Aston Marina — Restaurant in Stafford

Well.. what can I say about The Boathouse?! There really aren't enough words to thank you, and especially Abby. From start to finish she was there for all my questions, measurement requests, visits. Being an awkward person, I had designed a seating plan for the ceremony as well as the wedding breakfast, and I'd also made a name tag for every single chair (all 88 of them!). I fully expected to have to put these out myself, but Abby stopped me and said their job is to make sure I have the most relaxed and fun day. They took care of EVERYTHING. I'd brought my own centrepieces and aisle flowers, individual sweet tubs, glow sticks and inflatable instruments, they sorted all those. They took my bouquet and set it up with the cake exactly how I wanted (when my brain was too fuzzy to do it myself)! Just above and beyond every step of the way. Alex also was subjected to my questions in the morning, and he kept checking on me and what I wanted for the set up of the room. He gave us a great intro into the wedding breakfast later on too. Another shout out to Ash too. She and Abby were there to guide us before we all walked down the aisle, Ash wiped my tears as I started crying at the aisle song! She's in various photos working super hard and talking to my guests. It's just so lovely how hands on everyone was. Abby greeted us at the end of the aisle with our welcome drink and it was so wonderful to walk towards her smiling face when she'd been there every step of the way for us. I wish I could live it all over again. The food was out of this world. We upgraded to the three choice menu and a hog roast at night and the guests loved it all. We also went with their DJ, I sent him all my own music and he did the rest. He was super fun vibes and he was flexible (even when we pushed our first dance back by half an hour). Every step of the way was good fun, which is exactly what we wanted. THANK YOU.

The only thing I will add is that I think the dressing room needs a curtain for the window (my guests were a nightmare for peaking in haha!!), and also aircon or some kind of way to get air into the room. We were lucky (?!) enough to have 30 degree weather, and by the time it was time to get married we were all extremely hot and a bit stressed trying to fix melting make up and sweating necks! It created a rush out of a relaxed morning because the heat was undoing the make up and hair we had taken our time doing. I know our weather was out of the norm but I would suggest an emergency AC unit for...

I really wanted to be able togive this place 5 stars as it is in such a fantastic location and I had heard great stories about it. I went with a friend and was initially greeted in a friendly manner - we were shown to our table in the conservatory area where another table of 2 were seated - at that moment , we were the only diners in that area , but preferred to be at the next table to allow social distancing - so , before even touching the seats or the table , we moved to where we felt more comfortable - we were served our drinks and nothing was said , but then soon the male who had allocated us the table appeared and informed us that in future , if we want to move table , we would need to inform one of the staff members as they would now need to sanitise the original table and also that the table behind us would soon become occupied too - this made us feel awkward , but even more so when someone came along to clean the original table and chairs that we hadn't even touched - my main course was Jamaican sticky pork and rice with a jerk sauce - there was barely enough rice to feed a toddler - totally disproportionate to the size of the pork! Flavour wise , it would probably have been acceptable if the description of " Jamaican " hadn't been used - felt like all sauces from basic jars - we were asked several times about the suitability of our meals and when I initially tried to mention the lack of rice , the waitress had fled away so was too busy to wait for my answer - towards the end of my meal , I was asked again and said that the rice was very poor in quantity only to hear " I'm sorry about that " Luckily my friend had fish and chips , which was a massive meal compared to mine , so I indulged in some of her meal to make up for the shortfall - this place has a great potential to be absoluely fantastic , but they need to really up their game - not worth us driving all that way for because I have eaten at better pubs...

Went for dinner to celebrate partners birthday (restaurant not aware) me and my partner met for the 1st time at Aston marina and always said we will come for a meal one day as we both had heard amazing things about the food. We have also discussed getting married here. With the decor being very stylish and modern as we walked in, I was expecting good things. I must say I was very disappointed, I had the burger and my partner had the pie, this was from the summer menu. My partner was underwhelmed with her meal however it was satisfactory, nothing special. My meal was very poorly cooked, burger patty was dry, bun over toasted which made it dry, together with crispy bacon made for a very dry mouthful. The fries that came with the meal looked like they came from the bottom of the bag, also over cooked to the point of there being no potato left inside. We also had a side of onion rings or should I say a side of rings.....no onion to be found! The service we received was sub par, nobody came to as if our meal was OK or ask if we needed anymore drinks. As compensation for my poor meal the onion rings were removed from the bill, £4.50 from a bill that was £50+ I would have expected a 20% reduction to the bill under the circumstances. We only had mains and was planning on desserts but due to the poor main decided not too. Not a great impression, it has put us off getting...