Beware of Setanta House Hotel, Celbridge

brambley

Our experience with the Setanta House Hotel, Celbridge was awful and I'd like to just warn any brides out there thinking of booking their wedding with them. They are all nice and friendly when you book your wedding, but when life gets in the way, they are not so accommodating (to say the least).

My fiance and I booked the Setanta House Hotel for our wedding this year 2008 in June. We were to invite about 250+ guests and many of them would be travelling quite far so would book the majority of the rooms in the hotel. Unfortunately however, last November 2007, I was diagnosed with a serious type of cancer and was admitted to hospital for months. The hospital advised us to cancel our wedding which was so upsetting, but was unavoidable. We gave the hotel, Setanta House, over 6 months notice. When my fiance called to the hotel with the news, he was met with a cold response. The wedding co-ordinator (who was all accommodating and friendly when we had our large wedding of 250 guests booked) was extremely rude and annoyed that we were cancelling (obviously not under our control) and didn't even ask my fiance how I was doing - I had just been diagnosed with a life threatening disease! So much for sympathy or professionalism. Anyway, when my fiance phoned back at a later date to ask if it was possible to get our deposit of 1000euro back, the wedding co-ordinator avoided his calls. He tried for weeks, but was never once directed to a member of management (although he asked every time). It was a disgrace and was not something he needed when we were going through this nightmare. He knew they were not legally obliged to give it back but he at least wanted to talk to her. In the end, a friend of mine in the media, who was extremely upset by our predicament, contacted the hotel and we were finally given back our deposit (it was left at reception, the wedding co-ordinator didn't even come out to meet my fiance). Under the circumstances it was the least a hotel could do. If they had any ounce of professionalism, the hotel could have offered to keep the deposit and hold our wedding at a later date when I would hopefully be well enough to do so. But they didn't even offer.

I have since been discharged from hospital, but will be on chemotherapy for another 2 years. I have asked the doctors if we could book our wedding again and have since booked another venue for 2009 (far away from Setanta House Hotel) which we are delighted about. This new hotel will be getting at least 20,000euro of our business and I'm delighted. We have a wedding co-ordinator who actually phones us to see how I'm doing and shows some sort of human emotion.

All the best

smelltheglove

I'm sorry to hear your bad news and I hope that you overcome this soon.

Best of luck with all your wedding plans in the future.