N.Z's reviews

I just got marrried at Wiens May 2009 and here is my review, much of my review also reflects on their caterer, The Forge.

I had a beautiful wedding and hopefully all the guests didnt notice these things. It makes me sad to think that everyone noticed these issues, not just the guests that commented to us that they did.

Pros:
-The staff is very nice, friendly and accommadating. Jaime, Rhianna and Lilia are very nice and easy to work with.
-They are flexible with access to the location
- Their wines are very good, got many comments on how they liked them.
-The vendor they have for food, the Forge, has great tasting food, recieved many comments that the food was delicious
-Answer questions quickly and accessible
-One of the male bartenders was very nice, called me by name and ask to help even though never met me before.
-Allowed flexibility with decorations.
-The grounds are pretty and very well maintained.
-Have a bridal and grooms suite to get dressed in onsite and they give you wine and snacks while you dress.

Cons:
They caused a bit of embarrassement to me and my husband with their caterer's service. I attribute it to inexperience in throwing more upscale events because I don't think they would do these things purposefully.
-The caterer was chinzy and don't know how to set a proper/standard table. Did not use bread or butter plates so my guests had to put their buttered bread on the tablecloth and salads were served on butter plates. Not a single person I know has ever been served their salad on a butter sized dish before and people commented on how it was so weird. They didn't tell us the salads would be so tiny even after
we asked numerous times if there would be a lot of food or else we would choose buffet service, and many guests had their salad fall off the sides of the plate onto the table because the plate was so tiny and improper for eating off of.
-They didn't give enough bread for each guest at the table and didnt have any extra to refill the baskets so everyone could have a roll or slice in this case. Guests commented on this after the wedding.
- They were supposed to serve wine during dinner but didnt really ask our guests if they wanted more wine so they could drink it. So for about an hr of the wedding guests didnt really drink like they would have wanted because they didnt want to feel rude to interupt the festivities by getting up to get more.
-Sodas were served in cans but luckily the winery started serving it in glasses when we requested (as I said, they are accommadating).
-Food was skimpy on the sides, my husband only had like 5 mini squares of potatoes (like the size of breakfast o'brien potatoes) when we asked many times about food portions being ample.
-The caterers hurried through the service, picking up full plates of desserts and throwing them out so they could hurry up and leave, as a result, when about 50% of my guests (including me), came back from one dance (dancing started when desserts were available), our dessert was gone. This was not a slice of cake put on each setting. We had a buffet of desserts and each guest went and choose exactly what they wanted. I had a full plate of desserts with only one bite taken out and when I came back to my seat, it was thrown away!
-Cacy the person who did our food tasting and was the captain at our wedding has a sour attitude in our experiences with her. When my husband and I brought our moms to our food tasting, she gave us attitude because she wasnt expecting them (and I had informed our venue that they would be attending). She was rude, only after
some time did she change her outlook and treat us nicely. But she really didn't explain much or serve us our food in the manner that it would be served to us at our wedding so we know what we are getting. Then all through our wedding she had a sour face, she looked like she hated being there. She gets the job done but needs to learn some better people skills in her job since she is customer service. It would have been nice to be smiled at during our interactions with her.
- They didnt put out some of the details we discussed like candles on the outside patio. Luckily my florist had extra decorations to put out there at the last minute.
-They put out the ceremony chairs late so we could not use the decorations purchased for decorating the isles.

They are again very nice but seem to be used to much more casual events (the coordinators didnt dress the part as an example, got comments from guests as to why they didnt dress the part) and were not able to provide all the service necessary to make our wedding run as we were had discussed with them. We let them know what we were expecting and the service didnt match our expectations. If they want to run more upscale events, they have some work to do.

When I complained to the venue, at first I got a brush off email from the owner but the coordinator gave me a better apology. They basically said there was nothing they would do about it but apologize and try to change for the future. No thank you for your business or attempt to end it as a good experience or some wine as a gift to say I am sorry.

Hope this helps someone when booking or dealing with them so you dont have this happen to you. Now I know what to address for my sister's wedding next year!

I just got marrried and the Forge was the exclusive caterer of my wedding venue.
When I complained to the venue, they basically said there was nothing they would do about it but apologize and try to change for the future. Hope this helps someone!

Pros:
-Great tasting food, recieved many comments that the food was delicious, I would give the food flavor a 4.
-friendly waiters

Cons: They caused a bit embarrassement to me and my husband with their service. Our venue would do nothing about it, just said I am sorry we will change it for the future, no other guest has ever complained about these things. I attribute it to inexperience in throwing classy events.
-They don't know how to set a proper/standard table. Did not use bread or butter plates so my guests had to put their buttered bread on the tablecloth and salads were served on butter plates even though we asked many times would there be a lot of food or we would choose buffet. Not a single person I know has ever been served their salad on a butter sized dish before and people commented on how it was so weird. They didn't tell us the salads would be so tiny even after we asked numerous times if there would be a lot of food or else we would choose buffet service, and many guests had their salad fall off the sides of the plate onto the table because the plate was so tiny and improper for eating off of.
-They didn't give enough bread for each guest at the table and didnt have any extra to refill the baskets so everyone could have a roll or slice in this case. - They were supposed to serve wine during dinner but didnt really ask our guests if they wanted more wine so they could drink it.
-Food was skimpy on the sides, my husband only had like 5 mini squares of potatoes (like the size of breakfast o'brien potatoes)
-They hurried through the service, picking up full plates of desserts and throwing them out so they could hurry up and leave, as a result, when about 50% of my guests (including me), came back from one dance, our dessert was gone. This was not a slice of cake put on each setting. We had a buffet of desserts and each guest went and choose exactly what they wanted. I had a full plate of desserts with only one bite taken out and when I came back to my seat, it was thrown away!
-Cacy the person who did our food tasting and was the captain at our wedding has a sour attitude. When my husband and I brought our moms to our food tasting, she gave us attitude because she wasnt expecting them (and I had informed our venue that they would be attending). She was rude, only after some time did she change her outlook and treat us nicely. But she really didn't explain much or serve us our food in the manner that it would be served to us at our wedding so we know what we are getting. Then all through our wedding she had a sour face, she looked like she hated being there. She gets the job done but needs to learn some better people skills in her job since she is customer service. It would have been nice to be smiled at during our interactions with her.

Sweet Layers did cupcakes, cream puffs and yummy petite fours for my wedding. They were delicious and every raved how great they were. I had them in four flavors and Kim ordered special baking cups and decorated them all similar to match my wedding. Wonderful vendor!

I hired Progress productions or Robert Lopez DJ Services from a referral from a friend. She went to a wedding where he dj'd and she said it was a blast and he played such great music. I met with Robert for my wedding and he is super professional, flexible, kind, and wants your wedding to be the best it can be! He was very professional at our wedding and played all the important songs just when we wanted. We found he worked best for us because we picked out all the music we wanted him to play. Thanks!

My wedding decor was phenomenal and far beyond my wildest dreams! Maybe I am biased but it was one of the most beautiful weddings I have ever been to, in fact the decor far exceeded the beauty of the winery where we had the wedding. The winery was so in love with their reception room that they hired an outside photographer to take pictures of our decor while it was still being done to use for their website because they had never seen the place look so beautiful. I would say the event design was elegant, opulent, magical and just stunning! I can't tell you how many comments we got from guests telling us how beautiful the wedding was. Reflections surpassed my expectations with the flowers, the decor of the ceiling, the table linens, my dessert table and with all of their attention to detail and their respect and hard work they showed me. I would highly recommend them!

I have had a wonderful experience with Alfred Angelo Brea. I worked with Elise as my wedding consultant. She let me try on any dress and was so friendly and NON pushy. I found THE DRESS on my 3 try but I told her I wanted to go to other places to try on other dresses to make sure I was making the right decision and she didn't push me or anything. She just just wrote down my choices and left it at that. I tried so many other dresses but nothing even compared to my piccione dress. I went back the next day and bought it with $250 off. My veil, dress, and hair piece all came on time. In addition I needed a swatch of my dress to dye my shoes and Leilani was sooo helpful to get me one even though they weren't normally provided. She went out of her way to get it for me from their alterations lady. I have nothing but great things to say. The alterations were not cheap but they were well worth the money. Mary does a wonderful job! She even threw in some of the fixes for free! My dress fits perfect, everything came on time and the people there remember your name and are wonderful!

I have heard Aki dj many times over the years and he is awesome! Keeps the party going, plays great songs and is so professional. He has a wonderful warm personality and I highly recommend him for your wedding!

I booked Erin and Louis for our wedding last year and I am so excited to have them take our pictures for our engagement and wedding. Its coming up soon! I looked through tons of photographer websites online and their pictures were exactly what I wanted. Crisp, colorful, artistic and lots of attention to details. They also have great personalities which is important since they are going to follow us around all day! I will update you when I get my photos!

Update: 5/14/09- My engagement photos are beautiful and Louis is great about accepting feedback so your wedding pictures will be just what you want.

Update: 6/10/2009- I saw a sneak peek of my wedding photos on the Palos blog and they are exactly what I would have wanted. Beautiful!

After I saw all of my photos, I would say I am still very happy with my photos. They are colorful, vivid, good content for our posed photos like in the vineyard and in the barrel room. I would just suggest that they pay slightly more attention to fixing things that are out of place on the people in the photo, like straps on a dress or suggesting to un-button a jacket that looks too tight, etc... other than that the photos were gorgeous and I recommend them to anyone.

The shop has a smaller collection of dresses but I found the service to be great and the dresses were beautiful and reasonably priced, nothing is over about $1700. I am a size 14 and a lot of the dresses were size 10 and 8 but the consultant was sweet and understanding and really tried to accommadate me and find dresses to try on. I didnt find "the dress" there but if I had been a smaller size I might have. I recommend anyone to visit this shop. They also told me if I found something i liked somewhere else to call there before buying because they might be able to give me a better deal. I highly recommend them!

We ordered these cupcakes for my cousin's baby shower and they were beautiful, fluffy and delicious! I highly recommend them!