Advice and thoughts about The Royalton??

Hi everyone,

I have been reading/lurking for several months now, but FH and I were 'officially' engaged (i.e. the ring's on my finger!) as of Friday, so this is my first official post!

We live in Chicago, but I am originally from LI and my family's still in the area, so that is where I want to get married. A couple weeks ago, I went home and my mom and I looked at a bunch of places (I had done a lot of research online and narrowed down the choices). We saw The Royalton at Roslyn Country Club, The Woodlands, Glen Cove Mansion, Crescent Beach Club, and The Waterview Club.

From the moment we walked into the Royalton, I knew that it was everything we wanted and more!!! I was totally hooked. After that, I compared all the other places we saw to it. So now I am pretty much definite that we want to book there... I just need to secure the funding.. hahah! But that aside, I wanted to get some feedback from all you brides out there - if you looked at it, if you've booked there, if you've already had your wedding there - Do you have any advice? What things did you love the most? Any problems that you had? Is the menu really as customizable as they say it is (no hidden fees and such)? Any help/advice you can provide is greatly appreciated!

Thanks so much!!

S

Congratulations!

My sister had her wedding at The Royalton in February. All in all, they did a great job. There are some pics from her wedding in my album.

I was at the menu planning meeting and they did not object to any of my sister's menu requests and there were no extra charges. I know if she had wanted the seafood station at the cocktail hour, there would have been an extra charge, but those types of things were disclosed up front.

The only issue she had with Royalton on the planning process involved the limitation on the choice of florists. Although Royalton doesn't publicize it, you can use a different florist if you pay a vendor waiver fee. When she inquired about it, she was quoted one fee. When she confirmed that she wanted to go with a different florist, the fee increased by an additional $500. It was still cheaper to go with the other florist, though.

The day of her wedding, the service was excellent and the food was delish!

I'm getting married at the Royalton this August. I can't speak for the actual wedding, but planning has been great with them so far. We did the menu and pretty much the sky is the limit. My fiance is a big steak person and since we often get filet at weddings he said he wanted to do something different and do a rib eye, not only did they say consider it done but Gerard actually applauded him and said he loves it when people do something different with the menu. We booked SO much food between the cocktail hour and the dinner that my mom made me call them to double check I hadn't booked anything that was extra... it was all included.

Well well well considering we booked this place.. you know I will have mostly nice and wonderful things to say about it.

I went to sooo manyplaces and the SECOND we stepped into the royalton I wanted to cry! Literally and ALMOST did!!! I knew I had found the place and that was even before seeing every single room. I really had to hold back tears!!!

I will start with the 2 bad things I can think of. 1 - Gerard is our guy that we go to for things. And he is GREAT and NICE and usually ACCOMODATING! The ONLY negative thing I can say is that he sometimes (well more most of the time) seems very rushed!!! And I always kinda feel like I am bothering him because of it. But that can just be me! Other than that we do love him and he really is great! he probably just is busy and we like to bother him whenever we make a payment (which we made more than double the amount of payments they asked for so it's more than the norm) we like to take someone to show the place to. Like a BM of a family member. One time we went there before a wedding and he hid us so that the bride never saw us or knew we were there. He CLEARLY went out of his way to hide us from her.. which IMO is an EXCELLENT thing. oh but this was me starting with the bad!! Hahahahaha! That's just how great that place is!

The other bad is the florist choices, which you already know about. The 2 choices are Spitz and Peck and Stefans. If your budget is $3000 (juding from what you wrote) then Stefans should be able to work with you on that. It seems as though S&P is a tad more than Stefans but you really should go to see that for yourself. Honestly.. you could just book one of those 2 florists for the CP's and anything ROYALTON related and then get a less expensive florist for the church and bo-k's. Like you said though.. the great thing about booking one of their florists is that they know the place inside and out! And can I tell you that when I went on the appt to S&P, Gerard called the florist while I was there and asked to speak to the Bobby (the guy we were dealing with at S&P) and then asked to speak to me to tell me what he said. I can't remember exactly what was said now.. but I was shocked that he knew and remembered when that appt was and made it a point to call there to check up on their service on a Sat! See again.. the negative really ends up not being sooo negative!

The rest is all fantastic so far!!
YES their menu is pretty much COMPLETELY customizable. They will do pretty much anything within reason without any extra charges! Except of course your sushi bar or something like that. They even do Jello Shots. And another bride on here booked them for an after party and they are bringing in White Castle for that!!! They seem to REALLY go above and beyond and completely out of their way for you. If you want more information about their menu... search for Allegracristina.. she posted her menu from them. It looked GREAT!!!! They even do a mini oven and bake home made chocolate chip cookies and serve milk with that for dessert. You can have a vienesse hour or plated dessert trays.. whichever you want.. not extra charge!!! Remember you are paying more pp than a lot of other places.. so they really make up for it in this area!

Also, and this must be said.. on the day we went to see the place... they were setting up for a bar mitzfa (ok i'm a non jewish girl so whichever is the one for the girl and I know that's not spelled right) and they were SOOOOOOOO meticulous with putting things together PERFECTLY. By 'they' I mean the REGULAR workers... not someone who has a steak in the company. He was putting together this big sign with needles and he was really patient and efficient at putting that thing together. Then I heard another regular worker say to another worker as they were setting up 'Wait until she sees her cake! She is going to flip!' the other worker was like 'She already did see it and she DID FLIP!' The amount of enthusiam they really had when they were talking about this girl seeing her cake was pretty amazing. You just wouldn't expect them to really care! And they didn't know I was listening. They were working on the outside and we were in the Foyer but the door opened and I heard that part of the convo. It was sooo cute! My MOH was insanely impressed as well.

However, if all that doesn't sell you... I will be at a wedding there this Friday! I will not do a 'full report' of it because it's a LIW bride and I want her to be able to do her own review of it. Also, I'm more excited for her to be getting married.. but it is AWESOME to be going to wedding there too. In any case... I will probably post something about the place and also how BEAUTIFUL she will be looking that day!! And look out for her review.. because I'm pretty positive she will be doing a full review of it!! I'll also try to maybe take some pics and post them for you. I will look for this thread to post them on.



I say BOOK THEM!! You won't be disapointed!!! But I am also biased!!

One more thing to add... if you do book them... be ready for not many people to have heard of it before. It's still relatively not that well known. Which really means when your guests arrive they will be very veryu pleasantly surprised!!!

Whenever people ask where we are getting married and I tell them.. they kinda just look at me funny and say 'Oh yea' unenthusiasticly... and then I KNOW they never heard of it.. so I usually say It's ok It's still somewhat of a secret hidden place!

They will just be that much more surprised when they arrive there!

Hi everyone, thanks so much for your wonderful feedback! basically, you're just confirming what I am already thinking myself. I just had a chat w/ my dad last night to get his approval (aka financial backing!!!), and he wanted 'more detailed information'. I can see that he wants to be an informed consumer but it still but a thorn in my side, as you can imagine. Hopefully, I provided him everything he needs and more... so I am hoping that by the weekend there will be a resolution to all this!

Hey ladies!!! Guess what?? My dad FINALLY got back to me, for sure this time, and said that we could have the wedding there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm SOOO EXCITED, I can't wait to book!

Of course when I called today, Gerard was on his day off - grr! But I was promised by someone else that the date is still definitely open (we are doing the afternoon wedding on 6/12/10), and that he would have Gerard call me tomorrow. I can't wait!!!!

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Posted by saribou13

Hey ladies!!! Guess what?? My dad FINALLY got back to me, for sure this time, and said that we could have the wedding there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm SOOO EXCITED, I can't wait to book!

Of course when I called today, Gerard was on his day off - grr! But I was promised by someone else that the date is still definitely open (we are doing the afternoon wedding on 6/12/10), and that he would have Gerard call me tomorrow. I can't wait!!!!

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congrats! we are date twins!

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Posted by saribou13

Hey ladies!!! Guess what?? My dad FINALLY got back to me, for sure this time, and said that we could have the wedding there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm SOOO EXCITED, I can't wait to book!

Of course when I called today, Gerard was on his day off - grr! But I was promised by someone else that the date is still definitely open (we are doing the afternoon wedding on 6/12/10), and that he would have Gerard call me tomorrow. I can't wait!!!!

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Hey there! I finally came across your thread!! AMAZING NEWS!!! CONGRATS!!!!