The Bethesdan Hotel, Tapestry Collection by Hilton

ce. We like the idea of everything being in one place, including as an option for a place to stay for out of town guests, which was the majority of who we invited. We also decided to let the hotel cater for us, which I was very happy I did when we went for the tasting and even happier when we got feedback from guests. Anything else that may have come up the hotel was sure to accommodate and make adjustments, to assure things were right for the weekend. I received many positive comments from guests about the location and how it worked well for the whole weekend. Also, about the food, shout out to the chef. He was very nice when we met him at the tasting and every one raved about the food at cocktail hour and buffet. Overall, I’m happy with this decision because it was a great flow for the ceremony, reception and everyone hanging out in the bar downstairs to continue on. I enjoyed working with Kim, the main contact, because she helped walk us through the packages and helped customize things to help toward our vision. The Bethesdan Hotel is a good way to go, to deal with less vendors and locations, but also great quality.

ntralized. The hotel is located near lots of restaurants, the metro, and downtown Bethesda which gave our guests access to lots of things nearby. All staff at the hotel was always kind and friendly. Special shout outs to Eric at the front desk, Boli who helped with so much, Hernan who helped us find some decorations that went missing, and Martha and Gita. Folks went out of their way to help us with things, like helping me move décor inside the Thursday before my wedding, or the person from Encore who gave us extra draping to hang on our wedding arch. The food was incredible and we really appreciated all of the choices we had and how flexible the chef was with all of the selections we made. The space was beautiful and easy to adapt to the size of our guests. Our only problem was with the catering sales manager, our contact for the hotel. At the beginning, she was super responsive and friendly. It was actually a large part of why we chose The Bethesdan as our venue. However, once we were signed on, the communication steeply dropped off. We had to constantly follow up on our own emails after 2-3 days to even get a response from her. We were often the one to remind her about key dates, including due dates and payment deadlines. There were also a lot of little things that were frustrating. As one example, my hotel room would not be ready on time for hair and makeup to be done, so the hotel contact booked us a parlor room to get ready in. That was great. However, there was no bathroom in there, so she told us specifically to use the stairs to go up a floor to use the rooftop bathrooms. I didn’t look at the stairwell she pointed at, and just trusted that it was the correct instructions. However, the stairs only went down, not up. She also told me that there would be food and drinks in that parlor room and they never came. Before the wedding, she refused to do our food tasting until after the invites needed to go out (she insisted on 2 months or less), and was confused when asked basic questions about dietary restrictions.We thought communication would get better as we got closer to the wedding, but instead she went on vacation and left us with an employee who was not able to help us. The person she directed us to in her absence actively gave us inaccurate information and asked for us to wait until she comes back from vacation to settle our final bill. This led to a very stressful 48 hours before the wedding. On the day of the wedding, she was barely present (she said she would be there the whole time) and other hotel staff and our planner said that they hadn’t seen her either. We saw her for maybe 30 seconds total. She was so unpresent and unhelpful on the day of our wedding that our planner actually said something to us about it. I think if I didn't work in the events industry and was already on top of all the little details, our wedding could have been a disaster because of her. Outside of our one issue with our contact, we truly loved everything else The Bethesdan had to offer and would recommend all the other aspects of this venue.

ff was great too.