City Opera House — Attraction in Traverse City

I had my wedding at the Opera House on 9-7-2013. The Opera House is an incredible building and the events manager Debbie Douglas was so wonderful to work with. Unfortunately this review is not so much a reflection of the building itself or the manager, but a reflection of the bar service that we received from the business that they use Trattoria Stella. We caught them trying to pad the bill at our wedding. If it wasn't for numerous photographs and witnesses we would have never known for certain. Originally when I set up the bar service we were told that they do 2 oz. pours for champagne toasts. We only had 120 people at our wedding, 154 seats total. At 25 oz a bottle, this would have worked out to be 10 bottles for all our guests, or 13 bottles for all of the seats that we had on the higher end. Now my husband and I are not picky people and we do not expect pours to be exact, but when we received out bill, they were trying to charge us for double the champagne, 24 bottles. When I inquired about the bill, I was told that the reason for the high amount was because the bar staff said the pours were done before the reception, this was a lie. I had pictures and witnesses to prove it, and the math disproved this. When I pointed this out to Stella's, that the amount of champagne was still too high and that some of my guests stated this was false, their manager blew up at me and sent me a very scathing email, stating that I needed better math or better manners to insinuate that his staff padded the bill. His willful ignorance was ignoring the math, because, well it was pretty accurate. Only after did I threaten to take him to small claims court, with pictures, and witnesses, and the amount that we agreed on in writing, did he finally adjust my bill. Now the worst part of this is, that according to my guests the bar service continued to pour champagne to my guests throughout the night after the toast. If the bar service was willing to go to this extent to pad the bill, what else did they do? My husband and I will never know. We paid the bill with the adjusted champagne amount because we could not prove or have any way of knowing the accuracy of the rest of our bill. After having such a lovely wedding and honeymoon, this was a very unfortunate experience to have to come home to and deal with. I did forward all of the information and emails to the Opera House to make them aware of what had happened and they did issue an apology for what happened. I kept copies of all of the emails exchanged with Stella's, because until they use a different bar service I would not recommend using the Opera House as a wedding venue, I don't want my friends or family having to deal with something like this, so if the subject arises, I will show them. And it wasn't as much that the theft occurred, but how it was handled by the manager at Stella's. My husband and I have owned a vacation rental business in town for 5 years and I would never dream of talking to or dealing with any of my customers the way he did over a financial discrepancy. I would never want any of my friends or friends to have to deal with this on one of the most important days of their lives, their...

An enjoyable, historic venue that has been beautifully preserved in downtown Traverse City. My son, Nathaniel, & I saw Michigan comedian Tim Allen there during the summer of 2021 and really had a great time. The seats were comfortable, though a bit cramped (sold-out show) and the halls were full of art. The facilities were immaculate and the staff was...

If you don't mind swapping a little seat comfort and leg room for ambiance, seeing a performance in one of the oldest Victorian-era opera house/theaters in the state, is a great experience. Just saw Tom Papa perform, and you feel quite close even when up in the first balcony. Definitely worthwhile,...