I should have discussed prior, but I thought that would be rude/unnecessary. I'm not sure what the etiquette is to this. There are extra options you wouldn't know about if you didn't visit the venue, they have plate options you can choose from for a fee, they never mentioned this option over email and I decided It would be too hard to discuss over email. It was a COMPLETE ACCIDENT, but the cake was dropped at the wedding. We did have a cake we brought ourselves to the venue due to some guests having allergies so everyone still had cake. I was told later on that the venue was giving us extra time there, I didn't know this though so we were trying to rush out of there. I do think we did go over the time, so we did technically take advantage of that. The photographer also offered us a free canvas. We finally chose the one we wanted and tried to email, I ended up having to call. My emails were going to spam I believe. She let me know when she sent off the photo to be developed and gave the estimated time it should be delivered. It's been well over that time, but at this point I'm tired of trying to get it and feel like a Karen, also, I think that's on the developer not her. So I'm letting the universe decide if it shows up or not. I only bring this up to say, they do try to make up for something going wrong. I just think the communication needs to be better. There were other smaller things that happened, but these were the bigger issues for me. Weddings are stressful, nothing ever goes perfectly. I felt like I was walking in blind, but the venue and flowers...