Hewitt Oaks: Weddings+Events+Retreats — Local services in Savannah

We had a terrible experience at Hewitt Oaks. I wrote a very long review but there’s a limited amount of characters you can post, unfortunately I can’t say everything that happened.

The planning process was difficult. Poor communication, long delays in responses and misinformation from the owner.

At the rehearsal, there was a lack of professionalism from the owner, every time I said something she would talk over me. I was so upset and stressed after this.

The wedding day was worse, The chapel and bathroom were dirty, and there were buckets of dying flowers left around. A cleaning crew left wet floors and piles of trash while we were trying to take photos. We asked multiple times for the buckets to be moved, they are in the majority of my photos and video. The night before the owner told us not to worry about rain and that they do this a lot. At 3, they told me to make a decision on having the ceremony outside, it was only rain so I kept it. The DJ later told us that he can’t play music in the rain, the venue failed to mention that earlier; I thought they had a rain plan for music outside, due to them telling me not to worry. After asking for our planners, they walk in and the owner says someone wanted to see me? (this is the first time we’ve seen her all day). I said we haven’t seen her all day and she looked at me and said well what did you expect? (I expected her, as our wedding planner to be helpful and there during my day). My dad told her what the DJ said and in my opinion, she looked at us like we were stupid and said well yeah; his music equipment can’t get wet , I told her my photographers are out in the rain, she said that was different, his equipment is electrical (I get it, but if that was the case she should’ve told us that when we told them to keep the ceremony outside). She then said she thought it was common sense to know that the speakers can’t go outside. My dad then said that if we can’t have music outside, we need to move it inside. She got mad, started slamming and moving stuff around. My photographer asked the DJ if he could play music from inside the chapel, towards the ceremony, he said absolutely. When we found that out, we told her to keep the ceremony outside. She slammed her hand down on a table and yelled what do you want? What we wanted was to have our ceremony outside like originally planned; with our music. My photographer also had to find clear umbrellas, as the venue didn’t get them out for us. (During this, I sat in the corner of the room, crying on my wedding day thanks to the venue owner.)

Flowers & Ceremony: We were very disappointed with our florals. I was very specific to avoid roses (this was special to me, from my late Papa) for most of the bridal party, they still gave all of the men roses. All bouquets and aisle decor were not as expected and the quality didn’t match what was shown in the their social media photos. The corsages for the mothers were given only after multiple requests, they seemed poorly made and the wrist pieces were too big. All of the flowers on one corsage fell off during the ceremony. There were also loud construction noises coming from the venue, it was very distracting.

Reception & Road: Several details were wrong or overlooked, the bathrooms were dirty and the place cards looked rushed. Check out other reviews on the road. Our guests also didn’t know where to go when they got to the venue as there was no one outside from the venue directing them.

Conclusion: The owner and her assistant never once said a nice word to me, never made me feel like a bride and definitely never made it feel like it was my special day. The owner made me cry on my wedding day and I will remember that forever.

In my opinion, it’s all about the money for them and they were unprofessional (even wearing gym clothes). They have huge weddings and I think those are the only ones they care about. We had a small wedding, but we still spent a large amount of money. I wanted to make this review in hopes to save another bride from having her day ruined the same...

I am extremely disappointed with our experience at Hewitt Oaks. My husband and I are easygoing and typically don't require much to feel satisfied, which is why we were willing to stretch our budget and book with Hewitt Oaks because they seemingly handled everything (from the cake to the catering to the flowers) and we wanted the experience to be a bit smoother for us than having to juggle a bunch of vendors. Unfortunately, the outcome was far from acceptable, and our experience was riddled with issues.

Issue #1: Wedding Planner Our assigned wedding planner left the company, and I was left without contact for over a month. We finally got in touch with someone a month before the wedding (the same day our guest count was due), and they claimed the planner had a family emergency, which turned out to be a lie. I later found out she had taken a new job elsewhere. We had no communication from the owner or anyone at the venue about this before I called them.

Issue #2: Wedding Day Problems There were multiple issues on the wedding day, many of which were outlined in our contract but were not provided:

No Vodka: My dad asked for a vodka tonic at cocktail hour and was told they didn't have it, which is unbelievable, especially since we were promised it in the contract. They eventually got some, but no one should be told "no" for a basic drink. Especially the man who has paid an up-charge for an event with a completely open bar.

No Lemons or Limes: The bar had neither lemons nor limes, even though it was specified in the contract.

Memorial Table: Our ancestors' photos were displayed on a wine-stained tablecloth under a promotional ad for their new hotel. This was incredibly disrespectful and insensitive.

The Cake: We were promised a beautiful wedding cake, but what we received was uneven and lumpy. I've included a photo of our cake here. Do yourself a favor and go look at the cakes that Hewitt Oaks advertises on their website and compare them to what was provided for us. Does this look like a wedding cake an "Iron Chef" winner would be proud to serve at a wedding? It was embarrassing, and to make matters worse, the cake stand we requested was left sitting in the ladies' bathroom, just feet from the cake.

These were just a few design-related disappointments. I won’t even go into the other issues we faced.

Issue #3: Inconvenient Clean-Up Around 8 p.m. during the reception, our planner asked my bridesmaids to leave the party and clean out the entire cottage for the next day. This felt completely inappropriate, especially since the event wasn’t over until 10:30 p.m. They could have easily done the clean-up at the end of the night.

Issue #4: Broken Neon Sign We had ordered a neon sign as part of our package offered by Hewitt Oaks, which added a wonderful touch to our wedding. However, during tear-down, the staff piled boxes on top of it, causing it to break. It now only lights up halfway. After the wedding, we contacted Bethany, the owner, and requested that the sign be repaired or replaced. We received a response saying she would take care of it the next day, but 2 weeks went by without any follow-up. Despite multiple attempts to reach out, we were completely ignored. UPDATE: We received a new neon sign in the mail 4 months after the wedding. Still no email or phone response from the company but they did fix the sign.

In conclusion, I’m not going to completely discourage people from booking with Hewitt Oaks, but I do want to caution future couples. We overlooked some negative reviews during our research, hoping our experience would be different. If you do choose to book with them, I would recommend having a budget closer to $100k. It’s clear they prioritize higher-budget events, and we felt like our wedding was not given the attention it deserved.The most disappointing part of our experience was their lack of customer service and failure to address conflict. Their handling of our concerns left us feeling completely disregarded, and I’m truly disappointed in how they...

First off I’d like to say in regards to the owner response to a previous comment- I’ve never seen such a desperate attempt to defend your actions, the venue is beautiful, your key employees are inexperienced and unprofessional. I will not say which role I played in this particular wedding to the public but I will leave an honest unfiltered review. The outdoor aspects of this property are gorgeous, the ceremony was flawless and dream worthy. The indoor facilities are dingy and unfinished, especially the chapel and “grooms room”.To say this is a “rustic vibe” would be a stretch. The floors and paint look water damaged, there’s cob webs and chipped paint in almost every corner. The grooms room has unfinished or missing molding around the doors and windows. Not the ideal place for a wedding party to feel and look their best. The cottage for the bride is beautiful. For the amount of money people pay for this venue where does the money go? I never once mentioned to anyone that I have worked in the industry for quite some time and been involved with over 100 weddings more than half of them outdoor, so I know the ins and outs of the planning it takes to execute this setup. From the jump the communication was terrible,never received certain documents or got to choose things that we were told would be sent our way. Weeks between communication, and several failed attempts to chat with the planner, we had to reach out to a sales person who connected us to another planner, not even the person we were in main contact with.this wedding was on the back burner. Didn’t even pick chargers-glassware etc until a week before the wedding because over and over we were promised things would be sent to us and never were. as a couple we did choose to have an outdoor wedding at all costs- knowing there would be a chance of rain. So as a venue I would think there would be a plan in place for the rain, no. It was as If they said I told you so and let the day be destroyed. Mind you it rained for a period of 30 mins, that’s it. They claim they offered a tent as a solution, that never happened. They tried to prevent us from moving inside because we chose to have the outdoor wedding. Umbrellas were not provided until after it had already started raining. why wouldn’t they be readily available for everyone upon arrival? The day before there was a projected 70% chance of rain and the day of dropped to 30%, it rained but there was no plan for it at all. The rain wasn’t even the issue, it was a brief Gail force gust of wind that blew everything over and from then on the venue basically said this is what you get. The beautiful set up was destroyed and there was no effort of planning to protect their setup from the weather, nothing was weighted down nothing was covered. Never in my professional experience did we not weigh or cover things until the rain stopped. The DJ would not set up in the rain and the venue would not let him set up inside because that’s not what we chose to do, they were extremely rude to him for suggesting we move inside for the dances as he was told “he doesn’t have the authority to make that decision”, so they set him up in a hallway with a speaker playing outside a window for the dances. not a pleasant experience, then the rain and gust of wind interrupted everything and soured the day. Following this was the unprofessional argument between the planner, the owner and the mothers about why we couldn’t have this specific part moved inside, and were told because they have this area set up for a more important wedding because it was triple the size of ours, way to make people feel small when we paid $30k for this moment. After this horrible feeling they doubled down on their stance of this is what you get by not resetting our outdoor dinner set up and forcing everyone to eat on a chair in their lap in the chapel like a picnic. Wouldn’t even provide us tables I totally understand not disturbing a setup for another wedding in the ballroom but to not even provide tables in a completely...