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March 2024 by Nilsa Clarke
Sandy is so wonderful!!!! Working with her is so easy and fun; she has wedding portal files or that are very detailed with vendor suggestions, decoration ideas, etc. on point. She also lets you know her preferred vendors too! We utilized vendors from her her list and when we communicated with them they all spoke very highly of her and the event space. A Also, she is always quick to answer any questions, offer suggestions, and make you feel at ease. As a customer its very heartfelt to know that you have made a good decision to have your event here!
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November 2023 by Lauren Mueller
We want to thank Palafox Wharf so much for making our day so perfect! It was everything we wanted and more, couldn't have asked for a better day or a better venue for our wedding.
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November 2023 by Alicia Stack
This place is beautiful! Sandy was amazing! We look forward to our future event here!
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August 2023 by Megan Fulk
Our wedding at Palafox Wharf was more than we could when dreamed of. Planning our wedding with them was so easy and stress free. The venue is absolutely stunning and does not need much decorating due to the natural beauty of the building. Sandy was easy to work and communicate with, and Neil the coordinator was FANTASTIC! Our day went sooo smoothly because of him. I wish we could relive our wedding everyday!
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August 2023 by Diane
My wedding was wonderful!! Even though it rained at literally the last minute Neil already had everything moved inside for our ceremony. Sandy the owner was fantastic to work. She responded quickly to anything I needed. & when I mean quickly I mean quickly. Neil was the absolute BEST from making sure everything was together to the day of making sure everything ran smoothly.
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August 2023 by benjamintrey
As a person of color, I would strongly encourage other people of color to avoid doing business here.My business partner and I expressed interest in renting the venue. We spoke with Sandy, provided our event date, explained our event in great detail, viewed the venue and advised Sandy that we would be in contact within 48hrs to make our decision.Within the 48hrs, we expressed to Sandy that we had a caterer/chef (person of color) that we’d like to use. She advised us that she was unaware of this caterer/chef and would need to get approval (from whom, I have no idea) to bring in someone not on her approved list.Two weeks went by, with no communication from Sandy. We reached out for an update and she advised us that she scheduled a meeting with our caterer/chef (no communication on this).The meeting day passed, plus an additional week. We had a conversation with our caterer/chef, in the down time, and he advised us that he has catered at the venue, times before. Again, no communication from Sandy. We reached out for an update. She advised us that after her review and meeting, she would approve this caterer/chef. She then began to ask additional questions about our guests, how they would be attending and other factors that were irrelevant to the rental of the venue or any of the venue rules and restrictions. Why we’re these questions not asked at our initial meeting and walk through? At this moment, we felt profiled.After waiting almost 2 months to receive an official approval and offer from Sandy, the time frame to organize the event had dwindled down, causing us to have to change/cancel the event. We advised her of this and expressed our dissatisfaction with the entire process, her lack of professionalism and her lack of communication. We also expressed that we felt profiled as people of color, because there is no justification for the extreme delays and lack of attentiveness. She replied and said that was not the case and wished us the best. The best example of poor customer service.As an ambassador of the city, I would say think twice before booking here.
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June 2023 by Ali Organt
Before I begin, please note that I had an outside wedding planner. I feel like my experience would have been slightly better if I would have gone with the in-house coordinating, but not enough to give 4 or 5 stars.In the beginning of the planning process, I made it clear that I had a lower budget for the venue and wanted a stress-free wedding planning process. I was given 2 days to go over the contract and decide in order to save my date. Given the location, views, and price for just the venue, we went with Palafox as it was a better price compared to the other venues we looked at.Sandy is great with covering every nook and cranny of what is needed in a wedding, but we (my wedding coordinator and I) felt like we had no control in our planning. On top of my planner keeping up with her own internal plans/info keeping, Sandy wanted us to give them every contract from other vendors, every small detail included in the wedding, and to keep up with the website she created for us. Every week there was an email that I felt obligated to answer even though I had hired a planner for her to communicate with.In the contract, it states that you must use their in-house rental service for anything that you rent (big furniture, big decorations, arbors, chairs, linens). This wasn’t a big deal until we receive the pricing. There was no way that they had the best deal for rentals. An arbor, couch, flower wall, and reveal doors were almost $2,000 for the day. Linens to rent were $1,000 and had extremely strict rules. This just did not fit with me wanting a low budget wedding, and it should have been brought up knowing how I felt about our budget. Thankfully, we were able to work out a deal for our arbor, but we weren’t able to bring in any decorations. The venue is beautiful enough to only need minimal decorations.One of the biggest headaches was the week of the wedding. My planner submitted our final timeline. We were going to use 2 hours to set up, 5 hours for the event, and 1 hour to clean up. Sandy wanted to charge us $400 for using an “extra event hour” even though the contract states that we were paying to use 8 total hours “which are flexible, but consecutive.” She stated that they were going to “give me the hour for free as a wedding gift.” A caterer on their vendor list also had a few issues. The caterer asked me to move the food up in the timeline so they could leave the venue by 9:30 pm or I could keep them until the end of the wedding but pay for an extra hour. We went with having the caterer leave an hour early. It was brought to our attention that the contract states the caterer should stay until the end of the event so that management could supervise and approve their final cleaning of their area. Sandy told our caterer to not give us any deals and to charge me the extra hour. To me, that was a slap in the face. About 30 minutes before our end time, Sandy was starting to clean up, picking up chairs, and basically kicked us out about 10 minutes before our actual time. The rest of our vendors, my friend who is also planning her wedding here, and her vendors have all said that they do not enjoy working with their management.On a better note, the venue is very beautiful and charming. As a Pensacola native, it captured where my husband and I grew up very well. Our guests enjoyed the venue and scenery.
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April 2023 by Ricky Louis
Excellent place for small venues. Parking is easy. Open space. Easy to get to
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March 2023 by Josh Hill
The Palafox Wharf Waterfront Reception Venue is THE place in pensacola to have your wedding. You can not beat the waterfront view or the historical building. The back deck was beautiful overlooking the water and the docks make it so that you can walk right out over it. Sandy was exceptionally helpful and Neil made sure everything went smoothly along the way of the big day. 100/10 absolutely recommend.
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March 2023 by Jennifer Oliver
I love the Palafox Wharf every single time that I cater there. The views are always amazing and Anna is a sweetheart. I would definitely recommend this place if you have an event you'd like to throw and are looking for something that's naturally gorgeous without too much help.
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March 2023 by Kelly S
We couldn’t have picked a better venue for our wedding than Palafox Wharf. We had a few choices that fit our budget and were available for our date, but as soon we visited Palafox Wharf we stopped looking at venues. We both loved the feel and look of the building as well as the location. It was important for us to find a location that we could have both the ceremony and the reception at and the lawn right next door was perfect spot for the ceremony. The deck and pier served as extra room for the party as well as the perfect backdrop for pictures.Sandy was a pleasure to work with and quick to respond to emails and questions. The portal and questionnaires she provided were extremely helpful and made it easy to stay on track. We also hired their in house planner, Neil, he was great to work with and I’m pretty sure the only reason the day went so smoothly. Neil helped plan the time line, setup our decor, coordinated with the vendors, and did the day of coordination for me. We rented rooms at New World Inn (directly across the street) to get ready in and Neil was able to pop over to help move things along. I didn’t worry about anything the day of which was amazing.They have a great list of vendors and did several introductions for us. We picked our florist, caterer, and bar vendors from their list but brought in our own vendors for DJ and photography services which was no problem at all. Sandy helped us with ceremony chairs, extra table rentals, and linen which was super helpful and one less vendor to contact..Our guests all have said they loved the setting and had a ton of fun and we couldn’t be happier with our decision.
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March 2023 by Sherri Chavez
I cannot say enough about this beautiful venue and staff. Sandy and Neil worked collaboratively to ensure my daughter had the wedding of her dreams. We only had 5 months to make it happen! They found the perfect vendors and facilitated a stress-free wedding day. I am forever grateful for their professionalism and expertise.
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March 2023 by Darryl Board
Very nice venue
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March 2023 by Michelle Jeffreys
Fun area to check out! Lots of unique shopping and restaurants.
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March 2023 by Amanda Connelly
To put it all out there - my now husband was sold immediately on Palafox Wharf before we even walked through it and I was not. I was hesitant, but mostly due to the fact I wanted to see all of the other venues first to really be sure and I felt that the Palafox Wharf site was a little lacking in full details and clear photos. However, his enthusiasm (and the incredibly busy season with multiple couples looking to book at the same time we were) won me over.Prior to booking Palafox Wharf, we had already decided on a wedding planner who was not associated with the venue and because Palafox Wharf offers its own planning services I was concerned this would cause a riff between us and the venue from the start. However, I was proven wrong totally and the wedding day came and went with our hired planner and the venue host working together seamlessly to help us create the very best day.I can in total honesty say that we would not have been able to execute our actually perfect day without Sandy and her team. Wedding planning is a weird mix of wonderful and exhausting, so when we first booked the venue and I began receiving SO MUCH information from Sandy I was a bit overwhelmed with the number of emails to keep up with. However, after a few weeks and being able to access their awesome and personalized wedding portal specifically for us, I was so grateful for Sandy's detailed emails and easy-to-navigate portal that helped me to know what parts to do next and where I needed to focus. I'm not sure if any other venues offer this service, but I have to imagine that none are as detailed or as responsive as Sandy and that was truly a God-send for me.The venue offered their top lists for caterers, florists, and DJs that really helped us vet who we wanted and make decisions we could rely upon. Sandy always answered us in detail when we were confused about what was going on or needed further guidance. My fear we would be treated differently because we opted for an outside planner was eased and I would absolutely hire them as a planner for anyone unsure (I LOVED my planner but I know working with Palafox Wharf's own team would be a great way to go if you book here).Sandy handled linen rentals, timeline and layout drafts, and updates, she had rental decor options at the ready and even sent all of our vendors emails with full & clear details on parking, set up, and clean up that left no room for confusion or error.The venue itself is beautiful and really such an important part of Pensacola (I came here as a child when it was still Mr. Manatee's restaurant and it holds such great memories for me). We had a large number of guests who were all able to be seated comfortably inside or outside on the deck. The water views were the perfect touch. We had many out-of-town guests who have not stopped gushing over how perfect the location was and how much they loved the building and design.The lawn next to the building was perfect for photos as was the deck.We can't say enough about how great Palafox Wharf was for our wedding and I just know that anyone looking for a venue in the heart of Pensacola would be lucky to book here.
