We had our wedding reception at the Palazzo Grande for over 500 guests. Overall, the venue is beautiful and all of the banquet halls look elegant. There are beautiful chandeliers, marble dance floors, and a modish entry way to all of the halls. The venue is able to host large parties and the management also allows for outside catering for ethnic parties, something that isn’t available at other halls.
We were extremely excited to hold our event at the Palazzo Grande. At first, the staff was very accommodating and transparent. However, as our event date approached, we began experiencing issues with the management team. When we reserved the venue, we were under the impression that our vendors would have sufficient time to set up (décor, back drop, lighting, sound, etc.). About two weeks before our wedding, our florist called and said that the Palazzo was not allowing her to set up any of our décor until after 2 pm (for a 7 pm reception of over 500 people). We called our Palazzo coordinator, who then told us that there was a wedding of 800 scheduled right before our event and was planned to end by 2 pm. Because of this, the earliest our vendors could get into the hall to set up would be 2pm. To ensure our vendors had the appropriate staff and sufficient time, we paid them a rush set up fee and coordinated with the Palazzo to ensure the vendors could begin setting up at 2pm. To our surprise, the party of 800 ended well past 2 pm and its guests were still leaving the venue at 5 pm. As a result, our vendors were not able to set up until 5:30 pm, and only had 90 minutes to fully set up the hall.
Due to the time crunch, our vendors were unable to set up critical components of our décor package. We were extremely disappointed as we had spent over a year planning our perfect day and many of details we wanted were unable to be incorporated. The biggest disappointed to us was that the backdrop we had spent weeks designing was unable to be set up. Our florist was forced to use the backdrop from the previous wedding and add some of the touches we wanted. In the end, the back drop had an entirely different theme, style, and look. Our vendors also told us that the management team was rude and unsympathetic. Moreover, several of our guests arrived on time, but the hall was still being set up. As a result, many of our guests were forced to wait in the foyer until the hall was ready. For a formal wedding reception, this was embarrassing and unprofessional. It showed a complete lack of customer focus and created a great deal of confusion before the reception even started. It also portrayed us as being unprepared.
In the end, the owner did compensate us for the rush set up fee and refund us a portion of the back drop that was not set up. Also, to compensate for opening the doors late, he allowed the party to end 30 minutes past its scheduled end time. However, when we tried resolving this issue with him after the wedding, he often denied the mishaps and reassured us that our vendors had ample time to set up. In the end, with the help of our wedding planner and décor vendor, we were able to ultimately come to a resolution.
To those who are planning to have an event here, I would recommend clear and frequent communication with the management team. Assume nothing and verify everything. For example, a week before the reception, my fiancé casually inquired about how to use their projection screens to show a video at the reception. It was then determined that their projection systems were dated and didn’t allow for an HDMI connection, the standard in today’s audio/video industry. Furthermore, there was an additional cost to even use their projection system.
All in all, when it comes to your wedding, you want everything to turn out as close to how you planned it. While things are bound to go wrong, they should never be due to the hall’s negligence or a lack of...
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