Morrison House Old Town Alexandria, Autograph Collection — Hotel in Alexandria

A beautiful and quaint boutique hotel. We chose the Morrison House for our 75-person wedding in May and it proved to be a beautiful setting with a perfect mix of modern, classic, and vintage style, exactly what we hoped for this event.

The bridal suite was smaller than others and not specifically setup for weddings (other venues had large mirrors and hardware hung high on the walls for dresses etc). We were able to comfortably have 3-4 people sitting on the couch/chairs while two makeup artists setup in the sitting room and the hair stylist in the bedroom.

We had one issue related to the room- the venue booked a high-ranking Marriott member in the bridal suite with a 4PM checkout, despite us having booked the hotel and that room Friday-Sunday. We arrived around 12 on Friday as discussed to find out we couldn’t access the suite until after rehearsal. I used a separate guest room to hold all of our bridal suite belongings and get ready for rehearsal. We didn’t move into the bridal suite until after rehearsal dinner.

Ceremony: Plenty of room for our guests to be seated on the outside brick driveway. The front stairs made a beautiful and easy location for photos. The DJ was able to access power for mics and music without issue.

Cocktail hour/bar: The hotel allocated 1 bartender for the event, which we felt would be insufficient to provide drinks to 75 people after the ceremony. A second bartender was added for a small fee. We also requested our signature cocktail be prepared and ready for guests after the ceremony to ease the rush to the bar. We could not use the room beyond the bar (restaurant area) bc it was where they kept all the additional furniture and vendor equipment. The space fit our needs and activities (photobooth, guest book, and “sip and solve” crossword).

Reception: the ballroom is on the smaller side but fit 75 ppl comfortably. We had a 12x12 dance floor and two tables had to be placed on it for dinner then removed prior to our first dance/dancefloor opening. We designed our schedule to accommodate the space/table removals and it worked out well! We had a sweetheart table in the front with plenty of room for the dancefloor and table setups. All in all we were able to get a dessert table, 4’ DJ table, sweetheart table, dancefloor, and 75 guests seated in the space.

Hotel staff and food service were exceptional. We’ve always loved the quality of food at The Study. Staff were attentive to our needs and very approachable. Hotel staff aside, we had some issues with the venue coordinator/catering director, which I believe is a contracted service for Marriott (Sage Hospitality Group, I believe). It mostly involved communication- the original contact, Chelsea, was wonderful but left the Morrison House a few months before the wedding. With the change in staff came difficult communication- emails being lost, voice messages left with no return, etc. I spent around 6 weeks trying to contact the new venue/event coordinator with no success. We decided to hire an outside wedding coordinator and it was the best decision. After similar difficulty, she was able to connect with the venue and begin finalizing details just two weeks before the wedding. The venue coordinator seemed to brush over our concerns (concerns about the 1 bartender, setup/timeline) but the hired coordinator was able to help advocate and take the lead with those things. The day of our event went flawlessly from my (bride) perspective, but I attribute that to my hired coordinator. I saw the venue coordinator only once on the wedding day. I’d highly recommend hiring your own if you were to hold a wedding here, I just didn’t get the impression that my wedding would be executed to our expectation with the current catering director.

I’d definitely stay at the Morrison House again, and we will certainly be back for dining...

Let me start by saying this hotel does not meet the expectations of a 4-star hotel. I’ll go over negatives and positives of the actual hotel, but I also want to point out that we booked our stay with the Love Alexandria package and, unfortunately, the hotel staff did not seem very knowledgeable or prepared on it. They didn’t have our Key to the City passes when we arrived and we never got our water taxi passes, so we were unable to use them. The positives: the hotel’s façade and common areas are beautifully designed and maintained. It is true to the style of Old Town while still remaining modern the bathrooms in the rooms are very well designed and beautiful the location is very convenient if you want to stay and walk around Old Town, which we did. because the hotel restaurant is closed, the hotel is offering free wine from 5-6 pm every day. And free continental breakfast. Now to the negatives: the room itself is nice looking, but the actual quality leaves a lot to be desired. For example, the mattress was rock hard and while it did have a topper, the topper was too small for the mattress so it kept rolling up at night, leaving us on the bare mattress. Kind of gross when you’re sleeping on a bed that many strangers have slept on, not to mention very uncomfortable. the bedding was very cheap. The mattress had no fitted sheet so the top sheet that was used as a fitted sheet just slid around. The “comforter” was a thin fabric that was actually an insert with no cover. even though the room was renovated, the heating system was not. The furnace was extremely loud and woke us up constantly throughout our first night, to the point where we had to turn it off for the subsequent nights. Even turned off, the furnace still made a loud humming noise that woke us up a couple times. we booked a “ground floor” room, which we assumed would be the same floor as the lobby. Turns out the “ground floor” is actually the basement so we paid almost $300/night to stay in the basement.

Although the hotel’s common spaces are truly beautiful, we had terrible night’s sleep the three nights we stayed at Morrison House so we would not stay there again. Additionally, for almost $300/night we expected better room...

Upon arrival, I was not welcomed as a Platinum member, nor offered a welcome gift of any kind. Room key. No information. I’ve stayed in hotels all over the world and this has never been an issue.

I am in-fact informed on an extremely rare scenario where this happens, and have even laughed about it in the past with my fellow Platinum and Titanium colleagues. I’ve read about other platinum members who have to fight with managers of hotels who are as uninformed as their frond desk clerks. This policy, if you’ve never heard about it, is copied below:

https://www.marriott.com/loyalty/member-benefits/guarantee.mi “As a Platinum Elite, Titanium Elite or Ambassador Elite member, you’ll receive a special gift upon arrival at participating hotels, with a choice of an amenity gift or points. If guarantee is not met, guest compensation applies.”
--- Which in this case is $100 cash.

I decided not to ignore it. Reason is because with this 5 night stay, I actually achieve Platinum again for the entirety of 2022, which I was excited about and was also on my mind. So I told Makayla about the $100 policy, which she thought was ridiculous and couldn’t apply to you guys. She offered me a bottle of wine and told me the manager would be in tomorrow and I could speak with them later.

Tonight as I left for dinner, Makayla proceeded to tell me that she spoke with the manager and this was your reply:
The grab and go Breakfast was the Platinum Gift. (NOT true – this offered to everyone) The evening reception was the platinum gift. (NOT true – this offered to everyone and literally on your website as one of the main selling points of this hotel as I see it) Your restaurant is closed, so the platinum gift thing isn’t possible. (also NOT true)
You had offered to give me 1,000 points. This is a legit offer, but I think we’ll agree that that ship has sailed. I respectfully rejected this 1,000 point offer at this point. That’s what should have happened, but didn’t.

All four of these. Clearly your staff are just guessing and have utterly no idea what they are talking about.

So I was paid $100 for their rude...