About this vendor
Located in Portland, OR, the Melody Event Center is a recently restored historic wedding venue. With its committed staff and on-site catering facilities, this location offers a convenient setting where you can celebrate your love. Its classically-inspired exteriors lend an air of grandeur to the occasion. The light, modern interiors of this venue are a blank canvas for you to bring your dreams and visions for the day to life.
In 1925, this event center took the form of a Woodsman of the World lounge. Originally designed by W.W. Lucius, it features stained leaded glass fanlights, as well as a terrazzo stairway leading to the ballroom. The lounge was made up of a speakeasy, two ballrooms, and a steam room. In this iteration, it played host to many glittering social events in the Portland area. Today, however, it holds all sorts of events, from corporate gatherings to quinceañeras. In 2018, a brand new remodeling project was opened to the public. This new Melody Event Center features six event spaces and can hold up to 1,000 guests.
At this venue, historic elements are blended with top-of-the-line modern amenities. In the Melody Event Center’s ballrooms, 30 foot high ceilings and brass chandeliers soar above rich maple floors. Rich gold accents add to the air of luxury. Accompanying the ballroom are the Hawthorne and Morrison rooms, increasing the ballroom’s capacity. Banquet-style seating can be arranged for up to 400 guests. The speakeasy is now a bar and lounge area, complete with a hardwood floor and sound system. The adjoining theater-style space of the Tilikum lounge can be used for both ceremonies and reception. In between events, the party is free to retire to the speakeasy while the staff sets up the banquet. The in-house chef has more than 25 years of experience in catering for events and is happy to work with any dietary restrictions. The event center also offers a full-service bar that includes specialty cocktails for a memorable toast.
Amenities + details
Ceremony Area
Handicap Accessible
Indoor Event Space
Liability Insurance
Reception Area
Wireless Internet
Covered Outdoors Space
Dressing Room
On-Site Accommodations
Outdoor Event Space
Business Attributes
- Asian-owned Business
- Woman-owned Business
Settings
- Ballroom
- Historic Venue
Venue Service Offerings
- Bar & Drinks
- Food & Catering
- Service Staff
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Reviews
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3.3
out of 5.06 reviews
This is an absolutely beautiful venue and the day/night staff were amazing! Especially Andrew, he was super professional and attentive to every need.
However in the months leading ...
up to our event we had to deal with Catherine. She was extremely difficult to work with. She went out of her way to make every detail frustrating. She was not helpful, flexible or nice. She refused to work with me, the event planner, and would involve my client in every detail that she did not need to be bothered with (even on the morning of the wedding). This added so much unneeded stress for the bride and MOB. She refused to acknowledge me as the event planner and referred to me as "the decorator". .Catherine even lied to me on the day of the wedding about the parking lot. She told me there was no parking lot code for the locked gate and me and my employees needed to park on the street. Then, minutes later, Andrew gave my delivery truck driver a slip of paper with the gate code on it.... I would not recommend this venue, even though it is beautiful, Catherine really added SO much unneeded stress that no one should have to have in planning their big day!!
All I saw of this venue was a shot tour but the venue was not our style and we were given an estimate of $9,500 not including catering which was double our budget :( Even though it...
didn't work out the staff was very helpful and kind.
This company has been horrible, they are liars and scammers. My family has a contract with them they refused to give us our proper refund “due to Covid”. We are well into our contr...
act that they made themselves and are not honoring. We have emailed multiple times, called and left messages with Christine leedy and she at first lied to us and said there is no way of getting our deposit back of almost $5k but after reviewing our contract we realized we have the right to our deposit refund, once we let them know of that they stopped responding. The owner is incredibly unprofessional and reliable, still has not returned our phone calls regarding our rights. I think they take advantage of people and scam. We are losing our patience waiting, we will have to get an attorney involved soon if nothing gets resolved.
If you have a large wedding party, the Melody Ballroom Grand Ballroom is the perfect place. It was the perfect size for our 225 person wedding. It is your room to make the way you ...
wanted it. You can do as much or as little to the space and it looks great. But the best thing about the space was Kevin and Kathleen! The staff there makes you feel so welcomed and take care of. Kevin is so helpful. He is there to help as much as you need, answers emails in a reasonable amount of time and works with you throughout the whole thing. They really made our even run smoothly. Their buffet and drinks tables were perfectly colored for our fall wedding. Plus to food was so good. They saved us a few appetizers and cocktails for us to sneak a bit before we had to be introduced. Dinner was so good and we got so many compliments from our family about actually enjoying the food and drinks. They really took care of us. If I got to do it all over (with the same groom of course) I would go back to the Melody Ballroom again! The only con is the parking, the space holds alot of people but parking is a little tight in that area. Not too bad, but we reserved the parking spaces for our older guests so some of our younger guests had maybe 3 blocks to walk after parking. Not terrible but just something to be aware of when booking.
The Melody Ballroom is beautiful and their staff is amazing. So happy we chose this venue on our big day! Thank you Kathleen.
I love the Melody Ballroom. We needed a large space due to our guest list, the Melody Ballroom has 3 different spaces to choose from and were very accommodating from our first vis...
it. Each interaction we had they continued to impress us from our menu which included their caterer as well as an outside caterer, they provide large flower arrangements for the food tables and/or guest book tables (in your flowers and colors), they even send you and your new spouse home with some of your left over food and a bottle of champagne. Excellent customer service and very reasonably priced! I heard nothing but wonderful comments from our guest about how great the food was and how beautiful the venue was!
Contact
615 SE Alder St, Portland, OR
The Melody Event Center