Hosting our wedding at Bear Valley Mountain Resort was hands down the best decision we made. From start to finish, Mariah and the entire Bear Valley team were absolutely wonderful to work with. They accommodated every single request we had — which was incredibly refreshing considering how restrictive many wedding venues can be. We truly felt heard and supported throughout the entire planning process. One of the biggest things that set Bear Valley apart was the full resort buyout. Being able to celebrate as late and as loud as we wanted without worrying about noise restrictions or hard stop times made the night feel so relaxed and unforgettable. It created such a fun, unique experience for us and our guests. The ski lift ride to the top of the mountain exceeded every expectation we had. It was such a special, memorable experience — unlike any wedding we’ve ever attended. The staff was incredibly kind, helpful, and accommodating. They built ramps at the entrance and exit points to make getting on and off the lift easy and seamless. It was thoughtful touches like that that made the day feel so well cared for, and we are beyond grateful we were able to include something so unique to our day. The food was absolutely phenomenal — far beyond what we ever expected from wedding catering. Nolan, the Chef, is truly fantastic. Every single dish he prepared was exceptional, and you can tell he pours passion into what he creates. Our guests are still talking about how incredible the food was. Since Bear Valley doesn’t provide desserts, we highly recommend Cakeboard Desserts. Heather not only made absolutely delicious desserts, but her dessert bar presentation was perfection. She exceeded everything I had envisioned and added such a beautiful touch to the reception. If you’ve come across negative reviews about communication, I would encourage you not to let that discourage you. Go into the planning process with the understanding that things run on “mountain time” up there, but everything absolutely gets done — and it gets done well. Trust the process. The end result is more than worth it. Also, do yourself a favor and hire Erin Betts as your wedding coordinator. She is kind, professional, organized, and truly exceptional at what she does. She was amazing from beginning to end and worth every single penny. We truly cannot recommend Bear Valley enough to couples considering it. Our wedding day was unforgettable, and we are so grateful to the entire team for making it everything we dreamed of and more.

We Loved our Wedding at the Bear Valley Lodge! The coordinator Mariah was extremely accomidating and easy to work with! Everything was beautiful! The only small hiccup was that we were told by some of our guest that they had ran out of some of the food options. This was a little wierd to us since we had 4 guest not even show up. They also did not handle our allergy list well and we were told later that two people who had allergies could not eat. Besides those small things we loved our day!!

I could not have been happier with the location of our venue. Absolutely beautiful if you are looking for an outdoor or even indoor type wedding. They took care of all the set up, the catering, the drinks, and worked with our other vendors to make our big day as stress free as possible. We had so much having all of our friends and family stay at the lodge together. It made the whole weekend feel very intimate and cozy.

Bear Valley is an incredibly beautiful place and we really loved the venue, both for the ceremony (at the overlook) and the reception (the lodge). Unfortunately, the staff just does not operate with much professionalism and ultimately, we can't recommend them because of this. The entirety of the planning process was frustrating, as we either didn't receive information we needed, got inaccurate information, or had to say the same thing multiple times and make corrections at every step. The ultimate mistake occurred during our actual wedding reception when an entire course of dinner was not served (dessert), which was in writing as part of the plan. Unfortunately, BV (and specifically Mariah, the contact), told us this mistake was due to a "miscommunication" and refused to refund us the price of dessert. If you have time to micromanage them, or a really detail oriented planner that can monitor everything the day of, it might be worth it, but otherwise, we would not recommend. As an aside, the food for our rehearsal dinner was excellent (pork chop, 40 people), but wedding dinner (chicken, 90 people) was really disappointing. It's unclear if this was due to the meal selection or just the scaling up, but the entree was really dry/hard and I fear had sat out for a long time.