Ladies and Gentlemen of the internet: Welcome to my blog! This blog is called Singing Through the Summer because I'll be having many adventures this summer and how better to enjoy the summer than to sing? The beginning of my summer adventures began on April 28th.
The past three weeks, I have had the pleasure of working at one the most historic hotels in Washington DC: the Willard. The hotel has been on site since 1816 and the current building was built in 1901 and renovated and reopened in 1986. I could spend an hour talking about all the history attached to the hotel and name all the presidents and famous people that have stayed at the hotel at one point in time, but I don’t have that kind of time.
I have gotten the chance to meet all the executives of the hotel and interact with them at mealtimes or at various events. No one is treated below someone else. The executives are seated downstairs in the cafeteria socializing with housekeepers. And with over 350 employees, there are a lot of people to meet.
I worked in the Catering and Conference Service Department where we service all the in-house groups that come to stay with us and all local social events in the hotel. On a typical day we can be servicing anywhere between 10 and 20 events. Some are just using the hotel for meeting space and require very little work and some are huge productions from all members of the staff. Inside my department was surprised to learn that I was working with two AHC alums: Katie Newkumet ‘03 and Kalynne McGregor ‘05.
My daily routine would consist of arriving at the hotel around 9:30am and going up to the Executive Offices. The administrative assistants would give me lots of tasks ranging from creating menus and labels for the next days’ events or working on upcoming BEOS. BEO is a banquet event order that basically lists all the requirements for that event. I spells out all the necessary setup, what food will be served, how many people are expected, etc. And everyday all the executives from the different departments meet in the afternoon to go over the BEOs for the next three days. I got to sit in on this meeting almost everyday and saw just how important BEOs are. Without them, the hotel would not be able to run any of their events. I also learned how to do phone and email inquires from potential clients and how to make shop calls and call competitors and find out rates without letting them know you are another hotel. So I would get to make up a story that I just got engaged or I wanted to host a fundraiser event for 200 hundred people and what are the rental fees and food and beverage minimums, etc. This was one of my favorite things!
I got the chance to work at galas, corporate events, and weddings. The hotel also does a huge amount of business with delegations from all over the world. One day I was sitting at my desk and was told to go get in a taxi and go to Union Station to pick up an Armenian flag because we needed to fly their flag outside the hotel. It was a cool adventure for the afternoon. The next week I had to go around to various guest rooms and suites to deliver menus and brochures in Arabic for a State's Department that was coming to stay with us.
But my absolute favorite thing was working at the weddings!! I helped with the setup of one and then actually got to stay through the event for another one. The florists that come in to decorate for the weddings do an amazing job captivating the true beauty of the Willard and the surrounding DC area. Since it’s still spring, we have been using a lot of cherry blossom trees to set the stage. Some of the weddings are both ceremony and reception while others are just reception. So in one evening alone we can be using up to three rooms for just one event! That’s a lot of work for banquet staff but believe it or not it’s even more work when the ceremony and reception are in the same room because then we have to ‘flip’ the room. I got to assist on many ‘flips’ while I was at the hotel. If they knew about a big flip ahead of time, I would be asked to jump in and start setting tables and chairs.
The day of a wedding can be either extremely chaotic or controlled depending on how you manage it. We were able to pull off an amazingly smooth wedding this past Saturday, which left the bride and groom speechless. The room looked amazing, everything went according to schedule, and the guests enjoyed themselves. The most important thing is to never tell a bride when something goes amiss. Yes there were a few glitches but you take them in full stride and fix them fast. Large weddings use fake cakes so when you have sheet cake cut in the back ready to serve. It looks nicer and your wedding cake can be as big as you want it to. But sometimes the brides chose two flavors of cake and the other day we couldn’t tell them apart. So I had to try both and figure it out! I had no problem having some amazing wedding cake to solve the problem. Another one of my jobs was to stay with the bride and father of the bride before the walked in for the ceremony. I loved getting to witness firsthand the interactions between a father and daughter on her wedding day. These are the best moments as part of my job.
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