Distillery Events

All in all we ended up having a decent wedding with Distillery Events, but I still don't know if I would fully recommend them. As stated in my original review of them (pre-wedding) they were terrible with communication leading up to the event. Our coordinator also left during our engagement, and did a terrible job handing our file over to the new coordinator, so a lot of the things we thought we were finished planning had to be done again. On the day of the wedding the venue was more or less okay. I have two small complaints, one of which being that we asked our day-of coordinator through the venue to extend our cocktail hour by 15 minutes so that we might actually have time to enjoy it after we got back from our photos which they declined to do. Instead they announced 15 minutes BEFORE the end of cocktail hour that everyone had to go inside now, and were shocked when all of my guests were inside within 5 minutes. This resulted in my new husband and I returning from photos to have zero time to mingle with our guests. They then kept us standing outside the doors alone for 15 mintues while they got everyone seated and confirmed orders and stuff. It was very heartbreaking, and ruined our chance at speaking with our grandparents, as they left right after dinner. My other complaint is that instead of gently letting people know that it was close to 1:45 and we should start packing up (we had very little decor to begin with and our moms had it packed up already) they just turned all of the lights on with no warning as if to say "Okay, now GET OUT.". It was a brutal way to end, and left us with a bad taste in our mouths. Now, here is the original review I left for Distillery Events, and the real reason I don't feel right leaving them more than 3 stars. This review was left 3-ish months before our wedding: "Our wedding is happening in the Distillery District in less than three months, and there entire events crew is completely unreachable. We have emailed them multiple times, and left multiple voicemails, and yet no one has gotten back to us in OVER A MONTH. We are now panicking that they somehow messed up and double-booked or something, and then instead of facing us head-on they are just ignoring us and hoping the problem disappears? We have like $9500 down with the venue, but still haven't done a tasting (can't send invites if we don't know the menu options yet), we haven't had a meeting to go for a walk through or anything, and we are in full blown panic mode. DO NOT BOOK HERE, THEY TAKE YOUR MONEY AND THEN GHOST YOU.

My experience with Distillery Events was HORRIBLE. My fiancé and I reached out to their team to inquire about one of their venues 14 months in advance of our desired wedding date. The first few responses we received from their Sales Assistant, Riane, took around 3 business days. After receiving all the pertinent information we were told that if we would like to place a hold on our desired date, a site tour would need to be conducted. I confirmed twice that we were very interested in booking a tour at their earliest convivence and that is when they "ghosted" us. After not hearing back from Riane for 3 business days, I sent a follow up email and I also called the venue directly. I was told I needed to go through sales and got transferred to Riane's personal line. I left a voicemail explaining that were were touring several venues in the upcoming weeks and would like to know the timeline of when a site tour could be arranged. That was on June 23, 2022. Today, July 21, 2022, I received an email from Riane informing me that our requested date was no longer available. IT TOOK A MONTH FOR HER TO REPLY. Acknowledging my follow up email and voicemail or simply letting us know a timeline to arrange a site tour would have been appreciated. Fortunately, we have found an amazing venue for our wedding that matches the level of communication and professionalism any couple would want for such an important event. We were also considering another venue in the distillery for our Jack and Jill but after this experience we will not be moving forward with that plan or recommending Distillery Events to any friends or family. Would give 0 stars if possible.

We were planning to have our wedding here and we're booking as early as 13 months in advance but they kept passing us around. Riane took several days to reply. It took them a week to reply after we demanded speedy response and when they did reply, they asked for another week. When they confirmed that the date we wanted was available, they again said that they cannot accommodate us or finalize the reservation. We were very much willing to pay already but they're taking forever. It's like they don't want our business so we're booking somewhere else. Nice spaces but really difficult people to work with, not ideal for when you're putting a wedding together.

My wife and I planned to have our wedding at Archeo. We paid our deposit in March 2020 for an event in July 2021. The pandemic happened. Distillery Events was not able to host the event we had initially planned and offered to convert our deposit to a limited-timeframe-use credit. We still wanted to get married in 2021 and ended up having our wedding elsewhere. We reached back out to the company in January of this year. We didn’t hear anything for 10 days. We sent a follow-up email and a rep got back to us. We set up a call. On the call the rep suggested we use our deposit to "have a brunch with friends." For us, an event where $5000 is the deposit makes sense fairly rarely. For a wedding? Sure. That’s a once-in-a-lifetime event. Suggesting we have a $5000 “brunch with friends” felt out of touch with reality. For many people, us included, a lot changed during the pandemic. We weren’t living in Toronto anymore, nor were the majority of the friends that we’d invite to this hypothetical (extremely expensive) brunch. We brought up the possibility of converting the credit into gift cards for the restaurants Distillery Events is associated with. The rep was optimistic about this on the phone. The rep followed up with us via email four days after the call. She flatly stated “we can’t do that” in regards to the gift card idea and repeated the suggestion that we host a $5000 brunch. We reiterated what we'd said over the phone about that not making sense. A full week later she replied saying we can keep our credit open for an event “down the line” but that “if we don’t host an event our deposit is forfeit.” This was not ideal, but with no other option, we asked about hosting an event later in the year. We did not get a reply. We reached out several times over a period of four months. Nothing. Eventually, I sent an email CC’ing everyone who I had contact info for from the company. This resulted in a reply from the Events Director. It turned out that the rep we had been speaking with had left the company, and Distillery Events failed to transfer this employees clients to a new rep or inform them this employee was no longer with the company. The Event Director deferred us to a new rep, who thought we were new clients, not existing clients with a deposit made over two years ago. It was frustrating that the Event Director had not filled her in. We set up a call with this new rep and caught her up. She referred us back to the Event Director. We have made several emails and calls to both the rep and the Event Director over the last few weeks and have heard nothing. We’re being ignored. We’ve been led to believe we have options we don’t, we’re continually being ignored for weeks or months at a time. They have not offered to return our, nor have they given us the opportunity to plan an event with the company. UPDATE: With no other options, we went to Toronto to try and resolve this in person. There were two people at Distillery Event's reception desk. We asked about speaking with our rep, who's email signature says she's in the office weekdays 9-5. We were asked if we had an appointment. We said we'd been trying to make one for weeks via both phone and email. There was an office phone sitting on the desk. Apparently it is ignored. The receptionist said our rep was not in today. We asked why, given her email says she should be. The other receptionist did not look up from her cellphone during this entire conversation. We went to the main desk for the Distillery District as a whole, and met the first person to actually listen to us. The Office Manager put us in contact with the VP of the Distillery District, who we met with and explained our story to. He was shocked by the mismanagement happening at Distillery Events and said that that there would be further discussions with the events team. Mindblowing that we had to take things to VP of Distillery Events parent company to actually talk to someone. A huge thank you to the Office Manager and VP of Distillery District for not ignoring us and resolving things.

From the event coordinator to the food and the service, everyone was so helpful and patient. The venue was also stunning and a hit all around!