The Guild Inn Estate

Hello Ildana,
We’d like to start by sharing our genuine appreciation for the hard work your fiancé does each day to keep our community safe. We can sympathize with the challenges your family’s been faced with in the past year.
We understand the frustrations that are fueling your comments, this pandemic has posed challenges on all of us. We always take a 100% transparent approach to each client contract by offering equal treatment and keeping packages with pricing and policies accessible and current on our website. We acknowledge you chose to cancel your August 2021 event back in November 2020. You were presented with other options however we respect that at that time you may have felt canceling was best suited for you. With that said, we do understand our associates have been in constant contact with you and continue to do so, we are open to revisiting the discussion directly with you to see if anything else can be done for you on our end. Please don’t hesitate to reach us directly.
The Guild Inn Estate Management Team

Hi Nicole,
We’re happy to discuss all mentioned in your review directly to clear up the misunderstandings. Nevertheless, we feel it’s best to address each item you’ve highlighted in hopes it gives existing and potential new clients a better understanding of how most event venues operate, especially during the current provincial shut down.
When it comes to the room rental, pricing is formulated by taking into account three main variables, your food/beverage selections, your minimum adult guest count guarantee, and the date (time of year/day of the week) chosen. Although we were able to honour the per person menu rate and managed to reduce your event costs by 42% from the initial contract, the small room rental was required to cover fixed operating costs that do not change regardless of the guest count. Larger groups reduce the per person cost of these fixed expenditures, however, when the guest count is smaller it becomes difficult to offer a similar discount.
In regards to communication, our office staff are primarily working remotely from home to reduce any chance of outbreaks at the venue. This may make communicating by phone challenging, similar to various technical (and unpredictable) issues that come with hosting conference and zoom calls from home. We unfortunately are not exempted from this cultural phenomena (some light humour we hope you can relate to). This also allows our staff a chance to ensure their responses are up to date with provincial mandates changing weekly, sometimes even within a days notice. Despite this, we have records of several calls with your Details Manager closer to your wedding date to firm up details.
The following addresses the comments made about the suggestion we offered you that originally would have adapted where your wedding segments would be hosted. This was unfortunately beyond our control and was a result of the most recent changes to the Ontario Government mandates - cutting maximum indoor capacity from 50 to 25 people shortly before your event date. We understand you had difficulty cutting down your guest list. In turn our staff was offering a solution to minimize impact of the new restrictions on both events scheduled that day to give you more flexibility. Fortunately, because you booked first, we offered you the first right of refusal which resulted in your event taking place as discussed at your tasting with your Details Manager. Under normal circumstances, we would have no issue accommodating both events and believe the statement that the venue “overbooked” misrepresents the scenario explained above. The other event that day was flexible enough to change their event time, and experienced no issues with their event function – expressing appreciation for our guidance to ensure their event ran as smooth as possible under the tight restrictions.
To address your planning experience, it seems the duties normally taken on by a 3rd party day of planner were expected from our staff. The role of the Details Manager is to focus on the logistics of the event in terms of food and beverage, timelines and floor plans. This would have been outlined in the introductory email with your Details Manager. The responsibility of the On-Site Coordinator the day of the event is to manage the venue’s staff to ensure fulfillment of the contract while maintaining our service standards and coordinating with the kitchen on timing in addition to offering direct support to the client and accommodating venue related requests when possible. In further discussions with your Details Manager, it was made clear to you at your tasting 3 weeks before the event that we would be happy to provide the table and linens, however, our on-site staff would not be responsible for setting-up any items brought in by your team. We did however do our best to accommodate the misunderstanding at that time, and sincerely wish we could have given you a better experience with your father’s memorial.
You are correct that Details Managers are not present the day of. This is because our operations team is better equipped and experienced in managing the live event itself. The feedback on your On-Site Coordinator does not align with our past experience with them. They manage dozens of events monthly for the last few years and receive raving reviews and praises from our clients often. Due to google’s privacy guidelines, we cannot share her name but her name starts with a “D” if you want to explore other promising reviews that mention our staff names. However, we do take into consideration the tough new pressures and challenges COVID-19 places our staff under. We relayed the feedback over to her directly, and are sure she will make use of it constructively.
When it comes to the guest book, unfortunately having guests line up at a table and gather to sign a guest book or anything of that nature is not permitted under the COVID restrictions. Socially distancing is mandatory during these times. Under normal circumstances a guest book and receiving table would not be a problem. In the current situation it is not permitted and we as the venue have the unfortunate job of ensuring the rules outlined by the Ontario Government are followed to keep you and your guests safe.
In reviewing your file, your event received our standard number of serving staff offered to all events of your group size. This is a ratio formula we have used for many years, which has not changed for COVID affected events. Drink service is only offered when not serving or circulating food for obvious reasons. During this time we encourage guests to approach the bar for a drink if they don’t want to wait until the food has circulated. Alternatively more staff can be brought in for an additional charge.
Moving on to the comments made about our in-house catering. Based on our records, all the food was eaten and zero complaints were made when on-site staff implemented our standard table check routine to allow guests to express if they had any issues with their dishes. At no point during dinner service did anyone indicate there was an issue with the food. All plates collected at the end of the meal were empty. This would be the first notice we are receiving that there was an issue with the catering.
Please feel free to reach us directly to discuss any of the items above further. We would like to thank you for being flexible and working with us to adapt your wedding to ensure the safety of our staff and all guests at the venue that weekend. The important part was that we were able to bring many of your loved ones together to celebrate a special milestone in your life – something we never thought would be possible during as unique of a time as a pandemic. We are sure the stories you’ll share in the future will be unique and memorable despite the misunderstandings brought up in this review.
Wishing you both a healthy and promising life together.
The Guild Inn Estate management team