Reviews for Strathmere
Reviews
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4.8 out of 5 rating
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4.8 out of 5 rating
117 reviews
97% recommend it
Awards
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Featured
![Kristine]()
Kristine F. Sent on 27/02/2023We loved everything about our experience!
From our first tour, taste testing our menu, planing our final details with our coordinator and the amazing & kind staff throughout our big day the experience created at Strathmere really help us to feel special and celebrated!
We loved the country feel with a large and open space created at the Lodge, which allowed us to have a 180 person wedding with all our family and friends!Strathmere's reply:
Hi Kristine,
Thank you so much for the kind words. We were thrilled to be part of your special day and help make it uniquely you (most notably the oyster bar!) We wish you and your husband all the best and hope that you come back soon to visit, we'd love to host you at the Retreat & Spa at Strathmere! -
![Cass]()
Cass Sent on 29/06/2024Elegant and timeless!
I can't say enough good things about our wedding at Strathmere, but I'll try to do them justice in this review!
The location
The lands and the heritage buildings offer a very quaint, romantic and timeless elegance fit for any wedding. When you have a setting as stunning as this, you've automatically elevated the overall feeling and frame for your special day. The grounds are well kept, there are lush fields, beautiful gardens, majestic trees and each building has so much personality. Absolutely wonderful!
The venue (The Farmhouse)
We picked the Farmhouse venue. This is the smallest option at Strathmere, which was perfect for our intimate 42 guest wedding. I personally felt it was also the most romantic and vintage looking building, which really matched the classic and elegant wedding theme we were going for.
The farmhouse has personality, my guests are still raving about all the different areas they could choose to spend time in, from the bar area, to the salons, lounges, outdoor veranda, dining hall, or even outside by a cheery crackling fire with overhead fairy lights. This allowed all of my guests to gather, get to know each other, share beautiful moments, in a very comfortable and elegant setting.
The Rooms (Schoolhouse and Farmhouse)
Every room was perfectly kept, everything was clean and well stocked. We wanted for nothing. Beds and pillows were comfy. Considering we had a June wedding in a heritage building I need to absolutely praise the AC systems that have been put in place! I'm delighted to say I was cold at night and did actually need to curl up right under the blankets, which is preferred on a hot summer night.
I decided to book the Schoolhouse for my bridal party, what a lovely little venue! Very cheery space, and allowed myself and my bridesmaids to get ready on site the morning of the wedding. I don't recommend using this space to get ready if you're more than 7-8 people getting hair and makeup done at this site. This was the size of my group, and it worked well, but if you're a very large group it may be too snug. Just food for thought in your decision making process!
The Food
Absolutely decadent, hearty, healthy Delicious!!! From the hors d'oeuvres, to the actual diner and late night snack bar everything was very fresh, extremely tasty and made with quality ingredients. I already tried to replicate my wedding meal at home, because the menu really was that inspiring! My guests all raved about the quality and freshness of their meals, everyone was very well fed. Great drink selection too, and reasonable pricing in my opinion considering the industry standards.
The Day of Coordinator
Meghan is legendary. It's beyond me how she manages to get everything running so smoothly, but everything went off without a hitch. I never saw her standing still, she worked so very hard on my wedding day. She is an extremely detail oriented, caring, talented and compassionate person. I'm very thankful to have been paired with her, and am very touched that she poured so much effort and energy into my wedding even though she must be doing tons of these every single week. She made me feel very supported and secure on a day that it mattered the most.
Admin
Timely responses all around, very well informed and caring staff every time I contacted them by email or phone.
A very special thank you for having accomodated my request to reschedule my wedding day due to a loss in my immediate family. You have no idea how much it meant to me to have had your support in this. Every thoughtful and compassionate act matters when someone is grieving and I will never forget the kindness Strathmere has shown me.
Thank you to all the service staff as well, who were all extremely agreeable and sweet.
Tldr, just book them they really knock it out of the park!!!
Credits:
Photography by Sophie Fortier
Hair and Makeup by Shannon Doyle -
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![Kaitlin]()
Kaitlin M. Sent on 16/02/2023Hands down the BEST
My husband and I had our Fall reception of 150 people at the Garden House following our ceremony downtown. Everything went so smoothly and our coordinator was very communicative and kept things running smoothly throughout the night. We had a live brand which was key, and they were able to setup without me even noticing. We had an outdoor dance floor with cocktail tables set up outside along with vintage lights and a fire out back. Above all our guests couldn't get over the food! We opted for a buffet and it was better than some of the best restaurants in Ottawa. I recently went back to the Retreat & Spa just so I could eat there again. There is no other place like it, I would HIGHLY recommend. -
![Emily]()
Emily F. Sent on 23/09/2022Very good service, experience and quality of fod
Everyone loved the food and said it was amazing, the rooms upstairs are great for everyone getting ready and staff was amazingly on time and had everyone work together.
The only thing is they forgot about the buquet toss so I never got to do that. -
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![Fiona]()
Fiona F. Sent on 29/10/2021Perfect in every way
Strathmere is breathtaking and we knew once we set our eyes on The Lodge that it was perfect. Beautiful countryside, walking trails and the leaves changing in fall - it was a winner from the start. We have received so many compliments with regards to the venue and the food that we have lost track. Our guests were blown away. Planning a wedding during a pandemic is far from easy. It was a definite roller coaster ride but Strathmere was there every single step of the way - keeping us informed, answering all our questions and easing our nerves. We met with our wedding co-ordinator and then there was a last minute change and poof - Mel appeared. Mel is the most kind, warm and helpful person you'll ever meet who made our wedding day flawless. She answered all our questions with no delay, checked, double checked and triple checked everything so nothing was missed. She was even there the night before helping us set up until close to midnight as well as midnight the day of. There are no words to describe how amazing she is. We would definitely recommend Strathmere and if you get Mel then you are in for a special treat as you should consider yourselves very lucky...as you have the best of the best. -
![Amanda]()
Amanda L. Sent on 18/08/2021Our wedding coordinator made it all worth it
Strathmere is an absolutely beautiful wedding venue. So much so that you don't even need to decorate much as it shines on its own. The food is out of this world, and so fresh as they grow so much of the food themselves.
We booked our wedding in early 2019 for August 2020. Although it was very pricey, it seemed to be worth it and they even wanted to work with us to create a custom vegan menu. After Covid hit, things were quite frustrating. At first, they didn't want to postpone our wedding, even though we knew by the end of March that a wedding would not be happening in 2020. Finally they agreed to postpone our wedding a year. Which was perfect for us. In spring of 2021, when covid was still bad, we asked if we could reduce our guest list because we didn't feel a 100 person wedding was responsible. They continued to push for us to have 100 people until the very last minute when I had to be firm and tell them we need to send out invitations and we are not inviting people at the last minute. Reluctantly, they agreed. Out of all of vendors, strathmere was the least flexible and helpful when it came to planning a wedding during a global pandemic.
Then, we met our wedding coordinator, Mel. Upon meeting her, she was warm and more than willing to ask any questions we had. On our day, she was so incredibly helpful and always asking us to make sure things were going well. Honestly it was like having my own fairy godmother. She was just amazing and we are so blessed to work with her. There were a few bumps along the road but she made it all worth it. Anyone would be lucky to have a wedding coordinator like Mel.
All in all, I would recommend Strathmere. Maybe it will be easier outside of the pandemic! -
![Laura]()
Laura M. Sent on 25/07/2021Incredibly enjoyable experience.
Strathmere was attentive to our needs and provided excellent service. We had a few guests with severe dietary restrictions, and Strathmere was incredibly attentive to their needs.
The ONLY issues I had was providing information. During the COVID era, we found that information wasn’t passed along as efficiently as we would’ve liked. To be fair, we also understand that they were left in the dark themselves from government mandates.
Overall, I would recommend them to anyone getting married. -
![Chelsey]()
Chelsey H. Sent on 11/03/2021Unprofessional disappointing experience
When we first saw the grounds at Strathmere we were impressed. We had a tour and an initial discussion about what we wanted for our wedding which was simple BBQ style buffet foods, bring our own pie instead of wedding cake, and overall a simple wedding on a smaller budget. We were told this is all possible and signed the contract and paid the deposit.
The first issues started cropping up with the menu: we were told we could have a custom menu, but the first draft price well exceeded our budget and what we had said in the initial discussion. We started the discussion by choosing items directly off the a la carte menu we were provided. The menu returned to us had been completely changed, the price raised, and no explanation was sent with it, just a word doc. We sent back a revision with explanations as to why we wanted things changed. We were then referred to the ‘Food Stylist’ directly. She sent another revised menu which still did not meet our changes (which were based on allergies and intolerances - we would only have been able to eat half of the things on there) again with no explanation as to why, and a lower price but still not what we had been told was possible in the beginning. We emailed substituting some menu items within this revision with items from the first menu sent to us and sent it back. We heard no response for a month (granted it was over Christmas time so...). We got a third revised menu and things had been added and changed yet again seemingly randomly and moving farther away from what we wanted in the first place, again with no explanation for the changes. We decided to call as we assumed there was some miscommunication happening. During this call my fiancé and I were referred to by the Food Stylist as ‘the kids’ which I find completely unprofessional as we are most certainly not children and should not have been referred to with such condescension.
We had in the initial discussion mentioned we wanted to have pie instead of the traditional cake for our wedding and were told that it was fine, no problems at all. We had asked in an email for some vendors with a focus on pies and tarts and 2 suggestions with links were sent. When we came to actually planning this we were told that “Strathmere must provide and serve all food and beverages, except the wedding cake and cupcakes”. We emailed expressing our confusion at this, mentioning that we had been told in the initial visit it was fine and that we had been sent suggestions. This was met with Strathmere asking to resend the emails where they said this as they “cannot find it in the system”. Their reason for refusing to allow us to have pies was that they are “very messy and difficult for this type of service”.
We also found it hard to communicate with Strathmere as our questions were answered with vague and generalized answers that did not help very much in the planning of our wedding. Or the emails were not answered at all. We had to resend emails twice asking if they had somehow gotten lost because there was no response for weeks.
Covid became another issue entirely. We were allowed to postpone our wedding with no financial penalty or extras back in March when this all started, however the new date had to be before April 30th 2021 (we had been planning to get married in May). We could not just move it to the same date next year or anything nearer to our date. We did eventually get a May date but it was a struggle. As everyone knows Covid is still very prevalent and as our new wedding date drew nearer we wanted to know Strathmere’s policy concerning Covid. What they sent back was very vague and required a minimum payment of 45 adults no matter what the restrictions were. (So if 10 people were the max allowed at weddings we would still be paying for 45 people total). We received a second communication about Covid a few weeks later which indicated that we could remain with or date or postpone again, HOWEVER this postponement came with additional cost! If it was before December 15 2021 we were to pay an extra deposit of $500, OR we could postpone up to July 31 of 2022 but we would need to pay an extra $1000. This is on top of the large deposit we had already paid to Strathmere originally.
We ultimately decided to cancel our wedding as we did not feel Strathmere’s focus was on safety during Covid and their options for postponement did not feel reasonable to us. When we cancelled we were met with an email that reiterated we could pay the extra money to postpone, mentioned how hard done they were by Covid, and how our cancellation of our wedding meant a significant loss to Strathmere. Their focus was only on their financial loss; there was no mention of our wedding day being lost to us, or any regrets extended at our suffering.
Overall we have been displeased with the service offered from Strathmere. The headaches, stress, and anxiety caused by the lack of communication, the unwillingness to explain or compromise, and the general attitude towards us expressed by Strathmere have left us with nothing but resentment and more grief.
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