The Sanibel Harbour Resort and Spa hosted our destination wedding on 11/8/18. We chose this location because my husband has been visiting here since he was a child and when he brought me here, I fell in love with it as well.
PROS: The food was fantastic and exactly what we wanted. Our guests are still talking about how it was the best food they’ve ever had at a wedding. Another great thing about this resort is that unlike other wedding venues in the area, they are very flexible and you can pretty much customize your wedding to exactly what you want while still keeping it affordable. The resort is absolutely beautiful, especially for an outdoor wedding, although there is a 10pm noise ordinance in effect, which means your wedding is over at 10pm.
CONS: Unfortunately, our wedding did not go as we had planned due to the lack of attention to detail by the hotel. I sent back our wedding checklist a month before the wedding, which outlined the final details for our big day. We bought a DJ light and had arranged with PSAV (the hotel’s internal AV company) to set up the light for our reception. I met with the director of PSAV 2 days prior to the wedding to drop off the light and asked them numerous times to please contact my husband when it was set up so he could make sure that it was set up correctly to play along with the music. I was assured that the reception area would be set up by 2pm and that they would call my husband. My husband never received a call from PSAV. When we got to the reception we immediately noticed that the light was not working correctly because they didn’t have on the correct setting. Part of our contract with them was to have a microphone at the reception site. They didn’t have a microphone set up so my husband’s cousin had to shout to everyone over the music that the bride and groom were here. Because of the lack of microphone, we were not able to have a dinner prayer (which was very important to us) nor could we announce that dinner was available. Instead we had to walk up to each table and let them know that they could go make a plate. Included on the wedding checklist was also a sweetheart table, a box for cards and a vase to hold my bouquet. None of these were present when we arrived. My husband and I spent the first hour of our wedding communicating with the wedding coordinators for them to correct what should have already been done per the wedding checklist. One of our guests had a broken chair and the staff removed this chair but when our sweetheart table was set up, that same broken chair was given to my husband.
The paper towel dispensers were not working and there was only 1 working stall in the women’s restroom and a broken sink in the men’s restroom. The next closest women’s restroom was upstairs so our elderly guests had to wait for an elevator to take them if the one working stall was occupied. I expect more from a Marriott hotel, especially when they know a wedding will be taking place.
We had a taco bar and Cuban sandwich bar at our reception. Unfortunately, guests made plates of food and then set them at their table so they could go to the bar for a drink and when they came back, their food had been taken away! The food clearly hadn’t been touched! A waitress came to clear my plate as I was talking to a guest and I informed her I was still eating it. When I turned around, my plate was gone. The waitstaff did not use common sense when it came to clearing tables and so much food was wasted. We had 76 cupcakes delivered in lieu of a cake. Instead of bringing all of the cupcakes out at once so guests could choose from different flavors, they brought out about 15-20. Guests were confused thinking there were only a few cupcakes so they were reluctant to take one. The waitstaff even cleared uneaten cupcakes from the guest’s tables before they could be eaten. At the end of the night, my sister had a box of cupcakes to be taken back to the room and the waitstaff also took these. I don’t even know if all of the cupcakes ever made it out to the guests since they were not brought out all at once. I was informed that all uneaten food is then fed to the staff at the end of an event, so I wonder how much of our food was ‘cleared’ because of this exact reason.
We had a 3-hour open bar with beer, wine and liquor. I can honestly say it was a huge waste of money because none of the guests who drank liquor even got buzzed. Some of the guests were drinking doubles and still didn’t feel anything. My husband and I are not big drinkers and we each had 5 mojitos and did not feel a thing. I addressed my concerns with our wedding coordinator regarding the liquor strength, wondering if it had been watered down and was assured that liquor is not watered down because it goes straight from the stockroom to the bar but they would ‘review the tapes’ to ensure this did not happen. I have never been updated on the outcome of this. If you’re planning your wedding at this resort, don’t waste your money on the liquor package, just go with beer and wine. Also, note that pitchers of water on the tables is not included, which I would think is standard for any event. If you book your wedding with Marriott, make sure you pay attention to every event check that is sent to you and go through it carefully. They tried to charge us $250 more for our bar package because they raised their bar prices after I had booked my wedding.
The bartender at our reception was rude to many of our guests, including our mothers. One of the times my mother-in-law went up for a drink, he said that he had just made her one. She said that she set it down and the waitstaff took it. He told her to keep better track of her drinks. At the end of the open bar, she went up for a double vodka tonic and he said they were out. She pointed to the bottle and said it's right there. He said it’s not enough for a double shot. She told him to pour what he had. My mom tried to get a drink with 10 minutes left of the open bar and he tried to charge her. She said there’s still 10 minutes left and he continued to argue with her. These concerns were also brought up to our wedding coordinator and we were told that this is not the type of service Marriott is known to provide and their IT and General Manager would ‘review the tapes’. I am not sure how they would determine rudeness from soundless video footage but again, we never heard the outcome of their findings. We did ask for money to be refunded on our bar package because of these 2 issues and were told they were unable to do that. We are very upset now hearing all of this because not only is his rudeness completely unacceptable but we paid for an open bar and it wasn't up to the bartender to police our guests.
My friends and I decided to rent the bridal suite at the resort so we could all get ready together. It was a $600 room rental which included champagne mimosas, water, tea, coffee and small sandwiches. There was only 1 bottle of champagne for 9 girls. When the champagne ran out, my aunt asked if they could bring another bottle up but was told that I had only ordered 1 bottle. When I booked the room rental and all hair appointments for my guests, I was only asked what kind of juice and sandwiches we wanted, never about how many bottles of champagne would be needed. Some of the girls didn't get any champagne. The room was not what you would expect when you hear ‘bridal suite’. Along with my hair, I had my make-up done at the spa as well. I have blonde hair and light eyebrows so in order to make my eyes ‘pop’, the make-up artist colored in my eyebrows but I kept saying they were too dark. She kept trying to ‘lighten’ them with more make-up to a shade that I was more comfortable with but I could tell she was getting irritated. When it came to choosing a lipstick, I thought I needed a light pink to really brighten everything up. I did not like the first color she chose. She continued to layer on more colors, which made it darker. I explained that I wanted it lighter and apologized, saying I wasn’t trying to be difficult. When she turned around to grab another color, we saw her roll her eyes in the mirror and sigh a few times. We were disappointed in the price considering the condition of the room and the customer service.
A perk of booking a wedding with Marriott is the choice of double frequent flyer miles or Marriott Rewards for hotel rooms. We chose the frequent flyer miles. A month and a half after my wedding, I had to reach out to ask when I should expect my miles to be added to my airline account because they still hadn’t been applied. I was told I had to open a Marriott Rewards account and link it to my airline profile. Once I did that, I figured it would be seamless. I kept checking my airline account and noticed under frequent flyer miles it showed 0 miles had been applied from the Marriott. I reached back out to my contact at Marriott and was told that I needed to contact Marriott Rewards directly to figure this out. I spoke with Marriott Rewards and she told me I had to contact the airline. When I called the airline, I was told I had to contact Marriott Rewards and speak with a supervisor. After an hour and a half of phone calls, it was finally resolved and the miles were added to my account. Another example of Marriott’s ‘stellar’ customer service.
After the wedding, we met with our wedding coordinator and discussed all of our concerns regarding our wedding. After two and a half months and countless emails, Marriott has refunded a small portion of our money. We are still not satisfied with the resolution considering the bar issues mentioned above but can see that Marriott is not willing to budge. We really thought we would receive a call from the General Manager or Director of Operations because of all Marriott’s errors with our wedding, but never received one. We told our wedding coordinator that we planned on bringing our friends and family back every year on our anniversary and have the hotel host a party as well as host corporate events through my husband’s business. After Marriott dropped the ball on one of the most important days of our lives in addition to the total lack of hospitality, we will never host another event with them.