Robert Carr Chapel at TCU

This might be the longest Unilocal review in recent memory. Robert Carr Chapel, you chap (el)ed my ass. Here we go…
Four years and $ 130,000 in tuition later, I graduated from TCU. My wife went to TCU for a spell, transferring out to be closer to home. Both my brothers graduated from TCU. It is a family thing, we all by and large bleed purple. So, when it came time to get married, the on campus chapel at TCU, Robert Carr, seemed to be the perfect place. It was picturesque (great for the wife) and had sentimental value (great for me). I proposed in December of 08, we booked a June 20^th of 09 date at the Chapel on January 6^th of 09. Perfect. Done. Sent the money and contract in, time to start planning.
STOP! Hammer time…
A few months later, I want to say February/​March, I get a phone call from the chapel coordinator. (Mind you they run the chapel like a separate business outside of TCU. It is governed by TCU, but during the summer it is a full swing wedding chapel in high demand in Fort Worth. The rumor is you sign up for your wedding date when you enroll at TCU, and it’s not far from the truth. We got a cancellation.) The coordinator asks, «how flexible on time are you that day?» Ominous question, I ask «why?» Well, «the former chancellor’s grand daughter wants to get married that evening during your time and we need to make both work as you have paid and are booked.»
Dun dun dun… Lightning strike…
Long story short, we weren’t going to win that battle. Spoiled rich girl (her grand daddy has the engineering building named after him) pointed to the calendar and wanted our ideal date and time for a spoiled rich southern girl: June 20^th, 6 pm. Thus, we had to move back to 5:30 pm, she got 7 pm, and the 2 pm wedding before us had to bust their butt to get out of there as quick as possible and we had little set up time. Furthermore, we couldn’t bring in our own flowers (my fiancé is a flower nut) and we had to use someone elses. Many tears later, and explaining it to me as «I don’t want to feel like I am walking into someone elses’ wedding» my fiancée dealt with it. We were fighting and uphill battle. We’d lose this war…
Flash forward to more planning, the wedding coordinator at TCU is impossible to get in touch with. Here are their hours: Mondays from 10 am — 2 pm and Fridays from 9 am — 5 pm. Huh?! Seriously?! How do you operate a wedding chapel like that?! And no BlackBerry, no iPhone. So if you email her Tuesday, it is Friday before you hear from her.
Then on the wedding day the flowers we were supposed to get from the chancellor’s grand baby to use during our ceremony never showed. Blank chapel. Luckily the place is pretty enough no one noticed, but it is principle…
I wanted it to go great. I did. I wanted my wedding experience there to be as great as my four years at TCU, but it wasn’t. It was nothing but a headache for my fiancé (now wife) and me.
Should you get married there if you are looking for a place in Fort Worth? Does your Dad and/​or you have a lot of money and a wedding planner that wants to deal with TCU? Sure.
If you are regular folks from normal America like we are I’d suggest finding somewhere else. It wasn’t worth the hassle and we were treated like scum, though my family probably pumped well over a quarter of a million dollars into TCU over a 15 year span educating 3 sons there.
At least the reception was rockin’ and everyone got good and drunk…