Ellis Place Wedding and Reception Nightmare Bowling Green, Kentucky

Choosing a venue for a wedding can either be one of the most rewarding, or the most frustrating and emotionally stressing decisions you are apt to make in your short life. It is for these reasons that I am writing this review, to hopefully dissuade any newly engaged couple from going through the same disappointment and frustration that my new wife and I recently encountered, when we decided to have our wedding at Ellis Place in Bowling Green, Kentucky. It is definitely in your own best interest to exclude all other options first, as the people who manage Ellis Place, havent the first idea on how to properly treat their clients, or to run their business as professionals.

When we first met with Martha, who is the manager of Ellis Place, she said all of the right things to get us interested. The cost seemed reasonable enough, in comparison to what other venues wanted, and they included catering in their package, along with alcohol. The venue definitely had the vibe we were going for in our wedding, and despite the fact that the place looked a little run down, the pictures she showed us of other weddings and receptions that had taken place there, proved that the place could look really nice when dressed up for a formal occasion.

The second meeting with Martha, which included my fiances parents, she wore a stained white sweatshirt, and pink sweat pants, and it looked like she hadnt washed her hair in about a week. Amid her clutter of a desk, she took notes for what we wanted on a sheet of yellow notebook paper, which she stored in a plain manilla folder. Our contract, was a computer printout with the basic checklist of options that she also wrote notes on, and we had to sign. She told us that she would send us a copy of the menu by email so we could make the decision of what we wanted for our meal. We asked her about the beer choices for kegs, and she said they were able to get any beer we could possible want, which sounded great to me, because I love craft beer. Another great thing that she said was that the night of the wedding, they would not be rushing us out of the venue, and that we could keep the reception going as long as everyone was having fun, and if we wanted we could pay for the extra hour, which we did, so we rented the venue from 4:30-9:30pm. We decided to go ahead and put down a 1,000 dollar deposit. I wrote the check, and when I asked for a receipt, she wrote me one out on a little receipt pad.

And then, for months, we did not hear from her. It was almost as if, all the polite things she said, and all the selling points of the venue that she mentioned with her personable demeanor, were only said as a coaxing method to solicit that first deposit check from us. Once that sealed the deal, it was like they completely stopped caring, and all the promises they made about attention to detail, and the day being all about making sure the bride got what she wanted, were just empty promises meant to lure us into a contract. All of the following examples only strengthen this notion:

As I said, for months, there was no communication from Martha. We sent email after email requesting the menu that we were supposed to get the day after we signed our contract. We telephoned and left messages. These were not returned. We eventually had to send a very angry email to the venues Facebook page asking them what the hell was going on, and we got a response from someone else who said he only ran the Facebook, but he would get in touch with Martha. She finally called us back the next day. Her excuse was that she had just been too busy to get back with us. We never got the menu emailed to us, we eventually just picked the food from choices offered in another meeting with her.

We were told we could get any beer that we wanted. I decided that I would like to get Rogue Dead Guy Ale for my keg, which would be a good beer that would appeal to both those who love craft beer as much as I do, and those who prefer standard macro brews. I checked online and the cost of a keg of this beer was 170 dollars. We told Martha that this was the beer we wanted. They told us they would have to check with their distributor. When Elizabeth went for the third meeting, they told her that they could not get that beer, that it would be too expensive to ship it to them. So, we settled for a keg of Sam Adams Oktoberfest beer. We were charged 275 dollars for this keg.

The night of our rehearsal dinner had to be scheduled on a Wednesday. The wedding was on a Saturday. Typically, the rehearsal dinner is held the night before the wedding. However, Ellis Place, according to Martha, would have wanted to charge us for a second night of rental fees to use their place on a Friday, even though a rehearsal would take place from 5 to 7, well before any of their other events or their regular business hours. This actually worked in our favor however, because our date that we officially wanted to be married was the 19th, which was that Wednesday. That was the anniversary of our first date and kiss, so we decided it would be good to have the dinner that night, and those who attended could witness us sign our marriage license that night, to make it more special. They still were planning on charging us for that day as well, just at a discounted rate, and they said it would be cheaper if we had them cater it too. The total charge for using the Wednesday and catering would have been 600 more dollars. If we just went with renting it Wednesday, it would be 400 dollars. This seemed outrageous, but was better than having to pay the full rental fee again for the Friday, so we accepted this offer, saying we could just go somewhere else and eat. Supposedly, this was factored into our total bill.

They then offered to let us rent their table cloths. For 400 dollars. We declined that generous offer. They also pushed us to get a DJ, saying that they had someone they could suggest to us, who only charged something like 500 dollars, which would be a deal, since they had their own sound equipment their for their events, including some great Peavey speakers and a mixer, that we were not allowed to touch. Luckily, I am in a band, and we had our own sound equipment, that we had to transport to the venue, and set up ourselves, but was still better than paying someone a lot of money. This venue was looking better and better all the time.

So, we went ahead as scheduled. On the third meeting, Elizabeth paid Martha 1,000 more dollars, bringing us within 230 bucks of paying them completely off. When she asked for a receipt, she grabbed a sheet of yellow notebook paper, and scribbled on it that we had given her that amount and signed it. A piece of notebook paper. Very official. Very professional.

We ordered our own tablecloths and chair covers for the amount they wanted to charge us to rent just table cloths.

Finally, it was the week of the wedding. The night of the rehearsal dinner came, and according to Elizabeth, Martha said she decided not to charge us for having it that Wednesday afternoon after all, which was nice. This news was given when Elizabeth met with her the week before to give the final payment. Hmmm. Remember how it was supposedly factored into our bill? Anyway, we and our parents and our wedding party, and our officiant, arrived at the venue fifteen minutes before five, which was when our dinner was scheduled. We arrived to find the place locked up and no one there. Thinking maybe she was just running behind, we sat in our vehicles (it was raining) and waited to see if she would show up.

 At ten minutes after five she still was not there, and I told Elizabeth to call and find out what was up. She called. I could see the look on her face of pure shock as she listened to what Martha had to say. Turns out, Martha, the manager of our wedding venue, had FORGOTTEN WE WERE HAVING THE REHEARSAL THAT NIGHT. I was completely astonished. After everything else we had put up with, this was inexcusable. She told us it would take her thirty minutes to get there. So we sat and waited until she showed up. She tried to explain to me that her daughter had just had a baby. I just said, That is nice. There was no excuse for this type of treatment from someone who was running a business, especially involving weddings, where the level of importance of each day means an unprecedented amount to the parties involved. But oh, well. We had no choice but to accept it. And we rehearsed the ceremony several times and were still able to get to our restaurant of choice on time.

The day of the wedding, my mom, my sister, a friend, and my best man, arrived to help with the set up, to find out through a banner posted at the front, that the venue had scheduled a Ladies Night : All Male Review that night. It said it started at 10. This was odd, as we were supposed to have the option to extend our reception to 10:30 if we wanted. They agreed to take the banner down until after our ceremony. We cleaned the place up and got it looking pretty great actually.

The wedding itself went very smooth. It was a good ceremony.

Then came the reception. Everything went pretty well here too, except that once they ran out of food, that was all they had. They didnt make enough to give anyone second helpings. They also started serving pieces of our cake, before we even cut our wedding cake. Then, at 8pm, while everyone was still dancing and having a good time, Martha walked up to Elizabeth (THE BRIDE) and said, very rudely, You all need to wrap this up. I got another event to prepare for. Elizabeth said that was fine, we would just leave, and come back tomorrow and get everything. She told her no, that we were not allowed to leave anything there, even though at our first meeting, we were told that we would not have to clean anything. Elizabeth was upset, and told her that we had paid until 9:30, but Martha told her no, insisted that she had another event, then went on to claim that she DID NOT CHARGE us for the thirty minutes prior to 5, when people started coming in, which was utter BS. She also stated that she did not charge us for the keg! At any rate, we announced to everyone that the reception was over, and that we would move the party to a local bar, for anyone who still wanted to party with us. So, we had to spend the last thirty minutes of our time, which was an hour early, cleaning the place, and taking all our decorations down. Luckily, friends a family helped with this task.

So, that was it. We left there and continued to have a good time at Tidballs bar, despite the fact that this woman, who was the manager of a business specializing in wedding and receptions, did everything in her power to ruin that special day for us. When I went to pay the final payment to our cake baker, she even informed me that Martha was incredibly rude to her when she was trying to set up the cake presentation.

Despite the fact that our actual wedding went smooth enough, the experience of dealing with Ellis Place was a nightmare. Going through each phase of the planning there, after we initially paid the deposit and signed the contract, was like pulling teeth, and dragging an anvil up a hill. Everything that was promised to us would go smoothly, ended up being a struggle and a metaphorical teeth drilling. They make all the right promises to get you to agree to their service, but the horrible attitude and poor business practices of the manager, make the experience of having a wedding and reception at their venue, anything but enjoyable. Please, avoid it for your own sanity. Planning a wedding is stressful enough, without having to worry with a poor venue manager and trying to be ripped off in the process. Do yourself a favor. Go somewhere else.