Hotel downtown to get ready in and for wedding night

minty613

Hey all! We're getting married in October, and our ceremony and reception will be in Sharon, MA. We love the city, and want to do our first look and formal pictures downtown with our family and bridal party. Does anyone have any suggestions of hotels to get ready in that are close to a nice picture-taking area? Not sure yet if we prefer Boston Common setting or the harbor, so we're totally open to suggestions! Ideally we would come back to this hotel after our wedding reception for the night as well!

Thanks a lot! Much appreciated!

sjuhawkz

What kind of price range were you thinking? The Omni is classic and close to the park and not too far from the river. Boston Harbor Hotel is nice (very pricy) but is on the waterfront. Also, if your wedding is on a weekday you need to add a lot of extra time for traffic. 

minty613

We're open to any price at this point, but obviously don't want to spend a fortune on it. Thanks so much for those suggestions - we'll look into them! 

Any other suggestions!?

laurag524

We got married at the Lenox Hotel, so we did our first look in the Public Library, group pictures in Copley Square & in City Bar.  The Lenox was amazing in terms of service, definitely going out of their way for us and all of our guests.  They might be able to get a decent group rate for you as well.  

MandyMost

I suggest you start calling around, and do some hotel visits. I ended up calling probably 20+ hotels for my wedding in early November, and the only about 2-3 hotels had in downtown, back bay, financial district, waterfront, seaport, etc., had rates under $300/night, even with a discount for a block. Apparently there's a big liver disease conference in town that was jacking up the rates and availability. There's lots going on in October, too, so you should act soon (head of the Charles, for example...hopefully that's not your weekend!).

I suggest you go to some travel websites like Orbitz or Expedia or TripAdvisor and just put in your dates in Boston, and see what hotels come up, and then start calling them. You might be surprised which ones will be accommodating and give a big discount, and which ones will just show a lot of attitude. The Intercontinental was a great location for us on the water, but I mentioned taking pictures on the water, and the sales lady giving us the tour was like "Ummm, actually, that's only for in-house brides". Seriously. What attitude! Make sure you have a whole list of things to ask--I know a bride at the Boston Harbor Hotel who had management disrupting her picture session because she didn't clear it with them ahead of time! 

minty613

Thanks a lot! That is super helpful! We actually purposely did not choose the weekend of Head of the Charles because of that issue!

Has anyone else had any other good/bad experiences? Much appreciated

megmcdevitt

Hilton Boston Downtown/Faneuil Hall is extremely affordable and we are getting married in the dead of summer. They have great off season rates. 

cdovilio

I agree with the Lenox!  My friend stayed there for her wedding and we did pics in the hotel and all around Copley.  It was great!  Really fun and the photos looked amazing.

JoeJoe67

I stayed at the Hyatt regency for work recently. Right off the commons. It was awesome and the service was great!