The Plaza Hotel closure has left couples scrambling to rearrange weddings, recover deposits and find replacement venues after the New York landmark announced it would shut for at least four years.
The Fifth Avenue hotel, famed for its chandeliers, grand ballrooms and links to Hollywood romance, is due to close in January while extensive restoration work is carried out on its historic exterior.
Several couples said they learned of the decision through social media or friends rather than receiving direct notification from the hotel. Photographers, florists, bands and other suppliers had already been booked, with thousands of dollars paid in deposits.
Christine Carney, 38, from Chicago, had been planning to marry at the Plaza on May 1 in front of 200 guests. She had booked the venue almost a year in advance after dreaming of holding her wedding there since childhood.
Instead of receiving a call from the hotel, she said a friend sent her a text about the closure. Carney then waited seven minutes on the telephone before a concierge confirmed that the venue would no longer be available.
“We haven’t yet had anyone from the plaza reach out to tell us what next steps are and what happens with our money,” she said.
Carney has already arranged a photographer, wedding band, flowers and rentals, while plans for her rehearsal dinner and welcome party remain uncertain. She said finding another venue capable of accommodating 200 people during the busy spring wedding season would be difficult.
“Everything for spring books up so quickly we would have to hope they’re willing to refund us so we can find a replacement, or we’d have to eat the deposit and find a replacement anyway,” she said.
Her wedding planner, Alyssa Pettinato of Alinato Events, now faces the prospect of reorganising the entire celebration without additional payment.
“Technically, we are getting penalized as planners,” Pettinato said. “Am I allowed to ask them for payment for this?”
She said the band had already been difficult about the possibility of changing the date, and claimed that even long-serving Plaza employees appeared to have been caught unprepared by the announcement.
“People who have been working there for decades are blindsided,” Pettinato said. “It feels like it was a leak because they seem extremely ill-prepared.”
Plaza Hotel closure disrupts wedding plans
Hannah Livingstone, 30, from Scotland, had spent about 9,000 dollars on an eight-night suite stay for her intimate February wedding to James McPherson.
The couple had also booked first-class flights to New York. Livingstone had planned photographs inside the hotel, a first look in its bar and professional dress-steaming services, hoping to recreate the Manhattan atmosphere she had admired in films and Sex and the City.
She said she discovered the closure on TikTok, despite having been in contact with hotel staff about the arrangements only weeks earlier.
“I thought, no, that surely can’t be right,” she said.
Livingstone and McPherson still intend to marry in New York on the same date, but she said finding another hotel with a comparable atmosphere and reputation was proving difficult.
“It’s a bit mad to me that they’ve still been taking bookings and still being in contact like things are as normal,” she said. “I’m quite stressed out obviously.”
The Plaza has attributed the four-year shutdown to the complexity of restoring its landmark-protected façade and cited safety considerations surrounding the work.
Wedding planner Casey Kaufman, founder of Imagine Party and Events, said celebrations at the hotel could cost more than 1,200 dollars per guest, with the most elaborate events exceeding 500,000 dollars.
She said some clients had found parts of the hotel’s interiors dated, suggesting the closure could allow its ballrooms to be modernised. However, she acknowledged that the Plaza’s reputation would be extremely difficult to reproduce elsewhere.
The shutdown will also affect established social events. The Russian Children’s Welfare Society has said its annual Petroushka Ball will not be held at the hotel next February, while celebrations in the Eloise Suite and the hotel’s Home Alone 2-inspired offerings will also be suspended.
For affected couples, the immediate concern remains whether their deposits will be returned. Pettinato said the hotel should refund them without forcing them to rely on the precise wording of individual contracts.
“Your contract could say whatever you wanted to say, but are you going to blow up your reputation by fighting something that’s technically immoral,” she said.
The Plaza has issued a statement about the closure but has not provided details about cancelled weddings or how deposits will be handled.
