The Renaissance Conference Center

We had our wedding reception at The Renaissance Conference Center in July of 2009. If you are looking into this venue for your wedding, I think there are some things you may want to know. First, the people at the venue are generally good to work with. I did find one man to be (while very friendly) a bit scatterbrained, which could be frustrating at times. It also caused me concern on if anything would be amiss for the big day. Overall, things were okay. The location downtown was great. There were plenty of hotels nearby and things for guests to do outside of the reception. The only problem with the location is that we had several guests (that weren’t familiar with Richmond) get lost trying to find it. Also, when the Bride and Groom arrived, in dress and tux, the parking attendant asked us if we were with the wedding party. REALLY?Once you get there, the inside of the building is beautiful. They even gave us the Adams room to use for free for guests to mingle as they arrived. During this time, they were supposed to put out a frame with a pen for all my guests to sign for us. Unfortunately, they forgot the pen and we didn’t get any well wishes. While the guests mingled during the cocktail (half) hour, my husband and I waited in the Bridal room. This may have been my favorite part. There was a woman that was assigned to be the Bride’s right hand lady for the evening. She was just wonderful. While we were in the room, she would check on us and she did everything from bring several alcoholic beverages to helping with the dress bustle. Later in the night one of the small children spilled a red drink all over my dress. The lady ran straight to the bar for club soda and had the drink out of the dress before I could blink. I didn’t even have time to think about it or even start to get upset.Dinner was the area we had our biggest complaints. While the tables were beautifully decorated and the centerpieces assembled perfectly, when the doors were opened for our guests, the Renaissance forgot to number the tables and our guests were confused. We were told later by guests that they were not happy with how the tables were arranged. We went with the suggested assembly by the venue. The guests in the back of the room were VERY far from the dance floor and felt we’d put in the back for some reason. This is something we could have corrected, but did not realize how the tables would actually look in the room. I’d recommend having them show you a similar setup as your event to evaluate guest placement. Also, we paid for an open bar for the evening. Granted, we changed from another option fairly close to the event date, but still within their required time frame. In any event, they did run out of some liquor. To say the least, we were very disappointed. When you pay for an open bar, you don’t assume that means one bottle of a particular beverage. The food was great, although just a bit overpriced. For dessert (which you do not get a discounted meal price if you do not get the dessert) I allowed it to be Chef’s choice. The Renaissance made note at one of our meetings that the Bride loved chocolate. I looked forward to this and told all my friends that dessert was going to be fabulous. Imagine my surprise when there was no dessert; they forgot it. I was not aware that the chef could choose NO dessert! There were no concessions made for any of these mistakes. As a matter of fact, when we went to complain, they offered excuses and reasons for why were even. Apparently, candles they put on the table leaked wax on the rented tablecloths. These candles were the property of Renaissance that they use regularly. They claimed since they didn’t charge us for that, and that they would have to pay the excessive cleaning fee, we were even.

The entire staff at the Renaissance is amazing. Tommy was the most helpful of all of my vendors and was always quick to respond to my questions and truly helped make my day just the way I imagined it. Pat was by my side for the entire reception and made sure the entire wedding party always had everything they needed. I even forgot the shrug to my dress and Chef Jon brought it to my hotel that night! The Renaissance is an absolutly beautiful facility with an amazing staff.

The staff is so caring...they made sure that we ate and that we had champagne the whole night! It is absolutely beautiful there. The cost is reasonable; more than some, but also less than some. The food is awesome! I was able to decorate the way I wanted and use the facility the day before the wedding which made things go smoothly on the wedding day. The event planner worked with me on a lot of planning details and got my vendors information just in case anything should go wrong. Everything was perfect!

We had our ceremony and reception at this site and it was wonderful!!!

We had our reception in the Roosevelt Ballroom which had a 30 foot ceiling, a spacious balcony, and hardwood floors, which were great for dancing. It is located right downtown. When you have a wedding reception there, you have to use their in-house caterer, and everything was pricey. The food was delicious and the ballroom looked beautiful.