I had a wedding reception at Le Montage in early October 2017. Wedding's are the most stressful things to plan in your life, everyone wants their perfect day. This review will highlight the positives and negatives about Le Montage.

Positives:
1. Great Modern Venue by the water
2. Good Food (Minimal Variety)
3. The provided MC (bonus inclusion) was great.

I would like to start with my whole experience of signing a service agreement with Le Montage. I arranged an appointment with their coordinator and was shown the available rooms for the day 6 months prior. Upon looking at the rooms, I told her I would get back to her. A few days later, I sent her an email requesting the paperwork to pay the deposit. There was no response and I cc'd the manager. Unfortunately after making several calls, no paperwork was given and the following week they told me the room that I wanted to get was already booked and paid for. This was ridiculous. Their excuse was that the coordinator only worked once a week. After finally being offered another room upstairs (Alexandra), I finally got a service contract signed. The contract was for $150pp (although packages stated starting from $115pp - which was claimed due to the lower number of adults and Saturday choice).

So with the above story there were 2 major problems:
1. The price was $150pp (excluding GST). This was not expressed to me and is non-ethical to provide prices excluding GST when it is not a business-to-business agreement. Hence, the real price was $165pp (extremely pricey for what was offered). Due to my timeframe, I was forced to hire this.
2. The venue that I was told was booked was not booked. On the day, there was no one else in the venue for Lunch time.

Negatives:
1. Now onto the service issues with the Wedding Coordinators. As talked about previously, I had a coordinator who worked once a week. She quit, and I was given another coordinator. Over the entire course of the period, this coordinator failed to respond and did not provide me with any information (apart from those I forced from her - e.g. what details are required by Le Montage, or any answers to queries I had).
The reception desk was just as useless. I called them on a number of occassions asking for a response from my coordinator and they told me they would tell her to call me back. After this, she either emailed me or did not reply at all. Occassionally, I had to cc. the manager to get a reply. For example, in the last week, I asked for a change in the room layout and provided this. I also had to swap two place cards and I called the venue insisting they get her to call me back as I did not have access to email. Later in the day, I dropped by to swap the placecards and no one was at the reception. The coordinator was luckily there, and I managed to swap the placecards. After getting home, I realised I did not receive either an email or call about confirmation of anything despite asking multiple times. The following day on my wedding, the layout was NOT fixed and I had to ask them to change it while they were setting up. There were multiple other issues, but this is just one of many.

On the day, the reception was the absolute worst service ever.
2. The Bridal Room (Alexandra) was at the back of the studio where they talk to customers in appointments so it had to be walked through to get to. There were no signs on it indicating that it was in use. When my wife (bride) was changing, a MALE staff member walked in without knocking which is RIDICULOUS.
3. I was insistent on ushers during the preparation and the coordinator told me this would be done by the staff on the day. On the day, the ushers made no attempt to direct guests to their tables or the staff. I was forced to pay $85pp for the staff members, and had to provide them food, and the ushers did not even direct them to the staff table. As several of my friends had not arrived, the staff members sat in their seats as they were confused among my family and friends which is RIDICULOUS again. I told this to the staff member while I was about to enter and gave him specific direction to move the staff members to their table so my friends could sit down. My friends that were late did not feel welcome as the staff members were sitting in their seats and ended up leaving prematurely due to this POOR direction. To top it off, they did not check any of the staff members names so two people who were not invited or paid for were sitting and eating at empty guests (who did not turn up) tables around the room. The staff member did not fix this resulting in several of my guests leaving and uninvited guests eating food.
4. The whole event was running late with the venue only providing the USB (given a week prior) to the MC 5 minutes after the event started resulting in the MC asking myself for the USB. This resulted in the entire event being delayed (with no extra time given).
5. All the food did not arrive as per the running order. When I entered 25 minutes after the main was supposed to be served, they were still bringing out the mains. This resulted in the cake coming out less than 30 minutes before the end of the event hence not many people got to eat it. Additionally, the waiters took the dishes very early and many people missed their meals.

Overall, there were many other minor problems however it was an extremely unpleasant service overall and I would recommend to never go with this venue for a complicated event like a wedding, and if so, bring your own ushers as their staff service is atrocious.

Approximate cost: $165