We were married at Barr Mansion last weekend. It w...

We were married at Barr Mansion last weekend. It was the first of more than a dozen venues we looked at, and it was honestly love at first sight. The mansion, ballroom, and the property as a whole, is totally gorgeous. Hannah was the only person in our venue search that took the time to sit down with us after the site tour and go over options and pricing in great detail. She is the one who earned our business.

We chose the pecan tree for our ceremony. We found comfort in the fact that if the April weather didn t cooperate, the rain plan was still very appealing. We planned everything from out-of-state, so it was awesome to have a venue that handled the day-of coordination, food, cakes, tables, chairs, linens and dinnerware in-house. We have fairly discerning tastes in beer and wine, so we enjoyed having the freedom to bring in our own alcohol.

We did, however, run into several behind-the-scenes issues. After Hannah s departure from her job at Barr, Rick informed us that he would be our new coordinator. Then, we were promptly reassigned to work with to Elyse instead, since our wedding was on a Sunday.

After the Elyse hand off, I e-mailed her and Rick to confirm the time of our rehearsal. Rick said our rehearsal would be held on Saturday, the day before our wedding (as it should be). Elyse e-mailed us the next day informing us that the rehearsal would have to be on Friday, since Saturday was booked all day with events. Since 85% of our guests were coming to Austin from out of town, moving the rehearsal to Friday would have caused major problems. We decided to call Rick (why wouldn t he call us?). After our chat, the rehearsal was on for Saturday, and we were assured everything would be fine despite all the transition.

One week later, we were informed that our day-of coordinator would be Nicole instead. Now working with a fourth person, all the small details we talked about with Hannah on day one had been completely lost. We feel we were handed off because we were having a smaller Sunday wedding small potatoes. The best news is that Miss Nicole totally saved the day.

She was in touch with us immediately and put two in-person planning meetings on the calendar when she knew we would be in town visiting. She did an awesome job of making sure all the small details were perfect. She even helped us get a custom cake flavor that was not on the tasting menu. (Even though Rick told us he would research it when we saw him at the harvest tasting, where we saw him drinking alcohol.)

We submitted our guest count two days before our contracted deadline, and when I asked to add our vendor meals the day before the final count was due, Rick wrote us saying that it was too late to add them. He suggested we call Jason s Deli to deliver food for them. We honestly thought he was kidding he wasn t. Luckily, the chef was able to add to our food order to accommodate the extra meals.

All things said and done, our day was amazing. We are still getting compliments on the gorgeous venue and the food. Nicole seriously worked her butt off to make sure everything was perfect. She kept the evening running smoothly, and made sure we were comfortable from the second we arrived until right before the send off. THANK YOU, NICOLE!!!

If you book an event at Barr, be extremely proactive about communication. Ensure that your deposits and payments are made on time. Double check the costs and payment due dates on your paperwork before you sign anything (our original contract said the final payment was due in April 2012 they meant to put 2013). Also, one of the restrooms was out of order on our day, so if you're ordering flowers for the bathrooms, confirm they are all working before you splurge! Based on our experience, you will likely be the one to confirm details, receipt of paperwork, deposits and payments.