The Sir Francis Drake Hotel

We had our reception in the empire ballroom and it was very beautiful. The food was great and the cake was out of this world - they even created a personalized flavor we requested with passion fruit filling and hazelnut cake. Super good. There were a few hiccups in the planning and service, but overall went very well and definitely a lot smoother than other weddings I have been to. Everyone worked really hard to make our day go well.

Robin Lewis was a wonderful coordinator and made our experience at our wedding sensational. We had a beautiful wedding and ceremony at the drake. Every detail was taken care of to my perfection. I could not have asked for a better day.

The hotel was beautiful! All the guests (half were from out of town) was incredibly impressed with the beauty of the ballrooms. The staff was really amazing, our wedding coordinator, Robin, was incredibly helpful, flexible, professional and extremely friendly!
The food was pretty good for a large venue.

We had a fantastic experience with the Drake. They did our reception location and did our catering. The food was absolutely amazing--our guests are still talking how it was the best wedding food they've ever had. Jamie, their event coordinator, was responsive and very nice. The reception hall we were in was so stunning it didn't need much decoration from us at all. I would highly recommend them to anyone who is looking to have their reception there. And it's a steal compared to other hotels in the city!

Our reception at the Drake was wonderful. Most of the credit should probably go to the catering director, Daniela Puccinelli, who basically orchestrated the entire thing and made sure everything went off without a hitch. We opted for a sit-down dinner in the hotel's Empire Ballroom, with a cocktail reception in the adjacent Walnut Room. We were still taking pictures during the cocktail hour so I can't speak to how that went off, but the reception was beautiful and perfectly coordinated.

The Empire Ballroom was gorgeous--very opulent and tasteful, and it required minimal decorations. The only real decorations we had were flowers. We also put together several DIY projects: favors, escort cards, guest book, photo album and table numbers. I had my mother drop all the supplies off with Daniela the day before and everything made it to its designated spot.

During the reception, all the events went forward according to the schedule we had prepared at our tasting. We had a "captain" who stayed for the entire reception to make sure everything went smoothly, which it did. The captain coordinated with our DJ (my husband's uncle, not really a vendor) to make announcements for toasts, first dance, father-daughter dance, and cake cutting. (We opted out of the bouquet and garter tosses.) Everything was smooth, seamless and we never worried about a thing (other than making sure we talked to all our guests!)

The food was delicious. We chose two entrees for our dinner, the more expensive of which was $105 per person. That price included the meal, wine during dinner, champagne toast, a hosted bar for the cocktail hour, salad, hors d'oeurves, and the cake. We had a minimum of $11,000 which we didn't meet with only around 80 guests, so we made up the difference with a hosted bar for the whole evening (around $21 per person) and some snacks after the cake. Everything was delicious.

The package also included a honeymoon suite for our wedding night, which was wonderful. I believe the list price of the suite was $700 a night. It was very comfortable and large and made for a wonderful end to a perfect day.

We were also able to block out a number of rooms for out of town guests, which were offered at a discount.

Bottom line: our reception at the Drake was extremely well-executed, tasteful, high-quality everything, beautiful, and frankly, a bargain for a San Francisco wedding at $105 per person (plus the extra to meet our minimum.) The cost may go up in the future, but what we got was worth more than the cost. I highly recommend the Sir Francis Drake for anyone who wants a hotel reception.

The hotel was absolutely fabulous. Daniela was great and had the event very well organized. I don't have any complaints about the hotel. It is beautiful and embodies old San Francisco. The ball room is gorgeous and equipped with everything you need for a perfect wedding. The location is very convenient and anyone staying will get a good rate for downtown San Francisco. The hotel takes care of almost all of the event planning, so it takes most of the stress off of you. And, the Starlight Room is even right there for your guests to go to after the wedding if they don't want the night to end.

This is a wonderful, classic San Francisco hotel to have a wedding reception. We had our cocktail hour in the Starlight Room (classy setting with stunning city views) with dinner and dancing in the Empire Ballroom. The food was catered by Scala's Bistro and was really really good (surprisingly good for hotel food). The cake (cupcake tower in our case) was included in the package price and was absolutely delicious. The package prices, especially the bar package prices, were fairly reasonable compared to other Union Square hotels. The only reason I gave it a B+ is because I was assigned a new coordinator 2 weeks before my wedding. It was difficult to transition to a new person because she wasn't there during the initial planning stages and a lot of my verbal agreements with the previous coordinator fell through. I brought in my own DOC and the hotel coordinator acted very territorial towards her. She insisted on taking over some of my DOC's set up responsibilities and ended up messing up and seating people at the wrong tables. Overall I would still recommend the hotel for a wedding reception.