mkmccorm's reviews

1) LOCATION! The scenery overlooking the river is gorgeous! The grounds are beautiful! My husband and I loved that we could say we were married at a vineyard.

We chose to have an indoor wedding, which was gorgeous as they have wall to wall windows allowing lots of natural light in. One can easily do an outdoor wedding but we didn't want to chance it with the weather...rain, heat etc. We were lucky and had a beautiful day with lots of sunshine...hot though...97 degrees! We took photos after the ceremony outside and then came back out at sunset for a few more photos!

The reception is inside which is downstairs and also gorgeous. The location can easily accomodate 200-250 guests. We really liked that our guests, all of which were out of town, didn't have to travel in between ceremony and reception. The venue offer h'ors d'oeuvres after the ceremony while you are taking photos. So the guests don't need to entertain themselves for hours while photos are taken like at so many other weddings I have attended...huge pet peeve of mine!

2) Wedding Factory: this place is made for weddings...somethimes doing 2-3 in one day. We were married on Sunday May 29...memorial day weekend. Because we were married on a Sunday we saved $2000 on the cost of the venue...which is NOT cheap. We were the only wedding that day which made it very easy for us to get to the venue early to get ready and we added an extra hour to our reception so it made the timeline of everything a little less squeezed...we were able to dismiss the guests pew by pew at the end of the ceremony and have a little more time for photos than previous couples have commented on. Overall, b/c they do so many weddings, things run pretty smoothly and they have vendors and a minister for you to have if you so choose.

3) Wedding Coordinator: You get a day of wedding coordinator. We had Terri, she was very nice but seemed very distracted and confused easily. She repeated herself a lot, didn't seem to listen after we told her something, and loss control and focus of those at the rehearsal b/c she was repeating the same thing over and over. Further, we started paying for open bar at 6p but she did not usher the guests down to the reception area at that time and I had to say something while we were taking photos, as I was tired of guests milling around watching us take photos...I wanted them downstairs enjoying themselves!!! Further, on the day of my mom had to remind her of a few things, and ask for a few things that should have been taken care of. For instance, we had a cookie buffet and she let it run empty many times despite having brought many more cookies to put out and guests kept asking my mom about it.
Overall, Terri did a great job and it is very helpful to have a person to set up/take down and handle little details of the day. I know that Riverbend has other wedding coordinators and I have read great reviews about them as well.

4) Cheapest Open Bar: THe preferrred vendor, Champagne Wishes for this venue is the cheapest around! However, we signed a contract at the earliest time we could, and of course, they made changes to it a week before our wedding! They insisted we had to pay the bartenders more than what was stated in the contract, OR they could charge the newer increased price per person. Supposedly to help me out, she did the math and was "Clearly doing me a favor" by saving me $100 if I paid the bartenders more. So I was a little put off by the change in contract and didn't think it was handled the best, but I would still use them for my wedding again b/c you just can't get a cheaper open bar...we paid $6.50/person...now $7.50.

5) Minister: We chose to use one of their ministers, and we had Pastor Keen. We really liked him and we loved the way Riverbend sets it up, for you to have 3 pre-marital sessions with the minister before your wedding included in the price. We got to know one another and felt very comfortable with one another. I feel honored that he married us.

6) Cake: we did not use wedding wonderland (charged a hefty fee for transportation and was more expensive than we wanted per slice) the preferred vendor for cake. We used Creations by Laura, in Union, MO. She did a wonderful job, set up the cake, put the flowers on it, the cake monogram. It was beautiful and tasted wonderful. We had a small 2 tier cake and sheet cakes...a cheaper option for us. It was nice b/c we chose 4 flavors and the servers brought out the cake to the guests and let them choose which flavor they would like.

7) Flowers: We used their preferred vendor: Four Seasons in Washington MO. They were the cheapest available as well. However, I would not use them again. We had one meeting with the florist in January and I told her my three favorite flowers, that I would like lavendar, and I would like my bridesmaids to have ivory. The meeting was very quick. They showed me no examples. I had no idea what my flowers would look like the closer we were to the date.
A month before the wedding, I called them and asked for further confirmation of my choices and they confirmed what I would be getting. A week before my wedding I call to arrange dropping off the flower girl basket and I am told that my flowers look beautiful. However, one of the flowers used was not the flower I chose and was replaced with another flower without even asking me.
Further, at the meeting I gave two photos, one of tulips that I absolutely loved! The day of I see my bouquet and the tulips are nothing like what I showed them. They are ruffly and I couldn't even tell they were tulips until my mom told me they were. Not at all what I imagined!
Then my bridesmaid's flowers were not ivory like I wanted but just mini look a likes of my bouquet...which is fine, but again, not what I wanted.

8) Toni, the manager. Toni was always very good at communicating. She was very nice. Very organized. Very Focused. I enjoyed working with her. Further, other brides have told me about a previous manager of Riverbend chapel that was very strict and had many rules. Toni was not like this at all; she was very open to my ideas. She was always willing to accomodate. I didn't feel at all hindered by rules of the location.

We contracted for too many guests and to help accomodate this, since you can't take the extra meals home secondary to health codes (?), she gave us some upgrades that we originally had not chosen. This didn't, of course, make up for all the extra $ that we spent but it did help and made us feel better about things.

I would definitely work with Toni again.

9) DJ: Eagle's Wings. I was not happy with the DJ. He was not at all the Dj that we met at all the open houses. We had met Jeremy Jones, who was very nice, seemed to understand we wanted people up and dancing and how he made sure that happened. OUr DJ, Tim, who I guess works for Eagle's Wings (?) was not the person I was communicating with in regards to teh details or the man we met. He didn't play the cake cutting song I wanted. His music selections were not very good. He did not end the reception on the song we wanted. We would not use him again.

10) Photography: Darin Hart
Darin is NOT a preferred vendor, but he has worked at this location several times. He did a great job and was the most reasonably priced photographer we could find. Their preferred vendor was quite expensive. We are still waiting on the photos...almost 2 weeks this Sunday, which is when Darin said they would be available, so I have not seen them, but he did show me a few when saying goodbye at the end of the night on his camera and they looked fantastic!

11) Videography: Bill Morton Videography
THis is NOT a preferred vendor for the venue. However, he was there the whole day...though he made it awkward sometimes...made us to contrived actions even though we didn't want to and was sometimes in the way of dancing b/c he was trying to capture it. We have NOT seen our video (8-12 weeks) for that, but I do think I will be happy with the footage and I am so excited to see our ceremony and toasts at the reception!!!

12) Food: We went to the open house to try the food and make our selections as this is almost the only time you can try food for this venue. We chose the chicken marsala which at the tasting was dry and were hoping for the best at our wedding...sure enough we were not disappointed! It was delicious. Further, we did the double entree option for all of our guests and our second option was the apple glazed pork loin which at the tasting was SO delicious and we talked it up with the family forever b/c we were so excited about it. THen at the wedding you could barely taste the apple glaze and it was just not as good as the tasting. A give and take. Everything else was delicioius...the spinach salad, the red roasted potatoes, green bean alamandine. OVerall, no regrets...just wish they could make their entrees more consistent in taste.


Overall, it was a magical evening. We loved the venue. A few snags here and there, but overall a pretty stress free venue for the bride and families. All of our guests raved about the location. If I was doing it all over again, I would still choose this venue and I do recommend it to other brides as well!