DoubleTree by Hilton Atlanta/Roswell

Our wedding weekend literally could have been perfect, had it not been for our awful experience with the DoubleTree. The accommodations themselves were perfectly fine and did the trick for getting ready. My parents booked one of the suites, which we used to host a hospitality suite and the space worked quite well. However, this hotel had been recommended to us for a hotel block specifically by someone who had used the complimentary shuttles to get guests to their own wedding at St. Ann's. Technically the hotel policy is that the shuttles will only go within a 5 mile radius, and the church falls just past that at 5.5 miles. When discussing with the coordinator Bill Ericson, he said that this wouldn’t be a problem and they would be able to make that work. I was so relieved! We immediately set up a block. My mom and I also met with Bill in person, and he again confirmed that running the shuttles just beyond the 5 mile radius wouldn’t be a problem. When it came to the wedding weekend, the shuttle did take us to and from the church on Friday without any problems. However, you can imagine our surprise when the shuttle refused to come to the church to pick up guests after the ceremony, saying that we were outside of the 5 mile perimeter! It was the EXACT location where the shuttle had picked us up the day before. We tried explaining that we had discussed this with Bill and that it had been agreed that the shuttle would come to St. Ann’s, but they would not send one. Our guests, including grandparents all nearly 90 years old, were quite literally stranded. My dad then had to jump through several hoops to get our guests back to the hotel after the church service, which was not was he expected or wanted to be doing. Our saving grace was that we had booked an outside trolley that was carrying the wedding party; we made a rush adjustment to the schedule, cut out some of the planned photography, and sent the trolley rushing back to make a pickup at the church. I expected when Bill heard about this that I would receive an apology. Instead, I was shocked to receive a standard, bland email in which he just said he was sorry if I was unaware, but the policy is that the shuttle will not go beyond a 5 mile radius from the hotel…. as if we had never discussed this! I was not a very demanding bride, but I did expect all of our vendors to live up to what we agreed. I wish Bill had simply been honest with us rather than making false promises so we could have taken our business elsewhere for reliable service and a more pleasant experience. We brought the DoubleTree an incredible amount of business, and the treatment that my grandparents and parents received regarding the shuttle was simply disgraceful.