This is an email I sent to the General Manager of Mississippi Dunes. I have also put in several phone calls, and have yet to hear back from him.

I had some concerns that I wanted to bring to your attention. I forwarded one of Susan's emails to you. During our detailing, Susan (the banquet manager) said she would conduct our rehearsal the day of the wedding. She also said she would cue our bridal party and the DJ during the ceremony & grand entrance to make sure all went smoothly. When she called me to say she was leaving, she said someone would take her place in these tasks and not to worry about a thing. My biggest mistake in the entire planning process was taking her word on this. Our ceremony had a big gap in it because one of our bridal party sets didn't know to go. I ended up directing everyone, and it really took away the enjoyment of the moment for me. If I had known that you were no longer going to cover these tasks, I would have planned ahead. By the time our grand entrance rolled around, I was able to ask a cousin of mine not in the wedding to cue us in. She would have been happy to help with our rehearsal and ceremony had we known we were no longer going to be provided a planner.

I was also very disappointed that no one was directing guests down to our ceremony area, which both Chris and Susan promised us there would be, and that they would have a golf cart running for the elderly. Susan said we would do pictures until 3:30, then she would "tuck us away" inside, so the guests wouldn't see us until the ceremony. At that time, we were supposed to run through a short rehearsal, and I would finish setting up any last things in the room. Instead, guests started coming in, taking their seating cards, finding their tables, and hugging me hello in the middle of the rehearsal I was trying to conduct. It wasn't their fault, and I was put in a position where I had to ask them to leave and go down to the ceremony area, which I could tell made a few of them worry they'd done something wrong. Again, if you guys didn't promise this, I would have put somebody on it. You really left us hanging in a big way.

I would strongly suggest having someone who is actually going to be at your future weddings call and go over the details with your brides, because the wording of this email suggests it was sent to multiple brides:

"For those doing ceremonies, I am your wedding coordinator. I do your rehearsal with you and the day of. I am with you from beginning to end in the process of planning." ~Susan

We ordered Jack Daniels Chicken, and we got chicken with some sort of cream of mushroom sauce on it. I didn't hear any complaints about it, but I printed up menu cards telling guests it would be Jack Daniels Chicken. My in-laws are the ones who came to the tasting and really liked the Jack Daniels. They wanted to know what the point of having them come all the way out to Cottage Grove for a tasting was if you weren't even going to serve what they picked.

Lastly, I had some confusion with the open bar. Chris told me he would send a bill for the bar after it was rang up. Susan insisted I pay before hand and settle up later - which was fine, but conflicting. Either way, the point of the open bar was so that my guests wouldn't have to open their wallets at the event I invited them to. My husband and I both were extremely disappointed that the bar tender put out a tip jar. This is the part that is most disappointing for my husband. He was willing to give him cash at the end of the night for a job well done on top of the 18% gratuity we were already paying on the bar tab - we just didn't want our guests to have to pay for anything.