The Benson Hotel

lroom, a cocktail hour in the London Grill, and our reception dinner in the Mayfair Ballroom. The entire hotel is full of sophisticated beauty. From the planning to the day of our wedding, every staff member we met was very professional. Janet Kearney, the Director of Catering, was very helpful and knowledgeable throughout the planning process. Janet and her amazing team went above and beyond on our wedding day and it could not have gone successful without their hard work and help. Additionally, we are still receiving compliments on the great tasting food at the cocktail hour and reception dinner! Janet, her team, the chefs, and all the staff at the Benson Hotel were absolutely wonderful and we would recommend to everyone we know to come here or have their events at the Benson.

but she had another wedding that day &we were paired up with Audrey. I would not recommend Audrey. She was not detailed oriented & made our wedding rehearsal night have a bitter taste, & so was our wedding. She messed up our work order names more than three times & provided the names instead of another couple. She did not put me in the reserved hotel room, instead, she had reserved my wedding night hotel room under my husband's name & some other person's name we have never heard of. She also messed up the seating chart, causing two guests tables to behind a pillar & those guests felt disengaged & left halfway through the reception. She had an extra table in the reception area, although we were clear several times on how many tables we needed, & when she removed the extra one that is when she messed up the original seating chart we agreed on. She was nowhere to be seen during the set-up of the ceremony & reception, I only found her once but when my vendors/family had questions they could not find her. We did not get to eat our lunch, & no one came to offer food to our vendors/family during lunchtime or at least mentioned it to them since they knew about it but did not know the location of the room name even as they knew the room name. No direction. We had leftover food, TONS, & they force you to have a "minimum" but omg it is a ridiculous amount of food & drinks!! The steak we ordered for our guests was not cooked how we asked, there was still red in the meat--- our guests did not like that. We asked them over 11 times to make sure the meat was well cooked. Audrey & the Chef did not listen. Our hotel room after the wedding had a hole in it, & the lamp shades were burnt. Since I'm in law school, I made sure that when we first checked in we took videos & photos of this. I was too tired the night before the wedding to asked to be switched & had fought with the receptionist because they charged the room price twice, & had the wrong person on the reservation. Audrey is also too loud, & I can see she tries to be energetic but she laughs way too loud in my opinion & scares the clients. In my opinion, it would serve well if she took broad cultural classes. During our breakfast, we waited half an hour to be served, causing all of us to be behind scheduled. We were rushed from our ceremony, although we had originally agreed to 30 minutes extra in the ceremony room-- the Benson hotel made a decision to treat us like second-class citizens because the other wedding there needed to get in faster. So we had to end out ceremony early & not even get pictures taken with our guests, & their staff started taking things down because the other couple wanted more time in the reception... we too were paying customers. Overall, we only get married once in our lifetime & I would not recommend the Benson hotel to anyone else. At least, I would not recommend agreeing to be married on the same day they have another wedding already or working with Audrey. I would recommend Janet because she is professional & the only person who came to check on us during the reception, & she is just so sweet. We had the money for our wedding, but the Benson food & quality is over pricey. You are paying for the room, but the rooms are poorly lit, although gorgeous. So good luck.

with the hotel 14 months before our wedding. Food was very important to us so we requested a tasting before we booked the room. We wanted to serve Thai food and the tasting went very well. The chef met our expectations at the tasting but did terribly at our wedding. A week before our wedding, the coordinator emailed us and asked how to cook one of our dishes because the chef forgot. On our wedding day, 4 out of 6 dishes came out totally different than what we had at the tasting. We didn't get half of the cupcakes we ordered. Several items on the contracts were not honored. Once we brought the mistakes to the hotel's coordinator, she kept giving us excuses and didn't try to smooth the situation. We spent over a year planning this wedding and the hotel couldn't even bother to honor the contracts and deliver what we had agreed upon. If you already booked the hotel, my advice to you is document everything and do all communication through email so you have proofs of everything. The room was beautiful but was not worth the hassle of dealing with the incompetent event team.

l stages of the process. We started planning our wedding almost a year out and Janet was responsive throughout often going the extra mile to make our big day special. A great example of this was when we weren't satisfied with the bread at the tasting and Janet made sure it met our wants at the actual wedding. We chose the Crystal Ballroom for our ceremony because it is a fabulous space with only minor decorating required. The photos we've already seen taken by friends make us feel like we got married in a French palace. The setting truly made our special day even more special feeling. The staff at the hotel did a tremendous job turning the room around during our cocktail hour (which took place in the London Grill) and many of our guests commented on how good the hors d'oeuvres were. The staff was very efficient during the reception, the food was solid, and we all had a ton of fun on the dance floor (the same space where the ceremony took place). I truly couldn't be happier with how the whole day turned out and having our wedding at The Benson was a major part of that success. Our magical day ended in a lovely suite where we were greeted with an iced bottle of champagne and delicious desserts. I would highly recommend The Benson, Janet, and their wonderful staff to anyone looking to get married in Portland.