Elite Event Centre at Vizcaya Pavilion and Mansion

Mostly, the wedding staff was very helpful and professional. Our saleswoman, Kathy, left the company, and in their scramble to get a hold of all of her clients, we didn't find out until several weeks later, and only then because we called after none of our e-mails to her were answered, and the last was returned as undeliverable. This would normally be a nerve-racking situation, but Elizabeth, who took over our day, was absolutely wonderful (better than Kathy) and worked with us as if she had been our contact the entire time. She honored all agreements we had made without batting an eye, and made herself as available as possible. Unfortunately, if we ever called and didn't get a hold of her directly, our calls were never returned. After the second time, we made sure to get her schedule instead and to call back when we knew she was there.We did not meet Becky, the coordinator, until the day of the rehearsal (the day before the wedding). In every way you could desire, she was completely on her game and ran the show behind the scenes for us as much as she could. When the cake ran late, she coordinated with the photographer to cover up any seams in the flow. However, when it came to dealing with people other than the two of us, we received complaints that she was rude and demanding, especially regarding cleanup of the prep area in the mansion itself before the ceremony took place (ceremony was at 5:30, and we were done with the room at 4:30 and out taking pictures). Apparently, they were planning on using the room to host other potential clients, but frankly, we rented the entire venue AND hotel for the night, and I felt this was a little crass, especially since she didn't warn us beforehand.The hotel staff was completely behind the scene; we saw maybe one person besides Jesse, the manager, the entire night. We received the same complaints about Jesse that we did about Becky (but from different people), but he was very polite to us.The food and serving staff in the reception hall were absolutely outstanding. I know some people are nervous about hiring a caterer before they taste their food, but this place has earned every single award it can possibly lay claim to!All in all, better than I expected. Just those two things with Becky and Jesse, and neither enough to ruin our day (fortunately, my now-husband kept both of those from me until after we left). I highly recommend them, and would only suggest to the Vizcaya that they schedule their clients to meet Becky once before the rehearsal so that any irregularities can be covered.

Although my ceremony was not at the Vizcaya, the service provided for me and my guests at my reception can be described only in one way: World Class.They were very professional to work with to plan my reception, and were flexible, responsive and executed flawlessly. I didn't have to stress about a thing regarding the Vizcaya on the day of my wedding.The food at the reception was TO DIE FOR, everyone was commenting on how wonderful it was.The servers were helpful, friendly, prompt and had impeccable manners. I can't say enough good things about them - they really went above and beyond to treat my guests like royalty.I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this venue for any prospective bride. You don't want to leave your reception and the details to chance, so let the Vizcaya take care of you!

We got married at the Vizcaya just over two weeks ago. Overall, we had a good experience and we would recommend the venue to other couples looking for a wedding ceremony and reception location. The salesperson who originally helped us left ~6 weeks before our wedding and a new gal became our contact person. That made me nervous, but she honored every request and was very responsive, so we had no issues there. The venue is beautiful in pictures (slightly less so in person) and has nice character. The facility fee isn’t cheap, but you get a beautiful bridal dressing area for use before the wedding, and if you’re lucky you’ll save money on flowers because the garden in bloom is a great location for a ceremony. The food is good and there are a lot of options (chef even accommodated lactose-free, low-sodium, gluten-free with ease). They don’t provide alcohol, but they also don’t charge a cork fee so it’s a bit more effort but you can end up saving money over a typical place that provides alcohol. They provide high chairs, which is very helpful for moms with infants. They provide a wedding coordinator, and Becky is great at what she does. She is very focused and can even cover other vendors’ mistakes. She did a nice job keeping us posted about the level of alcohol that remained so we could make decisions about sending someone out to buy more if needed. The servers were nice and friendly. Some things aren’t as nice. The chairs are old (and covering them adds up pretty quickly) and in need of repair or replacement. Parking can be an issue, even on weekends. That became a problem for us because it rained the day of our wedding, but I won’t ding Vizcaya for that because it’s not their fault it rained – it just made me realize that we should have considered the parking situation more carefully. It’s also somewhat of a challenge that you work with one person leading up to the wedding, and you don’t actually meet Becky until the rehearsal. We had a few specific challenges: * I think we were the first wedding to be rained out since the new person joined the team, so she wasn’t experienced in helping us navigate that process and I wasn’t sure exactly what I should be asking (because I’m not experienced in this sort of thing either, obviously). In the days leading up to our wedding, I asked questions to understand the details of the contingency plan (which I knew about but hadn’t paid much attention to given that our wedding was in June). In the end, I finally peppered her with enough questions that she passed me along to someone else, at which point I learned that we needed to make considerable changes to our defined schedule (which Vizcaya had already confirmed in writing) ~24 hours before I needed to leave for the wedding location. That was extremely stressful and undesirable, but my hope is that future brides would have more proactive service in this regard. * We added one chair to one table 2 days before the wedding. I attached a new seating chart and received written confirmation that it was received and would be added. Halfway through the meal, I realized that something was wrong: two guests who only knew each other and the groom were sitting at different tables. At that moment, I realized that the extra chair had NOT been added, so one of the guests was forced to find an open chair at another table. To her credit, Becky agreed to make the change but we declined since the meal was half over. It was unfortunate and made the groom and me look either clueless or inconsiderate, sitting people at tables where they knew no one. This was awkward and should have been done correctly. If it could not be done correctly based on the fact that the request was made 2 days before the wedding, then I would have preferred to have simply been told that so I could have made other arrangements. * The groom and I never got to eat our cake :( The cake ends up costing a lot of money, because the cake cutting fee is baked in to the cost and then you’re charged tax and a service charge on the whole thing. After paying all that money for a cake, we certainly wanted to enjoy it. We selected very specific flavors, so we were really looking forward to tasting it. We tasted the frosting during the cake cutting, and then we told them which layers we wanted to have served for the two of us. I don’t know exactly what happened, but at some point the servers must have cleaned up our sweetheart table. It seems like common sense that they would have boxed our pieces of cake, but that evidently didn’t happen so we never tasted our cake. That’s a real bummer that is still disappointing to us more than two weeks later. * One of our wedding guests, a woman my husband has called “mom” for over 15 years, was terminally ill. By sheer will and defying doctors expectations, she lived long enough to attend our wedding (in a wheelchair, because she was so weak) and then passed away days later. As the reception started, she needed to leave so her son came to let us know they were leaving. We had already paid for their meals and we wanted her to feel like she was still part of the celebration even if it was back at her hotel. We asked to have 2 meals boxed up so they could take them, and the wedding coordinator told my husband that it wasn’t possible due to some policy they have to prevent litigation. I understand rules and regulations, but given the extenuating circumstances, I would have expected Vizcaya to be more accommodating (my husband told them she literally got off her deathbed to join us that day, and that didn’t seem to make any difference).* The signage was confusing. I think it was just because of the rain, but numerous guests were confused. The sign posted out front made it look like our wedding started an hour later than the invitation suggested (the sign directing guests to the pavilion for the reception should have been changed when the Vizcaya made the call to move the ceremony indoors to the same place). This doesn’t go into the rating, but a caution to other brides so they don’t do what I did: Don’t justify the venue’s facility fee by thinking you’ll save money on flowers. We paid the facility fee and justified that we wouldn’t need to buy any flowers for the ceremony since the garden would be in bloom. It rained throughout our ceremony and reception, so we were indoors and we didn’t have any flowers.

Everything was perfect! Kathy helped us out tremedously! She came up with some new ideas on what to serve that were not on their menu and everything tasted fabulous!! Loved the fact that I didn't have to worry about anything, not setting up or cleaning up!! We had originally planned to have the wedding outside, but because it was supposed to rain, it got moved inside. This was actually a much better outcome!! After the ceremony, we didn't have to worry about moving any chairs or anything to have room to take pictures outside. We just had a the big courtyard with plenty of room to take pictures!

The entire experience in working with Vizcaya, between the planners, the servers, the bartenders, and the hotel staff, was amazing. They took care of everything and made it extremely easy. I highly recommend their services for your wedding day.

All the staff there are complete friendly and bride oriented. They will always listen to you and do everything they can for you, above and beyond your wildest expectations!

Out of all the venues we checked out for our wedding, Vizcaya definitly offers the best value for a wedding day celebration. They take care of everything for you so you don't have to worry on your wedding day. Elisabeth is an amazing wedding planner and I highly recommend her and the Vizcaya staff. Everyone was nice, friendly and helped to make our day special and memorable. The only detail that was missed was that my cake was not facing the right way and I had to tell someone to turn the cake around. Other than that, everything was perfect!

Vizcaya is beautiful!!! Elisabeth is wonderful!! She was very prompt at emailing me back and believe me, I emailed her a lot, with a million questions. We had a huge room to get ready and relax and drink champagne in that day. Service during dinner was excellent. Dinner was delicious and our guests all raved! The bartender was outstanding. We loved how we were able to provide the alcohol and they provided the mixers. Becky was perfect at making sure everything ran smoothly the day of the wedding. A room is included for that night, which was so convenient after such a long day. Also, our parents and relatives stayed inside the mansion part. We couldn't be happier with how things turned out. Definitely go check it out!!

The Vizcaya was BEAUTIFUL. The staff were all very professional and ensured that our night went through without a hiccup. It was fantastic and definitely worth the cost, which was actually cheaper than a lot of other places we looked into.

WE just had our wedding here and it was absolutely beautiful! I worked mainly with Kathy and she was awsome and so very helpful! I loved that we had a room included that was nice way to end the long day. It was also nice that all the girls were able to get ready on site hair makeup they even provided us with coffee and tea!

I went to this venue because I am shopping around for my ideal wedding reception. The pros of this venue are there are many different areas: cocktail, garden, and inside sit down/dance. I didn't really like the carpet, and the dance area is small. This is not a venue I am considering, but it's worth taking a look @.

Vizcaya is a beautiful place to have your wedding at. It has an outdoor garden that's great for ceremony and just naturally pretty as is. Their pavillion can sit up to 240 guests. We had 17 tables and the space was easy to work with and decorate, also very welcoming. Their chef is fantastic, we requested for a custom dish, and he made it even better than what we had in mind! We had a lot of compliments on the food from our guests. Elizabeth, the manager, is great to work with, she was there for us everytime we had a question. If not readily available, she always get back to us via phone or email. The only point I had to take out is that we had a mix up with the room key that night, which Elizabeth felt awful about the next day and offered us something else to make up for it. Despite the room incident, we still highly recommend Vizcaya for wedding in the Sacramento area. It's definitely a wonderful experience to be married at such beautiful setting. In the end, we wouldn't change a thing at all.

Kathy was pretty helpful in helping plan the wedding and give me advice and referrals.She was included in the cost of the venue and catering.

Great food and beautiful venue! Everything turned out perfect!

Vizcaya speaks for itself however the staff is so phenomenal I could go on forever. Elizabeth and Kathy helped me mold and create the day of my dreams from beginning to end and it was all done seamlessly. Becky was my wedding angel on the actual day and we couldnt have done it without her. If you have not checked out Vizcaya for your wedding... GO. It is well worth it!!

My wedding was amazing! Although I did most of the planning myself; they were extremely helpful! The wedding planner was mainly an event coordinator for that day, she did not help "plan" anything before hand but she was very efficient! I would 100% recommend Vizcaya to anyone!

Grade: D-
Horrible service, but the food was good.
Problems with the service:
- My groom wasn’t miked although I received assurances from 2 separate employees “Don’t worry, the groom is always miked.” I get up to the altar and we have no sound, and there’s no one past the first 2 rows who could hear the ceremony, which should be great for the videographer in the back of the crowd.
- The dance floor wasn’t centered in the middle of the room with cocktail tables around it, so the guests had to go into the other room after they were done dancing and most of them didn’t get back out on the dance floor.
- All 3 layers of my cake weren’t cut and served, so the guests never got a choice of cake flavors.
- The wedding coordinator was MIA for the entire reception. Leaving me to orchestrate everything, making it looking disorganized and silly and just plain not well timed at all.
- Vendors for the next wedding started walking through my reception with an hour left to go. There was the next cake and the baker, their lights, their band.
- The signage wasn’t adequate for the next wedding so the guests from the other wedding were walking through or reception trying to find the next wedding.
- The waitstaff told my guests at 5 minutes to 5 that they had to clear out so they could set up for the next wedding.
- Instead of helping us to get all of our stuff together, they waitstaff was setting up for the next wedding so, my wedding party and guests ended up having to tear down the centerpieces.
- There was a tip jar at the bar!! We paid a 20% gratuity that included tips. Why should my guests have to pay for your tips above and beyond what we’ve already put out????
- The escort cards weren’t put out until after I arrived at the venue and it had be done by 2 of my guests, because the waitstaff was too busy.
It was just a fiasco, from beginning to end. So the next day I called them up and complained heartily. Three days after returning from our honeymoon it was resolved with the refund of $1500, the cost of the rental of the courtyard and the reception room. I told them I would pay for the food, since that at least was good. One more thing of note, they include a suite for the night since it is a b&b as well… the suite we were given was inside the courtyard where another wedding was taking place. So I had to walk through another couple’s wedding in full wedding gown and my husband in a tux. Yes, the guests looked a little confused at another bride walking through the wedding.
Would I recommend? Absolutely not

We had some problems with our original sales manager... if anyone wants the details, e-mail/toast me. With that being said and that being the cause of the "B" rating, everything else was good. The food was really good, the place is pretty and we got a lot of compliments from out-of-towners. We got excellent service and felt very taken care of by the staff that evening.

The Vizcaya is a beautiful setting for a wedding. The planners we worked there were professional, attentive, and took care of every detail. We were able to customize the experience to fit our needs. The food was also excellent!

Vizcaya always puts on a class affair. Beautiful grounds, good food, and always a great party!

From weddings to sock hops to Arabian Nights, this venue is versatile. Pricing is right on, and the staff is AWESOME!

Great location for outdoor weddings.