Jaclyn Vecchione

Review of Timber Lake Camp

We, like many other brides and grooms had an expec...

We, like many other brides and grooms had an expectation of what our wedding day/weekend would look like... With all of the planning, work effort and love that went into it, we'd expected it to be the best weekend and day of our lives. Our expectations had been clearly explained in detail with our "event coordinator". However, they WERE not even close to met.

We arrived on Thursday morning only to be greeted by Reggie and Sheila who live on site and manage the day to day operations of the camp. They were incredible, and did everything in their power to help us have a great weekend, we loved them... however.. we're pretty sure they didn't know a wedding was happening that weekend.

When we arrived many of the cabins were still dirty from the weekend before. Half of the private cabins (that we'd been promised were going to be fully renovated) were disgusting and filthy.. with graffiti written on the walls, and dirt, grime and empty liquor bottles among them. OUR BRIDAL SUITE had a moldy fridge, and dirty linens wrapped in a ball on the floor, along with the filthy towels from the weekend prior. Our BRIDAL SUITE REMAINED THIS WAY FOR THE DURATION OF THE WEEKEND, EVEN AFTER REPEATEDLY ASKING FOR IT TO BE CLEANED ON THURSDAY FRIDAY AND SATURDAY NIGHT. It's a good thing that the groom had brought sleeping bags with him.. otherwise we would have been sleeping on that dirty mattress.

Our Event Coordinator didn't show up until about 8pm that night... alone... We had been promised a team of 6 staff to help us with setup.. Instead, we had our family running around like slaves.. in a commercial kitchen cleaning the glassware and silverware we had had to purchase and bring ourselves, since they didn't provide anything wedding-appropriate. All of the things wed made 7-8 trips to camp with and left in a storage area had to be carted to the dining hall. We had to move every single table and chair in the dining room ourselves to set it up. (Thankfully Reggie was able to help us with some of this) Our question is... where was the rest of the staff? I certainly didn't expect I would be breaking my back the two days before my wedding day!

Friday, again we ran around like nut-jobs to set up the dining room, at some point 2 other staff members showed up, alongside the owner Jay Jacobs. We practically missed our entire rehearsal bbq because we were busy trying to salvage what was left of the weekend with Jay Jacobs..in HIS IMMACULATE HOME, we met with him to express our discontent, he simply stated " Perhaps your expectations are the problem, and not the service".... meanwhile.. our bridal suite remained littered with previous guests filth. See pics... it was truly lovely.

Saturday... our makeup and hair artists arrived and were shown to the dance studio where I would be getting ready. The mirrors were filthy... and there was a GIANT broken window on the right side... In the 33 degree weather and hurricane like winds... the room was freezing cold and for FOUR hours we battled the weather.. and asked repeatedly that they cover the window with SOMETHING, ANYTHING, wood, plastic garbage bags, or anything to keep the wind out... The breaker kept blowing every time a hair dryer or space heater was turned on, and each time that happened it delayed us getting ready by an HOUR because of the severely understaffed camp and their inability to react to loss of power with any kind of haste. By the time I was ready to get into my gown, not only was I an HOUR and a HALF LATE for my ceremony, but I was freezing to death, had not taken a single photo with my mother, bridesmaids, or family... (to no fault of the photographer) and was forced to PUT MY GOWN ON IN A HALLWAY!
We paid an extra couple of thousand dollars to have the zipline and pools open.. the only problem is that 90% of the guests had no idea they were open... since the pool was covered in leaves. Oh yeah, we also froze all weekend since the only space heater that was available was that little JOKE shown in the picture).HONESTLY I CAN GO ON... SAVE YOUR WEDDING AND DONT DO IT HERE!!!!!!!