The Homestead has been a dream wedding venue for my husband and I since before we even met each other. The grounds are beautiful and you cannot pick a more beautiful setting for a ...ceremony and reception in Northern Michigan. Having on site lodging and catering makes for seamless planning. However, our good luck stopped there.
We planned and coordinated our wedding details, timeline, and catering with Lynzie. She was very helpful and patient as we exchanged hundreds of emails over the course of a year and a half. However, The Homestead assigned a different coordinator for our day of needs, and Lynzie was not responsible for anything on our actual wedding day. I had heard great things about their experienced coordinator, Barb, who was assigned to our wedding day. I had sent pictures and written descriptions of our wedding layout and décor. When I arrived the navy overlays I provided were misplaced, tables were set incorrectly and some were out of place. Barb even told me I had not provided enough table covers and that my instructions were unclear (2 things you don’t tell a bride on her wedding day…) With guests outside enjoying cocktail hour, there was not much time to rectify her mistake. She and the team placed half of the table clothes correctly and the night went on.
The food was great; however they had changed the fish recipe without warning and we were served a fish we had not approved as a meal option.
When we went to clean up the next day, we had to call the staff to meet us. A third coordinator, whom we had never met, arrived very late and was unmotivated and generally unpleasant to work with. My parents and I packed everything ourselves with no help from The Homestead staff. The Homestead never returned our escort card holders, our cake topper, or our guest book (my parents had to return to the site and get the cake themselves, and the guestbook was later mailed to us after leaving a voicemail with the staff whom never returned our calls, the escort card holders were never returned and presumably thrown away)
Last but not least, they’re lodging department could use a class on customer service. First and foremost, be warned that their check in time is 4pm, no exceptions. If you ask, they will suggest you either book your room for the night before or get ready in their public locker room (even if you are the mother of the groom). Our first issue came when we were promised that my 93-year-old grandmother would be in the room next to her daughter, this was even confirmed twice throughout the year. Upon check in my grandmother was not next to her daughter, in fact they were in completely different buildings. There was no compromise or attempt to rectify this. Secondly a guest was placed in a room with a faulty key. Instead of moving this guest, she was asked to call housekeeping anytime she wanted to enter her room, including past midnight following our wedding reception. Again, there was no compromise or attempt to rectify this situation for our guest.
This property has been capitalizing on its location for years. I had heard rumors of its service degrading over the years, and unfortunately it is all true. You’ve been warned.