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Quality of service
5.0 out of 5 rating
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Average response time
4.0 out of 5 rating
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Professionalism
4.0 out of 5 rating
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Value
4.0 out of 5 rating
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Flexibility
5.0 out of 5 rating
We chose this site for our wedding of about 100 guests. We had the ceremony in one room and the reception in another. Besides providing a venue, they also of course were the caterers for the food & beverage and we also used their florist. The short version is that overall, I would recommend this venue and its various services with only a couple of minor suggestions for things to keep in mind.
To give more details, I'll break it down into the various components:
Service and Planning:
Pros & Cons: The person who booked us (before we were turned over to the coordinator - I still don't really understand the whole process) was quite unresponsive. Very friendly, but didn't really seem to listen to us - e.g. - would forget meetings that she had requested and would react to our conversations like she hadn't heard of these things yet, so it felt like a waste of time to talk to her. (I was not one of those brides who wanted to spend long hours in meetings and planning - I had hoped for efficiency.) Every meeting with this first person felt like the same conversation over and over, so I wasn't really sure what the point of them was. We had to ask her several times to fax the contract so we could pay the deposit and then get transferred to the coordinator, with whom the actual planning would take place. I eventually took to emailing her a day in advance to confirm our meeting so I wasn't sitting there waiting for her to finish with whatever she had done instead. She did end up throwing in some nice extras for my parents and in-laws regarding their accomodations - extras in the rooms, room upgrades, and room comped for the paying party.
Pros: The coordinator was absolutely wonderful. Completely on the ball and a great sense of humor. We wanted a long party filled with a wide variety of little tastes of food and dessert and our guests are still talking about how wonderful everything was and the wedding was over half a year ago. They have a set menu with different options, but they are also willing to customize your offerings however you want them to be. Their chef is well-versed in vegetarian cuisine (we had some meat offerings for our non-veg friends, but the veggie options were spectacular - not the usual stuff that you have to settle for) and is also trained in macrobiotic food preparation for whoever might be interested in that. They gave us prices for the various ideas we had and even tried offering a few suggestions to cut costs based on the number of people we were having. (We were lucky enough to not need to worry about that, but it was nice to know they weren't trying to milk us for whatever they could.) They even put a selection of things that we had asked for in advance into our little "chill out room" so that we could relax after the ceremony and have a nibble before going out to the party. The coordination with the pastry chef there was incredible. We got our cakes elsewhere, but they did other desserts for us including gorgeous little French macarons and (yes, we are Harry Potter geeks) chocolate frogs. Everything was a total hit with us and with the guests. Delicious and plentiful and wonderfully presented and arranged throughout the room. The brunch the next morning was fabulous. Also, they let you choose which rooms your venue will be in - we liked the grand ballroom the best for our ceremony for its elegance and simplicity. They seemed to try to talk us out of it and into a different (and uglier, I.M.O.) room, but we kept saying that we wanted that one so they booked us for it. (It can be sectioned off for however large your group is.) I loved the old world pale silk wall coverings and huge classic crystal chandelier. The service was impeccable.
Cons: There was a misunderstanding about the time the food should be removed. We thought it would be out for the duration of the party but they whisked it away after a few hours and wouldn't let us give leftovers to guests or to a shelter, citing food safety requirements. Based on several pre-wedding discussions, we were very surprised and disappointed by this and she felt really bad that we were disappointed about it. Also, the alcohol selections seemed a bit bottom-shelf for the kind of establishment they are. They modified their selection according to our requests (e.g. imported beers instead of Bud and Miller Light...!!), but it naturally added quite a bit to the price tag. I think the only other thing that kind of caught us off guard was that NO ONE TOLD US WHEN TO GO INTO OUR WEDDING!!! I went into the hallway because I was wondering what was taking so long... and the music was already halfway through the song that our family was supposed to enter with and they finished entering about halfway through what we had intended to be our bride & groom song. Oh well. No huge deal to us in the grand scheme of things, but if that kind of thing would bother you then be sure to remind them of this in your meetings! Oh, one more thing - I wish we'd had more to eat. If I'd thought of it ahead of time, I would have had them either give us more in the chill-out room or have a plate sent to us in our room later on. Being good hosts, we barely got a bite to eat at the party - it was kind of cute because a motherly waitress noticed this and kept asking me what I wanted and giving little plates to me. Unfortunately, every time I started to take a bite, someone came over to congratulate me and the efficient waitstaff whisked my plate away during the conversation. The few bites I had were SCRUMPTIOUS!!!!!
Accomodations
Pros: They are the Ritz Carlton - the rooms are comfortable, clean, and elegant. This site also has the advantage of being near other lower-priced hotels and is easy to get to from the airport and from the highways (vs. downtown DC). Our guests also liked the proximity to metro, shopping, restaurants, and entertainment. Also, when you have your reception there, they include a bridal suite for you for the wedding night. They also included champagne and chocolate covered strawberries.
Cons: They don't offer a discount for wedding guests unless you offer them a guarantee (read: you pay for rooms that don't get booked). Also, my sister got stuck in their elevator for about 15 minutes and the alarm bell didn't work. Probably a chance occurance, but very uncomfortable for her and when she mentioned it to the desk staff they seemed to be pretty "whatever" about it.
Flowers
Pros: Their florist is incredible. Her eye for visual design, cooperativeness, and impeccable taste were exactly what I had hoped for. My previous experience with florists was that I'd ask for a bouquet of just one kind of flower... and then get something that was stuffed with fillers. Jean at the Ritz was not like that at all - she actually made our things look even better in person than they were in my mind. The biggest worry I had about a professional florist doing our flowers was that they would come out looking "too arranged." (As a frequent guest at the Ritz dining room, I already knew she could do great arrangements because they are on display throughout the common areas of the hotel.) (We wanted a much more unstructured, aimple, and outdoorsy springtime feel.) She also made a chuppa for our interfaith ceremony that was simple and elegant and exactly like what I had described for her. ("Just drapey and flow-y white cloth with no embellishments.") When we entered the rooms for our ceremony and reception, I was on cloud nine and could have cared less about flowers, but I was still blown away by how incredibly gorgeous they were. On either side of our chuppa, she had placed a large Victorian-looking urn filled with branches and branches of cherry blossoms (luckily in season) that were as tall as we were. I had provided dark metal trumpet vases and she filled them with pussy willows arranged in some kind of discreet moss filler. She had also potted live miniature rose bushes for us in complementing pots that I had provided and they looked perfect with the moss pots I had done myself.
She was prompt and courteous for all of our meetings and checked with me via phone and email if she wasn't sure what I meant about something.
Cons: She left our box of bouquets and boutineers in the pre-ceremony room without letting us know they were there and without staying around to help fasten the boutineers. She also didn't deliver them in time for us to have them for our pre-wedding photos. Our Ritz wedding coordinator knew what time our photos started and I assumed that she would have arranged times accordingly with the florist, but that was not the case. Also, we wouldn't have expected otherwise there, but the flowers and chuppa did add quite a bit to the total bill - not the florist to go with if you're trying to cut costs.
We chose this site for our wedding of about 100 guests. We had the ceremony in one room and the reception in another. Besides providing a venue, they also of course were the caterers for the food & beverage and we also used their florist. The short version is that overall, I would recommend this venue and its various services with only a couple of minor suggestions for things to keep in mind.
To give more details, I'll break it down into the various components:
Service and Planning:
Pros & Cons: The person who booked us (before we were turned over to the coordinator - I still don't really understand the whole process) was quite unresponsive. Very friendly, but didn't really seem to listen to us - e.g. - would forget meetings that she had requested and would react to our conversations like she hadn't heard of these things yet, so it felt like a waste of time to talk to her. (I was not one of those brides who wanted to spend long hours in meetings and planning - I had hoped for efficiency.) Every meeting with this first person felt like the same conversation over and over, so I wasn't really sure what the point of them was. We had to ask her several times to fax the contract so we could pay the deposit and then get transferred to the coordinator, with whom the actual planning would take place. I eventually took to emailing her a day in advance to confirm our meeting so I wasn't sitting there waiting for her to finish with whatever she had done instead. She did end up throwing in some nice extras for my parents and in-laws regarding their accomodations - extras in the rooms, room upgrades, and room comped for the paying party.
Pros: The coordinator was absolutely wonderful. Completely on the ball and a great sense of humor. We wanted a long party filled with a wide variety of little tastes of food and dessert and our guests are still talking about how wonderful everything was and the wedding was over half a year ago. They have a set menu with different options, but they are also willing to customize your offerings however you want them to be. Their chef is well-versed in vegetarian cuisine (we had some meat offerings for our non-veg friends, but the veggie options were spectacular - not the usual stuff that you have to settle for) and is also trained in macrobiotic food preparation for whoever might be interested in that. They gave us prices for the various ideas we had and even tried offering a few suggestions to cut costs based on the number of people we were having. (We were lucky enough to not need to worry about that, but it was nice to know they weren't trying to milk us for whatever they could.) They even put a selection of things that we had asked for in advance into our little "chill out room" so that we could relax after the ceremony and have a nibble before going out to the party. The coordination with the pastry chef there was incredible. We got our cakes elsewhere, but they did other desserts for us including gorgeous little French macarons and (yes, we are Harry Potter geeks) chocolate frogs. Everything was a total hit with us and with the guests. Delicious and plentiful and wonderfully presented and arranged throughout the room. The brunch the next morning was fabulous. Also, they let you choose which rooms your venue will be in - we liked the grand ballroom the best for our ceremony for its elegance and simplicity. They seemed to try to talk us out of it and into a different (and uglier, I.M.O.) room, but we kept saying that we wanted that one so they booked us for it. (It can be sectioned off for however large your group is.) I loved the old world pale silk wall coverings and huge classic crystal chandelier. The service was impeccable.
Cons: There was a misunderstanding about the time the food should be removed. We thought it would be out for the duration of the party but they whisked it away after a few hours and wouldn't let us give leftovers to guests or to a shelter, citing food safety requirements. Based on several pre-wedding discussions, we were very surprised and disappointed by this and she felt really bad that we were disappointed about it. Also, the alcohol selections seemed a bit bottom-shelf for the kind of establishment they are. They modified their selection according to our requests (e.g. imported beers instead of Bud and Miller Light...!!), but it naturally added quite a bit to the price tag. I think the only other thing that kind of caught us off guard was that NO ONE TOLD US WHEN TO GO INTO OUR WEDDING!!! I went into the hallway because I was wondering what was taking so long... and the music was already halfway through the song that our family was supposed to enter with and they finished entering about halfway through what we had intended to be our bride & groom song. Oh well. No huge deal to us in the grand scheme of things, but if that kind of thing would bother you then be sure to remind them of this in your meetings! Oh, one more thing - I wish we'd had more to eat. If I'd thought of it ahead of time, I would have had them either give us more in the chill-out room or have a plate sent to us in our room later on. Being good hosts, we barely got a bite to eat at the party - it was kind of cute because a motherly waitress noticed this and kept asking me what I wanted and giving little plates to me. Unfortunately, every time I started to take a bite, someone came over to congratulate me and the efficient waitstaff whisked my plate away during the conversation. The few bites I had were SCRUMPTIOUS!!!!!
Accomodations
Pros: They are the Ritz Carlton - the rooms are comfortable, clean, and elegant. This site also has the advantage of being near other lower-priced hotels and is easy to get to from the airport and from the highways (vs. downtown DC). Our guests also liked the proximity to metro, shopping, restaurants, and entertainment. Also, when you have your reception there, they include a bridal suite for you for the wedding night. They also included champagne and chocolate covered strawberries.
Cons: They don't offer a discount for wedding guests unless you offer them a guarantee (read: you pay for rooms that don't get booked). Also, my sister got stuck in their elevator for about 15 minutes and the alarm bell didn't work. Probably a chance occurance, but very uncomfortable for her and when she mentioned it to the desk staff they seemed to be pretty "whatever" about it.
Flowers
Pros: Their florist is incredible. Her eye for visual design, cooperativeness, and impeccable taste were exactly what I had hoped for. My previous experience with florists was that I'd ask for a bouquet of just one kind of flower... and then get something that was stuffed with fillers. Jean at the Ritz was not like that at all - she actually made our things look even better in person than they were in my mind. The biggest worry I had about a professional florist doing our flowers was that they would come out looking "too arranged." (As a frequent guest at the Ritz dining room, I already knew she could do great arrangements because they are on display throughout the common areas of the hotel.) (We wanted a much more unstructured, aimple, and outdoorsy springtime feel.) She also made a chuppa for our interfaith ceremony that was simple and elegant and exactly like what I had described for her. ("Just drapey and flow-y white cloth with no embellishments.") When we entered the rooms for our ceremony and reception, I was on cloud nine and could have cared less about flowers, but I was still blown away by how incredibly gorgeous they were. On either side of our chuppa, she had placed a large Victorian-looking urn filled with branches and branches of cherry blossoms (luckily in season) that were as tall as we were. I had provided dark metal trumpet vases and she filled them with pussy willows arranged in some kind of discreet moss filler. She had also potted live miniature rose bushes for us in complementing pots that I had provided and they looked perfect with the moss pots I had done myself.
She was prompt and courteous for all of our meetings and checked with me via phone and email if she wasn't sure what I meant about something.
Cons: She left our box of bouquets and boutineers in the pre-ceremony room without letting us know they were there and without staying around to help fasten the boutineers. She also didn't deliver them in time for us to have them for our pre-wedding photos. Our Ritz wedding coordinator knew what time our photos started and I assumed that she would have arranged times accordingly with the florist, but that was not the case. Also, we wouldn't have expected otherwise there, but the flowers and chuppa did add quite a bit to the total bill - not the florist to go with if you're trying to cut costs.
User2488919 Sent on 12/31/2015The absolute best choice for our December 2015 wedding! The staff was so attentive, the service was phenomenal, the food and cake were outstanding (we've received so many compliments on the food!) - the Ritz-Carlton staff ensured that our wedding day was absolutely perfect. They truly go above and beyond to make their brides and grooms happy. So, so, so happy that we picked this hotel for our big day! Highly recommend!
User2458107 Sent on 12/08/2015Everything was perfect. The staff listened to us and the attention to detail was incredible. We were able to enjoy the wedding as if we were guests The food was amazing. Our guests were taken care of. We have only wonderful things to say.
