Carmen's Banquet Centre

Decent experience but this one girl named Rebecca was SO RUDE! She nearly ruined my night! Other than that everything was great but I dont know how she even has a position at this nice establishment! This was sometime around a month ago but I’m still upset about it!

It had been years since my last visit, and I recently attended Carmen's for a work conference. The venue is lovely and service staff were good.
My only complaints were that the Bathrooms got a bit gross and weren't tended to, and I was a bit put off by the drink service. All soft drinks were placed on top of the bar counter, but despite seeing people helping themselves, I was told to wait to be served at the table. However, I was never offered any drinks other than water, and when I went back to the bar, all had been cleared. I was a but put off by that, especially because so many people has helped themselves and I was told no.miscommunication, I guess.

Overall, Carmen's is a good place, possibly just a bit understaffed to handle multiple conference rooms at a time.

My baby shower was hosted at the Arlington Hotel last month and we had an amazing experience! Sabrina and then Anais were wonderful to work with. They were very flexible in their schedules to meet up with us in person to discuss the details of the day. Even though they had busy schedules with other larger events they always made us feel like a priority. They listened to everything we wanted and made sure every last detail of the day was perfect for us - the room set up, the decor, the menu and service. I strongly recommend the Arlington for events of all sizes and I look forward to working with them again in the future.

Beautiful venue, great food, great staff, hosted 300+ Italians so you know they can host a good party from the guest perspective, I would definitely recommend this as a wedding reception venue!

First things first, I am grateful that we chose Carmen’s Banquet Hall (Venetian Room) for our wedding ceremony and reception. Big thanks to Taylor (Events Specialist) and Dominica (Day Coordinator) for helping us with the planning and executing my dream wedding. The food is 15/10, costumer service is 15/10, the waiters are 15/10, the bar tenders are 15/10! It was beyond my expectations. It was a hidden gem as my guests said. They are the whole package for weddings. You don’t have to worry about anything centre pieces wise (if you’rnot picky lol).

Now, here’s the 2 problems that I encountered that day
1. I paid for a wireless microphone ahead of time. However, on the day of the wedding there was a miscommunication and they said I didn’t paid for it or they didn’t know that I paid for it. So we ended up having 2 wired microphone. I mean it’s not a big deal but It would’ve been better for the MC to use a wireless microphone.

2. I hired the DJ that comes with our package to do our ceremony as well. He did great on our ceremony. However, he did 5/10 on our reception (the party part). He doesn’t take requests from our guests and he just plays whatever we have on our playlist. He didn’t even notice that no one was dancing on the dance floor. He was also playing the whole song instead of the good parts only. He could’ve been more sensitive with vibe of the the dance floor. That’s all.

10/10 Would still recommend Carmen’s Banquet Hall for your wedding reception and reception

Great venue, insufficient parking space for number of halls and simultaneously events. Beautiful decor and friendly staff

Carmen's knocked it out of the park for the prom with fabulous salad, amazing chicken parm and two kinds of pasta. Hotel is right next door. Just a beautiful venue.

I attend there for a friend's wedding.
It was great venue, the grounds were well maintained and clean. The inside of the venue was clean including the washrooms. Our bartender for the evening. I wish I got his name he was an older Caucasian gentlemen I believe his name was Tim, he was the BEST he always had a smile and a joke to tell when he serves us.hands down the best and made the event even more enjoyable. The serving staff we had was polite and went the extra step to cater to our dietary concerns. I noticed they had an event planner from the venue overseeing everything that lady was on point. She made sure the transition from ceremony to reception was smooth and things were attended to.

Attended a wedding Sept 10th, 2022. Hotel C. Despite poor planning on the brides part, Carmen's employees did their best to correct a sinking ship. Definitely the best bartender of any Hall I've been too.

Andi, Karen, Marian, Miranda, Heather, Dakota, Ashley. These are all the people that we went through to plan our reception at Carmen’s (Andi 2019- august 2020, Karen Feb 2022, Miranda/Marian March-April 2022, Heather May 2022, Dakota June 2022, Ashley July 2022-August 2022. Marian, Heather, Dakota, no longer work with them. Not sure what’s happening internally but it appears like the work environment is not pleasant as there is continuous turnover. Our story- booked August 2019 for August 2020. Covid happened. Postponed July 2021. Covid. Postponed August 2022. We still got married in August 2020.

We were not allowed to cancel. Even though we tried. The thing that tipped us over the edge in wanting to cancel was the fact they had just one day for food tasting. During March break. While we were away and when we pointed this out to them they said “oh well just send a family member or friend. ” We had waited almost 3 years to do the taste testing, there was no way we were going to send anyone but ourselves. They eventually got enough complaints from us and other couples that they offered another night in April.

Prepare to get used to the idea of never having your emails answered. Several emails went weeks without reply. We had to eventually call the office and schedule a phone appointment with our coordinator to tell her to check her email as no answer. This was evident up to the actual reception day. I had sent an email immediately after our final details meeting with a couple of updated changes and questions regarding the day. This was three days before the event. No reply. We went to the venue the night before to see if the changes were made, they were not. Luckily the set up crew was there and after a 20 minute conversation and them giving us a hard time saying why they didn’t know about these changes, they were complete. If we didn’t go and check this would not have been done.

The C-Hotel staff while some good, other completely useless and messing up our reservations. We have been told this person was fired (again - so much turnover). Several of our guests reservations were messed up, but again luckily I called the week before and went line by line of who was staying where to get it corrected. The staff called our guests who had booked three years ago if they could share their room with other people.

The in-house DJ was awful. Couldn’t read the crowd. Many silent awkward moments between transitions at dinner time. During the dancing portion, he’d play songs for forever even when people stopped dancing. But then when people WERE dancing he’d change them. The worst example was he was playing on of our favourite requested songs IN VIEW by the tragically hip. Lots of people on the dance floor jamming. It all of a sudden after 30 seconds cut to a song we HAD NEVER heard before. Everyone left the dance floor. So disappointing. Our music list we prepared, got completely derailed and he probably only ended up playing about half of it.

In terms of the timeline for the evening, Carmen’s had told us to do speeches as each course was being cleaned up. We started that but after the first one our videographer came up to us to let us know that there was so much clinking and clanking that it had an effect on video. He said that speeches should NEVER be during clean up, in fact the opposite. Should be when people are eating their food. So we had to last minute change the order of our evening.

In addition, the midnight buffet was not left out for very long. Maybe 30 minutes. Our guests were left wondering where the food went and still hungry.

To top it all off, they told us that we didn’t pay our remaining invoice when we did in fact a week earlier. They made us send screenshots because they didn’t believe us.

Things that did go well: food was good, cake was great, drinks were good, servers were good.

We were able to book our dream wedding date without losing any guests and staying within our budget thanks to Hector, our sales rep. It's a lovely wedding venue with gorgeous accommodations, delicious pastries and wonderful staff. Can't wait to share our special day at Carmen's in 2023!

Our wedding day was beautiful, I wish I could say this was thanks to Carmen’s but it was not. We are very disappointed and frustrated with the service we received from Carmen’s. Leading up to our wedding, every time we had a meeting it was with a different person, meaning there was absolutely no consistency, we received conflicting information, and messages were not passed along properly. After much frustration we requested a meeting with the manager who promised us he would rectify all our concerns and he would personally be there on our big day to make sure everything went smoothly. He was not there and things did not go smoothly. My family arrived early to check on everything and immediately had to get to work. The ceremony space was set up incorrectly and the reception space was barely set up at all. When we asked what was going on and why things weren’t ready, we were told that the staff did not realize what time our wedding started and was running late. My family had to set tables, rearrange chairs, and set up curtain panels to make sure everything would be ready to go in time for our guests to arrive. The DJ was absolutely horrible and did not play the music we requested during dinner, the maître d was nice but very flustered and unorganized, and management was unreliable. Music from the event next door was booming through the walls interrupting our speeches. But our biggest concern of all is that 2 strangers (presumably guests from one of the other events) made it into our wedding. They were requesting songs from the dj, being very loud and obnoxious, and making our guests very uncomfortable. They followed one of our female guests out to her car and were pulling on the door handles trying to get inside. This made her extremely uncomfortable and upset. Carmens staff was notified of this issue MULTIPLE times but numerous different people at our wedding including myself but they did nothing about it. Ultimately it was my brother-in-law who had to approach them and ask them to leave. This is extremely unacceptable to me. Our guests felt unsafe and uncomfortable, Carmen’s was made aware of the situation and refused to do anything to help us. Despite their beauty, I would never ever recommend Carmen’s to anyone for their event.

Went for a wedding, the food was okay didn't like that more then one hall shared a bathroom with only 5 stalls, and one person working at an open bar

I'm very sad that I have to post this review, and have thought very seriously about whether or not I should. In the end I realize that just as I was hoping to have a stellar wedding day here, so will other young couples and they should be aware of what can go wrong. The following is a recount of all the actions taken by the staff at Carmen's that resulted in our wedding day being effectively ruined.
1. Ceremony hors d'ouvres - served late and significantly less in quantity than what was promised, paid for and agreed upon as per the contract. What was supposed to last 1 hr lasted barely 20mins. Staff was also rude to the MOTB and created an embarrassing situation by promising to serve food inside the hotel (sun outside was quite strong) and then refusing to do so after the guests moved inside
2. Reception hall decor - macaroon stand was left completely empty the entire night until the mother of the bride personally filled it after the dinner service
-gum paste flowers that were brought in for the cake were falling off until I personally fixed them after the entrance
3. Contract stated that Carmen's staff were to open bottles of champagne as the bridal couple was announced and walked in, but it was delayed and opened after we had walked by
4. Food service - professionalism during dinner service was lacking. Few tables admitted their food came out very late and was cold
-The chicken option was to be brought out 10 mins after the steak, but was brought out almost 40 mins later. The guests that had chicken only options were made to wait until the chicken came out and were not served anything in the meantime.
-some tables requested water and it was never brought, had to get it themselves from the bar
5. Dietary restrictions - THIS ONE WAS THE WORST! One couple in particular was vegetarian, received the culde de verde soup (meat soup) then taken away when they advised the waiter that they are vegetarian. They were then brought a BEEF soup that was NOT PART OF OUR MENU and had that taken away as well, then NOT replaced with anything. They were brought the steak entree and taken away, then chicken and taken away and again was not replaced with anything. This couple were only able to eat the salad placed in the middle of the table about 2hrs into dinner and LEFT HUNGRY
-none of the staff was informed as to the different dietary restrictions, and ended up bringing out the wrong food to the wrong guests, despite a detailed count of each restriction in the floor plan that was submitted, and being reassured they knew what they were doing
-the head table had 2 bridesmaids with a gluten-free restriction. They had to ask the waiter at each and every course whether or not it was gluten-friendly, at which point the waiter would not speak to them, but take their plates and bring out replacements, whether they wanted them or not
6. Length of dinner - severely delayed. Dinner took 4 hours for 3 courses, which should only have taken 2hr - 2.5hrs. As a result the dance floor opened late, most of our guests had gone home, our dancing being cut down to about 2hrs instead of the original 6hrs we planned on
7. Late night buffet - The maitre 'd should have realized and made an announcement or at least let the bride and groom know that no one was aware of the late night buffet. Instead, still untouched, staff were going to throw out everything, including traditional pastries WE brought in
-staff lost one custom made cake decor piece, only returned 3
8. Smart Serve - bar staff to have smart serve certification
-bartender served drinks to a guest even after OTHER GUESTS requested that person be cut off
-others were served to the point of visible intoxication
9. Carmen's Hotel - father of the bride requested multiple times that certain guests rooms be charged to his card and that the guests not be asked for payment. Those guests were still asked for their payment information upon check in

I had placed such trust in Carmen's staff for my wedding day, being reassured that they were qualified and professional enough to follow instructions. I am disappointed to say that was not the case at all.

We had the most amazing day at Carmen’s for our wedding reception. The staff were great and the food are so delicious! I wouldn’t have chosen anywhere but here! My wedding reception was delayed for two years due to covid and Carmen’s was really accommodating. They didn’t increase our fees. The hall was so beautiful and big. We had a very large room it was perfect for dinning and dancing. The wedding cake they made was so beautiful! The bride’s private room was nice and comfortable. They prepared sparkling wine and food there for me. The complimentary honeymoon suite was so fancy too! The all inclusive package was such a good deal you can’t not beat it!
I give Carmen’s five stars but I do have some suggestions/ complaints:
1. We purchased upgraded bar package but my husband found out after the cocktail hour that we were served regular drinks. That was a big disappointment because we already corrected it through email with Taylor before the wedding.
2. The whole wedding was a little unorganized. The DJ did not get the updated wedding plan so all his introductions were messed up. We ended up correcting all the speeches and made a plan with him on spot.
3. The DJ was not very professional in my opinion. He did not have the updated plan which was not his fault, but we paid extra for him to be our MC. He did not do any MC work. When he did introduced people to come on stage they were all messed up and we couldn’t even hear him. I would have introduced everyone by myself and everyone would have heard it better. It was not worth it to pay him extra to become our MC just to say a few extra lines we couldn’t even hear. After the dinner he came up to us to ask if we want to cut cake earlier. We were so busy we had to say goodbye to guest and send my baby home. He did not play any music for a good 20 mins so everyone thought the event ended so most of the people left. I was really disappointed and sad people left my party so early. If he just started the dance floor instead of waiting we would have had more people staying.