We are happy with the chapel, their price for the usage of the chapel and the customer service from the new owners that we are to have our ceremony at Araluen Chapel early 2013. I had read the reviews and was not keen on enquiring about having our ceremony at Araluen Chapel but since dealing with the new owners, I have changed my mind as they seem professional and were very helpful.

Great venue. Beautiful place with it's own chapel. The owners are very approachable and the staff very professional. It's not cheap but you get value for money.

Araluen is a lovely place to have your wedding reception at, if you have a small number of guests (max 130). They have a chapel for you to hold your ceremony, which is good if you don't want a break in between the ceremony & reception, and means you dont have to worry about wet weather arrangements. The service was very good, however I did find they were not as flexible as I'd hoped. The packages cover everything, which leaves you time to worry about other things!

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I wrote the above prior to having my wedding there. As the day drew nearer, the bad side started to pop up. To summarise: Ros and Phil the owners became

1) narky and rude
2) extremely inflexible - e.g. would not allow us to close one of their doors (its just a door!), would not cater to our preference of function's beginning/end time
3) dodgy in their dealings - they wanted to change the price of the chair covers when it had already been quoted. lucky I had the original quote on email
4) pressured us into putting the slideshow presentation at the BACK of the function room. what the??? we managed to rearrange it so it was situated at the front. there was no excuse as to why it had to be at the back!
5) overcharged us for the time that the guests stayed on premises - they falsely made up the times and charged us $400
6) did not refund our deposit until after we chased them over 1 month later
7) wanted to charge us additional things but made it out like they were doing us a favour by not doing so
8) gave our videographer grief, and ruined our wedding video. our videographer was situated at the back of the chapel to film me & my bridal party walking down the aisle. Phil the owner told her she couldn't be there, cos it was HIS SPACE. So she told him off and said that this wedding is about the bride, not about his SPACE!!

Approximate cost: $130/head