Sofitel Washington DC Lafayette Square Reviews

Excellent service; wedding was elegant but comfortable. Staff were very responsive and attentive.

Our post-wedding breakfast was lovely--great food, wonderful intimate setting in the bar, and Angela was extremely helpful.

We used the Sofitel for a welcome reception and for the base camp for our wedding. It was absolutely fantastic as a hotel and the reception was wonderful! It's not the cheapest of venues, but the quality of the venue and the attentiveness of the staff makes it all worth it! It's a fabulous hotel in a great location and the staff were lovely!

Fantastic space for a smaller sized wedding. Service and food were TOP NOTCH. Location is one block from the White House- our out-of-town guests loved that, and even some of our locals overnight because of the location. We got great rates on rooms for our guests, and the bar downstairs was perfect for mingling on the nights before the wedding. Two big thumbs up.

Overall, our experience with the Sofitel was exceptional. However, there were a few issues we had which I will note below. But I will identify all of the high points first. My (now) husband and I came in from overseas to look at several venue options in DC and the Sofitel was the only venue that offered us a food tasting at that point. In fact, they gave us practically a full tasting and we were treated like royalty. We were made to feel very special, and as though the Sofitel really wanted our business. We then were able to have a second, full tasting at a later date. My husband is Scottish and wanted a special kind of fruit cake which the Sofitel pastry chef researched and developed a recipe for. There was almost a disaster when the chef was replaced right before our wedding, but the new chef was able to replicate the recipe, giving us several tastings of the cake in the week before our wedding to make sure it was right. The food and wine were superb. Food and wine were really important to us, and having seen a number of different venues at a range of price points I can say that we received extraordinarily high quality food and wines at a price that other venues were charging with not nearly as good quality menus on offer. The room itself is a beautiful art deco ballroom and was the perfect size for our 85 guests.

Now for the hiccups. Our contract price was messed up the day before our wedding, and it was unclear if it could be rectified as it was a saturday and no one from accounting was around. It was not a small mistake-- it was an over charge of about $4000. Luckily it was sorted by a call to the event manager's cell phone. During our ceremony, the hotel's internal music system was playing for a bit into our ceremony. I'm not sure who could hear it but we could. It was actually kind of funny, but thankfully our wedding planner got it shut off before the vows. Lastly, our hotel room stay always appeared on our food and beverage contract but it turns out it was never included in the final contract total. Therefore when we were charged for our hotel room we thought it was a mistake as we always thought this had been included in our contract, when in fact it was not.

So all in all we had a wonderful experience and would recommend the Sofitel with the caveat that you check your contracts and bill very carefully.

My husband and I blocked rooms at the Sofitel for some of our wedding guests. They received a welcome message upon check in which I thought was a nice touch. I also received feedback that everyone liked their rooms. The hotel is in a nice location – very near to major attractions and the metro. In addition, our reception was at the Old Ebbitt Grill which is only a couple blocks away. Some of the negatives: my husband and I had tickets for our wedding guests for the top of the Washington Monument tour. I labeled each envelope with the name of the guest and the day that they were to check in. I was assured that the guests would get the envelopes when they checked in. When I checked with some friends and family to see if they received their envelopes, they said no. So of course this required several phone calls and unnecessary worry on top of the usual hectic schedule a bride has to go through on their special weekend. In addition, envelopes were mixed up for two different parties and I never would have found out unless I specifically asked about the tickets. The whole thing was a mess and was very disappointing. I would still recommend the Sofitel as a hotel venue but they need to iron out some major kinks in their services they provide to important events like weddings.