Erin Wurtz is a dream to work with. She is professional, kind and will help make all your wedding dreams come true! We planned our wedding in under 2 months and it was a full-on formal wedding. It was a lot of work and we really couldn't have pulled it off without her help! The venue is breathtaking- right on the ocean, but on a deck so very heel-friendly for the women. We had the best day ever.

My husband and I toured several of the state park areas back in November of 2012. We instantly fell in love with the Crystal Cove area. We were informed from the start that we would need to permit the "Sandy Beach" area, for the ceremony, and Cottage #13 for our reception. We were told that the beach would cost $500.00 to permit, and the cottage $1,800.00 to permit, plus a $25.00 application fee. We sent in our deposits after the first of the year. I was made aware by our planner that we would need wedding insurance with a few required phrases and limits, and copies of my vendor contracts. A few weeks before the wedding, I had to ask what all she (Director of parks) needed so we could send in the balance. I was told she was working on the permit, and she had received my documentation. There were a few phone calls placed to me, asking me questions such as was our planner a DOC or had we been working with her the whole time, and minus the other photoshoots being done with our photographer, what was the cost of the photographing of the wedding. Strange. So, finally, I got an email giving the breakdown of our balance. There were $1,000.00 + that were added to the balance. Once I saw the specific numbers being charged $500.00 something for a state monitor, which we were initially told by our caterer who works closely with the state, that since we opted to forgo the alcohol that we would not need the monitor. There was another charge of $500.00 something that appeared to be a certain percentage of vendor contracts. When I asked about said fees I was told this was in the packet that I had received when we signed our contract. It WAS, but it would have been nice if we had actually gotten the rest of the packet. Anyways, we paid the fees. I hated that everything had to be done by U.S. Mail. It would have been much more convenient if we could have just faxed documents over. But, in the end, our wedding was beautiful, and we had the perfect venue.

On the whole, I found the state parks easy to work with - although my wedding planner may say other wise! Here's the thing - they have preferred vendors, which are incredibly overpriced, and if you don't use them you need to pay an additional 18% on all of your contracts directly to the parks. Also, you HAVE to use their caterer, and the Beachcomber's contact is next to impossible to get in touch with. We had our dream wedding here - it came at a price, but it was absolutely worth it. I would do it all over again. I strongly recommend hiring a wedding planner to save yourself a headache with all of the permit paperwork! We used Table7 Events.