Adarsh and Zaheeras terrible wedding experience. Wedding 23 September 2018

My Name is Adarsh Mandan and I recently used Avianto for my wedding.

Avianto is a beautiful wedding venue and it would have been an amazing event which if not for the bad service experienced from Avianto's management, it would have been all we hoped for.

The root of our problems stemmed from bad communication and treatment from Aviantos management and event co-ordinators. The events that fuel this bad review are as follows:

We initially booked (and made a deposit to confirm our booking) of the ballroom. Early last year around mid May - July 2017. Avianto's management subsequently called us to inform us we could no longer have the venue as they had made a decision to convert the section under the ballroom into a restaurant around August - September 2018 and could not guarantee they would be finished nor would all of the construction mess be cleaned up by that time. We were obviously ticked off by this and they had already confirmed the venue for us and we had our hearts set for the canapés to be served outside on the balcony. Gerryt, the manager at Avianto, to make up for their error gave us drapping at their cost and allowed us to use the area before the conference building as the canapé section (this is became a problem later on). This we accepted reluctantly as the area before the conference section is a common area and wedding parties do not normally get exclusivity to this section and because we are the only wedding on the day (read down) there should be no issue with this.

Two weeks before the wedding, we had one of our final meetings with Enes (Event co-ordinator) and we were casually told we may have a problem with serving our canapés in front of the Conference area. We were obviously taken aback as we have had many meetings, both physical and telephonic, where we discussed and agreed our canapé area and had already, at additional costs, organised décor for this area. We then took this up with Gerryt, who was very rude initially to my wife and told her bluntly she has no proof of this.

We also had found out, only after being suspicious that in September weddings were still happening in the ballroom venue, that they had in Early 2018, allowed another wedding party to book this venue and the reason Gerryt did not want us to use the canapé area was due to him not being able to promise us exclusivity on the day to this area. 1) Why had they not informed us that we may now book the venue as plans had changed and why did they allow another wedding party to book this venue? 2) The reason they gave for us not being able to use the canapé area was due to their negligence as we were always under the impression we were the only wedding party on site (up until two weeks before our wedding) and this issue didn't arise anytime before then (I.e early 2018 - till one of our final meetings).

This became a huge fight and we only got to a resolution when we threatened legal action as well as requested to speak to the Avianto owners. Gerryt did not want us to talk to the owners and said he will deal with this as well as promised us he would ensure that there were no clashes between our weddings. This did not happen. Gerryt was nowhere to be seen on the day, did not call once and there was a small clash as we could see many of the other wedding party guests on the hill above our canapé area (about 100 - 300 meters away).

Other bad customer service experiences 1) Our Co-ordinator was not actively involved on the day and did not liaise frequently with other suppliers. Our décor lady acted more as a co-ordinator on the day 2) Gerryt as mentioned above was nowhere to be seen 3) Our décor person had to help sweep the area outside our venue as it was dirty 4) They did not organise enough glasses and cutlery for our wedding, what was used outside for our canapés was quickly washed and placed minutes before our table seating. 5) Our décor lady had to assist with laying out our carpet (which was the job of avianto staff) for our walkin. 6) They had wet our wedding area, after special requests to keep this area dry as possible. Was quite muddy and dirtied my wifes wedding gown. 7) We had ordered platters on the day while we got dressed as our schedule was busy and wanted to eat something small before, the platters were delivered to the wrong rooms. 8) Our décor lady had to check every table to ensure that clean napkins and table cloths were provided to us, Avianto staff were laying dirty table cloths and napkins on the tables (all this minutes before our venue)

All of this contributed to a terrible customer service experienced. We paid close approximately R80 000 for this venue (excluding the amount they made on the bar and all the rooms we booked). For this price you would expect a great customer experience and it wasn't.

I surely hope the owners (not the managers who clearly promise the world and don't deliver give us a call and apologise for this). Wouldn't want another wedding couple to experience this terrible service