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Quality of service
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Average response time
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Professionalism
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Value
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Flexibility
5.0 out of 5 rating
The W hotel is modern and in the heart of downtown Scottsdale shopping/nightclub/bar area. If you are looking for a more traditional resort type wedding, this is not the place for you.
They were PERFECT for my wedding. We had a small "destination" wedding with about 60 guests from all over the country. Mostly in their 20s and 30s. I am Japanese, so I wanted a Japanese touch which the W accomplished for me. We customized our menu to include a signature cocktail with plum wine(which our coordinator Matt Culbreth helped design with the bartender), yuzu sorbet, kobe beef, and a twist on the usual chocolate volcano cake to include some peanut butter infusion. We also served some sushi during our cocktail reception. Their wedding package came with free wedding hair and make up at the Rolf Salon. Rolf salon did an amazing job. Our photographer Jason from iLlume was across the street from the W, which meant we could do some studio shots for the formal portraits. The package included 2 hrs of DJ which they credited to us because we went with an outside DJ. We had a meeting with Matt about 7 months before the wedding. We contacted and visited many other venues including the Biltmore, westin, the Phoenician, Sanctuary, Firesky, Gainey Suites, intercontinental, and Royal Palms. A lot of those venues were beautiful but snooty and isolated. (Royal Palms was probably the snootiest) The W had a fun vibe and although trendy, and some of the guests/visitors were over-the-top (cross between Jersey shore, Miami, and Los Angeles), the staff did everything they could do make our guests happy and comfortable. (my sister in law asked for a refrigerator with nothing in it because she didn't want to be charged for the mini-bar and they delivered one. They also brought me a portable steamer to help get ready the day of my wedding)
The catering manager Ken was also great and even though they had a near disaster right before my grand entrance (apparently, our sweetheart table vase spontaneously shattered and Ken had 5 minutes to direct staff and run around looking for a replacement vase and display), I never found out about it until someone else told me later. We asked the chef to give a brief speech about the food and he happily obliged. Everyone was commenting on how beautiful the reception was, how great the food was (not overcooked and generic), and how wonderful the service was at the W. Whenever I called room service, they would show up at my door within a few minutes. Matt coordinated with all my vendors and even put together a small plate of hor d'oeuvres that we would have otherwise missed because we took photos during the cocktail reception. Every little detail was thought of and executed perfectly. We HAD to go with Tammie Coe for our wedding cake - and they were rather disorganized but the cake was beautiful and delicious. When we returned to our room, we had a nice little surprise from Matt and the conceirge waiting for us in our honeymoon suite (included in our package by-the-way).
We were a little worried about the noise level because the W does turn into a club at night - but we requested rooms facing away from the pool for our guests and we didn't hear any complaints. They had a Betsey Johnson fashion show during our stay which seemed fun. Our guests also appreciated being able to continue their partying at the W pool bar/club after the wedding. We also got a great rate on our room block which helped our guests tremendously. The only negative was that the room block coordinator changed 3 times on me (one moved, one gave birth, and one replaced the other two) and the room block was very hard to understand and we had to make constant changes to the block to increase the number of rooms as we went along.
Bottomline - I think they have made a lot of changes in the past year to market to potential brides and to better accommodate weddings. They have attractive packages and pricing is reasonable for what you get. Matt is very responsive and flexible. I changed the menu a week before the wedding and he was fine with that. Most of the planning took place via emails and a few phone calls and there were no issues. The room looked better than I expected (they have cool basic linens and chairs which added to my orchid decor) and I knew they were the one because I had chosen my wedding colors (purple and silver) and flower (orchids) before I even set foot in the W (which has purple and silver and orchids everywhere). I could go on and on about them but I'll stop now. :)
User2398697 Sent on 10/29/2015Initially my fiancé and I were extremely interested in this venue for our wedding. However out of all the venues we looked at this venue was by far the most difficult for us to deal with. The catering manager (Katherine) did not reply in a timely manner to phone calls or emails with our questions. First of all it took me 2 weeks to get a basic proposal from her even after calling her and her manager multiple times. When we finally went to the venue to meet with her she showed up 20 minutes late without apology which we were surprised by since all of the other high end venues operated in a timely manner. When we followed up with her via email after our meeting she flat out did not respond to our basic questions. We were left with such a bad taste after this exchange that we will never recommend this venue to any of our friends and will double think even staying at a w hotel in the future. I can't imagine what planning a wedding would be like with them if the initial process with them was so difficult!