The Bolger Center

We held our wedding at the Bolger Center and it was a fantastic venue! We ended up with about 120 guests which was perfect for the Stained Glass Hall. A few minor things could have gone more smoothly, but overall, it was beautiful, the food was incredibly good, the coordinators Damali & Bhavna were great, and all staff was extremely friendly and helpful. We’re so glad we chose the Bolger Center! The package was also extremely competitively priced for the area. The good: - The food was shockingly good! Several guests said it was the best wedding food they’d had. Portions were ample and the bar had a great selection. You have to use the onsite catering but we felt they had plenty of options. They accommodated a lot of allergies etc and were flexible with some adjustments we wanted to make, including batching the signature cocktail without alcohol and providing a cutting cake for a small upcharge. The breakfast (not included) was also excellent. - The stained glass hall is just gorgeous - the windows, ceiling, and marble wall are beautiful and highly unique. It has a classic and vintage feel to it and we didn’t need to decorate much. Uplighting is included and highly customizable. We used the space for the ceremony and reception and the room flip went perfectly. We used the courtyard for the cocktail hour and it was also gorgeous. The grounds have ample photo spots. - The bridal suite was beautiful, spacious, and the perfect place to have hair and makeup done. They set up chairs and tables and provided fresh bottled water and other soft drinks all day. - The staff provided stellar service all evening. Everyone was friendly and helpful! - They went out of their way to ensure that the mother of the groom had a place to stay in the building (unfortunately no other guests were able to stay in the building due to construction, but the rooms were still fairly close.) Minor caveats: - The hotel booking system is old and it’s hard to get a hold of the right person to help if any issues come up. A few guests mentioned that the rooms are a little small (the honeymoon suite wasn’t!) We also had trouble with the room block not refilling and needed to reach out a few times to get it updated. Two guests also received an email saying their reservation was canceled (it wasn’t) and were never issued a correction. But it all ended up fine. - The outdoor ceremony space option is lovely, but not very wheelchair friendly since there’s no paved path and the grass slopes a bit. - Based on what I’ve heard from others and our coordinator, their timeline for planning was a little more compressed than typical. Most details weren’t determined until after the tasting which was just about 3 months in advance of the wedding date. Our venue coordinator changed about a month from the wedding, which ended up being fine but led to slightly more back and forth and ultimately the final details seemed to cut it very close, with us finalizing the BEO less than a week before the event. But since everything ended up fine it wasn’t a big deal! - They weren’t able to guarantee an on-site rehearsal or that the hotel restaurant would be open for on-site breakfast (unless we paid a minimum upfront). Luckily we ended up being able to have both and got about a month’s notice. But it was a little stressful not knowing if we’d be able to lock those down. (Photos by Tom Bennett Images)

Our wedding in June 2015 at the Bolger Center was wonderful! We knew that we would likely be inviting at least 200 guests and needed a place to accommodate that number without getting too crowded. At the beginning we were looking for a place that could hold up to 300 people and the Bolger Center gave us some flexibility on that front. Many other venues can hold up to 200 people and at that level it can be very crowded. We loved that we could have our ceremony and reception at the Bolger Center. We also liked that our guests could stay in hotel rooms at the Bolger Center and not worry about transportation. Our ceremony was outside on a beautiful lawn in front of the Osgood building by a while pergola. There was a 50 percent chance of rain, so we were lucky that it could be outside, but we had a backup site of the Stained Glass Hall if needed. We had a lovely cocktail hour outside of the Ben Franklin Hall and then our reception inside the Ben Franklin Ballroom. During the planning, the Bolger Center’s catering company switched over to Aramark and we began working with Angela Pena Tempo who was very responsive and helpful. At our tasting she helped us think about choices that would make sense for our guests. We did a walk-through going over every part of the day. Early cutoff for hotel room reservations was about 2 months before the date. We encouraged our family and friends to reserve their rooms early, but a few people missed that deadline and weren’t sure what to do. Angela and the team at the Bolger Center worked with us to make sure they could reserve rooms if any were still available, but it would’ve been nice to have a little bit more time for our room block. We decided to hire a day-of wedding coordinator, who worked seamlessly with Angela to make sure everything worked for our wedding. Angela was there for our rehearsal the day before and helped us coordinate having a breakfast for guests the morning afterwards. We had a bride getting ready room/suite and a groom getting ready room/suite where we each slept the night before and got ready the next day, which was great. We also had a room in the Osgood building where everyone could assemble and keep things before the ceremony. Many of our out of town guests stayed at the Bolger Center, had nice rooms, good rates, especially for the DC metropolitan area, and came to breakfast the day after the wedding. It was nice to have an outdoor area, where our extended family gathered the night before the wedding. Everything was wonderful and seamless. Thank you to Angela and the Bolger Center!