The Majestic Downtown — Local services in Los Angeles

I could honestly write pages & pages about how awesome this venue is from what this place has to offer, besides its beauty (because let's face it, this place is beautiful beyond comparison), to the person we were in contact with throughout our wedding planning, Ashton. But, let's first get right to how beautiful the venue is. It really is a hidden gem you'd never know you'd pass by in DTLA. When my husband & I first walked into the venue, we were blown away by how beautiful it was (I can't say it enough). We loved the vintage & elegant vibe to the venue. The lighting fixtures, the architecture, & artwork on the ceilings provide all the decoration you need. We didn't need much decoration for our wedding. We let the venue itself provide it all. Our guests loved the venue, mostly because of how naturally beautiful it was. So what we also loved about the venue was there was a place for everything, To the left, we had our ceremony space. Upstairs, we had our cocktail hour & downstairs to the right, we had our reception. The space was enough for the 240 guests we had. We also loved the hours we were given on our wedding day. We had the entire venue from 8am-2am, which gave enough time for our vendors to set-up & break down on the same day. We also didn't feel that we had to speed up things when we were planning the wedding day timeline. The thing we also loved about having the wedding here was the many opportunities to take pictures. The grand staircase leading up to the mezzanine were a big hit for pictures. We also liked that with the big space gave a lot of opportunities to play around with how to position tables, the photobooth, the dessert table, sweetheart table, etc. BTW, be prepared to forget about the rest of the world when the music starts playing. The music echoes around the entire place perfectly. Other things to say: Bathrooms were maintained and cleaned by the bathroom attendants & the air conditioning was working just fine. The venue manager stayed on site the entire time to overlook things, which we loved, because my husband & I had to concentrate on our wedding and our guests. The venue also offered a security guard, which I definitely recommend having. Having this venue in the middle of DTLA means a potential for uninvited guests to come lurking around. Also keep in mind that they do not have a designated parking lot. Most parking lots around the venue do require you to pay for parking, but trust me, you can get past it. I also told my guests to carpool, Uber, Lyft, use their hotel shuttle cars, whatever. My guests had no problem with that. FYI, we did get 4 free parking passes to use for the parking lot next to the venue, which we gave to the guests that needed it the most. Anyways, moving on to Ashton, the Director of Film & Event Sales & our contact person throughout our planning. She is so easy to work with, extremely sweet, organized, trustworthy, & professional across the board. She answered all of my questions & trust me, I had a lot. Some were even repeated, but she was understanding & patient with me. She helped me whenever I needed it without hesitation whether it was providing measurements around the venue, offering vendors for different services, and just being present whenever she was needed. She also allowed me to visit the venue as many times as I needed to, as long as there were no other events going on. Also, all the preferred vendors she provided that we decided to use were so amazing to us and offered great service. We had so many compliments from our guests regarding the food that Silver Service Catering provided and the work that our wedding coordination team, Love Anne Joy, provided. We definitely trusted Ashton in helping us plan our special day and she did a phenomenal job. She was amazing! Choosing this venue was one of the easiest choices made throughout our wedding planning journey & I do not regret one bit of it. The venue is unique and one-of-a-kind. BTW, it's kind of cool recognizing your venue on commercials, tv...

My wife and I had our ceremony and reception at the Majestic. We worked with Ashton throughout the entire process, and she was always responsive and helpful.

We met with Ashton during a tour of the venue roughly 6 months before our proposed wedding date, and my wife and I loved the place. If you're doing wedding planning now, you'll know that 6 months is somewhat last minute (which I find ridiculous), and we were pleased that they had availability around the dates that we were looking at. We didn't want a typical, go to an outdoor area ceremony, then go to an indoor banquet hall for the reception. The venue feels nicer in person than what is shown in photos. Photos make the place look really elegant, but they don't capture the charm that the venue has.

After booking the Majestic with Ashton, she continued to help us all the way up to our wedding date. She was always quick to respond and helped us out with any questions that we had regarding the venue or suggestions for vendors that they've worked with in the past. The venue does require that you, your guests, and all of your vendors have insurance, but it was easy enough once we looked it up. This was probably the one item that wasn't on our checklist from those wedding checklist sites.

We had our ceremony on the staircase in the main entrance. With about 160 guests during the ceremony, we just barely fit. When we booked it, we were told that nobody had done this in the past, so I'd like to give people a heads up that a comfortable amount would probably be 150 people or less if you plan to have a ceremony in that area. You can rent the North Hall for an additional fee, which fits hundreds of guests, but we really liked the look of the staircase.

We had cocktail hour upstairs immediately after and the reception in the main area in the South Hall. Our ceremony started at 4pm and the reception ended at 10:30pm. You get the venue all day though, so you could theoretically have your event all day from morning to night.

They have a bride suite and a groom suite, which you normally see at wedding venues, and it definitely comes in handy when your bride needs to change multiple times throughout the night. I only used the groom suite to prepare before the ceremony and to keep my stuff in during the wedding.

We kept our decorations pretty minimal, but I think less is more with the Majestic. If you want to keep the charm of the venue, I liked having simple decor. I have seen photos of people who had extravagant decorations, and it also works. It just changes the feel of the venue.

I should mention that the Majestic is situated in the middle of downtown LA. My wife and I live in downtown LA, so nothing bothered us about the surrounding area, but some of our guests did feel uneasy about the parking situation, clubs nearby with drunk patrons on the street, and homeless wandering outside. We never had a problem with people wandering into the venue though. Between the venue manager and our wedding coordinators, we had that pretty much covered.

As an FYI, we did go with using Silver Service for our catering. They are the preferred caterer that the venue works with. We had a pleasant experience with Silver Service and I would recommend them, especially since they regularly work with the Majestic. Their prices seemed in line with other catering services that I researched.

The venue really made our wedding what it was. We didn't have a bunch of games or a photobooth or a lot of those current wedding fads. Our guests had a lot of fun and some of them even said they felt like celebrities at a fancy party. We wanted to keep the wedding simple with some of our personal touches. The ambiance of the Majestic fit well with a lot of the things that we wanted for our wedding, and it was a big piece of our...

If no stars were an option, then that’s what I would have picked. If you are reading this, then I assume you are looking to book a wedding venue or some other large event at the Majestic. I highly recommend that you don’t use this venue. My husband I were married at the Majestic last year and there were a series of events on the day of where the venue drastically failed to perform. To start, we were contracted to have access to the venue including the kitchen at 8am the day of the wedding. Despite the representatives of the Majestic confirming on multiple occasions that the venue would be cleaned and ready for us before 8am, the kitchen was not made available to our caterer until approximately 12pm. The kitchen was left filthy from the wedding the evening before so an individual from the catering team was cleaning the kitchen while waiting for Majestic’s cleaning crew to arrive (clearly not what I hired him to do). The caterer was never anticipating a 4-hour delay, but I don’t know who would. This resulted in an incredible amount of stress on the caterer causing his performance to suffer. Prior to our wedding day, we had detailed conversations with representatives of the Majestic about the air conditioning and elevator access to the second floor of the venue. One of the main reasons I booked the venue was because they had an elevator that would allow disabled family (i.e. our grandmothers) and friends to access the upstairs area during cocktails. The Majestic event coordinator who was there the evening of the wedding was unprofessional and made it extremely difficult to use the elevator as he would not share the key with my wedding planner and he was difficult to locate. As a result, my grandmother and other guests never made it upstairs to the cocktails. Regarding the air conditioning, we were told that the venue had functioning stand-alone units as well as central air conditioning. I was informed at least three weeks after the wedding that a representative of the Majestic knew prior to our guests arriving the day of the wedding that the air conditioning units were broken and they could not figure out how to fix them. My wedding planner nor my husband or myself were informed of this. The venue was insanely warm and guests left early because of this. Guests were wiping sweat from their foreheads all evening, I had sweat dripping down the back of my wedding dress during the ceremony, our friend who was pregnant was being brought ice packs for fear of overheating and my grandmother threw up at the dinner table. I should mention that it was unseasonably hot that day, but there was failure to make any attempt to remedy the air conditioning issue. The venue could have brought in fans or informed us and we would have done so. There is also an electricity issue in the building and we know this because the catering crew had to plate in the dark. Need I go on? The catering crew was struggling with the heat in the kitchen, which was even worse and the staff had to keep stepping outside for fresh air so they didn’t pass out. We also paid for ice as part of the contract and because of the heat the ice was melting faster than it should, so our wedding planner had to send someone to buy more ice. The issues are attributed to the venue and resulted in our vendors not being able to perform to their best ability. To top it off, somehow none of the personal items left at the venue by our vendors could be located. You might have done a walk-thru and think it is all fine, as I did. Believe me, I did many walk-thrus with and without my wedding planner during the many months of planning. I don't know how else to say it, so do yourself a favor, don’t book this venue. If you are planning an incredible day, then the Majestic is unlikely to provide an...