TWA Hotel Reviews

I’ve never used the world “perfect” to describe anything before, but our wedding at TWA (on July 29, 2023) was perfect. It was so thoroughly and expertly handled from beginning to end. Our event coordinator, Jordyn, answered every email promptly and thoroughly, gave us everything we asked for; collaborated seamlessly with our DJ, baker, photographers; and kept the night moving smoothly. (She even rushed over with a cloth and seltzer to help dab some makeup smears off our jackets moments before our ceremony!) The waitstaff and bartenders were polite, friendly to our guests, hardworking, and so attentive: not a single glass was empty at any point during the evening, and not a single guest was in need of something. The food was exquisite both in the cocktail hour and the reception, and all of our guests were satisfied. Above all, the wedding was elegant and classy — it was everything my partner and I wanted and more. I had a lot of anxiety about making sure everything went well, as I imagine any couple would have on their most special and memorable day. Just know that if you get married at TWA, you’re in amazing hands. Words will never express our gratitude.

Jordyn was our event manager and she went above and beyond to make our special day truly unforgettable.

First and foremost, the TWA Hotel itself is an architectural marvel, capturing the glamour and elegance of the golden age of travel. The Tarmac made our wedding ceremony memorable. Every corner of the venue was great design wise, blending vintage charm with modern luxury, creating a one-of-a-kind atmosphere for our celebration.

The quality of food at the TWA hotel was great too. Our guests were impressed and were all raving about the food.

If you are considering hosting a wedding or any event, we wholeheartedly recommend the TWA Hotel and the incredible team behind it!

Writing this just a few days after hosting our wedding at the TWA.

We truly cannot say enough amazing things about the TWA, particularly the events team there.

We visited TWA on a 'staycation' and decided on the spot that the space would be perfect for our wedding. From the tastings to handling our specific lighting and design requests - the events team hit it out of the park.

They put all your needs first, and do their utmost to make your dream wedding come true. A few highlights:

- The chef used to be a chef at the United Nations so he knows all types of cuisines.
- You can host your afterparty in a PLACE!
- The ceremony takes place in the iconic Sunken Lounge that is straight out of "Catch Me If You Can"

If you love architecture, design, and seamless event planning - I would highly recommend the TWA for your wedding.

We had our wedding at the TWA Hotel in early October and had the most wonderful time. Tatjana, events director at the TWA, did a phenomenal job and helped us an amazing time on our big day. We are so thankful for the care and attention that the hotel took when planning for, setting up, and executing our event. The setting is spectacular for architects and av geeks alike. The spaces are stunning, the food was superb, and the nostalgic mood was infectious. We would highly recommend the TWA for your event.

We are endlessly grateful to the TWA Team for making our dream wedding in the Sunken Lounge a reality. Our search for a venue was extensive, but this was the only one that felt unique and special. All charges were clearly explained, and the staff was flexible with a number of our requests to incorporate our requests into the ceremony and reception. Along with the east access to the airport for out of towners, all our guests had a phenomenal experience during their stay and the big event!

The TWA Hotel was the absolute perfect venue for us. We got married right outside in front of the plane, Connie, and had our reception in the Constellation Ballroom. We booked about 16/17 months in advance. The food was incredible, the staff was super helpful, and all of our guests said they had an exceptional time. It's super convenient for anyone flying in as it's literally at JFK airport; Ubers, taxis, and trains are also plentiful. Our site coordinator was responsive and worked well with our wedding planner.
If you love the 60s, traveling, and care about your guest experience -- this is the place for you!

OVERALL: Our wedding turned out to be more beautiful and enjoyable than we ever could have imagined, thanks to an incredibly unique venue and execution by its in-house management and banquet teams. However, that perfect day was almost derailed by the venue’s unacceptable pressure campaign in the days — and hours(!) — beforehand to change ceremony locations due to concerns over furniture getting wet (not an exaggeration). We wanted this review to comprehensively capture our year and a half of working with the TWA Hotel, from right after signing the contract to the wrap-up after the big day.

PRE-WEDDING:

PROS
-Venue activation: What made this venue stand out from the others we visited was the variety of spaces that we were able to activate for this wedding. Our rehearsal dinner happened at the one restaurant on site (Paris Cafe); tea ceremony inside the historic Sunken Lounge; ceremony on the tarmac; cocktail hour and reception in the sub-level banquet hall; wedding party pictures in fun spaces like the Twister room and Howard Hughes office.

-Responsiveness: Whenever we had questions or concerns throughout the planning process, our point of contact at the TWA Hotel always got back to us within 1-2 days via phone or email (and even text). Our point of contact was always willing to assist us and lead walkthroughs of the hotel when needed (which was quite a few times!).

-Flexibility: The TWA Hotel allowed us to drop off several bins of supplies in the days leading up to the wedding, which gave us one less thing to worry about when the big weekend arrived. On top of that, they were flexible in storing supplies after the wedding so that we didn’t have to race to pack things up after the reception.

CONS

-No FAQ document: It was very surprising that the hotel didn’t have a master document that addressed any of the minutiae related to planning a wedding (how the room block system would work, what the general run-of-show would entail, recommendations on A/V setup for musicians and DJs, etc). Dozens of emails and calls were dedicated to answering basic wedding questions, which could have been avoided with a sort of wedding Standard Operating Procedure.

-The room block system: The TWA Hotel's system required us to not only request (and guarantee) a certain number of rooms, but also [1] what room types we wanted to reserve and [2] which specific nights we wanted each room for. So instead of just reserving 50 rooms for the weekend and being all set, we had to request something like 10 rooms w/ double beds for Friday, 10 rooms w/ double beds for Saturday, 15 rooms w/ king beds for Friday, 15 rooms w/ king beds for Friday. We constantly had to go back to the hotel to adjust allocations, creating a headache of trying to figure out if certain guests needed to stay for one or two nights, which type of room we thought they needed, etc.

-Menu tasting notification ‘lost in the mail’: We were initially told upon booking the venue that a menu tasting would be organized closer to our wedding date. However, when we were under three months away and our point of contact asked us what food and beverage items we wanted, it was clear they had forgotten to invite us to one of their pre-scheduled tastings. We were finally able to attend a tasting less than two months before our wedding, but clearly a better system needs to be put in place to ensure no couples are omitted. The menu tasting itself went well, though it would have been more helpful to taste all of the dishes that they offered instead of a limited selection, perhaps by plating tasting-sized portions for attendees instead of serving the food buffet style.

-Rehearsal dinner with The Paris Cafe: While the Paris Cafe is its own entity and not directly managed by the TWA Hotel, we’re including it in this review since your only other option for a rehearsal dinner would be in the hotel’s very informal food concourse or eating at a Dunkin’ Donuts in JFK’s Terminal 5. While the rehearsal dinner was executed wonderfully by their team (attentive service, excellent food), it was nerve-racking to plan due to a lack of communication (unanswered texts and calls), any sort of deposit (to ensure they’re not going to forget about the reservation), seating chart recommendations (the restaurant has unique seating areas and tables), a changing menu (their private events menu changed a month before our wedding, after our food items had already been selected) and contradictory information shared by different team members (we were told we could do buffet style at one of their counters only to be told later that this was not allowed).

THE WEDDING

PROS
-Awesome hotel staff: From the front desk staff distributing our welcome bags to guests, helpers ushering people to the ceremony and reception locations, and coat check and banquet staff, everyone was highly organized and accommodating.

-The food: As a couple that dines out a lot around NYC, having great food was crucial to our wedding. The TWA Hotel nailed it for both the cocktail hour and reception! The pastrami station was a huge hit, as was the short rib entree and red velvet cake for dessert (this is honestly one of the most delicious desserts we’ve ever had, echoed by all the guests). The only dish that under-delivered was the swordfish (too dry).

CONS
-Wrong Solaris board display: We had signed off on our final display for the Solaris board in the Sunken Lounge several days before the wedding only to discover on the wedding day that an older version with a typo had been put up.

-Tiered wedding cake wasn’t touched: Instead of spending a fortune on a giant tiered cake that could feed all 200 guests, we opted for a smaller tiered cake for cutting and sheet cake for extra servings. At the end of the evening, our day-of coordinator mentioned that the hotel was holding some extra cake that we could pick up when we check-out. The next morning, we inquired with the front desk about the extra cake (expecting maybe just the top tier had been saved) to discover that the entire tiered cake hadn’t been touched. After speaking with guests, we learned that many either received a tiny little sliver of the sheet cake or had to share with their +1. We still don’t understand why the venue, several years into having weddings, did not serve our tiered cake when there clearly wasn’t enough sheet cake to pass around.

-The weather “policy”: Before signing the contract 1.5 years out, and multiple times throughout the planning process, we were repeatedly told that we could make a final decision on an outdoor ceremony up until the morning of the wedding day. If we chose to change course because of weather, the Sunken Lounge would be the backup option, as secured in our contract.

– 2 weeks out: During our final venue walkthrough, our point of contact assured us again that we would have up until the morning of the wedding to decide on an outdoor ceremony. They then claimed that a couple never had to resort to their back-up option (more on this later), so luck was in our corner.

– 4-5 days before the wedding: After watching several meteorologist reports, in addition to checking multiple weather websites, it was looking like our 5:00-6:00pm ceremony was in the clear. A wall of rain was expected to move into the area around 9-10pm, giving us more than enough time to wrap up the ceremony before any inclement weather. Our point of contact asked us about our weather plans, and we replied that we still wanted our ceremony outdoors since it would not rain until much later in the evening.

– 2 days before the wedding: At this point, multiple weather reports confirmed that the storm was a very defined system — no rain before 9pm, a ton of rain after 9pm. When we arrived at the venue to drop off supplies, our point of contact met us in the lobby, citing concern about the rain and recommending we move the ceremony indoors. We expressed a lot of optimism that the outdoor ceremony would be fine, as per all the latest weather reports and forecasts. Our point of contact disagreed, taking a look at their phone’s weather app and seeing there was a chance of rain on that day, and noting that other team members’ phones said the same thing. They then asked us “what sources are saying otherwise?” While we initially thought the TWA Hotel was getting their weather information from gold-standard sources like JFK’s weather team, it dawned on us that they were simply using their phone’s default weather apps as their primary source without context or clarification from experts who know how to decipher weather data. Realizing we were better informed than the venue, we made it clear that as long as the current forecast held, we wanted to move forward with the outdoor ceremony. Our point of contact was still skeptical, and asked us to rethink and email them a final decision by 12noon the next day.

– The next day (1 day before the wedding): At this point, the weather forecast hadn’t changed — meteorologists across several networks were confidently asserting that the rain would not start until after 9pm. So we emailed our point of contact before 12noon to confirm that we wanted to stick with our outdoor ceremony. When we arrived to check-in later that afternoon, our point of contact once again met us in the lobby and urged us again to move the ceremony indoors. They told us we needed to make a final call now as the venue requires 24-hour notice on ceremony locations (not the ‘morning of’ as we had been told countless times). We made it clear that our final call was the same as the final email we sent just hours before: to move forward with the outdoor ceremony.

Around an hour or two later, when we were both at the pool before our rehearsal dinner, we got another call from our point of contact saying they needed to meet with us right away. So instead of relaxing and greeting our friends and families, we had to brush them off while taking a very serious meeting inside the Pool Bar. We were told that the head venue manager felt that it was going to rain and that they wanted us to move the ceremony indoors. The point of contact said they were ‘fighting for us’, but knowing they didn’t attempt to do any additional research into the weather forecast, those were clearly hollow words. They said that, if we went forward with the outdoor ceremony, then the Sunken Lounge — our contractually defined back-up option — wouldn’t be available. We asked if it was because another private group reserved the Sunken Lounge, and we were told no, but that it’s managed by a separate team who wanted to release the lounge and open it up to the general public. The point of contact then claimed they were concerned about the “guests’ experience” if it rained — we once again made it clear that the weather forecast was all but locked in, and that if there was any rain at all before 9pm, it would be a couple of drops. We were then told that, if it were to rain, their union workers couldn’t remove the chairs from the tarmac since union rules don’t allow for working in the rain (something we were never told in advance). We asked why they couldn’t just leave the chairs outside until it stopped raining and the point of contact mentioned that they’re real leather chairs and the head manager was concerned about damaging the leather. We tried to clarify, “So is the actual concern about damaging the chairs?” and the point of contact quickly tried to walk back their words. Trying to find a compromise, they then proposed a “solution” of having the ceremony outside, but not setting up any chairs (what a “great” guest experience!).

Throughout the conversations up until that point, we had asked for honesty, but instead were given excuses to cover up the fact that the venue manager didn’t want their leather chairs to get wet and stay outside until it stopped raining. We made it very clear at that point that, unless we were explicitly told by the venue that we couldn’t have our ceremony outside, we wanted to stick with the outdoor option. The point of contact said they’d have to speak with the larger team, and it was later decided that yet another “final call” would be made the morning of — which was infuriating since all of the weather services were reporting no rain until hours after the ceremony, plenty of time to move the chairs inside before the rain.

– The morning of the wedding (yes, you read that right): Multiple weather forecasts now all but guaranteed no rain would drop until 9pm. Our day-of coordinator messaged us to say that the point of contact wanted to meet at 12noon for another “final call” and that it was looking like the ceremony would be indoors, against our wishes. They then cited that the venue has a “50% chance of rain policy”, that if there’s more than a 50% chance of rain, they have the “right” to change ceremony locations, despite the contract saying nothing about any sort of weather policy.

With the bride getting ready, the groom looked at 10+ weather sites that all had a chance of rain between 5-7pm at either zero or up to 30% and forwarded those results — along with the fact that the groomsmen said they would carry chairs inside if it actually started raining. Noon came and went with no response from the point of contact — but we finally saw chairs being set up outside in the mid-afternoon! When the ceremony finally got underway, the clouds parted ways and the sun started shining. And it didn’t start raining until 9pm, true to all the weather forecasts.

The final comments we’ll say about this: if a storm were expected to hit around the time of the ceremony, we’d of course be perfectly understanding of the situation and opt to move the ceremony indoors. A big reason why we picked the TWA Hotel for our wedding was that, in case of inclement weather, our back-up option of getting married in the Sunken Lounge would be an incredibly unique experience itself. But if the venue had forced us to move indoors while the weather was as nice and clear as it was that day, we would have been extremely upset and distracted by the sunshine outside. Fortunately, we didn’t concede to their pressure campaign and were able to relish in what ended up being a perfect day. When the point of contact mentioned that they never had to revert to their back-up option, it finally made sense — they probably pressure couples to move their ceremony indoors if weather is even slightly mildly inclement.

CONCLUSION: If you’re considering getting married at the TWA Hotel, you absolutely should! It’s a truly special place to celebrate your big day. Of course, you should still hire a day-of coordinator to make sure everything goes as smoothly as possible. Before you sign that dotted line, however, just understand that you’ll have to stay on top of the planning process, and in cases like ours, fight for what you envision. Make sure the contract spells out any and all promises made — there were items in our contract that we made sure they honored (valet parking rates, complimentary coat check, etc.) as it was clear the hotel’s policies had changed since the signing.