Camellia Gardens

My son's engagement party was recently held here. The venue is lovely and the bride to be said everything was "perfect." The event was held in the barn and parking was nearby. Outdoor games were allowed.

Marilyn and Mitch of Camellia Gardens should absolutely be ashamed of themselves. 2 weeks prior to our wedding, they called us and made us drive over an hour to meet with them and told us we need to cut our list of 150 guests (which was just fine less than 12 hours ago at our final meeting) to 75 guests. Mitch looked at my wife and I and stated verbatim, "People don't really like weddings anyway. There's been plenty of times where I've been on my way to a wedding and decided I don't want to go, so I just turn around." How could the owner of a WEDDING venue say a thing like that? Especially to the party that has paid in full to have the wedding there? Marilyn and Mitch both stated the reason for them making changes (again 2 weeks prior to our wedding) is due to COVID. We completely understood their concerns and agreed to have our guests sign waivers and maintain a safe distance between each other due to it being an all outdoor wedding. Marilyn and Mitch both stated that wasn't good enough and wanted us to change our seating groups AGAIN in order to accommodate for 23 guests per group and they were not allowed to interact in between groups for the entirety of the wedding. As over 50% of our guests were coming out of state, we didn't know how we were going to split them up into groups of 23, let alone uninvite many key family members to our own wedding 2 weeks prior. Speaking to Marilyn on the phone, I had told her that it being 2 weeks away from the wedding, hotels and flights have already been booked for our family members and many of our family members cannot get refunds this close to the date. Fast forward to 9 days before the wedding, Marilyn and Mitch made another important change; no father/daughter dances, cocktail hour, lawn games, or dancing of any kind would be allowed at our wedding. Failure to follow any of their new guidelines would result in Mitch "calling his good friend and Republican Sheriff to come arrest anyone not abiding by their rules." I again called Marilyn and stated that if any of these concerns had been brought up at our final walkthrough in May (My wedding was originally in June but had been moved to August), we would have made the appropriate changes to allow us to have our wedding at Camellia Gardens. During our final walkthrough in May, NC was in the Phase 1 stage of COVID and we had agreed on having the wedding as planned. 9 days before the wedding, we had to call Marilyn and beg her to try to meet halfway with some of our wedding planning as only having half our guests in attendance, no father/daughter dances, cocktail hour, lawn games for reception, and no dancing. Marilyn talked to me as if I was a child and refused to try to come up with any further solutions. I informed her that it being a little over a week away, I would have to think of a possible change of venue and asked if there would be any refund. I understand not refunding the $500.00 deposit, but to refuse ANY refund at all despite their breach of contract in all of the amenities they offer, is absolutely disgraceful. With 9 days before our wedding, all of our invites, save the dates, alcohol ordered, customized with our date on it items such as ring bearer box, vow books, and other misc. items, the flowers ordered, hotels booked, flights booked, honeymoon flights and hotel booked, linens rented, and caterer food ordered, we had no choice but to find another venue and pay for it IN FULL just 8 days from our wedding date. During the first meeting 2 weeks out from our wedding, our wedding coordinator called Marilyn and Mitch on our behalf as we were distraught to try to discuss changes and Marilyn and Mitch were extremely rude and stated, "If they have a problem with it, they can call us to talk about it." After the last phone call with them 8 days prior to the wedding, Marilyn and Mitch then tried calling our wedding coordinator to discuss their CLIENT'S changes and never once tried to reach out to us. During this experience, it is abundantly clear that Marilyn and Mitch of Camellia Gardens are strictly in this business for the money and not actually in their client's best interests in having the best day imaginable. After switching to a new venue, I even had a vast majority of my vendors explain to me how happy they were not to have to work with Camellia Gardens and if they had been booked prior to us finding the venue, they would have told us to stray away from Camellia Gardens. To sum things up, Marilyn and Mitch Eudy of Camellia Gardens are a disgrace to the wedding industry. I highly suggest to anyone reading this that they find a more suitable venue who actually cares about their client's best day imaginable. (Tipsy Goat Estate in Rock Hill, SC is a phenomenal venue who went above and beyond to make our day perfect with just a week away from our wedding. I couldn't recommend them more.)