SF Event Venues

I’m giving SF event venue 1 star, not because of the circumstances, but because of the way things were handled from there on out.
It all started when my fiancé (now husband) and I went to see the Chapel on Treasure Island in the end of April with a wedding to be held in the beginning of August. We thought it would be the perfect venue to hold our wedding ceremony and we thought we were lucky to get the venue! Which we were! It’s a beautiful venue at a beautiful location. We signed the contract within 24 hours of seeing the venue because we knew (or were told) that another couple was coming to see the venue that day for the same date. We paid everything in full and everything was set for the wedding. We had also been introduced via email to our event space coordinator whom I’m not going to name (all of you are lucky).
Fast forward to 40 days before the wedding. We got a message on my phone from the event space coordinator saying he wanted to introduce himself and also that he «had a bit of news» for me. I immediately called him back because I had not yet spoken to him and he ended up telling me that the person who owns the chapel double booked the venue and that we couldn’t have the chapel anymore. A BIT OF NEWS?! Umm I think not! That’s huge news that a bride shouldn’t be hearing 40 days before her wedding with invitations sent out saying «The Chapel on Treasure Island» and A TON of people with plans to fly in from out of state! I wanted to sue, but unfortunately, in the contract it states that this double booking fiasco happening is a possibility.
Soon after that, we met with the guy to look at some alternate spaces. None with which compared to the chapel. The people at SF Event Venues swore that they would do everything in their power to accommodate us and make our wedding a breeze. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case. We ended up choosing the vista. Not Casa de la Vista, which would have MAYBE been worth it, but the Vista, which is basically a hall with two sets of pillars down the middle. We chose how wanted the chairs to be set up, and since the space was SO barren we had to have a 7′ X 8′ live flower wall at the ceremony (lots of money that we wouldn’t have been spending had this not happened). He said we couldn’t put anything in the venue the night before which was annoying because he was setting up the chairs the night before and we had to get day of insurance worth one million dollars for the extra people helping which we wouldn’t have had if the wedding was at the chapel. Basically, we had to spend an unnecessary amount of money with really late notice. Also, not that we were promised that doors would be open at 8:30am on the wedding day along with 5 hours of rental space, which would be a total of 9 hours of rental (an accommodation for the screw up).
Rehearsal day: We got there and the doors were opened on time, which was a surprise, but the chairs were totally set up wrong after I had given a diagram of what we wanted. We also ended up brining the flowers to the rehearsal because they ended up saying we could set up the wall the night before and they were super pissed about it! Oh well.
Wedding day: my florist and her team arrived promptly at 8:30am (when the doors were supposed to be open) NOBODY was there! We called and called and emailed all while I was supposed to be enjoying my time getting ready for my wedding day. My mom finally got ahold of him and she asked where he was and stated that he was supposed to be there at 8:30 and he asked «who said that?» umm you did! We have proof in an email. Needless to say, he rushed over at 9:45! Also, on the way to my first look, the event space coordinator was running toward me wanting to ask when his people should be standing outside of the chapel to direct our guests… wrong timing! Luckily I had an amazing MOH to take care of it.
On our way to the reception, leaving Treasure Island, we saw the other wedding at the chapel… they weren’t even using the chapel, they were outside! We were told that there was no way to have both weddings at the chapel that day, even with us being willing to adjust the timing.
Luckily, with a ton of help, the wedding day was beautiful and I don’t have any regrets. I’m actually happy that we didn’t get the chapel because the red carpet would have clashed with everything. However, SF event venues, you need better management and you need to put your customers first. If I can manage and coordinate an event by myself better than you did with a team of people, there’s a problem because I don’t have years and years of experience. I hope this review is helpful and I hope this doesn’t happen again to another couple.