Marriott Frenchmans Reef and Morning Star Beach Resort

 Wedding DISASTER at Marriott!

by ladybug7979 on August 11, 2008

My fiance and I got married at this resort in May after two years of planning and many, many, many payments, as anyone who has ever married (or experienced St. Thomas inflation) can imagine. Though the island of St. Thomas is breathtakingly beautiful and we had a lovely time outside the hotel, the Marriott Frenchman's Reef made a disaster of our wedding, and I highly advise you NOT to get married there under any circumstances. When our decorating committee arrived to decorate our reception hall at 3 p.m. as planned, they found that the four single rooms that were to be used for the reception were not only not set up and ready to be decorated, they were all filthy, full of trash, tables and miscellaneous equipment—a mere two hours before the wedding!! One of the rooms was occupied by a couple of ladies making flower arrangements, and as they had apparently been set up in there for several days, they had no intention of moving and were quite irate to discover that we had a wedding taking place there! Of course, our wedding coordinator and the Director of Events were nowhere to be found (someone said they had gone to lunch!) and the rest of the Marriott staff was totally unconcerned because it was "not their job", so my parents, grandparents, and several other wedding guests had to jump in and clean the reception hall, frantically decorate and arrange it, and attempt to get themselves ready for the ceremony in less than two hours. Despite their best efforts, they were unable to fix the filthy tablecloths, torn curtains, and dirty carpet, and the place definitely looked shabby for our reception. Due to the hotel's horrific lack of preparation, our reception was held in three out of the four promised rooms (which we had already paid for), which resulted in an extremely overcrowded and overheated reception. Further, the Marriott staff tried to force us to use only six tables instead of the eight that we planned and paid for, due to the lack of space that was their fault! As if all of this isn't appalling enough, the bad behavior and lack of planning continued throughout the ceremony and reception! To name just a few examples, our wedding planner marched right up the aisle just seconds before the bridesmaids, in full view of all guests, and unceremoniously dumped the rose petals we paid to have sprinkled up and down the aisle into a big heap in front of the gazebo. As guests were flooding into the reception site, she was standing out front hurriedly unwrapping the guest book and tackily tossing pens and napkins onto the table in full view of everyone! During the wedding photos, all of us were placed on a lawn that was absolutely covered with iguana feces, which got all over my wedding gown and the wedding party's clothes and will not come out to this day! The wedding site and grounds were trashy and unkempt, and not at all what we expected, given the site photos we were given and ungodly amount of money we spent to get married there. Since we have returned from our wedding and honeymoon, the shenanigans have continued: the Marriott somehow "lost" our wedding video, which we of course paid for (though the lost memories are much sadder than the money), double-charged our credit card for the entire amount of the wedding (which is taking forever to resolve), and managed to come up with a fraudulent additional charge for which they could provide no proof over two months after the wedding. Believe me when I tell you that I can't WAIT to be done dealing with these people, and we will never, ever go back to this hotel. All in all, the Marriott staff's attitude, lack of professionalism, and nonchalance regarding the horrific state of the reception site and event itself are unforgivable, and I would recommend that you get married elsewhere unless you want to be severely overcharged and overstressed for a haphazard, sloppy wedding.