We booked our wedding here whilst Judy was still managing and everything was running smoothly as far as we knew. First we heard about Judy retiring and new management taking over was on a post I saw on Facebook. I’d emailed during this crossover period (which I was unaware was happening) to book an appointment to get prices and discuss some finer details of the wedding, I asked if they had any appointments available on a Friday 4 weeks away and received no reply. The week before I called up to ask again about an appointment, I was told one had already been booked in for us - I guess nobody wanted to tell me that! I explained to the man on the phone that I wanted to speak with the wedding organiser and explained exactly what I wanted to know.
On the Friday we came in for the appointment as planned, only to find out that the person we needed to speak to wasn’t there and we’d be dealing with another member of staff (the man I spoke with on the phone). He started by telling us he knew nothing about weddings so he would make a note of what we wanted and get the wedding organiser to get back to us. At this point I was a little annoyed as I’d booked time off work to repeat exactly what I told him on the phone whereas the appointment could’ve been rescheduled. I left more confused than when I went in.
A week went by and we’d heard nothing back but as I’ve never planned a wedding before I assumed this was normal, then I got a call from a friend who’s niece’s wedding had been cancelled by Hulme Hall. They didn’t have many details but obviously this raised a few concerns for me as the person who’s wedding was cancelled was a month before ours. So the next morning I called up, and after several attempts throughout the day I finally go through to the same man who I spoke to on the phone originally. I explained to him that my friends wedding had been cancelled and I was a little bit worried, he said he had the diary in front of him and he could see that my friends wedding was still going ahead and a manager would call me on the Monday when they were in. I hadn’t given him any names or dates for the cancelled wedding so there was no way he could’ve known and I ended the call feeling pretty angry that I’d just been lied to.
On Monday morning I called back and was told (very rudely) the person I needed to speak to would be in later that day and I’d get a callback. By the afternoon, still had no callback so I wrote down all my concerns in an email to them and asked for the cancellation procedure as we were starting to look at potentially needing another venue in the worst case scenario. I rang again quickly to check my email had been received, I was told it had been, the manager was aware of it and when I asked if I could get a response or at least the cancellation procedure by the Wednesday I was told that was fine by the same man we had our original meeting with.
Thursday, still had received nothing so called again to chase up as I was getting really worried and stressed by this point. Spoke again with the man, he said his manager would be in at 12 and would be giving me a callback then. I waited until 2pm because I thought expected a call at 12 when they first got in was unreasonable. By this point, this man knew exactly why I was calling as I’d explained to him several times over these phone calls my issues and what I wanted. After calling back several times that afternoon, the same man answered again, I went through the explaining who I was process again and he said ‘ah yes, I can see you have some questions about food’, at this point I was frustrated as I’d explained to him so many times why I was calling. So I told him I wanted to speak with the manager because we wanted to cancel. He asked again what my problem was. By this time I was so angry I was ranting down the phone at him, after several times asking him to stop speaking over me he finally let me talk, when I’d finished he said ‘are you finished now? Can I speak? First of all, calm down’. As I’m sure you can imagine I didn’t appreciate being told to calm down especially when it comes to my wedding. I told him I wanted to speak with the manager as I’d been promised several callbacks and I was told he’d be in this day after 12, he then told me the manager wasn’t in this day - I explained that he had told me the manager would be in so either he lied again or he was deliberately not letting me speak to him. After going back and forwards a few times, he eventually agreed to get the manager, I heard this man put the phone down on the side and a few seconds later pick it back up and pretend to be somebody else! I was livid by this point and told him that if the manager doesn’t call me back by 12pm the next day (Friday) I would be coming down the Friday afternoon. Eventually he told me the manager would call me back on the Friday and that if we wanted to cancel we would need to do this face to face.
12pm on the Friday and still no call. So I called them, same guy answers. Once again asks me why I’m calling. I said I didn’t want to go through this with him again and I just want to speak with his manager. He told me I couldn’t do this as they had a function on that evening. He said I’d need to come in the following Tuesday, I explained that I can’t do Monday to Friday anymore as I’m not taking anymore time off work for them so they need to find a Friday evening or Saturday. He said the next time I could come in would be the end of March (this was all happening mid-February. I said I wouldn’t wait that long and I’d be coming in that afternoon. He just repeated, we will see you Tuesday, I’ve booked that in. I told him again that I won’t be doing that. This went back and forward for some time and at one point he asked me to stop wasting his time. Eventually he agreed we could go in at 5:30 that evening to speak with them.
Me and my partner got there, went into the venue and there was no function on! The owner turned up and sat down to speak to us. Just as we sat down another girl came in who had also been having similar issues with them looking to speak with the manager. My partner asked the owner what the role of the person I’d been speaking to was, turns out he was the manager the entire time! The owner himself was extremely rude, I began explaining my issues to him, the way the ‘manager’ had treated me and he cut me off mid-sentence and began speaking to only my partner. My partner stepped in and told him to let me finish. He agreed to give us our deposit back, but continued to dismiss me the whole time.
Then as we were leaving, the other girl tried to speak to him and he said he’d be with her in a minute and insisted on showing us out the door. At the door he asked if we knew anybody who would be looking for admin work and started they wanted a female member of staff which I thought was very unprofessional and not at all appropriate, not just because of how our experience had gone but because it’s also very discriminatory.
Overall, I’m glad we got our deposit back in the end but it shouldn’t have been as awful an experience as it was. I’m so sad to see such a lovely venue be ruined by these clowns who clearly do not know the way things work.
