From the Forum – Tabard Inn Wedding Woes

Photo by PoPville flickr user Joe in DC

Tabard Inn Wedding Woes:

“I recently had the most horrible experience at the Tabard Inn and wanted to share in case this helps anyone who is deliberating whether or not to use them for an inexpensive wedding.

My fiance and I originally agreed on the Tabard Inn as one of the more affordable places to celebrate our wedding in DC. Boy, did we chose poorly. The Tabard Inn has gone through 3 Special Events Coordinators since February 2014. Each time we went in we had to deal with a different, inexperienced person. Earlier this week we met with yet another, new Coordinator to go over room setup, finalize the menu, and arrange a second tasting since the first tasting was horrible.

In the middle of our meeting, the Coordinator begins to engage another couple who just wandered in off the street. After 5 minutes I asked that we get back to our meeting which was scheduled in advance, since we had a lot to do. We left with an appointment set up for 5 pm on Wednesday to finalize everything and have our second tasting.

This is where things head even further south. I received a call at 3 pm from the Tabard Inn for a wine tasting at 530 for 2 people. Wrong on all accounts.

We were able to straighten out the confusion only to arrive at 5 pm and be seated in the far back of the restaurant in the middle of a staff meeting. No one asked why we were there, offered us water or even acknowledged us in general. After waiting for 30 minutes — and watching the staff eat cake and celebrate with each other! — we asked to see a manager who tried to calm us down with a few rounds of drinks.
By this time it was 545. No service. No food.

When we finally got served our tasting menu at around 6 pm it turned out that the vegan option we had ordered wasn’t even vegan! How can a chef of an establishment that offers vegan entrees not even know what vegan is??? Couple all of this with the owner, who was standing right there listening to the entire exchange, refusing to engage with us or do anything to try to rectify the situation.

We ended up demanding our deposit back, breaking our contract and essentially panicking since our wedding is in TWO WEEKS. We now have to find a back-up venue due to the ineptitude of the entire staff at the Tabard Inn.”

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