"The Meritage Resort and Spa was a wonderful venue for our destination wedding. The fact that Meritage Resort is located in Napa Valley, in the heart of wine country, makes it an ideal setting for a romantic wedding. Meritage blends a style of classic charm with a modern appeal. The Resort offers a plethora of amenities, including luxurious guest rooms, two pools, an onsite restaurant, a bowling alley/lounge, and most uniquely, the estate cave and spa. We absolutely loved getting married on the vineyard deck, which is a hill on top of the estate cave overlooking a spectacular view of wine county. We had our dinner and reception in the estate cave, which provided a truly unique and unforgettable experience for us and our guests. Every one of our guests were incredibly impressed by the spectacular beauty of the venue and the quality of the services provided by the Meritage staff. All of the Resort staff were very friendly, helpful, and accommodating. In particular, Event Services Manager, Desiree Thronton, did a superb job! She was kind and very attentive to the needs of my Wife and myself. She thoroughly responded to all our questions and worked hard to address every issue that we had to ensure our wedding day was a success. She particularly did a very good job of attending to our guest's needs and took great effort to make sure they were well accommodated. Desiree's professionalism and hard work helped make our wedding experience wonderful. We would absolutely recommend Meritage Resort and Spa to anyone planning to be married in California

The venue was amazing for a wedding. We had the wedding reception of our dreams in the Meritage Cave and highly recommend this resort to celebrate any milestone

To be honest, I found the wedding venue search to be the hardest part of our wedding planning process. My fiance and I knew we wanted to get married in wine country but hit multiple road blocks when we started searching in the Napa/Sonoma area. Our numbers were 200+ with the majority from out of state. With this many people, everything on one site was a must. We also wanted to be near stuff so people could get to experience wine country. We both come from large Irish families so a late night venue was also a must. I was starting to get pretty frustrated until we found The Meritage!

When we toured The Meritage, the entire hotel was in the middle of a remodel and some of these reviews didn't make it sound like the smoothest process so I was a little nervous but we pulled the trigger anyways. Now, looking back, I would make the decision 100 times over!

We did a Welcome Party event at The Crush Lounge (the bowling was a HUGE hit). Our ceremony and cocktail hour was on the Vineyard Deck. Our guests loved taking in the ambiance of wine country and having a drink or two on the Vineyard Deck. Depending on the weather, I would recommend coordinating shuttles to bring guests up to the vineyard deck. We got married on July 4th weekend and it was 95 degrees so a lot of the older guests and women ended up taking the shuttle up with the heat and the high heels. (The walk isn't that bad.) Our reception was in The Carneros Ballroom. The chandeliers in that ballroom are BEAUTIFUL as is! Plus, it was nice to eat inside and dance the night away with the air conditioning :) Everyone was RAVING about how good the food and wine was, especially, the braised short rib and mashed potatoes. We did an open bar package. All of their house wines were great, they offered a wide variety of beers and their liquor options were good. We ended up adding on the Wine Cave for our after party with late night food (grilled cheese bars, tater tot bar and nachos) and a DJ.

Overall, the wedding planning process is stressful but Desire and her team at The Meritage made it run pretty smoothly from their end. (Disclosure: we used a wedding planner that took care of most of the back end/set up stuff and I would highly recommend budgeting for one in general.) The food tasting experience was delicious. They were able to make pretty much any requests work. Ice cream bar for dessert- sure! Mashed potato bar with all the toppings - okay! High noons included in the bar package - you got it!

All of our guests raved about how nice and big the rooms were. The Meritage is massive and has something for everyone to do. They had a kids pool for our flower girls and their family. They also have an adults only pool so most of our friends made a weekend away out of it. Our guests also ended up having a cannon ball contest at the pool while we were getting ready for our wedding (haha). The food everywhere on the property was delicious. I cannot recommend The Meritage enough as a wedding venue, especially for weddings with a lot of out of town guests.