The Westin Alexandria Old Town

Would absolutely recommend working with Laure and having a wedding at the Westin Old Town to any couple. Laure and the whole staff were welcoming and professional. During the planning process, she was extremely responsive and I appreciated her handling questions not only from me but our vendors (and my mother haha). Having the hotel handle set up and clean up, the bar, menu (you do a tasting in advance to select your appetizers and dinner), etc., was a huge benefit to getting married at the Westin. We also used several vendors that the hotel recommended and they were all great. The hotel itself is really nice – all the rooms were great and the event space is really well kept. Laure, and the whole staff, made our event weekend wonderful from when guests checked in through our brunch in the restaurant the next morning.

Though I did not end up using this venue for my wedding, I absolutely had to write a review because the service we received was amazing. Laure, the events coordinator, turned over proposals very quickly, met us at the hotel to walk through the property and was willing to accommodate the many needs of our wedding weekend. She is amiable and extremely easy to work with! The only reason we did not go with this location was proximity to our home .

I am honestly between 3 and 4 stars because they did a good job during the ceremony part but during the reception it was a bit lack luster. Reservations were also hard. When booking the rooms we booked 10 rooms thinking that would be the friday to sunday but what was not told to us or made more of a point was the 10 rooms were split up into 5 rooms on friday and 5 rooms on saturday which became a bit of a nightmare bc we kept having to add more rooms. They also had 2 other weddings there 1 on the day after mine and 1 at another location so the rooms were becoming less and less. Another complaint was when we were doing the walk through to see if we wanted to book this location (11 months before the wedding) we were told my groom and his men would have the changing area which was going to be the holding room later on. But the sales coordinator held it starting after the wedding and never held it before. We found this out about 1 to 2 weeks before the wedding. Bc of all the weddings and a conference that was in-house the guys had to go to a normal room to change. We were told they would have it all day as long as they don't sleep in there. I told the sales coordinator that they would be there about 12. She had reserved the room until 12! They were never told they had to move their stuff and never told where to move their stuff too and they made us pay for the room due to the miscommunication on their part. We had the ceremony outside which was very nice they draped the trash cans and the dog bag stations. Inside the venue all my decorations were in the cocktail hour and pretty much none of them were placed inside the reception (maybe thats the day of coord fault). The apps were coming out of 1 door and weren't able to get around to everyone bc they would stop for the people who were right at the door. I would still recommend this place but make sure everything is in writing about reservations, rooms, times people need to be out of rooms, were the guys are getting ready and what time they need to be out and then where to put their stuff.

I've had several friends select this venue for their weddings. It has always resulted in added stress for the bride and groom leading up to the wedding. All of my friends have experienced frequent change in wedding coordinators and difficulty in delivering on what was originally agreed in the contract. Additionally, the serving staff at the venue is incredibly unprofessional. Recently several of the staff members reprimanded guests for their dietary restrictions, indicating that the guests had no choice but to eat what would worsen their allergies. When they finally agreed to provide an allergy friendly meal, they frequently walked by and told one guest she would "just have to wait" every time they passed the table. Overall from what I've witnessed, other venues would be less stressful.