Embassy Suites by Hilton Des Moines Downtown Reviews

Our wedding reception was perfect! Jessica, the wedding coordinator was so helpful. She was professional and answered all of our questions promptly. We would highly recommend embassy suites for any event.

We first met with Jessica after having a bad experience with our previously booked venue. She was able to take a stressful situation and turn it into a simple, fun, and exciting day - the way it should be!

Jessica and the hotel made everything flow and transition perfectly from the time of our initial meet until we checked out the day after the wedding. I should mention that we had our ceremony in the atrium, cocktail hour in the patio area, and then the reception in the ball room - so they had a lot to make happen, and did so with no interruption to our guests.

I really have nothing but great things to say. The food was great, the decorations looked perfect and were at no additional cost (unless you wanted something they don't have in stock), and the service was outstanding. Rehearsal was also a breeze. Jessica was there to make sure we had everything we needed and our guests enjoyed the complimentary cocktails and snacks provided by the hotel. I was told that we had one of the best rehearsal nights by many people in our party and that our wedding was a blast. I highly reccomend the Des Moines Embassy Suites for any of your wedding needs!

The Embassy Suites on the River was so fabulous to work with. Jessica the event coordinator took her time to explain pricing, each package available, and she was very flexible with her time to meet us. She made both my husband and I very confident with our choice to have our reception at the Embassy! She's hard working and put in just as much time as we did to have the most beautiful reception ever. The Embassy crew accommodated to a large reception and guest list. We chose plated dinner for our guests and everyone got their food within a few minutes of each other. There wasn't any time waiting around for plates to be brought out. It was simply amazing! I would highly recommend Jessica and The Embassy Suites to any bride to be for a successful stress free planning party :)

My husband and I were married May 4th 2013 at the Embassy Suites, Downtown Des Moines, IA. I could not have asked for a more perfect day, event, venue and most of all wedding coordinator. Jessica Johnson went far above and beyond her duties in making this the perfect day. From day one, Jessica remained in contact with me monthly, if not weekly to assist in anything from DJ's, flowers, photographers, officiants, cake vendors...anything that I needed assistance with for that matter. Our ceremony was to be outdoors, and happened to snow the day prior to our wedding. We had to move everything indoors last minute. Jessica quickly arranged the ceremony to be held in an alternate ballroom, everything went flawless and I didnt have to worry about a thing. I couldnt have done all of this with out Jessica. She is an amazing asset to your company and I will forever recommend her as well as the Embassy to host any event! Thank you!!

The Embassy was the perfect place to have our wedding reception. Jessica was great from the beginning. She was able to answer all our questions and was wonderful to work with. On the night of the reception, everything was perfect. The room was set up beautifully. Myself, husband, and our families had no worries that night about anything. The food was excellent as well. We received numerous compliments about how our guests food came out promptly and hot. Overall our evening was wonderful and we could not have asked for any more.

Embassy suites created an amazing evening for us for our wedding reception. They were easy to work with and i would recommend it as a venue to anyone.

We were so thrilled with our reception! The site and event were very well-done! The staff was very professional and accommodating too! We definitely chose the right venue!

Our guests were flying in from all over and needed a reception venue close to the airport & St. Ambrose Cathedral to reduce the cost of transportation. We went with the Embassy due to the outdoor space, open atrium and amazing coordinator Abby Dean. We were planning from out of town as well, but she made it incredibly easy to fit our schedules for the tasting and other meetings.

Our guests loved the free happy hour provided by the hotel Friday night and since we had an adult only wedding, those that were parents could attend the wedding with babysitters watching their kids just a couple floors up. The free shuttle service from the airport and anywhere downtown was used heavily and the drivers were fantastic to everyone.

We loved how easy it was to work with the team at the Embassy, even with some personnel changes. Onsite, the catering manager and staff were so accommodating Friday for the final details and our pretty custom setup we requested. The day came, and as per Iowa, we had a snowstorm in April - the team adjusted to move the cocktail hour from the patio to the atrium and it still worked beautifully. We received so many compliments on the cocktail hour food and dinner as well.

The only issue I would address up front is the number of bartenders, we tried to address it ahead of time that our large adult crew would definitely be getting after it, however it took my husband's persistence to get more staff and get the lines down for the bar. It was incredibly minor and resolved, but something for future couples.

It was the perfect space for us and we loved coming down the glass elevator from our complimentary suite Sunday morning to see the complimentary breakfast full of our friends and family.

We would have our wedding there 100x over, even with the blizzard!

Embassy Suites was our reception location on our wedding day. We had a beautiful reception and most of that was made possible by the hard work of Jessica (their wedding coordinator). The only problems we had were that the serving staff was very slow in getting the food to the tables for dinner, and they also took forever getting our wedding cake out to the tables, and they didn't serve wedding cake to you if you were not sitting down at your table (i.e. dancing), therefore many of our guests did not receive any wedding cake. The only other issue we had was that the serving staff did not serve our Vegetarian meals to the people we had specifically noted. That was frustrating, as we had taken so much time to go over that with our coordinator and then somehow there was a miscommunication. The reception venue was wonderful, though, and working with Jessica couldn't have gone better. I would definitely recommend this venue.

We used the Embassy Suites for our room block and it was not such a great experience the cost was high for the rooms and it was made clear that besides a discounted rate our wedding suite would get no other special touches. We made welcome bags and were charged $2 for them to be handed out at check in but they wouldn't put them in their rooms like I was hoping for. They also didn't hand them out to everyone, when we were coming back one of my bridesmaids had just checked in and our last bag was sitting behind desk and we had to tell them they didn't give it to her. We thought that was the last bag but somehow they had 9 left over at the end. One of my guests called to confirm she would be checking in late then received a call around 6 asking if she was every planning on checking in. She was not sure she was even going to have a room after the reception. They then tried to charge us for 4 rooms extra when the hotel was sold out because guests cancelled at the last minute but we were able to resolve with management. It was just very unprofessional and the most stressful part of the entire wedding planning process. That should not be that way.

This hotel/venue has absolutely no morals. A very close friend had this venue booked for her upcoming wedding, but had to unexpectedly cancel because she was a victim of domestic abuse & the wedding was called off. She contacted the coordinator, Abby Dean and advised her of her very unfortunate circumstances. My friend wanted to come to a fair resolution of the matter & they would not work with her.

My friend had to relocate in a short period of time to a safe place for her and her son. The venue offered her no sympathy and then drained her bank account $8,400+ with no notice, leaving her with absolutely nothing to live off of. I will never recommend this venue.