We booked Carmen's for our ceremony and reception and were so happy we did! They were within the budget we were looking for and they included so much more than we expected! The food, an open bar, the cake, the DJ, the hotel honeymoon suite for the night of the wedding, decorations, centerpieces.. I barely had to life a finger! (In fact I didn't lift a finger the day of the wedding!)
We met with Hector in 2021 just after getting engaged and he was very pleasant to work with. He gave us a tour of the venue space and on overview of all the packages and what they would include. We were lucky to visit on a day they were setting up a wedding so we got a sense of what it would look like for our day and it was beautiful.
We booked our wedding date for two years later so we really didn't have much to communicate the first year. Throughout the year leading up to our wedding we were in touch with Taylor and she was lovely. She answered every question we had and worked with us to create our vision. They were very professional through the entire planning process.
The day of the ceremony began right at the start time and in hindsight I should have asked that they give the guests a five minute window to trickle in as some people were still entering the hall when I was about to walk down the aisle, no big deal.
They quickly disassembled the ceremony space and opened up the reception area fairly quickly for the guests to enter. The DJ played all the music we requested, and we opted for the upgraded lighting system which was definitely worth it. (It allowed us to have a spotlight for our dances and it had moving lights around the room to at to the ambience).
The food was amazing. There was so much I couldn't even eat everything I wanted to!
The staff always checked in with us to make sure we had everything we needed and got us drinks from the bar so we didn't have to leave the head table too much during dinner.
Our coordinator Faye kept checking in on us as well to ensure everything was running smoothly and to keep our speeches running smooth and on time.
The cake was gorgeous and delicious! We didn't get to eat a full piece, just the small bit we fed each other but we have the top tier frozen and waiting for us to enjoy at our one year anniversary!
They provided a late night buffet which was a hit! They provided pizza, BBQ sliders, and poutine!
The bar staff was extremely friendly as well.
It was really a fantastic experience and I would recommend Carmen's to anyone getting married in Hamilton!

The staff at Carmen's from start to finish of our entire wedding process were so wonderful to us. We got married on our dream day in September of 2023 and every request was very easily accommodated. The food was delicious, and especially so for our guests with dietary restrictions. The venue is so charming and stunning and Carmen's just KNOWS weddings. Cannot recommend their services enough for your big day, as the photogenic venue, the acoustics, the outdoor ceremony terrace, the wonderful staff all contributed to making our perfect day possible. You won't regret hiring Carmen's!

Our experience with Carmen’s was phenomenal, Dominika was absolutely the best! She was there until the last minute and never rushed us, even when our florist left without finishing up our cake , Dominika went and did the cake herself to ensure we had everything we dreamed of, talk about going above and beyond!

I will absolutely recommend Carmen’s to all my friends that are or will become engaged!

Thank you Carmen’s for hosting such a beautiful day!

I had an amazing day! Carmens went above and beyond for us!! Very attentive, the maître d was absolutely amazing!! The servers were Soo nice and made sure we were well taken care of! All my guest would not stop talking about how much fun they had and of course they loved the bar! Our signature drink was the highlight of the night! If you are looking for a place to get married and almost everything included , the best people .. Carmens is the place to go! Thank you for an amazing night!

First I’d like to talk about the good…the food, cake, waitstaff were all were great! The venue is beautiful and the wedding packages are excellent. Miko, our Maitre’D was amazing. He was accommodating and attentive. He made us feel welcomed and comfortable. Really, a special thanks to those listed above they made the event what it was along with our external vendors. If it was based on these elements alone I would give a higher rating. They deserve 5 stars.

We do thank the set up team , the following is just a reflection of management and who ever is actually in charge. (We actually have no idea who is we weren’t able to get their information.)

The bad…up until the last week before the wedding (which would be the most important week) everything was fine.

But then things got sour. The coordinator Taylor gave us an unnecessarily hard time with a fairly simple change that in the end we got done ourselves on the day of the wedding. The worst part is she did not even TRY to solve the issue we had.

We just needed 4 tables to be switched around. We had forgot to make this change earlier due to all that we had going on (wedding and closing on our home at the exact same time) We were more than willing to pay the fee for last minute changes because we understood we were past the deadline and it wasn’t like we were adding a whole new table or something crazy.

Apparently, it was too much work for her to execute. Taylor made it seem like it was a huge task that could not be done and complained that it needed to be re-set and kept saying she could not assist. My husband asked to get in contact with upper management multiple times to get the issue resolved because we really needed it done but she never gave us that info. Note: he had to go back and forth with her through email to even allow us to get it done ourselves. He told her he would willing do it himself if it had to be done since her and her team could not assist.

It’s ridiculous that this could not have been resolved 3 days prior. We weren’t asking for the change to be done the day of the wedding. We couldn’t understand why it couldn’t be done because to our knowledge there was going to be a room flip anyway as the ceremony and reception was suppose to be in the same room. But lo and behold, it was not communicated to us that the ceremony would be in a completely different room until we mentioned the had the issue of needing tables moved.

On the day of the wedding my husband, best man and a couple my cousins ended up switching the four tables around in 5 minutes. By lifting the tables and switching them without disturbing the place setting. Easily.

The day of the wedding Taylor did not greet us, see how we were doing or even congratulate us (after working with her for 4 months I just think that was was strange? Maybe that’s just me)

Also, there seemed to be zero communication between staff from the decor drop off day and wedding day staff. We still had a couple of things to bring back on the day of the wedding (Friday) because we did not receive everything on time for decor drop off (Monday). I’m not sure how a lot of things were missed as the staff member on decor drop off day wrote down 2 pages of instruction notes.

Day of wedding a staff member was under stress and venting to my brother and cousin when they came by to drop of the rest of our items and told them that they were dropping things into her lap last minute. It was unprofessional because it’s not our issue that staff is not communicating properly as it was always planned that decor items were going to be dropped off the day of the wedding. It was a little chaotic, decor items were not put in the correct spot, led candles were not turned on, among other things. When coming down for the ceremony I turned on a neon light we had set up myself because it was not done.

We wanted to enjoy the cocktail hour but found it hard to do so as these errors were annoying to correct and deal with when we arrived. It’s bad when the venue creates the stress on your day instead of relieving you of it.

During cocktail hour lines were very long for drinks.
I don’t believe 1 bartender was sufficient for 140 guests and not enough passed hor d’oeuvres.

There were a lot of other issues and I can’t pin point everything but just wanted to get the main points out. And I’m aware that not everything is going to go perfect but some of it was a mess. And some of the team need to find better ways to communicate and execute.

I never leave negative reviews and don’t let a lot of things bother me but when you’re spending THOUSANDS of dollars it’s unacceptable.

These things did not completely ruin our wedding, but there are definitely improvements to be made. I just wish we had a better experience.

Our wedding was amazing with the help of Brian he's an amazing person he made sure we were happy and delivered everything we asked for, and made sure our day went well. It was magical. Service was very good, food was amazing.

My husband and I got married at Carmen's on October 14th and we could not have been more pleased with them! I was blown away when I found out almost everything was included - decor (although I upgraded to some premium options cause I'm extra lol), cake, DJ, food, our night of suite, bar (8 hours and open during dinner too!) and so much more! Carmen's helped to ease a lot of our stress as everything was kind of all in one place, not to mention the venue is stunning! I had a few coordinators over the time I was dealing with Carmen's (we had to push due to Covid so the wedding was a 2+ year process to plan) but each and every person I dealt with was kind, patient and so helpful. For the day of I ended up dealing with Pam and she was incredible! Even as the night was ending and she approached me with some things to be done while I was completely inebriated, she was still so patient and helpful. If you are considering Carmen's for your big day, this is your sign to DO IT! Thank you so much to everyone on the Carmen's team for making our day so special ❤️

Carmen's was the first of many wedding venues that we visited the summer of 2020. Its stunning interior, high ceilings, staircases, and gold accents stood out to me and set an extremely high bar for our classic glam wedding. Despite touring several venues from Hamilton to Niagara-on-the-Lake, Carmen's was the one that never left my mind.

Carmen’s is THE one-stop shop for your wedding. They will include almost everything, depending on your package: catering, continuous bar service, transportation, a hotel, DJ services, lighting, decorations, and even your wedding cake. We booked the venue in November 2020 after excellent communication with the Director of Sales at the time, Andi Pojani. Andi was an all-star and was extremely responsive, answered all of our questions in detail, and followed up with us at regular intervals to check in and ask how he could help us. We were devastated when he went on parental leave and even more so when he left Carmen's.

Our menu tasting was hosted in April 2022 by Karen Da Costa and Ashley Walker, which was such a fun experience, and the food was great. However, right after our menu tasting Karen went on maternal leave and replaced by Marian Clark. I reached out to Marian in April (and again in May) and unfortunately a full month went by with no response. I then contacted Miranda Dias, the new Director of Sales, who was very helpful and apologetic. She transferred the care of our wedding to Heather Fontez who helped us to arrange a meeting with our new event coordinator, Dakota Raycraft. For whatever reason, that meeting was cancelled last minute, and we were again transferred to a different event coordinator, Ashley, in June 2022. Around this time, we also received a message from Carmen’s regarding their staffing shortages and personnel changes, along with an apology and hospital credit to use at our wedding. From here, communication improved vastly, and we are beyond thankful to have had Ashley step in to fill the shoes of Andi.

Ashley was kind, accommodating, and extremely hardworking. She was so committed to making sure our wedding day was perfect that it felt like we were working with a friend or family member who wanted all of the same things that we did. Ashley helped us to customize our wedding exactly how we wanted – from the gold-accented décor, pink uplighting, and piano in the lobby, to the custom bar options like Rolling Rock, limoncello, and Irish coffee, to the extraordinary menu items like strawberry cheesecake for dessert and cannoli for our late-night table.

Of course, we also owe much of these accommodations to the incredibly dedicated and hardworking bar and kitchen staff, including Phillip, the bar manager, and John, the head chef. The food was excellent, and guests were raving about the cheesecake in particular. The 3-tiered wedding cake was also incredible. I know that people say not to worry about a wedding cake because nobody eats it, which in many cases might be true, but I was so happy to taste the cake and know that my guests had yet another incredible dessert option. We took the leftovers home and froze them to enjoy with our families later.

On the day of the wedding, Carmen’s set up all of our décor and signage for us so that all we had to do was walk in. It was such a great feeling to know that everything was taken care of, down to the smallest detail. It really was beautiful and such a load off of us as the couple. The reception was fantastic. There was a bit of confusion surrounding the start of the reception where the receiving line wasn’t ready and the guests were held back from the antipasto buffet, as the maître d’ (who we hadn’t met with or spoken to before) wasn’t aware of the receiving line, so she had to hurry and find the liqueurs once we arrived and told her. Otherwise, things went extremely well – our guests continuously commented on the food being excellent and the venue being beautiful.

Our DJ, Matt, also did an excellent job. He cued up our songs perfectly, his transitions were great, and he kept the party going. We’re especially thankful that he played “Celebration” as the first song after our speeches ended (it wasn’t on our song list) as we didn’t have any dance floor invitations in our speech, but it brought everybody to the dance floor! The only thing we were a bit disappointed by was that he didn’t play any slow songs until much later in the night after we asked him to, when a lot of the older guests had gone home. But other than that, we could tell that Matt had a blast doing what he does best, which made it easy for the guests on the dance floor to enjoy themselves too.

Overall, aside from some hiccups with communication, there is not one thing that I would change about my wedding at Carmen’s. The entire process, including the day of, was so smooth and I trusted them completely to bring our vision for a classic glam wedding to life. They delivered – and then some. We have been told by all of our friends that we have set the bar so high for their future weddings. We’re just glad to have been able to host such an incredible evening for our family and friends. Thank you, Carmen’s!!

Last week Carmen's hosted our wedding with 125 guests, to this day I am still hearing from people on how much they enjoyed the food! The food was the main thing that interested me in this venue as I am not from Hamilton but have had 2 prior cancelled covid weddings at other venues.
The food was amazing and there was TONS of it, the bartenders were also wonderful as they were serving drinks that weren't necessarily on the "menu" like blue Hawaiians and different flavored shooters for guests upon request or as a surprise.
I booked the last Saturday available of summer just four months before the actual date. This was quite concerning but looking back it was a very stress less process, they truly do it all for you. Right down to re arranging some of the minimal décor I had in the ceremony into the reception, I didn't ask them to do this but it looked amazing and was such a relief to me as I was stressed I may not have put enough thought/effort into the décor I brought on my own.

If you are looking for a one stop shop, this is the venue for you!

We booked three years ago and they have happily moved our wedding twice due to covid. Great location and staff. Everything is super, they even offered to switch us to the hotel next door with a similar set up when the wedding on the other side of the dividing wall was getting big and our numbers looked small enough to fit and it worked out great.