Overall, our experience was excellent. In terms of planning, the museum takes care of almost everything: they provide catering (you must use their caterer, Wolfgang Puck Catering), linens, tables, chairs, coordinators, etc. The only things you ...must provide are DJ, flowers, photography, videography, attire, and the cake.
Initially, when we first emailed the museum, the event planner was very responsive but it took a little while to hear from the caterer. However, the first time we talked to the caterer on the phone, he was extremely helpful and afterwards everything went very smoothly.
We literally met with the event planner and caterer (together) twice: once to tour the museum, then again a few weeks before the wedding for the food tasting, go through the evening’s timeline, and select linens. All other interaction was done via email, e.g., working out the table setup. In addition to ordering the linens, tables, and chairs, they also called our other vendors, e.g., florist, baker, photographer, ahead of time to make sure they know where/when to show up.
The only part that was a little unclear was when and how we would be able to drop off stuff, like centerpieces, early. When we first met, they said we would be able to drop off non-perishable stuff (i.e., not the cake and flowers) the day before. The second time we met, when we asked them if we could drop off stuff the day before, they said that should be free around 3 PM. The week before, they asked if we could drop off at 5, because they had other appointments that day for another wedding. We had to be at our rehearsal dinner at 5 but, fortunately, our friends took care of it. Also, we hoped to drop off the centerpieces earlier in the day of the wedding but we discovered that we had to wait until 5 PM because we would have to wait until the museum was closed. Everything worked out just fine in the end but the details on when drop offs could be made weren’t very clear until fairly late.
A quick description of our wedding: we had the ceremony in the Theatre of Electricity followed by an electricity demo on the 3-story tall Van de Graaff generators, then cocktail hour and reception in the Blue Wing (the main exhibit hall).
In terms of the day of, everything went completely smoothly. The museum provided three coordinators who made sure everything happened at the right time. The amazing thing was that not only were they coordinating another wedding in another part of the museum but this was the first time we had met any of them. All the information about the evening's timeline had been passed to them from the event planner.
Our timeline for dinner was, admittedly, aggressive so when things started slipping behind schedule, they would just ask us for direction (do you want to do such-and-such now or wait until later?) then would run off to coordinate with the catering staff and DJ to make it happen.
A very pleasant surprise was that we had a personal server for the evening. At the cocktail hour, she introduced herself to us as our "shadow" and proceeded to bring us drinks and food during the rest of the cocktail hour and dinner. We've been to weddings where the couple barely gets to eat; we ate just fine that night!
Overall, though, we were extremely pleased with the level of service. It's not cheap but it's an outstanding value given the venue and the level and quality of the service.