The Sam Houston Hotel- Curio Collection by Hilton

lity. 

sappointing. The property itself is beautiful, and I want to acknowledge that several members of the hotel team worked hard to help us pull off our wedding on a very short timeline after our original venue had to change. Unfortunately, our experience with the wedding coordination and event service overshadowed those positives. Throughout the planning process, we were repeatedly told that the hotel would coordinate with our vendors. We were also told that Caren would be our point of contact and would be there on the wedding day for anything we needed. Caren herself told me this directly. We were **not** expecting her to be our wedding planner or to manage our vendors’ jobs—we simply expected the hotel-side coordination we had been promised. On the wedding day, that coordination did not happen. Caren arrived after several of our vendors had already begun setting up, was largely unavailable, and did not provide the coordination or support we had been told to expect. After the wedding, multiple vendors independently told us that they had **never received communication from Caren or the hotel regarding coordination.** There were also several basic setup and service issues that we had to address ourselves on our wedding day: • The linens that were supposed to be on the tables were not set up. • The cake table was not properly set up and ready when it was needed. We had to ask about it approximately 15 minutes before the wedding. • Guests asking for water resulted in confusion because there was no readily available bottled or tap water being provided at the time. We had to intervene and request it ourselves. • We experienced significant issues with the bar, including guests reporting that the bartender was unavailable for extended periods and several selections becoming unavailable. • Caren was also rude and unhelpful toward multiple people, including my stepfather, my husband, fr

fall of 2021 inquiring for a summer 2023 date. I was told that they could not confirm availability more than 12 months prior to the wedding. Once me and my fiancé settled on a winter 2023 date, I reached out again in December of 2021. This time it was around 12 months prior so I was able to book our date. We were planning a small wedding of 65 -75 guests. While the planning was relatively smooth, I felt like I was being judged for not having a full-time planner. I was planning the wedding myself and I hired a day-of coordinator, so I was doing most of the communication with Michelle prior to the wedding day. Every time one of our payments was due, I had to remind her that she could go ahead and charge our payment method. Finally, it came down to our menu tasting. The food was wonderful and the custom menu was exactly what we wanted. However, the day of the tasting, after Michelle left the table, a staff member was making conversation with my fiancé and I and said that the couple getting married the day after us (we had a Friday wedding) had a “$50,000 wedding”, they had money, and they were buying rooms for all their guests. And because they were spending so much money on their food and beverage, that he would be able to give us some extra perks. I was shocked and frankly insulted. I guess he assumed we didn’t have money, or at least not as much as the other couple and felt comfortable talking this way with us. That was very unprofessional considering all the thought we were putting into our big day and we still spent a considerable amount. I decided to let it go at the time. The wedding day came and when I checked in for our honeymoon suite we were given a room on the 5th floor. I thought that was strange because I had the impression we would be on the 2nd adjacent to the reception room. Nothing was delivered to our room, even though the package said we would get a special wedding amenity. I reached out to Michelle after the wedding. Some of our guests had cancelled and we were trying to work out a credit back (we did get some back, which I appreciate). I brought up what the staff member had said at the tasting and that we didn’t get the actual honeymoon suite or the amenity. She was apologetic about the staff member comments but had no interest in finding out who it was. She also denied the other wedding was $50,000. She did confirm that the couple getting married the day after us got the honeymoon suite on the second floor because they had booked the wedding six month prior to us booking it. That was surprising considering I was told we could not book prior to 12 months. That means the other couple booked a full 18 months prior. So, moral of the story is The Sam Houston will be a good choice for you if you are wealthy, white and are planning a 150+ wedding. They will give you preferential treatment over a smaller wedding and different racial background (I am part Hispanic). I am guessing the other couple did get their wedding amenity and I hope they enjoyed it. The wedding itself was wonderful and the food was delicious. However, having been so plainly discriminated against has cast a shadow on what we think about The Sam and Michelle.

space is unique and beautiful. Michelle was fantastic to work with, and answered so many questions we had. Coordination with our on-site vendors was seamless, and their food and beverage options were top-notch. They worked with us to tweak a couple of things on the food and drink menus, and the day of ran extremely smoothly. Our package included the honeymoon suite adjacent to the Veranda event space, and it was perfect. We highly recommend The Sam Houston Hotel for a unique "hotel" wedding space.