|
Submitted 05/14/2008
by Rachel from Brentwood, MD
My husband and I had our wedding reception at the Bananakeet Café. The view is absolutely unparalleled and the food was fantastic. Our guests were very pleased with the reception and a good time was had by all. The only reason I'm not giving this a 5 star rating is stated below...
We encountered one rather large problem during the reception, and I would strongly recommend that other couples thinking of holding a reception there take heed. When we arrived for our reception, the floor plan was not set up according to the prior agreement we had with the staff at Bananakeet, and instead of a dance floor, there were tables for other dinner guests (not in our party) where it should have been. Chris, the owner, was argumentative and said we should have paid the exclusive use fee ($500) because it was raining and she had nowhere else to seat other guests. However, during the course of months of emails back and forth with her staff I was assured that the exclusive use fee would not be necessary as long as we were ok with other guests being at the café during the same time, and that other guests would be kept separate from our area. Also, when I met with her staff two days before the event, and was shown the floor plan, that area was clearly designated as our dance floor and cake cutting area, and there was never any mention that we might lose our dance floor in the event of rain. In the end, the owner did eventually remove the tables from the dance floor, with quite a bit of hostility I might add, and we had to give up a portion of the area we had rented so she could seat her other guests, also not according to the floor plan provided by her staff, but it did solve the problem. It was stressful to have to deal with this when we had spent so much time and effort to plan all the details beforehand so that we could enjoy our time with our family and friends, and I was disappointed that we had to waste precious time arguing with the owner over what had already been agreed to long before.
I would strongly recommend a signed contract stating what happens in the event of rain, signed by the owner and not her staff, as the owner apparently does not honor what her staff has agreed to prior to an event.
|
