Weddingbee boards

Working with Sara was one of the highlights of our wedding planning process, and I cannot recommend her highly enough! We began chatting via email about a year before my June 2010 wedding, and every communication with her was just a pleasure. I consider myself a very organized person, but she was able to elevate our wedding day plans to the next level, thinking of anything and everything. Also, Sara’s reassurances during my planning process meant the world to me, and put me at ease like nobody else could. I am so glad, and lucky to have found her, as I’m certain that with anyone else I wouldn’t have been able to let go of my controlling nature, and enjoy myself fully on our wedding day. Our wedding was very DIY-focused—almost every single detail was handmade my myself or my family, which in turn meant there was a LOT to set up on our day (a Uhaul full of decor!). We had everything from a 6ft tall cupcake stand, many lanterns, escort cards that had to be turned on and then arranged, guestbook, gift, and favors tables that had to be set up, programs, lots and lots of signage, and DIY photobooth, and so, so many other little details that had to be set up. Sara took on this challenge with a smile, and she and her assistants did a beautiful job setting up everything perfectly, in a very short amount of time. When my husband and I arrived at our venue, we couldn’t believe how gorgeous everything looked, and it was all thanks to Sara’s hard work. Not only did Sara take the lead on all of our wedding day set up, she also put together pages and pages of detailed schedules and lists, confirmed all our vendors for us, did a wonderful job coordinating our ceremony rehearsal, kept us on track and on schedule the whole day, took care of our other vendors and managed the venue staff. Plus she was there to put out any fires, and handle all the many behind the scenes coordinating and detail execution that goes into pulling off a wedding ceremony and reception for around 100 people. We are forever grateful to her for making our day come together exactly how we envisioned it, and just being the cheerful, lovely person she is to work with. Highly, highly recommended!

We very much enjoyed having our June 2010 wedding at The Mountain Terrace. For the price, and what we were looking for, it was one of the best values in the area. The staff that we worked with the year leading up to our wedding, Caren and Charisse were extremely nice. Very responsive to my many questions, emails, and walk-through requests, and all in all a pleasure to work with. We loved that you can have your ceremony on site, across the meadow from the lodge, and we chose to have ours in front of the bay view through the trees. You can also have your ceremony in front of beautiful redwood trees. The two level deck was a perfect size for our just under 100 person wedding, and the buffet set up around the side of the deck works well with traffic flow. The food was very good and we were happy with our menu selections. The bar area was just inside, off the deck, and the inside area would have been large enough if we had needed to move inside due to weather. Our wedding ceremony and reception were beautiful, and the beautiful outdoor space was exactly what we had wanted. The cons that other reviewers listed are all true, but most were not a big deal. On our video of the ceremony, you can hear some motorcycles going by, but on our wedding day I didn’t notice them once. Yes, the road up there is curvy, but we rented a bus for our guests, so it wasn’t a problem. The bridal suite was quite small, adding a fan might help in hot months. We all got dressed at the hotel though, so didn’t need to use the room much. The two big cons that made me give only 4 stars to my review was the music issue and the bartender issue. We were well aware that no amplified music is allowed outside, but had been specifically told that it was perfectly fine to have the speaker system set up inside the bar area, and turned up loud enough to gently trickle outside to the decks. Well, the on site manager that day (who I had never met or been in contact with until our rehearsal, maybe she was new?), kept insisting that our DJ turn the sound down. We could not hear anything on the deck during dinner, so I wasted hours putting together cocktail hour and dinner music playlists. Secondly, during our first dance as husband and wife, we were dancing in the doorway of the bar, and could barely hear the music, which was very disappointing, as our guests sitting on the decks couldn’t hear anything. This was a constant issue all evening, with our coordinator and DJ trying to turn the music up to an appropriate inside level that could not possibly disturb the neighbors, and the on site manager insisting it be turned down. This resulted in very little dancing by our guests at our wedding. The second con that was noticed was we only had one bartender. I had thought that for almost 100 people we would have 2 bartenders, so guests did have to wait in line for drinks at times. However, other than these downsides, overall we were happy and as I mentioned above, the venue was very lovely, and a very good price compared to similar venues in the area. Also, the serving staff brought around champagne to the tables during dinner for the toasts, which was a nice added bonus. The champagne toast was supposed to be an added $2pp charge, so we had decided against it, but received it anyway, so bonus points for that. All in all, we are very happy we held our wedding at The Mountain Terrace, and would recommend it to others, especially for events where music is not a priority.