Normandy Farm Hotel

From our initial meeting with Eileen Burke, the sales manager, planning our wedding at Normandy Farm was a pleasure. We were assigned a wedding coordinator, Dana Henderson, who was patient and responsive to my endless questions. Melissa Keen also checked in often with helpful information and reminders. There were a lot of forms and checklists in the Planning Packet I was given and that was so very helpful – I really appreciated this because I didn’t have wedding planning experience or a lot of help so these kept me informed and organized.

At our drop-off appointment (3 days before the event), Dana took possession of our ‘details’ (table #’s, escort cards & holders, photos, card box, etc) and discussed my vision with me. I knew without a doubt she knew what she was doing at that everything would be set up perfectly, the way I had imagined. And it was  I had contracted with Anthony at Normandy Farm Floral to set up my home-made centerpieces and that too was done beautifully and without fuss. I loved my bouquet and the boutonnieres were nice too.

We met our banquet manager, Omar Hamm, at our rehearsal (2 days before the wedding) and he was a delight! He was sweet and professional and instilled confidence in us that our wedding day would be smooth and elegant. He kept things on track on the day and gave discreet direction so we could enjoy the reception but still fulfill our bride & groom duties (cutting the cake, etc).

The décor around Normandy Farm at Christmas was subtle and classy and complimented our ‘country elegant’ theme. There were unforgettable photo ops. We had paid NF Floral to string white lights on the beams in the Silos Ballroom and they looked so romantic; like a fairytale. The food was amazing and we received compliments on literally everything – from the hors d'oeuvres to the entrees (we had grilled salmon and herb roasted chicken) to the cake, which was beautiful as well as delicious. Brittany, who was part of the serving staff, was sweet and attentive and made sure our gifts and cake top made it to our suite at the end of the night.

I have only good things to say about our wedding at Normandy Farm  and I say THANK YOU to the staff for all their help!

This was beautiful reception venue. The staff was wonderful during the entire planning process and especially during my reception. They truely catered to everyone in my wedding party making sure our day was beautiful! They did an excellent job!

We chose this venue as our home for our wedding day.

We had our ceremony and reception here and we were very happy with everything.

The grounds and the gorgeous buildings were wonderful backdrops for our photos. Everything was well kept and they were accommodating to all our requests.

A very pleasant experience and our wedding was perfect!

The minute we walked into Normandy's Grand Ballroom, I knew I would be getting married there. Everything from the moment you turn into their property is amazing- the beautiful barn and fences, the huge chandliers hanging from the ceiling inside, the old barn look of the inside, the warm and cozy feeling, the amazing decor and grounds. The place is gorgeous. The entire staff was fabulous and helped to make my day run smoothly. Special recognition goes to Dana and Melissa- the day of/wedding coordinators at Normandy who always were responsive and answered every question I had right away. They were so sweet and nice and were really helpful during the planning process.
On the day before and day of the wedding- Omar and Ursula were beyond amazing. They helped ease any nerves or stress I had and made sure everything ran flawlessly and smoothly. If anything went wrong- I didn't know about it! so to me, everything was perfect. They got us anything we needed and always asked through out the night if we needed anything.
I have no complaints about Normandy- they helped make my wedding the best day ever.

Normandy Farm made my wedding day so incredible. I know they do several weddings throughout the year and the way they work scared me at first but I realized that they were just incredibly organized and professional. They run like clock work with an amazing attetion to detail!The grand ballroom was gorgeous and the food was amazing. We had a Maitre d and someone there with us to help myself and my husband the entire night. I wish it would have been 10 hrs instead of 5!

I had my wedding and reception at the Silos Ballroom at Normandy Farm and could not have been happier with everything. The location is beautiful, and our coordinator, Melissa, did and excellent job making sure that I didn't have to worry about anything. The food was absolutely delicious, and they also did an amazing job with our wedding cake. It was so convenient for our guests to have the hotel rooms on site, and the bar at the restaurant that was open after our reception ended. Normandy Farm is the perfect place for a wedding!

I had my wedding at Blue Bell country club which is part of Normandy Farms. The planners were fantastic and so easy to work with. The actual day went off without one hitch. Everything was beautiful. They did a fantastic job.

Our wedding weekend at Normandy Farm was nothing but exceptional. Our rehearsal dinner was held at the Blue Bell Country Club, located on the same property and run by the same people as Normandy Farm, and from that dinner, through the reception and through the brunch held the morning after, the people with whom we came into contact at Normandy Farm were nothing sort of accomodating, professional, and helpful in anyway needed.

The planning part of our wedding there was incredibly smooth as well, as any questions we had about the menu, the cocktail hour, etc. were answered quickly and efficiently.

If you are looking for a beautiful location, with guest rooms on-site, and an incredibly accomodating staff to be part of your wedding day, I highly recommend Normany Farm.

top notch all the way!

They did an excellent job helping to coordinate and make sure our day was perfect. The floral designer was fabulous, and captured the exact feel we were looking for. Our manager and helpers for the day were very attentive to our every need and nothing was overlooked. It was wonderful.

Normandy Farms provided a beautiful reception location and the quality of the service and food were exceptional.

The PERFECT place for a wedding. The staff anticipated our every need! The food is excellent and the choices for making a completely unique and personalized wedding are endless. There is a hotel on site for ease of getting ready and for out of town guests.

Normandy catered to my needs, listen to every little detail i wanted!
The food was amazing!, the service was prompt at all times. I highly recommend this venue!
very beautiful, high ceiling, modern barn-like

Our January 2011 wedding in the Grand Ballroom was fantastic, went pretty smoothly and everyone is still raving about the food.

From working on a budget/price/date and preliminary menu and vision of the "big day" with Dolly to setting up the smaller details to the day of the event with our coordinator - Melissa (who is lovely and extremely helpful)....our wedding at Normand Farm is what we hoped for.

Our ceremony was set-up in "the round" so everyone was around our chuppah - bars in the main cocktail area and "porch" area so very little waiting for all important drinks. To a great team of people making sure all the details were taken care of (from opening the doors to our entrance) to Olga - our own day of wedding "caretaker" - she made sure we had food at our table and in our "waiting room" (wish we had had time to eat more of it) to having our cake wrapped up and food to take with us later -- alway made sure we didnt want or need anything -- Olga is a gem!

We have been told over and over that the food was fantastic - especially the lobster sauce at the mash potato station. Our wedding cake looked just like the picture I gave to them and was very tasty - It was great seeing people surrounding it and taking pictures of it when we walked into our reception - it was quite the sensation.

Only a few bumps during the day - that were quickly bulldozed over by Melissa and her team - she made sure our day was as stress-free as it could be and always with a smile on her face. If you can request her to coordinate your wedding - you will be thrilled that you did.

So amazing we had our wedding reception here. The food was really gorgeous and tasty, the staff were very friendly and courteous. Everything was perfect!!!

From the moment I stepped into the hotel everything was taken care of. The staff took care of things before I could even remember what needed to be done. They were never in the way but always seemed to be there when you needed them. During the entire day there is someone whose only job is to take care of you. They made the day a million times easier and made it actually easy to enjoy your day. They were completely on top of everything. Our helper, Lisa, even walked around outside with me carrying my dress so it wouldn't get drug around in the grass while we were taking pictures. They gave us anything we wanted plus some. I couldn't have had a better experience. The room was gorgeous, the food was out of this world, and the service was top notch. Normandy Farm made my day practically perfect.

Our reception was absolutely beautiful. The food was great and all of our guests had nothing but wonderful things to say about the venue. Normandy was very attentive and took care of all of our needs. Normandy Farm Foral Designs did all of our flowers including the ceremony and personal flowers and they turned our gorgeous! Everyone was wonderful to work with.

Normandy Farm is an absolutely beautiful venue with delicious food. We had our wedding ceremony and reception in the Silos Ballroom. Everyone was impressed with how different the space actually looked between the ceremony and reception, they did a great job at achieving that! The day of went very smoothly and the staff was attentive and helpful. We ran into quite a few problems in the planning process and had a stressful stretch of time that was unfortunate, but I will not take down the whole of Normandy for one person's lack of tact. The rest of the staff, including Melissa McDevitt and Patrice DiPasquale, and others did everything they could to smooth over our issues and help us make it to the big day! They were successful and the day was wonderful! I would suggest scoping out the property before hand for pictures as there were some conflicts in where we had wanted to take pictures and there aren't a whole lot of places inside for photo ops.

Everything at Normandy Farm on the day of my wedding reception was PERFECT. The guests loved the atmosphere and the food, the staff were very attentive. Leading up to the wedding we had a few bumps along the way with the planning. Use your event coordinator for everything - she will tell you who to go to for anything from the hotel rooms to the brunch the day after. The staff seem very compartmentalized and you will find it easier if you go through your wedding coordinator for everything. Normandy is very experienced and will give you a wonderful reception. The food was excellent, too!

The food was amazing, they were on top of everything!
They really catered to our needs.
Everything was BEAUTIFUL!

We picked a winter wedding, and when we walked into Normandy's Grand Ballroom we found exactly what we had in mind for a venue. We had an additional challenge of having the ceremony on site as well, during winter, but they handled the responsibility of converting the ballroom from cereomony to reception in less than an hour, and they did so flawlessly.

Normandy also offers a great value. But with that great value you sacrifice some flexibility. If you want to make any small tweaks from the basic package, they are pretty good about accomodating you, but expect to pay for it. This included an upcharge in the cake (which was delicious) even though we had to do it because of a dietary restriction in the bride that couldn't be accomodated with any of the standard package alternatives.

They do a lot of weddings, and you will benefit from that. Everything was organized impeccably and our wedding day is as smooth as any couple could ever wish for. We were fortunate enough to work with Omar and Ursula, who were both fantastic.

Normandy also offers a variety of lodging options on the premises. We paid the slight upcharge for a room in the Manor House, which was well-well-worth it. Being in your own separate building is great because it gives you a degree of separation which makes the bridal room extra special.

We enjoyed the food, and thought there were more than enough options to choose from. I expect you could go to several weddings at Normandy and have a unique feel to each wedding's food. Open bar seemed just wonderful, but we didn't get to spend too much time there on our wedding day. And the new bar that they opened is a great addition. Whenever we had a few free minutes, we could always go down there and there were a few of our friends and family down there to chat with.

All in all, I would highly recommend Normandy. They are a great team and do a good job taking the worry out of the wedding day, so you can actually enjoy it a little bit!

Normandy Farms was fabulous! The staff took great care of me, my husband and our bridal party. They were organized and detailed which helped make the day run smoothly. We appreciated Their support. Omar and Brittany were there for us!

I will start out by saying that my wedding at Normandy Farm was nothing short of amazing, but a bride does notice all of the minor details, so I will mention the good and the bad in my review. The only negative staff experience I had was with our sales person (who we only dealt with briefly), and everyone else was very nice and helpful. Here's a breakdown of my experiences:

*ROOMS - the suites are very unique, cute, and charming. We did not have any problems booking the rooms or getting those that we reserved. We worked directly with Paul to reserve the rooms in the Carriage House for our family & bridal party. He was very nice, helpful and professional. The only negative about the rooms- my bridesmaids room had water that leaked from the ground and soaked the carpet on their floor. They had to have an industrial fan in their room for days to dry the mess out (staff reportedly told them this was a recurring problem- they wish they had known in advance so they could've had a different room). In addition to that, my mom's ceiling also leaked and water got all over her the night before the wedding. One of the groomsmen also reported something about leaking issues, but I'm not sure of the details there. The rooms in the Carriage House are quite nice, but do carry a very "musty" smell, so I would imagine the leaking and water issues are not new.

*FLORAL - we did not use Normandy Farm Floral for our flowers, although we did rent napkins and a table cloth for our place card table. The floral department was very accommodating and responsive to our emails and even matched a swatch that we sent to determine the color of the napkin we requested. (Just a side note- I did try to make an appointment for a Friday a few months in advance to discuss & see the exact colors, but they were not able to meet with me at any time that day because they had a wedding. Seems a little inflexible because it was several months in advance, but this did not impact the outcome of the service we received.) The napkins looked great, but the table cloth used on the place card table was VERY wrinkled. If I had seen it before the wedding, I would've requested that it be steamed.

*REHEARSAL DINNER - We used the Coleman Restaurant for this and it was very nice. The food was great and the space was nice as well. It was very convenient to have this on-site option as many of our guests (including us) were staying at the hotel.

*FOOD (Cocktail Hour & Reception) - I had heard nothing but very positive reviews about the food, so I was a little surprised when the chicken was dry (some guests said it was, some said it wasn't), but this did not bother me much. I did not try the salmon, but guests said it was very good. The mashed potatoes were amazing and the cake was to die for! The few appetizers I got to eat were fabulous and I wish I had the time to eat more! Only one negative about the food service. My brother informed me that everyone at his table was served their meal, but he was not. He saw a covered plate sitting on a tray near the table and assumed it was his so he just waited. About 15 minutes after his table was served he decided to ask if he could expect his meal as well. Apparently they just said oops and handed him the plate that had been sitting on the tray for 15 minutes. It would've been nice if they offered to warm it up for him and were a little more apologetic.

*EVENT PLANNING TEAM (Pre-wedding experience) - There are several members of the team, which made it a little confusing at times to know who to contact about what and when, but they were all very helpful people. My only mention here is a heads up about response time- it seems that no one on the team works Mondays. Therefore, if you had a question on a Thursday or Friday and they had a busy wedding weekend, chances are that you would not get a response until Tuesday. Most of the time this was not a problem, but toward the end of the planning it did get a little nerve wracking. Dana was really sweet, and her assistant Melissa seemed very nice as well (I only conversed with her assistant via email). My only recommendation here would be that they make a more comprehensive planning packet for the brides and include FAQs. I felt like I had so many questions and very little direction in the beginning. I also felt like a lot of my questions were probably common ones and that if they were addressed in the packet, I wouldn't have had to send so many emails asking questions. Some answers I received left me with even more questions, which could be a little frustrating at times.

*DAY-OF STAFF - I did not interact too much with the day-of staff, but when I did they were very pleasant. I think Lisa was the woman's name and she was very kind. She brought champagne out to us after the ceremony and hors d'oeuvres out to us while our pics were being taken. I wish we would've had more time to eat the hors d'oeuvres because they were delicious, but time didn't allow it. It would be cute if they made a little plate of apps for the bride and groom to take after the wedding so they could eat the food the didn't have time to! My only suggestion for NF brides & grooms- when you are getting ready to be announced into the ballroom, stand to the sides of the doors so your guests can not see you waiting. I wish they day-of people had mentioned this because they line you up where the bride & groom enter last and they shut the doors to the entrance right before they announce you. Problem is, if you were standing in line with the bridal party the whole time your guests already saw you standing there. I think it enhances the effect of closing and opening the doors if your guests didn't see you there two seconds before they closed the doors. If you were out of sight as the others entered, it is much more of a "grand entrance".

Normandy Farm provided a beautiful reception location, the Silos ballroom. The staff was helpful and responsive. The food was AMAZING! I got numerous compliments from my guests. There were certain things that were not done as I requested (i.e. guest book table location, memory table organization, table numbers, etc.) All things that no one would notice, except for me. They also provided me with a steamer for my dress, after traveling in the bus, the back was wrinkly. It was a life saver! Over all, I would recommend them; their guest rooms were nice and clean and they offered an extensive brunch the day after for all of my guests.

We were married at Normandy Farms in 2007 and had a wonderful experience! The day was beautiful, staff - professional and attentive, and flowers were amazing (see review below). Staff was very flexible on providing special meals for those with allergies or dietary restrictions. I got the sincere impression that my wedding was in able hands.

Contracting process was a bit touchy. I am an event planner and negotiate contracts for a living. I got the impression that the sales director I worked with had never had a bride try to negotiate with her and she got quite defensive with me. In the end, we came to an agreement that was favorable on both sides (In the end it is a business deal, whether social or business bookings).


Food/Beverage:
The food is quite good at Normandy Farms. Jim Coleman is an excellent chef (one of the reasons we picked the venue) and each course including the cake was cooked right and presented beautifully. I will say that if you like wine, you will need to upgrade the wine selection. Unless it has changed, the house wine offered is unpalatable. Also, if you select wine, you cannot have a champagne toast. You either get wine all night or champagne all night (a bit annoying).

Flowers:
Andrew Di'Pasquale is an incredible florist! I cannot say enough about him. If you book your wedding at Normandy - use him. He was an excellent listener and also provided great advise. My bouquet was so impecable that I actually put it in the fridge so that when we returned from our 2-week honeymoon I could enjoy looking at it just a bit longer.

The chupah that Andrew used (which was of his own design) was exactly what I envisioned.

Negatives:
No event is without its hitches. I have read over some of the less favorable comments and must say I agree with some:

- While my parents live close to the area, my husband and I live in Washington, DC. The tasting situation was awful. Mid-week beginning in the early evening. My husband couldn't take the day off and I ended up taking 1/2 day off and being late anyway due to traffic getting up there. We also asked to pay for a private tasting but were told that it couldn't be arranged but that we could eat at the restaurant to taste the callibur of the food. With the revenue to be made with over 200 people at our wedding and an extended hour at the bar, I would have thought that a private, more convenient tasting could have been arranged.

- I saw another comment about the private brunch. We noticed that there was breakfast being served and because we had a Sunday wedding, we were able to negotiate an extention of the normal breakfast time for our guests. We paid extra only for the people who attended who did not stay at the hotel.

- Last issue - we booked an estimated 70 rooms at the hotel the night of the wedding. B/C there were other weddings the night before, we were unable to have rooms at the hotel for both nights of our wedding weekend. Therefore many people had to stay elsewhere the first night and switch into the hotel for the wedding night. This was most inconvienent for the bridal party/groomsmen who needed to be getting ready for the pictures prior to the wedding. Also, they could not accomodate the rehersal dinner. Alas, such is life.

All in all - I loved my wedding. If I can offer any advise to future brides it is not to get too caught up in every detail of your wedding. Keep your eye on the ball - your there to marry the man/woman that you love. The wedding party is just the icing on the cake :)

It was a wonderful affair, there were a few setbacks, the stations of food that we had didn't lend itself very well to speediness, people were upset that they had to wait in line so long and then this held up cutting the cake which then we had to pay extra for the photographer and videographer to stay longer. It was later learned that our wedding planner should have told us that what we picked would have created long lines.

Over all we would go back, they were very accommodating and sorry for the lines and the slowness. Food was good. Cake was excellent.

Overall, I was very happy with my wedding reception. I loved the venue itself, the decor, the fact that a hotel is on site, and farmers daughter bar. I was a low-key bride and wanted a venue that had their 'act together' so to speak and handled everything - linens, catering, bar, etc. This site was perfect for me and what I wanted in my wedding. i was also very happy with the day off event managers assigned to our wedding. They were attentive, kind, and very professional.

When you select a "wedding factory," as others call it, for your wedding, there are some aspects you must be ready to accept. 1- the service was not personalized and 2-not overly flexible.

I did have one issue. Two days before my wedding date was my 'drop off' appointment for everything necessary for the reception - from the cake cutter, to the guest book, to seating cards. In this drop off appointment, I included my (very simple - candle votive) own centerpieces. Apparently, they have a policy (which was not communicated to us) which states they refuse to store centerpieces ahead of time or place them on tables. When this came up, I spoke with the Director of events, upset that I had no real options and didn't know this, at which she said, "We wouldn't tell you - don't bring the video camera for the videographer or don't bring the sound equipment for the DJ, why would we tell you don't bring the centerpieces to the reception drop-off appointment?" I found this to be a little... cold. I ended up paying their in house florist to store and assemble our centerpieces (he was very nice), but I wasn't happy with how the entire situation went down, especially 2 days before the wedding day.

First off, Normandy is a good value for the buck. It's a beautiful location, and if you won't need to spend much money on decor for either the ceremony venue (if you get married there) or for the reception halls.

If you decide to get married or have your reception at Normandy, you'll work with two teams, the sales team prior to the day, and the banquet team on the day. I'd worked in catering for four years in college and found Normandy's banquet staff to be consummate professionals. Not to mention, all of the staff on the day were smiling and happy, all the time -- and they weren't forced smiles. I've seen a lot of those in the catering business, but these people seemed to actually enjoy their work. That goes a LONG way towards making your day go smoothly. Brittany (our banquet captain, I think) is abosultely amazing and so eager to help. Matt (he ran the day, but don't remember his title) was pretty cool too.

The sales team, on the other hand, is not what I would call flexilble, and it's obvious that their priority is generating revenue from the larger events there. Be warned, if you're a smaller wedding (Normandy has two ballrooms, one big and one small, so they can hold two weddings simultaneously) be prepared to have it made clear to you that your wedding isn't as important to the hotel as the larger wedding. You'll be restricted about where in the building you can take photos because the larger party gets first dibs, among other things.

They're also not the most flexible bunch either. For example, my husband and I asked if we could use the ballroom for a half an hour the day before our wedding, at a time of their choosing. I was told that the room was booked, and asked politely for even just 15 or 20 minutes. A bit later I was emailed back with a time (yay!), but the email they sent me ended with "you should appreciate what we're doing for you." After four years in catering and being on the receiving end of some bridezillas, I'd spent all of the months leading up to the wedding being VERY sure that I was easygoing with Normandy's staff because I didn't want my behavior to backfire. Their response I found extremely unprofessional and uncalled for. Then again, if I had to work with brides again, I'd probably be a little testy too.

HOWEVER, (and this was the most important to us), they got our food orders exactly right. My husband and I both have life-threatening food allergies, and the hotel did go out of their way to help us. They got the quirky food orders from all of our guests right, too. If you have dietary restrictions, Normandy will be very helpful.

Food was excellent. The open bar was great too. Large selection, good quality.

My husband and I held our wedding ceremony and reception at Normandy Farm. We had a fairly large wedding, with 200 guests. I booked my wedding about 15 months before the date, and the season was basically wide open for Normandy. Because of that, and the size of the wedding, they were running a promotion where you receive upgraded entree options for the price of the regular options.

We had a lot of ups and downs with Normandy. In the beginning, I was really excited about it - my husband, our parents, and I totally fell in love with its character and charm. Plus, we had a ton of out of town guests, and it was wonderful to be able to have the ceremony, reception, after party and hotel rooms all in the same place.

As others have reviewed - some positive, some negative- Normandy only holds two tastings per year. They basically set up the rooms as though they are holding a lavish wedding with 400 guests - they have a lot of their menu options available to try. I thought it was nice to see the room set up (and get center-piece ideas, because their florist does different centerpieces on each table) BUT I did not think they offered enough of the entree choices to try. For example, they had the filet mignon to try - but did not have the New York Strip (which is less expensive). We ended up paying extra to upgrade from the NY Strip to the filet, and I suspect that is their intent. They did have a ton of the butlered hors d'oeuvres and hors d'oeuvre stations to try, and all of the cake flavors, fillings and frostings. My then-fiance and I decided to go with the Chilean Sea Bass and Filet Mignon as our entrees. My fiance really wanted us to have table-side ordering, but it would have cost us about $1,000 more, and we ended up agreeing that it wasn't worth it. As you will read shortly, that ended up biting us in the behind.

As we got closer to the wedding, there were times that my (now) husband and I felt that we weren't give the attention/accomodation that we should have been given because we were receiving a special rate. I was not a demanding bride, I didn't have hysterics, or call changing the menu every 5 days. In fact, once we selected the menu, I was ready to "set it and forget it."

Two months before the wedding, our invites went out with the two options noted above (filet and sea bass). Replies started coming in, and I had about 40% choosing the sea bass. About a month before the wedding, I received an email from someone who I had never spoken to before (NOT my event coordinator or sales person) that was clearly a mass, blind copy email to all brides, saying that because Chilean Sea Bass was overfished and endangered, Normandy Farm was no longer including it in their menus - effective immediately. The email said I could choose from a Cod or Pacific Halibut. There were no details about how the "replacement" options would be prepared, what kind of fish they were (mild, "fishy," etc), and no "goodwill" offer of any concession for the inconvenience of changing my entree four weeks before my wedding (when I had selected my menu five MONTHS earlier). I was in total shock. As someone with experience both in marketing and client services, I could not believe that an organization responsible for WEDDINGS - the most important day of our lives to-date - would be so impersonal and unprofessional. The whole thing just STUNK. Especially because, when choosing the menu, I researched the Chilean Sea Bass and saw plenty of articles saying that it was over-fished, but it's still on menus all over the country.

Later that night, several hours after the email was sent, I received a call from my event coordinator. I had not replied to the email. She apologized for the inconvenience, and I just said it was fine and I would figure something out. When my fiance got home and I told him what happened, he was furious! Especially because we had considered the table side ordering, and had decided against it. It was just embarassing - we had been so excited about our menu, and now we were stuck with two options that (frankly) just did not sound as exotic or enticing as the sea bass.

We just decided to let it go. A week later, I contacted the event coordinator because I wanted to run a slide show of photos of both of us throughout our lives (infancy to our life together) during dinner. They wanted to charge us $600 for the privelage of using their screen and computer. Please note, the screen is a permanent fixture in the ballroom - they just have to push a button, and the screen slides down. It was ridiculous. And, it was insult to injury after the Sea Bass debacle. We both felt that they should have said "normally there would be a charge for this, but because of the inconvenience you've experienced we won't charge you."

I called back the event coordinator after stewing for a day or two. I brought up what I said above - that I was still upset about the fish, and that I thought it as absurd that they would charge this much to press a button. I was setting up the whole slideshow in PowerPoint, literally, they just had to press "start." She said they needed to get their IT Director in to run the slideshow, and even if I brought in my own projector and laptop, it would cost $250 or $300. She said they could not be flexible on the price because they had to bring their IT director in on his day off.

We then got into a heated argument about the Sea Bass. She was obviously spouting "party line" regarding the "ethical" reasons for not serving the fish, but also said that it was really difficult to get (read: expensive). She said she understood my concern, but had had brides with weddings even sooner than mine that had to be changed as well (read: others had it worse than you, so suck it up). She also tried to tell me that the mercury content was a risk to our guests, so it was really the right thing to do not to serve it. Are you kidding me? One filet of fish could NEVER in a million years have enough mercury in it to do any damage. Not once did she say, "to make it up to you, we'll throw in an extra hors d'oeuvre" or anything. Her response was that "they had been more than generous with us." When I told her I felt more like she was treating this like a corporate event than a wedding, she told me that I had personally offended her. Who says that to a client, much less to a client with a 200+ guest wedding and 60 hotel rooms booked? I believe another reviewer describes the event coordinator we worked with as "rude, dismissive and incompetent." Although I could tell that she cares about her job and is passionate about it, she truly lacks basic customer service/communication skills, and she does often come off as rude and dismissive if you express concern or dissatisfaction.

Despite all this, everything went really smoothly on the wedding day. The Maitre D and Attendant provided by NF were super attentive, really helpful and competent. Our Event Coordinator floated in at the beginning, but didn't stay long. We received a lot of compliments on the food (including the halibut!), and everyone had really have a great time. Unfortunately I didn't really eat anything except a couple of bites of the Peruvian Blue Potatoes (they were a big hit - and delicious) and the tuna tartare appetizer. Everything I tried was good though! I was told by one guest that about half of the salads at their table were missing salad dressing, which is odd. The day-of event managers were great, the wait staff was wonderful, and the bartenders were amazing. HUGE kudos to the bartenders, because we had a big Irish & Italian wedding, and just two bartenders were able to keep everyone happy - there were never big lines at the bar, and everyone always seemed to have a drink in hand.

PS - we paid the $250 to use our equipment for the slideshow, they ended up running it on their own system, and their IT Director never showed up. Our Maitre D did the entire thing. Go figure.

We had a brunch for our guests on Sunday that was actually quite lovely. However, I believe Normandy Farm automatically disables their electronic keys at check out time, so I was actually locked out of my room when I went up after brunch to pack things up. I had to have one of the maids let me in! We also found out afterwards that some people were double-charged for their rooms, and I think they are still trying to work things out with NF.

Long story short, our experience with NF was not what we expected. Maybe if we had paid full price, we would have had a better one (?!). However, our parents were incredibly happy with everything, and we were told by MANY of our guests that it was the best wedding they had ever been to. That meant more to me than any of the drama we had before hand. And it really was the best day of my life and my husband's life, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

Let me first start off by saying if you are looking to feel like your wedding is important and you are not just a number Normandy Farm may not be for you. While we had a nice wedding and I enjoyed being with my family and friends the process with Normandy Farm was not the best. First of all they offer one tasting and one tasting only for all brides getting married during a season. They are not flexible at all. They only give a couple weeks notice when they are holding this tasting as well. Unfortunately the day chosen was when my fiancee was out of town. He as unable to attend and we were not allowed to schedule a private tasting so that he could be a part of the experience. I was even willing to pay for this, but no. The tasting is held like a large wedding and has about 300 people all trying to decide what they may want at their wedding. They do not have most items that are available to choose from, just the upgrades as they are trying to get you to pay even more money. Also, there will be 2 weddings going on at the same time. We had the Grand Ballroom and had a couple wedding crashers from the Silos wedding. We also paid to have a brunch for our guests the next morning only to find that they actually offer a morning buffet free of charge to guests. We were not told this and we ended up paying an extra $1500 for our brunch. We also had a few stragglers from the hotel who started to serve themselves from our brunch. My mother in law wanted to have an early check in to the hotel so that she could change for the wedding, she said that the staff was very rude on the phone, very inflexible and actually hung up on her. Overall, while the setting was nice and I am told the food was good ( I never had a chance to eat), I would have chosen a different location if I could do it again.

While I was happy with the day of services provided by Normandy Farm, the planning process from start to finish was very frustrating. I loved my sales person (who left Normandy Farm the month before my wedding) but was not satisfied with the level of professionalism or attentiveness provided by the event planning team until three days before my wedding. As mentioned in other reviews, my event planner was very difficult to work with and at times seemed frustrated by my questions or requests. Additionally, things that our sales person had promised us were not honored by the event management team but I couldn’t contact the sales person to back me up because she had left. While our sales person was still there, the communication between the two departments was not good, I felt the process should have been seamless and require minimal effort on my part but it was very difficult and at times required me to call both departments to get something figured out instead of the two departments working together to solve the problem and then get back to me with a resolution.

Our tasting was horrible!!! We went to one of the group tastings and the food was cold and as mentioned in other reviews there wasn't enough of a selection available. I e-mailed my event planner about how unhappy we were with the tasting, it took her a week (six business days) to get back to me, when I asked her why it took so long, she told me that she wanted to check with other brides to see if they had the same experience and to "make sure we weren't trying to get a free meal out of Normandy Farm with a second tasting." I was very insulted by this but Normandy Farm already had half of my money so I had to proceed. More than once, we thought about canceling our wedding at Normandy Farm but couldn't afford to do that. After making sure that we weren't trying to get a free meal, our event planner decided to offer us a free second tasting, which took two weeks to reschedule so I had to mail my invitations at six weeks instead of eight, which I wanted to do because our wedding was over a holiday weekend. The second tasting was great, we met with Chef John, who works for Jim Coleman and he expressed that he wasn't happy with the group tasting either, but assured us that our meal would be as good as the meal we ate at the second tasting and would definitely be served hot.

If our financial recourses were unlimited, based on the event management team, I definitely would have canceled our wedding and found another vendor more suited to our needs. I tried to discuss my concerns with the event planner on how I felt my needs weren’t being met but her replies were argumentative and the conversations were not productive.

THANK GOD my rehearsal was led by the banquet manager, Matt, not my event planner everything went smoothly and he seemed happy to meet any of our requests. The day of our event, Matt also oversaw our ceremony, cocktail hour and reception and ultimately it was a beautiful day. I was glad that we had minimal interaction with our event planner and Matt handled everything professionally and seamlessly. He saved the day!

I am happy that my wedding day at Normandy Farm was beautiful and problem free, but if I could do it again, I would have met with the event planning team before signing the contract with Normandy Farm and giving them our money. I know I would have ended up with a different venue. It makes me sad that one of the happiest days of my life is tainted by the frustrating process that I had to go through to get to my “happy ending.”

Though the space is beautiful and the final result was great, the staff at Normandy Farms is pretty abysmal. I think that most of their "event" business comes from conferences, so weddings are not their priority. If you are having a simple small wedding, their service might be adequate. If, however, you are having a large non-traditional wedding (such as an Indian wedding) expect stress. Our coordinator Dana was rude, dismissive and at times dishonest- providing me, my wedding planner and my vendors with different information. At some point one of the managers screamed at my florist after one of the Normandy Farms staff broke a centerpiece vase! The hotel staff also screwed up several room bookings, leaving many people without rooms even though they had booked them months in advance. (For this, the general manager Dolly did apologize and send us a refund payment for the trouble they caused.) And our day-of coordinator (naturally Dana was nowhere to be found) was fantastic. I have to say, in the end, I did have fantastic day, so I'm hesitant to say that this place is complete waste of time. But, if you are having a large or ethnic wedding, you are probably better off elsewhere. And if you do choose Normandy, make sure you have an independent wedding planner because you'll need it to navigate the incompetancy of most of their event staff!

Everything seemed perfect- The people planning my wedding knew everything that was going on and helped me plann the wedding of my dreams... BUT then I found out, at the rehearsal, that a new wedding coordinator would be in charge of the rehearsal and the wedding day- OMAR WAS AWFUL! He arrived late at the rehearsal, rushed us through everything, told us to hush and pay attention like we were a bunch of school children.
It did not end there! On my wedding day there was no where to put my dress, so that it did not wrinkle! the staff told me to keep in my car because my room was not ready... when my brides suite was ready I could not find it for hours because they switched my room and no one told me! when I finally did find the room it looked like CRAP it was set up like there was a meeting there! desks,chairs, podium, AV stuff everywhere. the worst part was since none of the staff knew my room was changed my photographer could not locate me so we missed out on a ton of pictures!
The omar, who again late, rushed my family down the isle, in the wrong order, rushed me out so that my husband to be almost saw me before the wedding!!!
Omar then argued with me about how I had our entrance set up with the DJ & half way through the night told the bar tender not to allow anymore shots
Luckly my guest did not know that I was dealing with this idiot Omar all day- & to my guests the wedding looked perfect

Normandy farms is a gorgeous facility the food and wait staff were excellent, however, I cannot recommend it due to the unprofessionalism and insensitivity of the day of coordinates. For the months leadingup to the wedding we had a number of meetings with Dana, the day of
the wedding we meet two new people Karen and Omar, the day of coordinators. We filled out forms twice stating who is in the wedding party, who is going to be entering the wedding. Our officiant (we only gave her a list once) new exactly what was going on. For some reason it appeared Karen and Omar, did not read our file and did no preparation for our wedding.

My father passed away 4 years ago, this was the first big event he was missed at and we could all tell my mother was having hard time. When we were lining to do the rehearsal, Karen and Omar started yelling “Where is the groom’s father?!”, over and over again. If that wasn’t enough, they then went up to my mother and asked “Where is your husband?!” My mother is already emotional due to the wedding and missing my father, she had say “He is dead” to her. In my opinion, that is unacceptable and completely insensitive. We filled out the forms which clearly stated who was going to be there and my mother was being escorted by my brother and on the form we wrote “her son, Chris…”. It was clear they did not review our wedding beforehand.

To make matters worse, out of respect during the ceremony my mother left the seat my father would have been in open. This is something I have seen before and our officiant suggested as what people do when a parent has passed away. Omar had the nerve to come over and ask my mother to move down a seat. My mother-law had to step in and tell my mother not to listen to him. Again, it appeared to us that these two have not done many weddings before.

These events did not ruin our wedding but it has left a sour note when remembering the day. It is shame without the insensitive and unprofessional actions of the coordinators we would have nothing but great memories.

Although the day-of was beautiful, the process of organizing and speaking to their sales people throughout the sales process was excruciating. I believe our event coordinator did not know how to type, because his email responses were curt and not helpful. He also did not return phone calls very quickly. We ended up incurring many extra costs (i.e. hiring a last minute DJ, paying extra to use their AV equipment) due to their poor communication. Additionally, we requested a number of upgrades (i.e. ice cream with the wedding cake) that were forgotten on the wedding day. And the setup of the reception mixed up floral arrangements/table.

Normandy farms is a gorgeous facility the food and wait staff were
excellent, however, I cannot recommend it due to the unprofessionalism
and insensitivity of the day of coordinates. For the months leading
up to the wedding we had a number of meetings with Dana, the day of
the wedding we meet two new people Karen(?) and Omar, the day of
coordinators. We filled out forms twice stating who is in the wedding
party, who is going to be entering the wedding. Our officiant (we
only gave her a list once) new exactly what was going on. For some
reason it appeared Karen and Omar, did not read our file and did no
preparation for our wedding.

My father passed away 4 years ago, this was the first big event he was
missed at and we could all tell my mother was having hard time. When
we were lining to do the rehearsal, Karen and Omar started yelling
“Where is the groom’s father?!”, over and over again. If that wasn’t
enough, they then went up to my mother and asked “Where is your
husband?!” My mother is already emotional due to the wedding and
missing my father, she had say “He is dead” to her. In my opinion,
that is unacceptable and completely insensitive. We filled out the
forms which clearly stated who was going to be there and my mother was
being escorted by my brother and on the form we wrote “her son,
Chris…”. It was clear they did not review our wedding before hand and
that is extremely unprofessional.

To make matters worse, out of respect during the ceremony my mother
left the seat my father would have been in open. This is something I
have seen before and our officiant suggested as what people do when a
parent has passed away. Omar had the nerve to come over and ask my
mother to move down a seat. My mother-law had to step in and tell my
mother not to listen to him. Again, it appeared to us that these two
have not done many weddings before.

There we also little things that happened were my guests and family
commentated on where they had to step it and correct Omar and Karen or
even do their job for them. At the breakfast the morning after, a few
people came up to me and commented “it was like they never ran a
wedding before”.

These events did not ruin our wedding but it has left a sour note when
remembering the day. It is shame without the insensitive and
unprofessional actions of these two people we would have...

Beautiful venue, horrible food. The dinner was left by most guests. Beef was so tough it required a saw. The chicken and salmon was over cooked and salty. It was so sad that anything left that kitchen to be served. NO PRIDE
At the food tasting everything was tasty. I was told the cake would be served with a chocolate mousse cup, sounds great-it was the size of a penny and hard like a wafer. STAY AWAY

Great Place to have your wedding! The staff is wonderful and the atmosphere is beautiful!

One of the more unique banquet facilities we've performed. Excellent food and service.