Windmill Canyon Ranch

Ever since we found Windmill Canyon Ranch a few years ago, we couldn’t get it out of our minds. It has that perfect ranch feel we always wanted, but it’s also so easy to make modern and elegant. When it came time to plan our wedding, we knew this was the one. Nothing else even came close.

From start to finish, the staff was amazing. Jett was so helpful and patient, always quick to answer any questions we had, and the day-of team was seriously incredible. They were so organized and attentive that if anything went wrong, we had no idea because everything felt seamless and stress-free. We honestly can’t thank them enough for helping make our day feel so easy and special.

Since we live in Oregon, planning a wedding from out of state could’ve been tricky, but they made the whole process smooth. They were super accommodating with phone calls, payments, and updates, which made us feel so taken care of even from far away.

We’d also highly recommend booking the groomsmen suite if you’re getting ready at the venue. It has tons of space and great lighting, especially for photos. Another huge plus was their on-site “decor store,” which saved us a ton of money and stress while still making everything look exactly how we envisioned.

Windmill Canyon Ranch gave us the most beautiful, relaxed, and unforgettable wedding day. We’re so grateful to everyone there for making it all come together perfectly. If you’re considering this venue, do it. You won’t regret it! :)

I want to start off by saying this is a breathtakingly BEAUTIFUL VENUE, and unlike The grove in Redlands it allows you to carry your event until 12am. I was a bride in October of 2023 booked fairly early in May of 2022. I felt like we found our dream, well that dream quickly turned sour when at our 60 day meeting with the venue to give final payment they dropped all these restrictions, and added on fees. By this time it's too late to change your mind, we were stuck paying and getting all the things they presented. Went from giving final payment to still owing about 1000 dollars.
Our Wedding was booked for a reception of 275 people and only about 250 showed.

Things to consider:

The owner owns this venue,the catering that they make you choose from and also runs citrus wedding and events and loft 84, and if I would have known to check those reviews prior I would have.
I was told Windmill Canyon Ranch was fairly new to this owner and just starting, that's why we lucked out with an October date!
MUST HIRE ONE OF THEIR TWO CATERERS, all owned by the same person btw. The two catering options are: landmark 41 who is a farm to table caterer usually a plated dinner from what I was told, or Retro Taco, who we went with and paid almost 9k ( YES almost $9,000 dollars) for mediocre tacos and poor service, they ran out of toppings.
Have to hire their day of coordinator through timeless timelines, who is from the venue and works more for the venue than the bride. They're mostly there to enforce all these regulations and be a spy to those in charge.
Venue sits on a hill and the parking lot is lower, shuttle stops running mid event and any guests who arrive later have to walk up this hill, elderly included, heels and all. (This was NOT disclosed to us at contract signing, (oh and it's an extra 300 dollars for the shuttle that runs partially through your event)
The entrance to the venue is VERY rocky, and the gps leads A LOT of guests around the mountain as if they were off roading, or into amazon warehouse. We were told there would be security pointing guests in the right direction,no security, no sign and no lighting at night. Guests were very frightened on their way in. And I was told by the coordinator at Timeless timeline that all that would be “taken care of”
-We did offer multiple solutions to this as it was a very big concern of ours. And were repeatedly told it would be “taken care of”
They have busboys hired who throw your guests food and drinks away before they're even done, claiming its to keep the pictures taken “aesthetically pleasing”
You get their bartenders. We went with the BYOB option, bartenders were both stuck up and rude. NO SHOTS ALLOWED, only if bride or groom are present, as “celebratory shots”
Drinks were not NOT CONSISTENT AT ALL.
Speaking of bar, there's another cocktail bar service fee of $275 which was also not disclosed to us until our 60 day meeting.
There's also a cocktail bar contract!!!! Also something NOT presented to us at contract signing only at our 60 day meeting.
VENDORS ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DRINK, we had a banda and if your hispanic you know they drink and sing all the time, well we were charged our 1000 dollar security deposit for this reason, granted this was something that WAS DISCUSSED in the contract and I take accountability for. Just something to keep in mind.
No water bottles, you have to get their water station through the venue which I believe is another 300 dollars, also something NOT disclosed to us until our 60 day meeting.
No cans are given out either, but they require you to bring the canned soda and not the 2 liter soda, they pour the cans into the 10 oz cups for guests, and I have no idea what they do with the leftovers. I'm assuming they toss it.
YOU'RE ONLY ALLOWED TO BRING 10 oz cups.
Oh and you CANNOT bring costco size bottles they have to be normal size and no bigger than 750ml.
Any opened alcohol/liquor you CANNOT take back home, whoever dropped off alcohol has to take the alcohol and they obviously have to be sober.
They have a “decor store” that they let you rent out for a flat fee of 500 dollars. I asked for the bench that was in there and didn't even get it. And it's more of just a storage unit than a decor store.
I also sold much of my bought decor to the venue for 225 dollars, they took about 2.5 weeks to give me, but they were real quick to cash the security deposit.
If you get ANY additional vendors they are only allowed in about 4 hours before the reception/ceremony to set up.
Bridal and Groom suite on site, only an extra 500 dollar fee for each. Also something thrown at us at our 60 day meeting, we were told they were included with the booking of the venue.
-You need to purchase event insurance up to 1 million, paid about 125$ for it.

Granted this venue is beautiful and aesthetically it was everything I wanted, but it felt like I had to keep defending myself at every turn with service staff and owner, down to getting payment for decor they wanted. My wedding day did take a big bummer because of all these little things.
No bride wants to be approached the day of her wedding with complaints from guests about service staff throwing away food because they left to the restroom or to take a picture and their food and untouched drinks were thrown out, or hearing the horror stories about feeling like they were gonna drive off the mountain because there was no sense of direction, or missing the turn for lack of signage. All in all we received these complaints but guests couldn't stop talking about how beautiful the venue was so there's that. Overall I felt like we were being rushed out from the venue, my guests did NOT feel catered to and that's usually what you want at your wedding, they need some serious retraining and some serious transparency.

A CONVERSATION WITH THE OWNER: After realizing she also owns the catering company and I was already on the phone with her to discuss concerns about catering, this woman is both arrogant and condescending. I wasn't looking for compensation for the concerns I had with the venue but figured, hey why not let you know what happened she met my concerns with “ Well I have never heard these concerns before” and “I would think people arrive on time to a wedding” after telling her about the poor lit driving pathway at night, and the shuttle stopping midway through the event. she proceeded to say she had to investigate and would let me know her “findings”, proceed to call me back.

All in all I wasn't going to do this review, but I felt I had to warn the future brides, just GET INFORMED. This is a day I'll never get to re-do, and I'm so sad all these things took place and I'm saddened at how it was all handled afterward. I would like to add that I mostly dealt with Jett who was never rude, and courteous when it came to my concerns, anything he couldnt help with was turned over to Brandi who we had to discuss with all these added on fees with we ended up not paying for the grooms and bridal suite, not like it mattered we didn't use them they are not left open for you during the event the coordinator has the keys I didnt even set foot in the bridal suite, we did use the grooms suite to hide before our grand entrance we were in there for a total of maybe ten minutes, she stated they would “eat the cost” for the shuttle service because we were originally told it was included but again it stopped bringing guests up to the venue 30 minutes after the event started. We had to pay the bar service fee and we had to pay for the water station. All in all JUST GET INFORMED. This venue is so beautiful and as long as you're prepared for all these things, have some good communication, and they give the opportunity to book YOUR OWN CATERING COMPANY, it may be worth it, for me it's done and over with but good luck to the next bride that books here