The Ranch at Lake Sonoma

e also wanted to address your concerns as this is the first time we have heard them from you. We do wish you had mentioned your concerns to us earlier as there may have been something we could have done to aleve your worries! So the first concern we see is on the extra pricing per person and hard liquor corkage. So BEFORE you booked the wedding all of that is clearly laid out in the contract. Since we rent the venue only, this is our only way to charge more for bigger weddings. Bigger weddings definitely have more wear and tear on the venue due to their use of the amenities. Just our bathroom pump out is $400 for us after a big wedding. So for us there is more costs as well. Many people understand they will need to pay more for a bigger event. Everything is included if you stay under 100 guests or less. Many hard alcohol weddings at our venue do have children at them as well. Usually for a hard alcohol weddings there is more cleanup and problems so this is a small way we found to charge extra for those weddings. Also on the contract. For the umbrellas, those are something we bought this year and have never had before. If people wanted umbrellas at our venue, they needed to rent them. They are very very expensive to rent, so we bought some this year to give our brides a cheaper option if they wanted umbrellas. We were sickened at how much we saw couples paying to rent those and wanted to do something about it so according to most couples we talk to, that is a perk! Not a negative. There is nothing about exclusivity for an entire day in our contract. You have all day to setup, but your event does not start until the event start time. We have always operated trailrides during wedding setup and it has never been a problem. Horses are out on the trail and only come by a couple times a day. Load on and off happens outside the setup area. Also it is on the contract as well that we are a working ranch. Your event is when the exclusivity begins. It sounded like something you really wanted (which we don't offer, so we tried to think of how much we would lose in horseback business for the day and charge you that, we were trying to be flexible and offer to cancel horseback rides for you if you really wanted it). On the bar, we do what works for the couple, if the bartender wants to setup at 2pm that is what time they setup. We have had bartenders setup earlier, or later, nothing at our ranch prevents a bartender from setting up the bar. So we are not sure where that concern was coming from. On your wedding plan it said that the bartender will be arriving at 2. Thats the time your bartender must have wanted to come. We have a cute little outdoor bar we setup to stay out of your way while you are setting up, which we had going outside. Also, we have wonderful big fans at the ranch which our electrical system is comfortable using, and we don't know why you rented a second set of oversized fans. We wish someone had asked us first we could have let you know about the ones we already have. Someone unplugged ours, and plugged yours in, we were concerned you might have a fuse blown as they were different than ours. We wanted your wedding to go perfect and not blow a fuse. No one ever mentioned you would be bringing those. We have five coolers at the venue. They were removed from our bar and thrown behind the barn (probably by your bartender?) 2 blue ones (large, covered) and 3 grey ones, am wondering why you thought we have none? Not everyone wants to use our heaters or our firepits. So if people do, we charge $25 for the propane if they do. This used to be something people needed to bring (heaters etc.) again, another perk we started offering to go get the propane for them and just charge for the cost of the propane $25. We don't even charge for our time to go get it, just the propane cost. (Which we think is nice for people!) The bridal suite was a simple confusion on the fact one person said you would not be using it at that time (your coordinator) and we were trying to save energy. If no one was in there, we didn't want the power on. The second we were notified, we turned it right back on. Why would we turn it off otherwise? We would not have, usually we leave it on. Family and friends are allowed to help as well as a crew, but what happens with weddings when only family is in charge, is at the end of the night everyone is drunk and leaves so by having a set crew (can be whoever you choose, teens from high school etc.) they are designated non drinking people that can carefully put everything away. A lot of venues force you to pay them to do this, we give people the option . This is also definitely in the contract, as is having a day of coordinator which is super important! Most venues require you use theirs (whom you may not like) or hire a full planner which is super expensive. We let you choose. We think the problem here was lack of communication, if you understood the background of our policies you may have appreciated them more and they would not have seemed annoying. For example the nickel and diming about the umbrellas. This is something we were really excited to offer our brides this year! Also, maybe a better read on the contract as well. We thought your event was beautiful and your pictures above are amazing! We wish you all the best and please come visit us on your one year anniversary, thank you again for the review!!