Hotel Heron

n, venue, food, drinks, day of staff, and value. The hotel is new and ideally located in Old Town Alexandria. It's replete with character and provided a base for our guests to enjoy the charms of the city. We had 90 guests and the event spaces at the venue were well suited for our wedding size. Cockatil hour in the Assembly Rooms was a little tight but no one complained and the hotel made it work. Reception in the ballroom comfortably fit our guests and a 6-piece band but still provided an intimate setting. We received countless compliments on the food served. The appetizers were the star of the show, from crabcakes and lobster rolls to chicken sliders and bacon wrapped mushrooms. Day-of staff were professional, had the rooms set up neatly, and provided attentive service. Plated meals were served efficiently and guests enjoyed ordering genuine cocktails from the bar (martinis, margaritas, old fashioneds). Relative to other venues that we considered, the hotel offered great value for the event. All food and drinks were included, and we were able to negotiate small details that were important to us. The cons: planning experience, communication, preparation, lack of attention to detail, frequent staff turnover. We endured unnecessary heartache and stress leading up to the wedding. Our experience was soured by poor communication, lack of preparation, inattention to detail, and constant turnover in staff that would make us think twice if did it again. Emails and phone calls went unanswered and unreturned more often than not. We'd often have to escalate to corporate staff before we'd hear anything back. Things seemed to improve once Imane took over, but this went on for months. During planning, we were passed to 5 different POCs as one coordinator after the next left the hotel. No changes were communicated. We were never told that the person had left or who our new POC would be. There was one day that we had a scheduled meeting with a coordinator at the hotel only to find out upon arriving and waiting for an hour that they had been fired. We felt a constant need to reiterate and reconfirm things that were promised. In terms of preparation, we had agreed on a floor plan two months before the wedding date. We met for our pre-wedding walkthrough 3 days before our event only to be told that the layout of the room would be a problem because it hadn't been reviewed by all necessary parties at the venue. The event layout ultimately ended up being very close to our desired floor plan, but upon arrival we found that the whole room had been flipped and our cake was pushed to a corner of the room. At that point, what was done was done and we had no chance to make adjustments or tweak what seemed flawed. Lastly, when working through contracts, we had to spend a lot time and effort reviewing and revising terms because they lacked necessary detail and contained inaccuracies. Lack of attention to detail was evident here. TLDR: Our wedding day was well executed, food and drinks were great, and the venue provided excellent value. However, communication was poor, turnover in staff was painful, lack of attention to detail created extra work for us, and we were constantly worried about things falling through the cracks.