Not small town service

I write this as a warning about booking an event with the Chestermere Recreational Complex. I have lived in Chestermere my whole life,my grandfather was one of the original cabin owners on the lake in 1951 and played Chestermere Minor Hockey at the Chestermere Complex for sixteen years. Just recently I got engaged and we had decided to have our wedding reception at the hall in the complex, being as I have been to three of my friends receptions there and they were beautiful. We had called a year in advance to confirm the date and was told, ” the hall does not book up until 6 months before the date”. So we decided to wait a month to confirm that the date we had selected would work for our guests coming from overseas. We had heard back from our overseas guests and the date was good so we placed our order for our invitations. We called the hall to put our deposit down and finalize it eleven months in advance and we were told that the hall had been booked by another party. No deposit had been put down for the other party. We had explained the situation that we ordered the invitations and were told to wait until six months before to book but we called early because we wanted to guarantee the booking. We asked how they could book the date that we originally saved without receiving a deposit? We were once again told it was not their problem, it was ours. We have now had to incur the cost of $500.00 to have new invitations made with a different date and venue on them. Still wanting to have the reception there we asked to be compensated for the invitations by getting the hall for half price, we were told no and it was our mistake. We have decided to host our venue else where and would not recommend the Chestermere Complex to anyone wanting to host a wedding reception there, we are not impressed by the way we have been treated. I write this to let the public and the Complex staff know that this is not the way that people should be treated and that this is not the way I remember the people in this once small town.
Rob Davies