Black Walnut Catering and Events

As I read the reviews on Black Walnut my heart ached because my experience was completely opposite than what I read. When Kristen did our event I was so pleased that I decided that I would post my very positive experience with her company online. As life many times happens I got caught up with other things and never followed through, and to her and Black Walnut I am so sorry. My friend asked me about Black Walnut and I could say nothing but good things, her concern for my welfare, her helpfulness in planning, the many phone calls I made to her and that she always willing to be there for me and so many other very positive interactions I had with her and her staff. She assured me that it would be a good night and her staff would be on top of everything. Her staff was kind and ready to help however they could. I know that events can be very stressful to do and we who don't do these often but want the best can get a little overwhelmed and our attitude shows it, mine did, but Kristen worked very hard to keep me calm. I thought she was a miracle worker. The result was a perfect night. So when my friend told me about the reviews I knew it was time for me to post my experience. Thank you Kristen and please thank your very competent staff. I will be back.

I do agree with the below comment that Kristen is hard to get ahold of. she or her boss just don't provide documents to view costs or packages to explain costs. you're kinda just winging it and hoping for the best. I did have to chase her down a couple of times to pay and to ask prices. That part was really stressful because I was blind to what i was even paying for the entire time. Im in miami so that was very stressful because i hadn't even seen the venue.However, although the planning was hard, the actual day was pretty perfect. They only messed up one thing and fixed it promptly. Although kristen was hard to reach throughout, she did fix the issue when it came up in person. She seemed to be apologetic and promptly fixed it. Anyway, I always like to operate from kindness so i will say its a beautiful venue with awesome food and because kristin actually fixed the issue as it happened and was kind in person, ill give her the benefit of the doubt and say she probably needs an assistant as well as training or documents to give the couples. Hope this venue gets a little more organized so i can recommend it to others.

We booked the outdoor venue as well as the new Gathering space for our wedding. The venue is absolutely beautiful with the view of the Watchman; however, as the others noted, Kristen, the venue manager, is really difficult to deal with and caused a lot of unnecessary headaches during an already stressful time. I had a wonderful wedding planner who dealt with her the majority of time, but we still had to confirm a few things with her and she was not easy to communicate with, and we were not sure how everything would turnout. At the end and with the help of my wedding planner, everything turned out beautiful, but I really wished Kristen could have been more cooperative and communicative.

BEWARE of this venue. This is my first bad review, I don't usually talk bad about businesses and I am a pretty understanding person. The space is absolutely stunning but you will have the biggest headache dealing with Kristen Marriott the event manager. After reading others reviews it sounds like we're not the first people to have a terrible experience with her. To say she makes things overly complicated for no reason is an understatement. She was so nasty to work with and so unprofessional during a time that is already stressful she will make your life a living hell trying to get answers. Thankfully I had an amazing wedding planner to help deal with the stresses of planning which Kristen made 100 times harder than it needed to be. . . To make things worse she backed her car into one of our wedding guests and is now blaming the accident on them. She has no business running an event space. Karma will make its way around for her. Right when I thought we were done dealing with her, this happened. It broke my heart for my wedding guests who already took a big financial hit to book hotel rooms and make the trek to Zion. She's a liar and an awful human being. If I could do it over again I would not have selected this venue specifically because of Kristen.

Was there attending a wedding. It's all about location, can't be beat. Ceremony was perfect! The food......oh my. Worst ever. Appetizers were cold although the bacon wrapped scallops tasted good, but cold. The entree was buffet, cold, no heat underneath. Ever had a white sous vide chicken?? Yeah, bad. Chuck-A-Rama would have been better.....not kidding. Caesar salad was good.

First of all I must say, the wedding was beautiful and the location was gorgeous. If this review was just about that, 5 stars. But setting up for this wedding was SOOOO TERRIBLE. Kristen, the coordinator or whatever her position is, was THE WORST person to work with. I would give a negative star if I could as that is how dreadful the experience with her was. I feel uncomfortable saying mean or negative things but I have 0 shame in writing this bad of a review because I don't want any other couples to go through what we went through with her. And at least if you do, you'll know what you are getting into to get this beautiful venue. I don't imagine anyone will want to read the entirety of our story so I'll give the main points.

We decided not to use a wedding planner and my now wife who is quite capable did 85% of the planning and coordinating on her own. She worked with many different vendors for everything with the wedding. At first she was the contact for Black Walnut, but Kristen's poor communication and condescending attitude lead me to working with her instead. I dealt with bad communication, confusing menu options and prices, disorganized information from her on what we need to pay for/provide as well as what is provided with renting out different parts of the venue. The only time we could get any understanding of any of this is when she got on the phone with us (which was usually a hassle and long conversations). The information she gave us would have been very easy to grasp and understand if there was maybe a document or anything that laid out prices of each but there was no such document so we wrote it down by hand to make sure we got it right. (When we first went to the venue we were told that a document would be available with all prices and each good/service included or priced).

After finally getting the food chosen, which ended up really tasty and we loved it (I will point out 3 or 4 groomsmen never got the main entrée as they ran out even though we ordered 10 more plates than guests attending), and many attempts to contact her to get the invoice, we got the invoice two weeks before the wedding. It felt like asking a teenager to turn in a homework assignment. I DON'T BABYSIT YOU, I AM PAYING YOU BIG MONEY SO DO YOUR JOB! Keep in mind we had been in contact with her for a total of 10 months, it took her that long to get back to us with the invoice. Granted we did need time to choose the food and such. It should not have taken that long to get us back the final invoice. The invoice we got quoted our deposit as $750 less than we paid, it quoted the venue as $1000 more than originally decided in the contract, and about $150 more in random charges we never agreed to.

We then had to send her all the documents we had to show what should be correctly charged and at that point she updated the invoice to the correct amount. So if you do work with her, save that information. The funniest part about this is when we were contacting other vendors (for additional chairs, tables, decorations, photography and even a permit from the city) we were told by almost everyone the same thing, "Oh you are working with Kristen, huh? She's rough to work with. Make sure you double check your receipts, she tends to overcharge people." Seems that no one in town wants to work with her either.

There is much more I could say on how negative the set up experience was but I will just end by saying. The venue is beautiful, the food is great and if done right it could be the most amazing day of your life as it was mine. If you do choose this venue, please know what you are getting yourself into. Maybe even let someone else deal with her and don't do the wedding coordination/planning yourself. The venue is worth the amount of money but no amount of money would be worth dealing with that BS.

Reached out to this company via the website and called twice with absolutely no response. Not what I’m looking for to plan an event.