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Weddings

The Palmer House Hilton Reviews

The Palmer House Hilton

The Palmer House Hilton

Chicago, IL
4.1 out of 5 rating, 22 Reviews
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Reviews

4.1 out of 5 rating
22 Reviews
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  • Professionalism
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81% Recommended by couples

Awards

22
  • C
    Courtneyandjeff Sent on 07/04/2018
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    We had a wedding block here for our wedding guests and booked the Parlour Suite for all of our bridal party to get ready in. It was so beautiful! We worked with Alexis and she was absolutely wonderful and kept in touch with us throughout our planning process. We also had the Palmer House brownies delivered to our guests and they loved them! And Alexis sent us, the bride and groom, a Palmer House brownie with chocolate covered strawberries on top and champagne for our special wedding weekend. Excellent service and stay!
  • User2035845 Sent on 02/10/2015
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    If you had to ask you obviously have not stayed at the Palmer House.
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    Veronica Sent on 10/25/2013
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    Excellent Excellent from beginning to end. Palmer house and Joy made my event like a fairy tale. From the rooms to the food to the service was A++++!! Thank you I could not ask for anything more!!
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  • B
    Brenda Sent on 12/03/2011
    5 out of 5 rating
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    We could not have been happier with having our wedding at the Palmer House. Everything went perfectly and it was the wedding of our dreams. Jane was a pleasure to work with and made sure every little detail was in place for our big day. Thank you, Palmer House!
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    Coleen Sent on 06/17/2011
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    There are not words for how amazing my wedding was at the Palmer House. They made it So easy. The venue - GORGEOUS. Food - accomodated everything we wanted - even a cubcake bar! And it was AWESOME. Way better then regular wedding food!
    Dennis and Courtney were so accomodating and sweet - my whole family fell in love with them! I have had people day after day since we got married compliment me on the wedding - and it was mainly due to the beautiful venue and Dennis!!!
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    Leslie Sent on 02/08/2011
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    We had our Ceremony and Reception in the Honore Ballroom and our cocktail hour in the Potter's Lounge... everything exceeded our expectations. It was simply a beautiful day start to finish! Jane Himmel was dependable, meticulous, personal & supportive through the entire process and our day went off seamlessly. Our guests enjoyed being at the gorgoeous, historic hotel, loved the food & drink & had a great time!
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    Kimberly Sent on 10/29/2010
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    The Palmer House was a dream place to have a wedding! Everything from the venue, to the food, to the service was outstanding. And we have Jane Himmel, the senior catering manager, to thank for everything. Her attention to detail is extraordinary, and the personal attention she provides makes not only the day incredibly special and perfect, but she made the whole year so much fun to plan.
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    Mira Sent on 04/02/2008
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    The Palmer House is a gem. We were so lucky to have our wedding ceremony and reception in the most beautiful hotel in the country. Our guests are still talking about the venue. The food was magnificent, the room didn't need any decor because of the ornate nature of the room. The staff is the most professional banquet staff I have ever experienced. The Catering Manager's knowledge led the way for a perfect event.
  • User2487405 Sent on 12/30/2015
    4.9 out of 5 rating
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    We had our wedding in the Honoré Room -- and we couldn't have asked for a more beautiful location. Sara and Josah were great to work with -- and they even dealt graciously with my bridezilla, micro-managing moments (although I hope they were few and far between). Many of our guests were from out of state, and everyone thought it was the most gorgeous and ideal location. We especially loved the history behind the hotel. Throughout the whole weekend, the Palmer House staff made an effort to make us feel special (including notes, champagne, fruit, etc. in the rooms). We had a phenomenal experience from beginning to end! It was truly a fairytale wedding.
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    Alyidar Sent on 10/19/2010
    4.9 out of 5 rating
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    The Palmer House Empire Room was one of the most beautiful rooms we looked at while searching for our reception location. It stood out and wasn't any ordinary banquet hall. We knew immediately that that was the room we wanted to host our celebration. And it was well worth it - the food was amazing, the staff were amazing and the room looked amazing! We are still getting compliments!!
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    Kerry Sent on 09/19/2014
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    What an incredible and iconic Chicago hotel. The Empire Room is full of history and stunning elegance, the perfect venue for our romantic wedding reception. Jane, Senior Event Manager, was very professional and worked with us and our wedding coordinator to create an extraordinary wedding. The food was delicious and catering coordination wonderful. Our out of town guests had a wonderful experience at the hotel.
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    Roula Sent on 11/17/2010
    4.8 out of 5 rating
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    When we got engaged, we planned our wedding almost exactly a year out. Being a perfectionist and very organized, I started searching through bridal magazines and websites to plan our wedding. I saw the Palmer House on the first day of looking at venues and knew that was where we would have our wedding. Looking into the Grand & State Ballrooms just took my breath away. We got married on Saturday, June 5th, 2010 at the Palmer House Hilton Chicago.

    We signed our contract with Mark Coy, a sales & catering coordinator at the Palmer House. While he was pleasant in our meetings and would explain what we would need to do, I never really felt confident in his ability to make our day special. I always needed to initiate questions to get answers and every meeting felt rushed because he had to be out the door by 6pm. He always said “no problem” to everything but then there was a huge problem that finally had me in a bridezilla moment. In our initial room block we asked Mark to substitute two regular rooms for two suites. Well, he put five suites on our block. I had numerous phone calls from my guests that our block was full. I didn’t know until after the fact that each suite was taking 2 regular rooms out of our block. In our meetings we always discussed increasing the number of rooms on our block as well. Of course, he said “no problem” based on availability. Well, a good coordinator would have told his client that the weekend of their wedding was also the largest convention in the city of Chicago. So when we needed the additional rooms we heard “sorry we’re booked”. Never once did he put the fear in our mind that we wouldn’t have rooms for our guests. At that moment I definitely knew that I could not work with someone who obviously could care less about our wedding. We also had issues with charging of rooms as well. I think that the rooms manager/department definitely needs some work in this location. Our parents were charged the suite rate of $329, when they were supposed to be charged $289. My mother-in-law was paying for her sister’s room, but then they charged her sister’s credit card. Being an upscale hotel these issues shouldn’t happen. This is the reason I gave quality of service a 4, not because of Jane.

    I immediately asked for Jane Himmel to replace our coordinator as I heard she was the best coordinator there. She is AMAZING and was our wedding angel. We had set up a meeting for the next week as this was a Friday. We were actually meeting with our florist on that evening at 6:30pm and she came to this meeting to meet us & go over a few details. I was astonished that she would meet us on a Friday evening and she stayed until the end which concluded at 9:30pm. She had to pretty much start from scratch and had two months to put it together. The next day (Saturday) she emailed us a rough draft of our timeline & had forwarded some spreadsheets to fill out for her which included our parents info & our other vendors. (The only thing Mark ever emailed me was a sample timeline of an early evening wedding and I am assuming I was to put it together) She made us feel like she was going to make our wedding special and not just another cookie cutter wedding that our other coordinator was going to put together. She could tell I was feeling stressed from everything going on and she suggested Claudia Antony, a day of coordinator. Now, I was feeling great and actually enjoying the final months of wedding planning.

    Jane got us back on track with our reception and did more in two weeks than our first coordinator did in almost 10 months. We are so appreciative for the amount of time and effort on her part to make all of the details of our wedding reception seamlessly play through the night. She was patient, organized, professional and easily accessible. She stayed through the majority of our wedding and was relentless in her effort to make us happy. We couldn’t think of favors and she provided us an idea for what we should do. She guided us through our meal choices, wine choices (as we were not happy with the others offered to us) and came up with a cake option that was magnificent. She surprised us at our reception with keys to the penthouse for our two day stay, our wedding night & the night after. She “WOWED” us time after time. Her job didn’t end there as the next day we set up a brunch for 60 people. She had everything set up beautifully in the Honore Ballroom for the conclusion of our wedding weekend. Let’s just say Jane went above & beyond in all matters pertaining to our wedding. I am sure there are so many more details that Jane attended to that I couldn’t even begin to think about. I couldn’t imagine a more beautiful start to our new life together!

    Thank you Jane!
  • User2189982 Sent on 06/21/2015
    4.7 out of 5 rating
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    The Palmer House is an incredibly beautiful hotel with some of Chicago's grand infamous ballrooms. It is absolutely a spectacular place for a wedding reception. Jane Himmel, the Palmer House's wedding catering manager, alone is enough of a reason to book the Palmer House. She has so much experience & knows absolutely everything you could possibly want/need to know. She will be 100% honest with you throughout the entire process & will be absolutely sure the day goes flawlessly (every. little. detail)! The only catch is that the Palmer House is not the cheapest venue (being as spectacular as it is + everything it has to offer) which may be a setback for brides on a budget. But if at all possible, the Palmer House is absolutely worth it.
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    Adrian Sent on 07/09/2012
    4.7 out of 5 rating
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    The Palmer House is undeniably beautiful and impressive. It was the perfect contrast to our reception, which was in a concert venue/bar in Lincoln Park. We chose it because it was by far the best value we could find for our guests in a room block, and because it would give them the opportunity to really enjoy downtown Chicago in case they wanted to make a mini-vacation out of our wedding weekend. I also love the history and old-school architecture of the place. We were in an updated suite, which was HUGE, and perfect for having groups of friends and family visit us. Also, seemed to be designed with bridal preparations (hair/makeup/nails) for large groups in mind, which we took full advantage of.

    Pros
    We were able to make a lot of changes and additions to our room block
    The renovated rooms are very nice
    The hotel is very "fancy" for people coming in from out-of-town...lots of little details that make people feel special :)
    It is easily accessible for public transportation and there are always plenty of cabs waiting outside
    Location
    The spa is really nice, if not a bit expensive!

    Cons
    Our gift bags were delivered at odd times and rather inconsistently from room-to-room (you have to pay $5 per bag)
    A standard KING room is very small
    The hotel is very large, and our guests were scattered everywhere
    Parking is expensive, unless you find a good deal ahead of time
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    Amanda Sent on 11/01/2010
    4.7 out of 5 rating
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    We fell for it from the beginning. There is an old European elegance to the whole hotel. We were in the Honore Ballroom for the ceremony, had a cocktail hour in Potters Lounge, then retruned to the Ballroom for the most beautiful reception. The room was stunning, the food was outstanding. The catering manager is impeccably classy and attentive. Every detail was perfect and memorable. We highly recommend it to anyone and everyone.
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    Julie Sent on 11/16/2009
    4.6 out of 5 rating
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    The Empire Room at the Palmer House was gorgeous. It is especially nice if you like grand old architecture with elaborate candelabra, gold leaf, etc. We had our reception there: cocktail hour on the balcony overlooking the lobby, sit down dinner and dancing in the Empire Room. The food was very good and it was nice to be able to offer our guests a choice of entree (beef or fish) tableside and thereby forgo having to print food choices on our invitation. The staff did a good job helping me to get personal items (pictures, cake cutter, flutes, table numbers, etc.) in place and alleviating any concerns in that regard.

    I have to give it 4 stars though for value not because it was expensive (about $165/person) because it was comparable to most other downtown chicago venues, but because we had several snafus with the front desk and room reservations for our guests and the meal selections got a trifle mixed up as well. Really these were very minor issues and overall I would host our reception there again in a heartbeat. It was an amazing space and we received many compliments from our guests telling us it was the best wedding they had attended yet.
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    Anu Sent on 06/10/2013
    4.2 out of 5 rating
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    We had our Indian wedding in the Red Lacquer Room on 4/27/13 and absolutely loved every minute of it. We couldn't have pulled it off without our amazing vendors, including our wedding planner who coordinated with Joy at the Hilton. Thank you!
  • Jordan
    Jordan Sent on 04/25/2019
    4 out of 5 rating
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    Great venue bad building

    Old building with bad location. Hard to get into
  • J
    Jacquelyn Sent on 05/30/2012
    3 out of 5 rating
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    I will say that our wedding at Palmer House was incredible. It was the best day of our lives. Dennis Chaffee was unbelievable and we are so grateful we had the opportunity to work with him--he was calming, helpful, professional and knowledgeable. If I had to rate PH solely on Dennis, I would have give them 5 starts across the board. Unfortunately, booking and getting our contract set was difficult to say the least because we weren't getting responses from the department in charge of booking receptions. Additionally, about 6 weeks before our wedding PH called us to let us know they double booked our reception ballroom (which we booked 20 months in advance). After a lot of back and forth, it was all straightened out--again, thanks to Dennis. He saved the day for us and we couldn't have been happier with his service and how perfect he made our day.
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    Laura Sent on 10/25/2015
    0.8 out of 5 rating
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    We stayed here for our wedding. The room was great for getting ready, it was large and full of light. However, we had all sorts of issues with their service. To start, I stood in line for 15 minutes waiting to check in, holding my heavy wedding dress. Not a big deal, except that the only other available staff kept checking in "Hilton's Honor Members." So, clearly they don't care how much money you spend or what you're there for, but only if you sign up for their free program... Then, I specifically requested that housekeeping come after we were finished getting ready so that the room was clean for me and my new husband. No. Didn't happen, even though I was told it would. There were a number of other issues that were minor compared to those two glaring huge issues. I would not recommend Palmer House for ANY wedding needs. I am so glad that we had no other investment in Palmer House for our wedding.

    On a positive note, the first look location was beautiful! And the room, again, was beautiful. That's all. Positives end there.
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    Tyrone Sent on 09/26/2016
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    I have a question do the Palmer house hotel do gay weddings for men yes or no
  • D
    Dana Sent on 01/28/2017
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    DO NO BOOK THE PALMER HOUSE! I know we all think of this exquisite hotel as a Chicago icon and the perfect hotel for a wedding block - at least that is what we believed. Not only did we refer our guests to the Palmer House, but we had a reservation to stay there ourselves. Despite the fact that we have gold Hilton status, we emailed with the hotel a couple days before our big day, they knew our reception was across the street at the Art Institute, and they knew it was our wedding night, when we went to check in after our reception we were told they had to put us in a room with two single beds. I asked them to please find a room with a king bed since it was our wedding night and that is what we reserved. The man at the desk said unapologetically that the room he was giving us was the last room and they were sending all other guests to the Hilton O'Hare! We ended up giving that room to my Maid of Honor who also had not checked in yet and we went back to our house on our wedding night with the rest of our wedding party who Palmer House was going to transfer to the Hilton O'Hare. Guests of ours who were at the bar at the Palmer House informed us that another wedding party came in after us and had to be escorted out by security because they were were so mad at being transferred to O'Hare. I now understand that the Palmer House is more interested in the bottom line than in doing what is right and honoring their contracts with customers. Our wedding was on Saturday of Labor Day weekend and I'm sure they were able to book the rooms at a higher rate than the wedding block rate. Plus, they lost a gift basket filled with champagne and goodies from our wedding party for our wedding night and one of my guests later told me that when they checked in there was garbage in the garbage can in their room and the towels hadn't been changed. Disgusting! Hilton will not take care of you the way you deserve to be taken care of on your wedding night!
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