Mediterranean Villa

Oh dear…
I knew the time would come that I would have to write my first sad review, and I would in fact be… sad. BUT! Let’s start with the positive shall we?!
We went here for my husband’s company Christmas party last Friday night. The cupcakes was DELISH! THE PERFECT cupcake! I normally pass on the frosting with cake, but this frosting was yummo. The right amount of sweetness and precisely light and fluffy. They had set up a cute little toppings bar to add goodies to your choice of vanilla or chocolate cupcake. Whipped cream (also delish!), oreo cookies crumbles, diced strawberries, and choppped nuts. It made a really cute and yummy dessert. The dinner was pretty tasty as well. but I say its just as average as any other «wedding venue» food. The decorations were festive, very Christmas like and fitting for the occasion.
However what I was very disappointed in (mainly for the sake of my husband’s bosses who were wanting to put on a very nice evening for us), was that the coordinator for the night kept checking in on our host and hostess the entire evening and not in a «can I help you» way. They rushed them, pushed the schedule, started cleaning up our tables early at 7:15 when there were still guests in the room, AND when they’d rented the room until eight. We all sort of made light of the situation and the «mother» figure (coordinator) who kept coming back into the room to check on how things were progressing, but again not for what seemed like our sake… more in a «when can I get out of here?» type thing. She didn’t seem the most thrilled with our event for the evening, and that’s disappointing when someone is paying for a great experience.
So I went back for a third cupcake! …That’ll show em’!

I give 2 stars because my guests had a great time and they were well organized, but some things really upset me.
1. Timing. They book too many weddings in one day too close together. They only allow you 1 hour before the ceremony to get there, get dressed, and take pre-​wedding pictures. However, I wasn’t able to even get into the dressing room until about 40 minutes beforehand. By the time we got my dress on, there wasn’t much time for pictures. All the pictures with me and my family had to be crammed into the dressing room since the groom’s family was being photographed at the same time in the chapel. We also didn’t get to do our «no look» picture due to time. We didn’t really get many pictures of just us after the ceremony, either. They need to allow more than 1 hour before and make sure the bride has adequate time to dress and take pictures.
2. This part really made me FURIOUS! My aunt bakes cakes as a hobby. We told Danielle this when we signed the contract. They wanted to charge $ 2.50 a head to cut the cake since it wasn’t from their bakery. I balked and said she wasn’t a business and they eventually got it down to $ 1.50…still not pleased to pay that after all the other money they got anyway. 2 days before the wedding, they called my aunt and gave her crap about not being a licensed bakery. They let that slide. Even though they already knew the situation.
The cakes were put in a back corner where no one could really see us cutting them. They were instructed to provide the boxes they were given to give out leftover cake but didn’t. They were also told to give generous pieces. My cake had 2 flavors, and we also had a groom’s cake. They put tiny slivers of 1 wedding cake flavor and a piece of groom’s cake and randomly passed them out. No one got a choice, and a lot of my cake went to waste because of that. I’ve never, ever been to a wedding where cake wasn’t just set out with one flavor to a plate for people to choose. I am so angry about this! I didn’t even get to taste the groom’s cake and only got a tiny bite of one of the cake flavors. The huge amount of leftover cake sent home with us was the second cake flavor… at least I got to try that.
The service was good during the reception aside from that — I will give credit here. They did make sure we were served all of the food and cake, but we didn’t have time to eat much of it.
Also, if you plan to book here, make sure you under-​shoot your guest list. You can always add more, but if you’re less than that, you’re stuck with the bill for it anyway. I guesstimated 100 guests and only had about 85−90ish. That would have saved a few hundred bucks. They don’t tell you this when you sign the contract. I wish I had said 85 then added more after.
I just wish I had gotten more/​better pictures before the ceremony. I’ll never have that time back again :(

I was a walk-​in with my mother and two sisters and I will say they were very accommodating for that and a consultant saw us promptly. Our meeting wasn’t very personal as all the consultants desks were in one room and there were three other couples there at the same time. She asked for some basic information to be filled out and then proceeded to take us on a tour. This is where I started to find out they will nickel and dime you for EVERYTHING. I was planning for 300 guests which is their maximum. She first showed us the Grand Ballroom which wasn’t at all spectacular. It looks like any old ballroom you’d find at a hotel. It was large though which I liked. It had several round tables that held 10 guests each and Chivari chairs. Each table would be decorated with white tablecloths, white napkins, no chair covers, and no centerpieces. I asked about changing the colors of the linens to match my wedding colors and add chair covers so it wouldn’t look so basic and she said to change the tablecloths was $ 26 per table and another cost for the napkins. They wouldn’t even add chair covers. Also, you pay to add centerpieces and the cheapest, most basic one is STILL $ 12 per table. I asked about outside catering because my sister owns her own catering company and was going to provide the catering free of charge. The consultant told me that was not an option because above all they are a catering company and want their services used. I also asked about the cake. They don’t necessarily force you to use them but they definitely make it hard financially to go with someone else. If you go with an outside bakery, they must be licensed which is fine with me. However, on top of the probably between $ 500 & $ 1000 you’d be paying said outside bakery, Mediterranean Villa will charge you $ 4.50 per slice just to cut it! At 300 guests, that’s almost $ 1400 extra dollars. But, get this! Even if you purchase the cake from them, they STILL charge you $ 2.50 per slice cutting fee. I was like Jesus I’ll cut my own cake! But, of course… NOT AN OPTION. Next, we walked through the outside garden. The outside grounds are immaculate and much more beautiful than the inside with a great gazebo and nice fountain but quite small. I asked if she was sure 300 guests could fit out here and her response was that the seats are really close together but I still would have to see to believe it. There were also some pretty sweet vintage cars out there which she said can be used for your bridal portraits. We were led to the chapel which I really liked the structure of. It had a curved aisle which was different and nice but again had a very basic appearance. The groom’s quarters were REALLY small like a closet almost but she said there’s a private patio behind it that the men could use. The chairs in the chapel had the most hideous, dingy cream satin chair covers that looked like they hadn’t been pressed in over a year. We asked about changing those and she said they didn’t have any others. We asked about bringing in our own and she said we could but they would charge an administrative fee just for putting them on. Sheesh. I was pretty much over it by then but was going to finish the tour and hear her out because she was a sweet girl. She led us to the bridal suites. There are two separate ones adjacent from each other in the same building as the chapel. She said I’d have usage of both. They were not very large but not tiny either. Both were decorated differently and neither of the decorations were very appealing to the eye. We checked out the Villa Loft which reminds me of a nice club. Receptions can be held there but she kind of pushed for an after party or rehearsal dinner saying if we booked there we could rent it for only $ 1000. It only accommodates up to 100 guests including the wedding party which definitely wasn’t going to work for me. The tour was over and we went back to the office to crunch some numbers. After, she plugged some figures into the computer, she printed out a quote. With just the very BASIC options we discussed and not including cake or any extras, it was close to $ 12,000! What’s more unbelievable is that was with a 50% off discount of all the rental fees! I was floored. I asked her about reducing the number of guests to bring the price down. She reduced it to 200. Even with 100 less guests, apparently there’s still a $ 7000 minimum for food if you use the grand ballroom (which you have to unless you have a total of 100 guests or less). So, she had to add a champagne toast AND fruit punch to bring us back up to the minimum. It ended up coming down to $ 11,400. Seriously. One hundred guests subtracted and only $ 500 reduction. She gave me the quote and we left. Needless to say, I booked somewhere else that gave me everything I asked for at less than HALF the price. I guess if you have unlimited amounts of money and no desire for anything spectacular, this is the place for you. But, take my advice. I wouldn’t waste my time.

Where to start… I am currently «stuck», I guess you could say, with having my wedding here. PLEASE READ SO YOU CAN PREVENT WHAT I WENT/​AND AM STILL GOING THROUGH!
The idea of having everything provided my one vendor sounded great, at first. I wouldn’t have to find a caterer, florist, chapel, etc. Little did I know that it was going to cost me ($$$$$) in the end. We started out with a tour of the grounds. It’s location is not really idea for a dream wedding, smack between the Holiday Inn and Econo Lodge off I-​30, but we figured we’d look around anyway. The chapel is very nice, and very unique with a curved isle, so I was very delighted with something other than the norm. The banquet room is nothing special, about the same as any old ball room, but definitely not as nice as it could be. After meeting with the first wedding planner, and having her talk about all the great benefits of one location providing all the necessities for a wedding and how it turns out to be cheaper (so she said) because we don’t have to go bargain hunting when they have the lowest prices. HA HA HA oh how dumb I was to believe her.
Anyway, we eagerly signed the contract (DO NOT SIGN UNTIL YOU HAVE READ EVERYTHING, AND MAYBE HAVE YOUR LAWYER READ IT), and I was relieved that I wasn’t going to have to worry about anything! Well then the time came to put our deposit down, which we did, lets just say it was a significant amount, around February. Our wedding is in December. Well our guest list kept growing over time, so I called and asked if there was any way they could provide for more than 300 people, if possible. Well of course not, so I started looking elsewhere for a new venue that would accommodate our growing guest list. She then informed me that even though our wedding was months away we would not be able to get our deposit back, it was in the contract, even though they couldn’t accommodate our guests. GO FIGURE! Here’s where it started going down hill…
We didn’t have that much contact with our planner, and come to find out she ended up leaving the company, so we had a whole new planner. We didn’t meet with him until August. We went over the menu, and the contract, and prices for food, linens, etc. The food is by no means 4 star, I would compare it to your typical family buffet, but definitely not «gourmet» as their catering business suggests (Classic Gourmet) If you don’t believe me, go to one of their open houses. They may have stepped it up, but I did inform my planner that the food was NOT good in anyway what so ever, and he assured me it would be great! I will let you know come December.
You have to also order your cake from them, as we found out. You can get it from a licensed bakery, but they will charge you a cutting fee. They actually charge one anyway, so I guess it really doesn’t matter. Like I said they charge for everything. Their cakes are nice, and they can make almost anything you want… for a price. Our grooms cake is a basic square cake, with 2 layers, and we wanted to have «B» iced on all 4 sides of the top layer. Just for 4 «B“s, written with icing, the cost was going to be an additional $ 150! FOR 4 FREAKIN’ «B“s!!! So we settled for 1 «B» on the damn cake! I asked if I could put the «B“s on myself, and they said no!
Then came time for the invitations planning. When to mail them out, and all that fun stuff. We needed response cards because we needed a head count of adults and children so we could keep our costs down, because its almost $ 10 cheaper for children. If not they charge you for all adults, for both food and bar. The ORIGINAL planner had told us that we just needed to notify them 2 weeks in advance with the total count of adult and children. So we had planned to mail out invitations late October. WRONG!!! Just and FYI the final payment is due 2 months before your wedding date! We were under the impression that we could get money back that we didn’t use. It makes sense to me that if I paid for 300 adults and only 200 showed up, we should be reimbursed the costs. OH NO!!! 30 before your wedding day all sales are final! Meaning we just paid for 300 adults to eat and drink, and we will be out THOUSANDS of dollars if 300 adults do not show up. If we can get a head count by Nov. 4^th, then we could possible get some money back. When I asked the «account rep» what happens to the money that we paid and didn’t use, she said that they put it towards other things in our wedding. Really doesn’t make sense if I just paid in full for everything, what are you going to apply it to?
So this is where I end for now. I will definitely post another review after my wedding. In short DON’T GO HERE!!!