encore

Oh, our love/hate relationship with Justen and Encore! We were so excited to talk with them at the very beginning- 10 months out- to help set up our tented wedding reception at a private residence-but unfortunately, we definitely had a few snafus along the way:( At the beginning they were all "can do" and "no problem getting that" but then as we got closer, they were the only vendor that all of a sudden couldn't get something, or all of a sudden we needed bigger tables, etc We had two tents- one for reception, one for cocktail hour, and there were SO many headaches with both! We made the mistake of leaving them alone at the property fo some set-up while we ran other errands days before the wedding, and when we returned, the tent was in the completely wrong place than what we had discussed, and it was sort of difficult convincing the workers to amend the set-up. However, overall, the reception tent, all lit up, once all the problems were over, did look absolutely gorgeous. Lighting was a huge headache, though. This was of critical importance to us and discussed frequently throughout the months leading up to the wedding- we received assurances that both safety and ambience lighting would be "no problem" and Justen kept going on about how many colors they had, the great new lights, etc- but after all that, the safety lighting was an abismal failure and thus ambience lighting had to be substituted at the last minute- we had to chase those workers down during the reception to fix this. For the amount of money we spent on having enough of their workers on site all day for parking attendants, lighting candles throughout the night, help with the lighting, etc we were sorely disappointed. Again, the main tent was stunning but getting there was quite a hassle.

I would have given 5s across the board up until the week of our wedding. The staff was very helpful and flexible early on. For example, they let us borrow place settings and flatware so we could bring them home and have more time to decide which we liked. When it came time for our event the quality of service plummetted. All 1s. We received a call 3 days before the wedding telling us we'd have to choose a new place setting because too many of the one we had chosen were broken. During that conversation I discovered that they actually had us down for the wrong place setting and the wrong flatware. They sent the tent up in the wrong spot. They arrived with 400 of the same generic glass. When our event planner sent them back for the other types of glasses, they returned with 400 more of that same generic glass. I could continue, but you get the idea.

Great service, well-cared for products (nothing looked "tired"), and great prices. We rented chivari chairs and a great black and white dance floor, but they have everything, or know how to get it!