The venue is enchanting and perfect for a small wedding. Unfortunately, venue management is rude, dishonest, and very difficult to work with. Table Catering Co. has an exclusive catering contract and manages the Almquist venue. As long as Brooke and the Table team are managing Almquist, I would NEVER recommend it.
It was clear early on that the venue’s mismanagement was going to be an issue, but we loved the Almquist Winery so much that we decided to do everything in our power to make it work. We hired one of Almquist’s “preferred” wedding planners in the hopes that they would have a positive working relationship. Unfortunately, as time went on our wedding planners repeatedly told us that Table’s administrative practices were “horrendous” and “unacceptable”. Eventually it got so bad that our planners (their PREFERRED planners) said they “were severing all future ties”.
Table did so many rude and unprofessional things that I can’t name them all and stay in the character limits for this review. They didn’t show up for scheduled meetings and tastings. They sent us invoices with an illegal additional 2.2% tax charge (King County tax rate is 10.25%. They tried to charge us 12.44%). After months of reaching out and working together (and Jenny confirming our date), they made us change the date of our wedding because they didn’t want to book a Saturday for less than 80 people. After several rounds of invoicing from Jenny, Brooke added an additional $1,200 to our venue costs. Worst of all, a mere 20 days before our wedding, Brooke refused to honor our executed contract and tacked on an additional $1,000+. When we asked them to honor their written estimates and contracts along the way, their response was, essentially, if you don’t want to pay the higher price then cancel your wedding because another bride will pay us more. As our wedding date got closer and they kept finding new charges to add to our invoices and signed contracts we felt extorted. We had to either pay their extra fees or cancel our wedding at the last minute.
In total we paid $11,718.59 to Almquist/Table for a 30 person wedding on a Sunday evening. This broke down as follows: $400 for a 3 person tasting; $2,325.00 for 3 food stations and 3 Hors d'Oeuvres; $1,670 for service staff (1 bartender, 2 servers, and 3 chefs); $3,300 for the event space (greenhouse and restaurant); $250 for a cleaning fee; $870 in bar charges; $1,052.29 in taxes; and $1,851.30 in mandatory administrative fees. The mandatory administrative fees are described in the contract as “Admin fee includes all gratuity and service charges”. Despite paying over $3,500 in wages and mandatory gratuities for 5 service staff, on the day of our wedding we received terrible service and the staff actively solicited additional tips from our guests. The bartender went so far as to put a tip jar front and center on the counter and place a $20 bill slung over the side to encourage our guests to tip more. It was incredibly tacky.