Thursday, July 23, 2009

wedding review: Hyatt Regency (location)



Hyatt Regency Hotel - New Brunswick, NJ
{Location of all wedding-related activities.}
Review: They helped us turn out a fantastic event, and were very accommodating on most aspects. A few glitches here and there, but overall we were very pleased.

I'm still embarrassed to admit that the Hyatt Regency that we eventually decided on was the very same location as my senior prom! Sometimes we really come full circle, eh? As I said in my Wedding Tips piece about location, I was originally very much against the Hyatt, or any other hotel. One of the major reasons we signed on with them was cost - the per person fee was significantly lower than any other place we looked at. I'm not sure if this was a relic from the pre-renovation days, but for the look and service of the place, it was almost a bargain (considering that we had 350+ guests).

The good:
*The Hyatt was super accommodating. I worked with the Catering manager, Susan Moroney for the year before the wedding, and an events manager, Mary, on the day of. Susan was in constant contact with me, and Mary was truly an organizational blessing on our weekend. By the time we finished going around to each table greeting our guests, the buffets were cleared! Mary shuttled us into a separate and empty room and gave us full plates of dinner, desert, and drinks! It was the first 'alone time' we had as a married couple the entire day, and we truly appreciated it. The woman in charge of our room blocks, Anisa, was in constant contact with my parents, and bent over backwards to secure everything we needed for our guests. She even suggested we have 2 separate room blocks with different reservation cut-off dates, in anticipation of a large guest list and late bookers.
*We had several different events across the weekend - a religious ceremony and full catered dinner on Friday, breakfast on Saturday/Sunday, wedding and reception, and lunch following the reception. They worked with us to secure various rooms and staff for each day (e.g., we needed a certain amount of staff at our breakfasts to bus the tables and keep the silverware, juices, and coffee filled). We also were given stages and backdrops for our events, and other random things that we forgot from home.
*The fact that the hotel was exclusive with our caterer, Moghul, meant that we didn't need to run any sort of interference between the two...they communicated and worked things out seamlessly behind the scenes.
*The renovation made the entire place beautiful and modern. I had previously yearned for some outdoor pics, but the ones we got from inside the hotel are some of my faves. There were so many interesting details that our photog seemed to enjoy playing around with.
*We had such a large number of guests, that we were lucky enough to have the entire ballroom on our day, as well as the full atrium for our cocktail hour/reception. If we were to have less than 150, we might have had to share half the ballroom (divided by a moveable wall) with another party! Definitely a downside when you are really considering a hotel as your location.
*Because we had such a large party, and occupied the hotel for so many days, we were able to have some wiggle room in terms of pricing, etc. I believe we had several rooms (including full suites) comped by the hotel, and slightly reduced per-person fees elsewhere.
*The hotel was ideally situated for us and our guests. We ended up forgetting several random things at my parents' house...luckily our house was about 15-20 minutes away! Most of our guests came via train (from points north or south, or the airport). Also, the hotel is just off the NJ Turnpike (not as janky as it sounds, I promise), making it easy to find by many of our in-state guests.
*There were plenty of bars and restaurants within walking distance of the hotel, which is located not too far from the Rutgers University campus. Most of our guests chose to stay in the hotel; actually, having the hotel bar complete with lounge areas, a full bar, and pool tables, was a godsend for the afterparty...all of the younger people (and some older as well!) basically took over the area and enjoyed themselves until the place shut down!

The not-so-good:
*I had repeatedly asked if there were any other weddings scheduled for that day or weekend, and was told no. Not only were there at least 2 others, but one was another Indian wedding! And to make matters worse, my brother-in-law was the one to find out, when he overheard some staff talking at the front desk. The hotel staff did try to assure me that everything would be seamless and separate, but I was mad! In hindsight, because we had the entire ballroom and main atrium, we were, in fact, very separate parties...until the post-reception party when they swarmed the hotel bar! It did lead to some confusion with regard to distribution of guest gift bags at the front desk, and overall the hotel felt a little understaffed (they were probably stretched pretty thin). Did they lie to us? I'm still not sure, but thank goodness it turned out ok.
*We chose to load up Husband's ipod with music and pipe it in for our Friday night ceremony and dinner. At the end of the night, the ipod was gone! The hotel staff was very hands off here; they took no responsibility and put the possible blame on our guests! I am 95% sure it was taken by a staff member, but we will never know.
*Small gripe, but I asked for breakfast to be sent to our room for both families (called to confirm the night before and morning of), and it never arrived. We all needed our morning coffee to calm the nerves! My poor baby brother had to fill some bags with pastries and shuttle up coffee for us all! Our family was busy enough prepping for the ceremony and prepping ourselves, so this should not have happened. The request fell through the cracks, and could have been due to understaffing.
*The front desk staff was our biggest woe of the weekend. They were rude to our guests, and to us (the bride and groom)! They failed to give out many of the gift bags, claimed lost reservations, mixed up the wedding parties...the list goes on. They even lost our reservation for our wedding suite the night of...we had to book our own room after the reception! My only advice is to work closely with the Booking Manager, and try and meet all of the staff beforehand to get on the same page.
*Where's the cake? Our wedding cake made it out to the floor, but the groom's cake disappeared! It was definitely delivered to the hotel, but we never saw it. Some lucky staff got a chocolate and peanut butter treat. Hmph! Truth be told, I completely forgot about it until my sister-in-law asked the following week!

Overall, the pros outweighed the cons, but these mishaps only made us more harried and stressed. We were pretty explicit with our timeline and plans, but I think staffing issues (among other things) led some requests and responsibilities to fall through the cracks. With the exception of the front desk staff, most of our guests would never have known these problems, and we don't dwell on them at all!

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