Reviewed on Mar 24, 2021

Villa La Joya is a lovely venue, but like other reviews have mentioned, Mike (the owner) is not a very honorable man. He comes across friendly when you are booking his venue and is happy to take your money but is not responsive or reasonable. My fiancée visited the site and we put down a deposit of $500 on October 10th to reserve a date that was only 5 months out. We were taking a leap of faith with them to try to make Villa La Joya happen on short notice. Fifteen days later on October 26th, we were charged a payment of $3,175. Unfortunately, we soon realized that the budget was going over and having a destination wedding during COVID was going to be too risky for our elderly family members and too costly for guests who lost their jobs during the pandemic. On November 11th we gave notice that we needed to cancel our reserved date and asked if they would be willing to provide any refund since we only held the date for 32 days. Mike just pushed us back to dealing with our wedding planner and said we could come down to take pictures instead, which I declined. I politely followed up with emails in December, February, and March to give Mike the benefit of the doubt. He has still to this day not acknowledged my emails. He kept all $3,675 and never responded to me again. We learned a very expensive lesson. Very disappointing.

Guest Type: Groom
Wedding Date: Mar 1, 2021