Zenith Vineyard

First you commit with a contract with Zenith and of course they want a deposit. Please realize when you look at the cost of their exclusive caterer, there are more charges than just the food, including all beverages, alcohol and non alcoholic, and a huge gratuity of 19%(which you pay no matter what), appetizers, which you have to have if there is alcohol served. We did not hire a wedding planner because of the cost and thinking that certainly this venue and caterer do weddings, we were criticized by not having one after the event. We experienced a high volume of contracts, not initiated by our changes, but by the caterer, Vibrant Table, which is Zenith?s exclusive caterer. Some weeks we had to compare contracts to see exactly what had changed, it became increasingly frustrating. My daughter and I made it a point to let Zenith know, we thought they would like the feed back, but we were wrong, we were yelled at by Kari Ramey that they are the best and they are rated number one. I could not believe we were treated this way and Kari never once followed up on any of our issues we presented to her. I would think as a form of customer service, you should follow up on any issues of concerns with your clients, whether you agree or not. The weeks before the wedding another flood of contacts, we were surprised that they were not more organized; certainly we thought they do this every week, yet decisions were left to the end. The day of the wedding, we could not figure out why there were two tables in the parking lot with the linens held down by water bottles so they would not blow away. Come to find out, the floor plan was not true to the diagram; one had to read the fine print that was switched in the final days. The floor plan showed the guest book table and gift table inside the building, but the fine print said out by pathway. We had many quest complaining on leaving their gifts out there. I talked to the event planner that day, but nothing was done about it, he claimed it was right. Our flowers arrived on the time the contract stated, only to find that they could not go on the tables, because the linens were not on. Our guest arrived to find the staff setting the tables, so the first impressions were not good, but everyone knew about the accident on I-5 and our guest took it in stride as well as we did. We were unable to put our favors out on the tables, since they were not set and ready. It was a cold August day, so the doors to the veranda stayed closed, only to have our guest congregate on the veranda and so many were tripping over the door stops that protruded out from the wood floor. I had many relatives willing to stand over these stops, just so the guests were safe! We paid for a non alcoholic station where lemonade with blueberries floating (we were given that visual in selecting the lemonade) but we never saw that, in fact, our guest under age, had to go to the bar for a drink! In the contract it states we would only be charged for the beverages consumed, opened or tapped for our party, we had one case of special wine brought in, which was not all opened and Zenith refused to refund us the corkage fee. This special wine was not served to all guests as instructed in the contract. Overall, we were treated very rudely and unprofessional by Zenith and their exclusive caterer Vibrant Table. We found these two separate companies do not work together and point blame on the other, but as a consumer, you can?t use Zenith without using Vibrant Table. As a consumer we would never recommend this venue to anyone, it is not worth the time or money you have to pay for this kind of result.