The Village Conference Center

When we booked the Chelsea Comfort Inn in June of 2007, we did so for two reasons. 1) I wanted an all vegetarian wedding, and Chef John was really flexible, easy to work with, and had some great ideas. 2) April, the coordinator had a great, bubbly personality, while still having great attention to detail, and we really clicked.

By October 2007 Chef John was gone. The new Chef was not hired until December 2007. In March 2008 there was a change of owners and management companies and April (since she worked for the management company) was gone. She called me herself to tell me (within 24 hrs of finding out herself) and did everything she could to make it easy for me. Enter Dana. We met with Dana April 1st, and things seemed to be going ok. I had to re-go-over everything that I had done with April (since I wanted everything set before I student taught in January, including the trial of how they were to set up the room.) It was a PIA, but I made it work. Less than 2 weeks later, Dana was no longer the head coordinator, and in enters Karen.

Karen previously worked for VCCI, and was very knowledgeable about timelines and such but it was her way or the high way. I did not want to go with when she recommended we do the cake cutting, it was wrong on every time line she ever sent me (a total of 8) wrong the day of, and once I corrected it the day of, they still screwed it up. She took notes during our meeting on everything we wanted. She said she would e-mail it to us in writing later that week. We did not get it for 2 weeks, and when we did, over half the information was wrong. I sent it back to her, CCing Julie my DOC. Over 8 versions were sent back and forth, none were completely right. She was not flexible on making the food vegan friendly, which I was assured would happen. Some things that were promised in our Banquet event order still never happened. The worst part was, she refused to work with Julie, our DOC. Julie would e-mail her about an issue I was having, and Karen would respond to me rather than Julie. I would then respond back to both of them, but still it seemed that Karen would only work with me, not Julie - not what I wanted to be doing the 2 weeks before my wedding, which is why I hired Julie! I ended up never signing a Banquet event order, because they were never right.

April had said that when I went to drop off stuff for them to set up the day before the wedding, she would be there to work out any last-minute details. I found out that week that Karen would not. When I got there, they had set things up wrong, and I was late for a pre-wedding function that night because I was trying to deal with it, and because at that point, I didn't trust them to do their job.


Several other things that went wrong were :

We were promised that a box of our food would be sent up to our room so that we could not worry about making sure we had time to eat at dinner, and would still get food. The box was cheese and crackers - not our food.
When they cut the cake, they brought it out as they cut it, with the smallest layer first, rather than all at once. This meant that people did not know that there were different flavors, and did not get to choose.
The food that we had was good but - The balsamic green beans were plain, and there was no side of Parmesan for the risotto peppers like there was supposed to be - I believe the fault lies with Karen not telling the chef what I wanted, not with the chef.

The wait staff was really very good for most of the evening. The person assigned to the head table was very attentive and helpful and fun. However, they were very quick to collect the glasses, and break down the tables and chairs. The reception wasn't over until 12, and they started taking down some tables at 11 - What the heck?! I have no idea why they did this. But it made people think it was time to leave.

All in all I would not recommend the Village conference center at Chelsea Comfort Inn. The facility is beautiful, but right now it is not worth dealing with Karen, and since the hotel went to great lengths to hire her back, my guess is she will be there for a long time. Should that change, I would consider recommending them.

Comfort Inn was the perfect place for my wedding! The staff were very professional and made it easy on me as far as making decisions. The only complaint I had was they went through 3 wedding planners within a matter of 6 months, and didn't let you know when it changed. The last wedding planner, April, was by far the most helpful one yet. I hope they hang on to her. There were 3 different events to sample foods, there was enough room to comfortably fit 300 people, and there were no restrictions as far as decorating. The reception was held in a separate building away from the hotel and outside they had set up decorated tables/chairs for the smoking crowd. Dinner was served on time, warm, and very delicious. I don't remember even seeing staff around, which means they were probably pretty good. My shoe broke half way through the night and April was right on top of it. A little duck tape and I was good to go. There was an open bar, checked I.D's (which was good, I married a cop), and it wasn't the type of place to get completely out of control. It was nice having the hotel in walking distance for the people who did stay the night. Our Wedding sweet wasn't anything too special, but my flourist did a little secret decorating. The room had a king bed, hot tub, and an extra room with a kitchen. The next morning Comfort Inn supplied a breakfast (eggs, bagels, bacon, ect) in the same reception hall and we opened our gifts there. It was a nice way to top off such an amazing weekend. Pricing was expensive, only because I had a 300 people wedding. All together though, it wasn't that bad. My package included dinner, champagne, open bar, 7 hr reception, a pizza bar at a later time, cake cutting & serving, and fantastic service. I definely recommend Comfort Inn if you're looking for a classy, easy-planning wedding.

When we first received to the reception hall after our wedding, the staff was no place to be found. So about an hour into the reception we finally found a manager and talked to them and the food started being handed out. No body got what they ordered. Well.. after everyone got their food figured out it was time for the cake. All of the guests got a piece cake and my husband and I were walking around talking to everyone and when we were ready to get ours they had thrown it away! The WHOLE THING!!!! I was so upset and angry that after everyone was done eating I made every one of their staff memebers leave and not come back, luckily we had someone from a personal business be our DJ.