This is long, so TLDR at the bottom.
I'm a wedding planner and have been in this industry for just shy of 20 years. I booked an engagement party for a client at a private country club. The issues began at the very start and persisted through the entire planning process, all of which I have documented.
• The outside catering situation set the tone for everything that followed.
In her very first substantive response, the event director, we'll call her Brianna, told us in writing that outside catering was permitted as long as we met the food and beverage minimum. We re-engaged a caterer we had a prior relationship with based on that. Five weeks later, she reversed it completely citing a "new 2026 corporate policy" prohibiting outside catering entirely. That policy was never produced. No documentation or corporate reference, no one else at the club ever mentioned it, and their own signed contract contains a clause explicitly permitting outside catering with GM approval. The policy Brianna invented to reverse her own mistake contradicts a clause in the venue's own contract that we ultimately used to negotiate a carve-out. That carve-out alone took two months to answer accurately.
• Fees appeared without warning. Repeatedly.
The bridal suite was included. Then a fee appeared. We were told we could briefly use a golf cart for photos. A fee appeared without notice for that too. On the day of the event, there was no golf cart available at all. The bridal suite turned out to be a gym.
• Every time something went wrong, I had to explain to Brianna what normal looks like.
Every time we pushed back on something or identified a gap, Brianna responded as though that was exactly what she had been doing all along, paraphrasing my corrections back to me as her own standard process. "Well, this is how we usually do things." Why didn't we receive any of that without me spelling it out first? Why did basic, textbook coordination only appear after I identified the problem in writing and told her how to fix it?
She wasn't running a planning process. She was reacting to me catching failures and repackaging my corrections as her own guidance.
• The menu took nearly five months and was still wrong at the event.
We submitted detailed food preferences in June. Nothing happened. By July, with no direction and no chef contact, I wrote a full mock menu myself including proteins, starches, sides, flavor profiles, etc because Brianna had given us nothing to work from. That is not my job. (I’ve worked as a sous chef in the past)
We were notified late that there was a new chef starting in July. This became her standing excuse for the silence. It wasn't valid. A new chef doesn't pause the planning process for two months.
We had a meeting planned for mid August meant to finalize most of the major details including the menu, confirm logistics, build toward the BEO, etc. Brianna arrived late, had nothing prepared, showed us a linen book we weren't prepared for, and ended the meeting early. We left with none of the information we came for and the linen order we requested that day was never placed. We had a meeting with our outside caterer scheduled immediately after. Had we cancelled on them that day, we would have lost their services entirely. We ended up booking the full menu with them in order to preserve the event. We had caterer approval in writing, but nothing limiting their scope.
The menu finally arrived 18 days after the meeting. Sent directly to my client, not to me, despite having established I was the primary point of contact numerous times. The menu she forwarded included her stating that we were “pushy” and other mischaracterizations of us which wasn’t appreciated. At the actual event, they served the salmon dish we had specifically said we didn't want. We flagged it in writing. They did it anyway. (Despite expanding the menu with our caterer, we had still agreed to get a few additional items from the club, such as salad, a salmon dish, a vegetable, and maybe one other item.)
• What Brianna produced in 117 days of planning:
No BEO
No confirmed menu
No linen order
No payment link, ever, despite a contract with an installment schedule
No guest count or floor plan
No handoff to her successor
She was fired about 30 days before the event. Her email said "someone will reach out." No one did. I found her replacement myself.
• The replacement coordinator, we'll call her Beth:
Beth inherited a completely blank file. No notes, no handoff, no briefing. She acknowledged in writing that Brianna's failures had impacted "many clients." The contract required a finalized BEO 10 days before the event. Beth's first draft arrived four days past their own contractual deadline.
I do want to be clear about Beth. Once we were in communication with her, it was obvious she knew how to do her job. She was responsive and did everything she could with what she had. No coordinator could have walked into that file with that little time left and pulled off a flawless event. The hole was too deep. This was a systemic failure that existed long before she got involved, and she should not bear responsibility for it. The staff was also extremely nice, considerate, and took direction very well.
• The event itself:
There was no AV for the first three hours. No way to signal the ceremony was starting. No music during cocktail hour. AV didn't appear until the grand entrance. The ceremony began in silence with no way to cue guests.
We asked that the wrinkles in the linens be addressed prior to the day of the event. I understand clubs have their own processes, but it’s been pretty standard in my experience to linen the tables at least the day before. I suggested an easy and sure-fire way to handle this that would allow me to do touch ups the morning of no problem if needed. We walked into a fully set ballroom with linens so creased they looked like they had been pressed that way. When we asked what could be done, we were told that I could personally fix them. I had already explained why that wouldn’t work, and any coordinator would know this. Telling me to personally fix it with hours to spare is not an appropriate response to a venue failure.
The buffet setup was not what we submitted. I sent a specific layout using their own diagrams in advance with detailed reasoning, the core of which was avoiding lines. Guest flow and line management for a buffet is not an aesthetic preference, it is a functional one. We walked into a room configured completely differently from what we provided, and it created exactly what we designed around. Multiple bottlenecks, long lines, and repeated holdups throughout dinner service.
The banquet team was unaware the cake was to be passed to each seat. They were also unaware there was no coffee service, just a station. These details were communicated in writing. They weren't in the BEO because the BEO was never properly built. The "final" BEO, issued seven days after the event, still contains a $455 coffee service line I requested in writing be removed weeks before the event. It has never been corrected.
• The payment situation:
The contract had a payment schedule. About 1/4 was paid as the deposit. The second payment was 1/2 of the total, and the final payment was the remaining 1/4, leaving 3/4 of the balance still outstanding. We were explicitly told that given everything going wrong, the schedule was not concrete and would not be held against us. We attempted to pay throughout the process anyway. The bride's parents drove to the club to drop off a payment in person multiple times and were turned away. This was after daily phone calls and emails trying to get the payment made.
For three weeks we told Brianna we had cash on hand and wanted to drop it off. She told us they do not accept cash payments. This is despite cash being listed as an accepted payment method in their own contract, with a discount for cash payments made 14 days early that we were actively trying to take advantage of. We were blocked from it. In reality the only way they would accept payment was via a link we never received.
Beth committed in writing at our October 10 meeting to send a payment link. It didn't arrive until after the event.
The club made it structurally impossible for us to pay on schedule. Now that the event is over, they're invoking that same payment deadline to threaten bad debt, a deadline that never functionally existed because they were the reason we couldn't meet it.
• The GM:
I sent a formal written viability concern to the GM three weeks before the event. He later admitted he couldn't locate it and never responded. The window to intervene closed while he wasn't reading his email.
After the event, he responded to my dispute with a defense of the club's performance. Almost every specific point he made was factually wrong. Not spin or a different interpretation, actually wrong. It was clear from his response that he had not actually spoken to anyone who was at the event or involved in the planning. He was defending an event he had no accurate information about.
The centerpiece of his defense: citing "the tasting going well" as proof of adequate planning. There was no tasting. Not offered, not scheduled, not discussed at any point. He misread my polite email saying we were pleased with the menu direction, written after waiting 10 weeks for a document we'd been requesting since June, as a post-tasting confirmation. He said our caterer was late as the reason dinner was delayed, but they were on time and stayed throughout. Dinner was delayed solely because we had no proper way to start the ceremony. There were about 5 more points made, still inaccurate, and he ends the email by saying that the planner, myself, was responsible for the BEO. I've never been in a situation where the BEO was handled by someone outside of the venue. This should give you a fair idea of how thoroughly he reviewed the record before responding.
He called the entire situation "some planning challenges." He has not responded to my email.
• Where we are:
We paid the deposit but have been unable to make the remaining two payments. Beth's last message said the GM wouldn’t be giving any refunds. They'll refund the tax on the outside catering fee. We’d need to pay the balance within 2 days or it goes to bad debt.
What we've asked for is a refund of the outside catering fee and a credit roughly equal to the final 1/4 payment, which together comes to about 1/3 of the total event cost. We're not asking for everything. Their own contract states they can be held liable for up to 50% of what was paid. The answer was no.
The BEO still isn't correct. It was never signed. They are now holding us to the payment timeline we were told didn't apply to us to pressure us to pay. There was no way for us to meet this deadline since we weren't provided any acceptable form of payment until after the event.
Outside of escalating to their corporate parent, what would you do in this scenario?
*TLDR: venue failed to provide any planning process, repeatedly gave us inaccurate info, failed to provide payment options, fired their event director with no handoff, and left us with two weeks to organize an event we’d been actively and anxiously trying to manage for the past 6 months. Now they’re holding us to a payment timeline we were told we were excused from, and the BEO still has not been made accurate after multiple written attempts. GM isn’t responding but has threatened bad credit to pressure us into paying. We’ve asked for roughly 30% off the total cost, their own contract states they can be held accountable for up to 50%.
Update: the GM has been fired now too.
Update 2: Beth bypassed myself, the bride and MOB and contacted the FOB directly about collecting payment. She claims she reached out to us multiple times with no response, fabricated multiple fake deadlines, and threatened fees and bad credit to pressure a payment. The FOB paid in good faith unaware there was an active dispute. Beth never reached out to us, and we have a documented 10+ day period of silence from her. Beth collected payment through fraudulent inducement. The club accepting the payment is unjust enrichment. I genuinely can’t believe this situation has become even worse.
