Couples' reviews

We held our wedding at Bendooley Estate, and our experience was unfortunately marked by two serious issues that any couple considering this venue should be aware of. During the food tasting before our wedding, we discovered live crawling maggots in the beef dish. The meal was being served indoors in the estate’s Vine Room, yet staff insisted the maggots could not have come from their kitchen and suggested that the live maggots had been dropped by flies in the dining area. We found this deeply disturbing and it was a very stressful experience as we had lost trust in the venue and had to seriously consider changing wedding venue. As it was only a few months before the wedding and family had already arranged flights and accommodation, we decided to not make the drastic decision of changing venue. In our view the incident was handled poorly, with initially a focus on making excuses for why it had happened (e.g. suggesting that guests had left the doors open). We were also surprised to still be charged for this meal. On the wedding day itself, the venue’s audio system failed during the ceremony. Initially, there was an issue with the microphone echoing. This delayed the ceremony significantly, leaving my guests confused as to what was going on. Around 5-10 minutes before the ceremony was due to begin, staff informed me that the cord for playing music from the PA device was faulty and would only work if held in a precise position. My friend who I had asked to play the music did her best but when the time came my wife walked down the aisle to mostly silence with some intermittent music playing for less than a second at a time. It was incredibly distracting at what I think is the most important moment of the entire day. After raising both of these problems, I found Bendooley's Estate communications to be minimising, describing these issues as "hiccups".

H C.

Supplier: Bendooley Estate

Wedding Venues