The Westin Chicago Lombard

whole process. We held our wedding in Junior Ballroom which is GORGEOUS! Our photographer was definitely happy. As a stressed bride, the event staff was professional, accommodating, and kind. Their coordination made the entire day feel stress free, allowing us to fully be present for our wedding. Would recommend to any newly engaged couples!!!

n for the ceremony and $77/person for the reception as a fee per person (food, room rental, taxes and service charges are separate!!), but somehow that’s still not enough. Want CO2 guns? Extra fee. Dry ice? Extra fee. We’re not paying $175 to have a fire marshal turn off the smoke detectors for 30 seconds of dry ice. Our DJ also informed them the products he uses do not make smoke alarms go off, but they wouldn’t budge. Fire paan? Not allowed. Meanwhile, they allow over an hour of open flame during the ceremony, so make that make sense. Cold sparklers that majority of venues allow? Nope! Passing out gift bags to guests at check-in? Another fee. Moving chairs from ceremony to reception? Another fee. The list doesn’t end They wouldn’t even give the bride and groom 1 shot at the reception like what?? Every other venue we had events at gave the bride and groom at least 1 shot. They were also carding people at the bar who were significantly older than 21?? People are not carrying their IDs in Indian outfits. People do not want to be carded at a wedding. It looks tacky. On top of that, one of the bartenders was extremely rude. Another ridiculous thing was getting upcharged for black linens at the reception when most venues include black and/or white linens as standard options. They also provided nothing complimentary, except for the 2 rooms all brides and grooms yet regardless of how big the wedding is. No separate getting ready room for the bridesmaids, no breakfast room, no after party room; NOTHING special considering how much money this hotel made in revenue from our wedding. Even the hotel rooms only got ONE water bottle per stay which honestly felt cheap. The rest we had to provide to our guests on our own, and surprise 6 cases of water bottles mysteriously went missing. Furthermore, we specifically requested housekeeping at 10 am because check in asked what time we wanted it, but surprise surprise!! Housekeeping showed up at 4 pm while we were getting ready for the reception Overall, the experience felt very nickel-and-dime. Every conversation somehow turned into another charge and left us constantly frustrated and having to compromise things that shouldn’t have needed to be compromised on for our special day. We initially started this process with Kelly, who was the event liaison the hotel provided us. She left the hotel in the middle of planning our event and no one informed us. Victoria eventually took over very quick to respond, she didn’t advocate for us at all, inconsistent at times and was not willing to be flexible at all. She did not offer any alternative options or compromise to our requests at all, just blatantly stated xyz is not allowed. Part of this is on us because we initially had a terrible wedding planner (we switched 3 months out from the wedding) who failed to explain any of these fees and annoying rules before we signed the contract, but still, for the amount of money our wedding brought into this hotel, the constant nickel and diming was ridiculous. While we had a great time at our wedding, we ultimately wish we’d gone with a different venue. This hotel is money hungry and no Marriott hotels will be getting our business after this experience.

d, answered all of our questions (and we had a ton). Also, the food was amazing and the rooms were immaculate.