Living History Farms

We were told that we could set up the day before at no extra cost. We confirmed this and were skeptical, but they insisted. Then, 9 months later, 6 months before our wedding date, they said we needed to pay for that time, and had no flexibility or accountability with the miscommunication. We paid full price for it all, even though we'd just spent 9 months operating a budget with different information. This was just one of many communication errors about the cost of the venue. We asked for an example timeline and barn layout at least 4 times. Never received the timeline. We defined one ourselves and then were told for several reasons that it wouldn't work. The layout came to us more than a year after we first asked for it. The coordinator did not respond to several emails in the 3 months leading up to the wedding, even after I sent follow up emails. The bathrooms were filthy. No toilet paper. A clogged toilet. Dirty mop left in the bathroom. We had added to our contract that we wanted them cleaned a year prior after a visit. They day before our wedding, the bathrooms were still filthy. It wasn't taken care of until we called and insisted multiple times on the actual day of our wedding. Venue was not ready for our rental. My friends had to put out tables and chairs quickly themselves before setting up our decor, etc. Our wedding was on a humid day. The coordinator did not turn the air on at the church until 3:30, when we, the renters, arrived. Very substandard speaker set up. Muffled sound. Not tested. They didn't tell us that a parking lot closed during our rental time, and they made many of our guests leave the party midway to move their cars. The catering staff, who came a few days before to make sure everything was ready, said they asked simple questions like where do we get water? and the staff responded with blank faces. Our wedding was beautiful. That church is cozy and quaint and the whole place feels like a home. Living History Farms would be a great venue with more staff who have time and experience to communicate with clients. Simply giving us a small discount would have gone a long way to making me feel like they understood that they were understaffed and had made mistakes. Unfortunately, they did not have much flexibility, with the exception of the 10 minutes extra they let us stay after they didn't set up our venue on time on set up day.