Grace Winery is a lovely place, with well kept grounds and it could be one of the most amazing venues in all of PA, unfortunately, the two managers at the venue are bringing the whole place down.
Rachel Testerman and Elizabeth Megill are the two people who handle events. They are inept, cruel, aggressive, and cannot seem to behave with any courtesy toward their customers. When you're planning a special event (a corporate retreat or a wedding in our case), they are extremely slow to respond to emails (two weeks to get a simple response?), forget what you tell them (it's remarkable really!), and then failed to execute what we requested on the special day. When they did respond to our requests, they take the approach that the customer is always wrong. And worst of all they require you pay them an extra $3200 for what turns out to be extremely bad customer service.
For example - we requested several rooms for one night and they took TWO weeks to tell us those rooms were not avaialble?! Seriously, when we had already signed a contract and made the request? If they weren't available you could have told us IMMEDIATELY. Instead what happened is Rachel was too busy planning her own wedding to take ours sersiouly, and did not lock down the rooms. Then in the two weeks from when we made our formal request for the rooms, Elizabeth had sold them to an corporate event.
When you're spending a lot of money at a place, there's a minimum level of customer service that you would expect. You're not being a primadonna just because you want to be treated with kindness, respect, and expect that the things you ask for are responded to quickly and with an assumption of best intentions.
When we notified them of some of our frustrations here's what they responded with:
>>"We discussed back in July, the terms of the room release that the manor house is not available during their event much like the manor house & barn >>will not be available to tasting room guests during your rehearsal dinner and wedding. So to be accused of poor communication us upsetting, and >> seems as though you just don’t like the answer that was given."
The crossed out item was in the actual email they sent us...how can they be that inept to strike it out, yet still send it in the email to us? And then they changed the areas we were allowed to use during our wedding because they had a corporate group there. Just terrible.
Also you should be aware they have a dog roaming around the venue at all times, it will be around when people are eating and also enter your room. Several of the kids with us were nipped at and scratched by the dog.
To top it all off...at the end of our event, when we went to check out in the morning, no one was at the front desk. We were leaving for our honeymoon and had to catch a flight, so we sent them an email letting them know we had to leave and to send us the bill and we would pay when we return. They sent us an un-itemized bill which we received during our layover. Then when we had a couple questiosn about the bill since they failed to itemize it or disclose how they came up with the "honor bar charges", they refused to provide any explanation and instead immediately threatened to send it out to collections if we didnt pay by 5pm! I was floored. Here we are, having already paid them over $20,000, and demonstrated good faith every step of the way, and despite knowing we were flying out of the country, they IMMEDIATELY threaten us like they are gangsters... rather than take a friendly approach?! It had not even been one day since our event ended!
We called once we landed out of the coutry to talk to Elizabeth about it. Instead of talking to us like normal businesspeople, they berated us on the phone and said that we harrassed them (all because we had a question about the bill??) and said again that if we do not pay immediately they will send it to collections. Then they hung up and refused to answer any more calls, sending us an email and a form to fill out.
They also refused to send us our security deposit within the time specified in our contract.
If i had realized they would have had to take a 80% discount to send the bill to collections, I would have glady let them do that. That's what they deserved. Instead, we were honorable to o the end and submitted to their empty threat and paid our bill that day despite not having answers to our questions. We had to scramble and have a family member pay them while we were out of the country, but now I wish I had waited.
It's one thing to have this kind of bad customer service when you're at a hotel, it's made all the more painful and hurtful when it was your wedding weekend and they don't express the kind of courtouseness and kindness that would only be normal to receive on such a special time and given such a huge amount of money spent.
This organization has some seriously bad people working in there. If you ever plan on having an event at Grace winery, all I can say is BUYER BEWARE! They will take your money and provide you horrendous customer service, and then threaten you at the end of the event.
Elizabeth Megill and Rachel Testerman are two of the worst people I have ever come across in the hotel/event planning industry and everyone needs to be careful when dealing with them. Don't expect to be treated well or fairly or with grace.
The Inn at Grace Winery Reviews
Grace Winery is a lovely place, with well kept grounds and it could be one of the most amazing venues in all of PA, unfortunately, the two managers at the venue are bringing the whole place down.
Rachel Testerman and Elizabeth Megill are the two people who handle events. They are inept, cruel, aggressive, and cannot seem to behave with any courtesy toward their customers. When you're planning a special event (a corporate retreat or a wedding in our case), they are extremely slow to respond to emails (two weeks to get a simple response?), forget what you tell them (it's remarkable really!), and then failed to execute what we requested on the special day. When they did respond to our requests, they take the approach that the customer is always wrong. And worst of all they require you pay them an extra $3200 for what turns out to be extremely bad customer service.
For example - we requested several rooms for one night and they took TWO weeks to tell us those rooms were not avaialble?! Seriously, when we had already signed a contract and made the request? If they weren't available you could have told us IMMEDIATELY. Instead what happened is Rachel was too busy planning her own wedding to take ours sersiouly, and did not lock down the rooms. Then in the two weeks from when we made our formal request for the rooms, Elizabeth had sold them to an corporate event.
When you're spending a lot of money at a place, there's a minimum level of customer service that you would expect. You're not being a primadonna just because you want to be treated with kindness, respect, and expect that the things you ask for are responded to quickly and with an assumption of best intentions.
When we notified them of some of our frustrations here's what they responded with:
>>"We discussed back in July, the terms of the room release that the manor house is not available during their event much like the manor house & barn >>will not be available to tasting room guests during your rehearsal dinner and wedding. So to be accused of poor communication us upsetting, and >> seems as though you just don’t like the answer that was given."
The crossed out item was in the actual email they sent us...how can they be that inept to strike it out, yet still send it in the email to us? And then they changed the areas we were allowed to use during our wedding because they had a corporate group there. Just terrible.
Also you should be aware they have a dog roaming around the venue at all times, it will be around when people are eating and also enter your room. Several of the kids with us were nipped at and scratched by the dog.
To top it all off...at the end of our event, when we went to check out in the morning, no one was at the front desk. We were leaving for our honeymoon and had to catch a flight, so we sent them an email letting them know we had to leave and to send us the bill and we would pay when we return. They sent us an un-itemized bill which we received during our layover. Then when we had a couple questiosn about the bill since they failed to itemize it or disclose how they came up with the "honor bar charges", they refused to provide any explanation and instead immediately threatened to send it out to collections if we didnt pay by 5pm! I was floored. Here we are, having already paid them over $20,000, and demonstrated good faith every step of the way, and despite knowing we were flying out of the country, they IMMEDIATELY threaten us like they are gangsters... rather than take a friendly approach?! It had not even been one day since our event ended!
We called once we landed out of the coutry to talk to Elizabeth about it. Instead of talking to us like normal businesspeople, they berated us on the phone and said that we harrassed them (all because we had a question about the bill??) and said again that if we do not pay immediately they will send it to collections. Then they hung up and refused to answer any more calls, sending us an email and a form to fill out.
They also refused to send us our security deposit within the time specified in our contract.
If i had realized they would have had to take a 80% discount to send the bill to collections, I would have glady let them do that. That's what they deserved. Instead, we were honorable to o the end and submitted to their empty threat and paid our bill that day despite not having answers to our questions. We had to scramble and have a family member pay them while we were out of the country, but now I wish I had waited.
It's one thing to have this kind of bad customer service when you're at a hotel, it's made all the more painful and hurtful when it was your wedding weekend and they don't express the kind of courtouseness and kindness that would only be normal to receive on such a special time and given such a huge amount of money spent.
This organization has some seriously bad people working in there. If you ever plan on having an event at Grace winery, all I can say is BUYER BEWARE! They will take your money and provide you horrendous customer service, and then threaten you at the end of the event.
Elizabeth Megill and Rachel Testerman are two of the worst people I have ever come across in the hotel/event planning industry and everyone needs to be careful when dealing with them. Don't expect to be treated well or fairly or with grace.