Our wedding was to be May 2007, but the problems occured in April 2006, so I'm not sure of what date to enter. We live in Atlanta GA, appx a 4 1/2-hour drive from Savannah. We made 2 trips to Savannah to
meet with Forsyth Park Inn's wedding coordinator at the time (Cindy) to plan our wedding for May 2007. We stayed elsewhere during those trips because they were "working" trips strictly for the purpose of planning the wedding. We paid Cindy the deposit for both the wedding and the 2 rooms that we reserved for 2 nights each that would be used during the weekend of the wedding. The main reason we decided on
the Forsyth Park Inn is because it was one of the only inns that had a beautiful outdoor area that would also allow us to have the wedding
there without renting out the entire inn, including all of the guest rooms. Since our wedding was going to be very small, it wasn't feasible for us to rent out that many rooms, plus, many of our guests
would have had local accomodations at the houses of other friends an family of theirs.
After calling and e-mailing several times for Cindy and not getting a
response, we finally reached someone there who told us that Cindy no longer worked there. When we explained that we already had our wedding planned there and needed to talk to someone else about it, we
were told that they had no record of it. We provided the email that served as the contract and proof of the payment through our credit card. Then we were told that they could accomodate us but we would have to rent out all of the rooms of the inn. Remember that we specifically chose Forsyth Inn because we were told that we did not have to rent out all of the rooms. We told them this and were told that this is their policy, regardless of the fact that our email contract did not state that as a requirement for us. We brought up the point that, besides the fact that the contract did not state this, if this were the case, we would have had to put a deposit down on all of the rooms, rather than just the 2 that we had agreed to rent. They advised that they would not accomodate our wedding at the inn at all if we did not rent all the rooms out, no matter what Cindy (their employee at the time of booking) agreed to. They then went on to say that the deposit we paid for the wedding was nonrefundable but could be used toward their services acting as our wedding coordinator with other places. We knew the deposit was not refundable at the time we paid it, but the point is that we paid it specifically for the use of the Forsyth Park Inn for our wedding and not for their services elsewhere and this is what was confirmed in our email/contract. After arguments, we did end up with the deposit back in the end, but they handled this completely wrong all the way through. It was bad enough that they switched their requirements on us. But then trying to keep our deposit when they were the ones that were in breech of the contract was simply disgusting. We then had to start planning our wedding completely from scratch and this meant that the time and money we had spent for the 2 previous trips to Savannah to meet with Forsyth Park Inn's wedding coordinator were completely wasted. This means that we took precious time off from work, 2 drives that were 9 hours round-trip each, hotel stays, and dining out. All for nothing. From the time that we planned the wedding to the time that Forsyth Park Inn advised us that they would not accomodate us, nearly 4 months went by. So we were 4 months closer to our wedding date, starting the planning process all over, and our options were then limited. This says alot about the quality of people you will be dealing with at the Forsyth Park Inn.
On another note, the Inn faces Fosyth Park, which is beautiful. But if you are coming to Savannah to see the other sites and the downtown area, it's not the best location. It's pretty far away, considering that walking through some of the areas between it and the other attractions can be a pretty dangerous venture.