Columbus Club Reviews

We recently had our wedding reception at the Columbus Club and we are so happy with how it all turned out. Rene and his staff were so helpful in helping get everything set for the big day. Their recommended decorator did an amazing job. The staff working that day received several compliments from our guests and were both professional and friendly.

The Director and staff at Knights of Columbus were very attentive to our requests and service. Thank you very a very wonderful evening!!

This venue/catering is a hidden gem. We had such a great time working with this venue. They were very flexible and accommodated our budget when our numbers suddenly escalated.

This site is beautiful, we used the grounds in front of the house for our ceremony and with no decorations at all (except the house in the background) it looked great. Stephanie was very easy to work with and was willing to help me with whatever I needed. They do not do the decorating (we had to do it ourselves) but having not to worry about cleaning up at the end of the night maked up for it. This is a great site for anyone on a tight budget, we had around 65 guests, we ordered tableclothes, we had the house and the lower lounge all day, catering, & beverages all came under $4,000. On our wedding day Stephanie made it easy for me not to worry about anything, anything that arose was taken care of. This is a great place and I WILL recommend it to anyone looking for a venue.

I held my wedding reception at the Knights of Columbus, and I could not be more pleased with my decision.
I orginially selected the Knights because the event manager, Stephanie, treated my mom and me so kindly and with the upmost professionalism. I immediately felt comfortable hosting my reception at the Knights because of Stephanie. Also, she offered me the best value for cost, which was an important factor in my decision making.
Throughout the year of planning my wedding, Stephanie promptly returned my emails and phone calls, and she always made herself available to meet my mom and me if we needed to discuss the plans. Also, I made several changes to the reception, and Stephanie easily accomodated me. I held my reception in the large room on the property, and it was a great space. I had access to as many chairs/tables I needed, and Stephanie helped us come up with a functional room layout. Stephanie also took care of the linens and chair covers; all my mom and I had to do was select colors, and she took care of the rest. The room was clean and the perfect canvas for our reception.
The day of the wedding ran perfectly, thanks to Stephanie and her staff who helped my DJ and photographer with the schedule and made sure the reception's events ran smoothly. She truly went above and beyond, always reassuring to a nervous bride and her mom. It was a perfect day, and my parents, husband, and I attribute much of the success to the kind people at the Knights.

The Knights of Columbus was an incredible site. A very large venue with beautiful grounds and an historic mansion that we used for our wedding photos. The Event Director is friendly and was always available to answer questions. She even walked us through the entire day to make sure that everything went off without a hitch. The food was incredible! And the waitstaff (Red Coats) were wonderful.

My husband and I were looking for two things in our reception venue: price and the ability to bring in our own caterer. Jesse Corning, the events manager at the KOC, helped us on both points. The KOC technically only allows outside caterers if it is a cuisine that their own chef can’t do, and our BBQ feast was deemed outside of his scope, so we were allowed to use our own caterer. The price was extremely low. Even though we had an outside caterer, Jesse still allowed us to rent the room at the price for a catered event by buying the food directly from the caterer himself and then having us reimburse him. Therefore, the flat room rate for an enormous ballroom, tables, chairs, and tablecloths was $1500. Jesse did add on a $8 per person cost for the napkins, plates, glasses, silverware, and the red coats who served the food, but it still only came out to just under $2000 for the venue.
The venue itself was quite a deal. It’s a large KOC ballroom, so it’s not gorgeously decorated like a hotel ballroom, but it is clean, neat, and well-kept. The floor is not carpeted, so there was no need to bring in a dance floor. Jesse has lots of different kinds of tables, and the tablecloths and plates were great! Jesse even pulled out boxes for extra slices of cake at the end of the night, and we hadn’t discussed it in our contract! The red coats are members of the KOC, and they did a great job of serving our buffet, keeping everyone’s drinks filled, taking away plates, and paying particular attention to me and my husband.
One of the most remarkable things that happened in our wedding was that while we invited 150 people, only 50 people could come since our guest list was 97% out of town. I immediately went to Jesse with my problem since all of our venue and catering numbers were around the 150 mark. Jesse adjusted the price of the venue to reflect the smaller number, and he went right into talks with our caterer to see if they could deal with the drastically smaller number with about a week and a half to go before the big day. He managed to give us a miracle, and we are so grateful!
As a side note, the KOC clubhouse is a different building next to the main hall, and it is so beautiful. We were allowed to take pictures outside of it during the reception.

Whole wedding was wonderful, went off with out a hitch. The Hall was spaceous with plenty of room for dancing. The buffet was excellent, with just what we asked for. All of the staff were helpful, both in planning and on our wedding day!

I shopped around at several venues, two were okay but when I was recommended to check with the Knights of Columbus in Arlington - ALL of my questions were answered. I made the right decision. Everyone was great the waiters, the cordinator and the food was fabulous. I highly recommend the Knights of Columbus.

Our wedding definitely exceeding my expectations. The Knights of Columbus did a great job - the dinner was very good and the service was excellent! I feel this is the best value for a wedding reception venue you can get in the DC area. The room looks a little plain, but with some nice flowers and well decorated tables it really dresses up well! The event coordinator was also very helpful and made the room beautiful!

Many of our guests commented on the food and that it tasted very good. We got great food at a great bargain. The hall is not stuffy, and was perfect for a wedding with 25 children as guests. Very comfortable feel to the place. Not as elegant and sophisticated as other halls, but there's a lot that can be done to dress it up if you like. Stephanie is great to work with, very flexible, and the menu really can be anything that you like. The famous Redcoats do a great job serving, and there is plenty of parking. The bathrooms and bar area aren't the fanciest, but folks are there to see you, not have swanky counters and mirrors. Taking pictures on the lawn in front of the historic home was one of my favorite parts of the day. Just my new hubby, the photographer and I enjoying a quiet walk on the grass, while all my loved ones waited inside. We should have beautiful pictures of those fifteen minutes.

Best value in town! Good location, pretty easy to find for out of town guests, too.

The Knights of Columbus (Arlington, VA) was an outstanding venue for both my ceremony and reception. The Staff worked with us to create the perfect wedding. The quality of service was outstanding there was just one glitch and that there is no A/C in the bridal suite (I had my wedding in Oct. but with all the curling irons and such A/C would have been nice) I brought my own fan and I was told before hand about the lack of A/C. In the beginning with all the planning the responsiveness wasn't quick but as we got closer to the date they responded back in a timely manner. The professionalism was top notch, my only issue was that we weren't told that we were going over our bar tab, I just happen to find out towards the end of the reception. Now this one is the biggest the cost & flexibility WAS OUTSTANDING. Believe me I was on a tight budget but you couldn't tell. Thank You Knights of Columbus for a perfect day
Mike & Triscel (10.10.10)

Our wedding reception was absolutely wonderful. Everyone at the Knights of Columbus did a fabulous job. The Event Director was right on top of everything, she helped us plan out our reception, took care of all of our catering and organized our other vendors. The food was fantastic, the Chef customized our entire menu and it tasted as good as it looked. Best of all, the prices were extremely reasonable!

The quality of service for the price paid was outstanding. Keep in mind that we looked at venues that were over twice as expensive and at the same time not as beautiful as the KOC Hall. The catering was fine, again for the price paid. There were zero complaints. Honestly, we went into this with our expectations set accordingly. The final consensus is that the KOC exceeded our expectations.

In the beginning it was a little difficult to get a response from the Knights of Columbus. We began working with someone and then they had a change in staff. The closer it came to our wedding, the more responsive they were. They were pretty flexible in allowing us to come for walk throughs and do tastings. The cost was perfect for our budget and we even got a refund in the end for things we didn't end up using. Jesse and Ms. Betty were professional throughout the entire process. The venue was beautiful and the red coats made the evening!

The main reason we chose KoC was for the price. It was by far the least expensive of what we could find in the D.C. area. The hall is large; we had 225 guests and there was definitely room for more. It takes a lot of decorating to make it not look like a Catholic school cafeteria, but we weren't too concerned about that. The location is great, in a very nice neighborhood. The food was surprisingly tasty, though we were unhappy that they did not have tastings. My biggest complaint would be my experience with the event director there. She was sweet as can be when we would meet in person, but she was so hard to reach on the phone. I would leave a message, wait a few days, leave another message, wait some more, and two weeks later she would finally call me back -- and I got the "I was out sick" response multiple times. We met a few times to go over details (cost of tablecloths, menu, etc) and it seemed that in three different meetings I got three different answers about everything. She was not as organized as I had hoped an event director would be. Because of this, I had a few of my girlfriends decorate the hall on the day of rather than leaving everything to the event director. In the end, everything worked out. However, we had a major discrepency in the final bill because the kids were not charged kids' prices (nor were they offered kids' meals as we agreed to). Four months later I eventually got my refund. Overall, this place was a bargain if you're on a budget. And I wouldn't say you pay for what you get, because everything was very nice. It was more the frustration of dealing with them in the upcoming months that made me feel like I was working harder than I thought I needed to be working - especially when we're paying them thousands of dollars.

This place is owned by the Catholic Church. You are able to rent either the house or catering hall even if you are not a member of the Catholic church or this diocese. The main banquet hall is modern and costs much more money. We rented the house. It was old, CHEAP and beautiful. The pictures came out beyond beautiful. I would recommend this place, but get ready to work with "sweet" folks, but also those same folks are not very familiar with "business practices." What I mean is that this is a church property/non profit, so if you expect what you would get from a professional catering company or planning company you will be sorely mistaken. However, the cost to rent the home is SO SO inexpensive and to us that was worth dealing with "hokie" type folks. I would use them again. We had a horse and carriage take us to the house and then the pictures included the horse and carriage in front of the beautiful home. They want you to use their caterer, so there is ABSOLUTELY no kitchen available for bringing in outside caterers. However, we had outside caterers come in with minimal problems. Bottom line: If you are on a major budget and want to spend your $ on the honeymoon, which we did (Greek Islands: Santorini) then this is a great choice. The house is pretty small though and good luck dealing with the "ladies" there. The main hall can hold 300 people, I believe.

There are two options for reception sites in the building. I was encouraged to use the lower lounge. When I saw it, it was dark and looked like a dungeon. I was told, however, that the blinds would be open and the lights would make it brighter... WRONG! They kept the blinds shut and the lights were very dim. My reception was at noon, but it might as well have been 8:30pm! It was dark and it was too small. I explained that the room needed to be set up for a dance floor. Only 10 people were able to dance at a time because they did not allow any space for dancing. However, they left half the room open, by the bar, yet no one could dance over there.

I used their caterer, as well. The menu changed and no one informed me! I just happened to check back and everything I chose was no longer available. Then, I chosed stuffed chicken breast. We got chicken parmesan... nothing stuffed. Also, the new price was $13.95/person. However, the billed showed $21/per... which was the old price. When I explained that they were charging me and extra $950, they were reluctant to make the change. Also, coffee and tea were not served, as promised.

This venue was extremely difficult to work with but we were on a budget so we had to make it work. They were not very flexible and the service by the wedding coordinator at the site was not accomodating and not cusotmer service oriented. About a week before the wedding they changed several items from the original contract and at that time it was too late to do anything about it. The food was really good and we were happy how the day ended up turning out but we ultimately decided to invest in a private wedding planner due to the uneasy feeling I got with planning the wedding on my own and working with this venue. The site itself is very pretty and clean but needed a lot of decoration to make the room feel warm and welcoming.

We rented out the "Paradise Lounge" (Lower Lounge) for my wedding because the upstairs ballroom was already taken. Jesse was a nice guy, but we had a terrible time with the rest of the employees. It was obvious that we were NOT their priority. The bartender stole alcohol and was not discrete while drinking behind the bar. The head server kept yelling at the other servers, (who were elderly and did not need to be treated in such a way). The servers stole a lot of our decorations and Slavic food. We couldn't even find the pins for the groomsmen boutonnieres. When we asked the servers if they saw them they took out the pins WE bought and only gave out about five. (We bought three boxes of 25.) My mother took two days making enough nut rolls for the guests and the servers took away half of those. At the end of the night we were missing too many things for comfort. Something we were not expecting from a Church based organization.
There was little communication within the employees. They were "suppose" to set up the table linens and chair coverings. They were able to put on the table linens-although misplaced with the tags sticking out on the wrong side-but did not touch the chair coverings or napkins. They gave us time to set up the day before but we ended up only having an hour or two because the upstairs wedding group were having a rehearsal. We had to leave at their choosing although it was also my wedding day. They gave us the left-over tables that the upstairs wedding party didn't want or use. I can still recall how one of the ladies working at Knights of Columbus came down to tell us how beautiful the upstairs ballroom was and that we needed to leave AS SOON as they did. We were lucky that upstairs party stayed an extra hour. The Knights of Columbus made sure to humble us as we were not the priority group to cater to.
We also paid extra for a chocolate fountain that Jesse was not very fond of. It was finally set up when half of our guests already left. Their timing was terrible. In fact, we had to schedule the night around their poorly planned and unorganized catering.
As for the food, please save your money. I'm not even going to elaborate on this more because it is not worth my time or energy. Although I will say that the children's meal came out the very last, well after the adults had already finished eating. The clean up crew started clearing the tables an hour before the reception was scheduled to end. My photographer was lucky enough to capture them taking the table linens as our guests were dancing. We had to stop them, especially because they were taking privately own table linens not owned by Knights of Columbus. It is a very inexpensive venue, but a backyard wedding would have been much, much better. Save your time if it is a wedding. I could go on but I won't. I am surprised that no one else had a bad experience. Perhaps they were having a bad weekend but consider yourself warned! Hopefully no one else will have that kind of an experience.
P.S. I am NOT a bridezilla by any means. I had a wonderful wedding due to my family and their care, hard work, and concern for me, my husband, and our guests. Its still just hard to believe how my family was also so disrespectfully treated by KofC!