"We contacted the Saw Grinders Union to host our wedding reception, but both the service and communication were absolutely awful. When we first spoke to and contacted SGU (this was initially in person and then via email to follow up) we enquired about hiring the whole venue, this was confirmed via email in October 2024 (image attached) and the deposit was paid for the price quoted to us by the manager we spoke to. It wasn 't until we visited in March 2025 to refresh our memory on the venue for decorations that we spoke to another manager, who happened to mention that the booking was for just one room, the snug room with the large sofa in. They had also changed catering provider and food menu during this time, but didn 't think to tell us. To his credit he manager we spoke to in person in March (I 'm very sorry we didn 't make a note of your name) did offer to provide the originally agreed food menu, he was also very apologetic and promised they would try to make this up to us by offering multiple things for free and even trying to move the booking in the other half of the venue if they could, but the email we received following up after (which very clearly wasn 't from the manager we had just spoken to) was very abrupt and didn 't take any ownership for the confusion, nor even apologise for their mistake. The booking was for 50 people, there 's no way that 50 people would have comfortably fit in just the snug/workshop room and a portion of the courtyard while also having space for tables and seats, a space to serve food, and a dj along with somewhere to dance. The offer of someone to serve drinks in our half also begs the question of what we would have done otherwise, was the original plan for everyone at our event to order drinks at the main bar and interrupt the other booking walking across each time? The same goes for using the toilet, there only seems to be one toilet section so you 're going to have people from another booking coming across to use it. The venue itself does look lovely, and the food we tried was very nice I have to say, but the incredibly poor communication between managers and to us was just ss so so bad, and we even had to chase up our refund multiple times which took nearly two months. We asked for the refund on the 19th March, you told us it would be received on the 21st April but this date was missed with your response stating it had been mixed up with another payment There was another refund request with two different dates, which we mixed up apologies for this. The refund was finally received on Sunday, the 11th May at just after midnight, less than a month before we got married and needed to pay for another venue. Fortunately we found another venue and had a lovely time, but not to receive a single apology from SGU about the mistake with our booking, and to also have to chase up our refund multiple times was not what we needed at such a stressful time, which they created for us. Food: 4 Service: 1 Atmosphere: 1"
