By Kayla
Rose Mont, a grand historic home
located in Gallatin, Tennessee, is where I exchanged vows with the love of my
life on April 16, 2016. The home was
originally built in the 1800s, and although there have been some renovations
along the way, it still holds true to the time.
With the vintage feel, old Southern charm, and beautiful rose garden, I
would definitely recommend using this location, as far as beauty and price
goes, for any wedding with guest expectation fewer than one hundred people. Be prepared, however, to deal with the very
intimidating, rude, and unhelpful house manager.
Our experience with the site manager was not
pleasant due to her rudeness, lack of understanding or empathy. I arrived about thirty minutes earlier than
agreed upon in the contract on the day of the wedding. I realized this, however, and never once
asked to go into the bridal suite or enter any area until the time I had agreed
to arrive, although I did seek the manager out to let her know that I was
there, apologized for being early but because I had finished with my hair and
make-up early, had no other option but to come straight to the venue. She made a rude comment and continued sweeping
off the front porch. I needed to use the
restroom, which are outside located in front of the ball room and right behind
the rose garden, however, they were still locked, and I assumed I wasn’t
allowed to use them until the time of the contract agreement, so I did not even
attempt to ask for them to be unlocked.
One of my bridesmaids also arrived after me, although early as well, and
waited outside with me until about 5 minutes until the contract arrival time
and finally asked if the manager would unlock the bathrooms because at this
point both she and I had to use them.
The manager made another rude comment, a few sounds of disapproval, but
did unlocked the restrooms for us to use.
The day before the wedding
when we were scheduled to go decorate, she stood in the bridal suite the entire
time my bridesmaid and I were placing my wedding gown and other items needed
for the next day in the room. It was
almost like she had no trust in leaving us alone in the room for a moment. One of my biggest complaints is that she did
not turn on the air conditioner in the ball room the night before the wedding,
which made my flowers begin to turn faster than they would have had the AC been
on through the night. We also had to
request that we be able to use the air conditioner located in the bridal suite
while dressing for the wedding. She
would also come up and regularly turn the air conditioner either off or down
each time we would exit the room.
The manager was very stubborn
when it came to the set-up of the chairs in front of the house for the
ceremony. I had wanted only 50 chairs on
each side of the aisle and for them to be arranged in a very specific way for
which I provided a picture to the manager.
At first, she told me no, they put the chairs their own way because of
the gravel path in the front of the house.
After much debate, my maid of honor was finally able to convince her to
have the chairs set up in a similar fashion as the picture I showed her. Unfortunately, she still put one hundred
chairs on each side, which made my wedding look empty, and still did not
arrange the seats exactly as outlined in the photo.
When we were
developing the contract, we told her the time the event starts and gave her an
end time. We paid for 2 more hours on top of the usual 8 hour contract. We paid for the two hours ahead of time just
IN CASE we happened to go over the 8 hour time limit. We were never informed that the 2 hours paid
in advance would not be refunded even if those two hours were not used. We just assumed that if we did not use the
two additional purchased hours over the already set 8 hours, we would be
reimbursed for those two hours. We were
wrong in that assumption. Despite that
our event was completely over, cleared, and everyone, including staff and manager
were gone 2 and a half hours before the 8 hour contract time was up, we were
not refunded the 2 extra hours that we did not use. As previously mentioned, 8 hours comes
included in the price regardless of leaving earlier or not, therefore we did
not expect to get back any money for leaving earlier than 8 hours. We did pay an additional 300 for two extra
hours just in case the event happened to last longer and we did expect that
money to be refunded, especially since no staff was left at the venue. The manager said she asked the venue
committee for permission to refund the money, but she claimed they refused to
refund it.
Despite the venue
manager, however, our wedding was beautiful and inexpensive for the type of
venue. All pricing information can be
found at the Rose Mont website which also holds a great deal of other useful
and interesting information. If you
choose the venue, I recommend being just as firm with the manager as she is
with you and to have absolutely everything in writing.
