"1"^^ . "3"^^ . "This is in regards to their Events Department - \n\nI had my wedding reception here last year. I complained about the management and received little compensation for all that had gone wrong. \n\nIn the 6 months it took to begin planning my wedding reception to briefly following the reception I had 3 different events coordinators. The first two were amazing, but they left for good reason, the hotel events department was barely a-float. \n\nThere's literally a list of things that went wrong, but the two most concerning: \n1) The hired serving staff (many from temp agencies) didn't do their jobs! \n2) One of the hired staff were high/drunk, and when he and others were asked for help by my family were giving them sass and they still didn't help. \n\nDuring the wedding, all I saw was how things were going wrong. So unfortunately, I didn't enjoy majority of my reception. When you spend all that time planning and spending $$$ and things are being executed half ass or not at all.. it's pretty distressful for an already stressed bride. I complained about this, but it wasn't until I got in touch with Marriott International that anyone called me back. They admitted they were going through many staff changes and apologized for the various incidents. \n\nWhen you spend about $14,000 for SOLELY service and drinks (we catered food). I expect top notch service. My overall bill still had the 22% service gratuity (which they deserved NONE of - which I argued). In the end they reimbursed me $990 which was half the service gratuity. I hate to be ungrateful but that's ridiculous. \n\n\nMy only reason to write this review is because I wish I had known that their events services had gone downhill in past few years. I held an event there in 2010 and the events coordinator at the time, Diana??, and the service were great. People plannng events here should ask the following questions: \n1) Are they still using temps and what experience/requirements do they have?\n2) If things don't go right (which they have someone from the staff on floor during your events - so they can see it themselves), how can they offer compensation or fix the situation??\n\nAt the end - the temps were what were blamed for all the awful service (not clearing plates - my family cleared plates, serving drinks in CANS - when i made it a point everything should be served in glassware, etc...) So that's who I would ask the most questions about. \n\nI hope that things change for the Marriott in the future. They used to be one of the best places to hold large scale events in Madison. In the end, I do wish them the best in getting back to where they once used to be."^^ . . "1"^^ . "0"^^ . . . "2014-11-06T00:00:00"^^ .