Almquist Family Winery Reviews

We saw several venues that all looked nice, but they felt impersonal and made us feel like our wedding was just a cash cow for them. All of that changed when we met Brooke from Almquist Family Winery. She is warm, understanding, incredibly flexible, and it is clear that she loves cooking for and supporting her venue's guests. We felt like the venue was something that became a part of our wedding because Brooke saw our vision and then helped us make it come to life. She added personal touches like providing us coffee in the bridal suite so we could be caffeinated as we got ready, and champagne for later on in the afternoon. On top of this personal approach, Brooke can cater one heck of a meal! It has been about 1 month since our wedding and I still have guests talking about how much they enjoyed their food. If you want to make your wedding your own unique event, be guaranteed a flawless meal, and not have to stress about hidden fees then you have found the venue for you.

We used Almquist for our wedding reception this past week, and I could not have had a better experience working with them! I've worked in customer service for a long time, so I recognize good service when I see it. The entire event was seamless and the staff here are so friendly!!

My husband and I go wine tasting on a regular basis, so having our reception at a winery was perfect for us. We loved their wines as did all of our guests! I also love that they have an in house kitchen, so I didn't have to bring in an outside caterer for our event. They served such a delicious assortment of foods. Even though we only did hors d'oeuvres, everyone was very well fed.

All of my guests kept commenting on what a beautiful location they have, right on the water. Even though they are just down the road from us, I had no idea they were there until I started looking for potential reception venues. What a hidden gem!!!

Thanks again Samantha - this was such a magical day for us, and you made everything so easy.

I stumbled upon a photo of the Almquist Family Winery's beautiful glass greenhouse on Instagram. I had the photo saved before I was even looking for a wedding venue in Washington (we were originally getting married in California). Once we decided to get married in Washington, I knew I had to reach out to Almquist Family Winery first. Luckily they still had availability for October-December 2021.

Almquist Family Winery has multiple options to host weddings and other events. They have a beautiful inside bar perfect for cocktail hour, outdoor space, wine barrel room, the greenhouse, and they even had a getting ready area upstairs. The greenhouse and indoor bar area was perfect for our intimate wedding. It was the perfect size that wasn't too awkwardly massive or cramped for the amount of people we had. We even had room for a small dance floor!

The venue also had a good amount of parking spaces (included) and was in a great location with multiple photo spots to choose from. Note: When choosing Almquist Family Winery you will have to work with Table Catering Co. for Food and Beverage.

The only slight issue we had was regarding communication (same issue with Table Catering Co. because it was the same contact point). The communication lacked at times and the contact person changed about 3 times in the 6 months we worked with them, but that also may be due to the hectic year that the Wedding Industry had in 2021. So although that is what we experienced, we tried to remain understanding.

Overall, Almquist Family Winery was a beautiful wedding venue and we loved having our wedding there. We would recommend it.

The venue is enchanting and perfect for a small wedding. Unfortunately, venue management is rude, dishonest, and very difficult to work with. Table Catering Co. has an exclusive catering contract and manages the Almquist venue. As long as Brooke and the Table team are managing Almquist, I would NEVER recommend it.

It was clear early on that the venue’s mismanagement was going to be an issue, but we loved the Almquist Winery so much that we decided to do everything in our power to make it work. We hired one of Almquist’s “preferred” wedding planners in the hopes that they would have a positive working relationship. Unfortunately, as time went on our wedding planners repeatedly told us that Table’s administrative practices were “horrendous” and “unacceptable”. Eventually it got so bad that our planners (their PREFERRED planners) said they “were severing all future ties”.

Table did so many rude and unprofessional things that I can’t name them all and stay in the character limits for this review. They didn’t show up for scheduled meetings and tastings. They sent us invoices with an illegal additional 2.2% tax charge (King County tax rate is 10.25%. They tried to charge us 12.44%). After months of reaching out and working together (and Jenny confirming our date), they made us change the date of our wedding because they didn’t want to book a Saturday for less than 80 people. After several rounds of invoicing from Jenny, Brooke added an additional $1,200 to our venue costs. Worst of all, a mere 20 days before our wedding, Brooke refused to honor our executed contract and tacked on an additional $1,000+. When we asked them to honor their written estimates and contracts along the way, their response was, essentially, if you don’t want to pay the higher price then cancel your wedding because another bride will pay us more. As our wedding date got closer and they kept finding new charges to add to our invoices and signed contracts we felt extorted. We had to either pay their extra fees or cancel our wedding at the last minute.

In total we paid $11,718.59 to Almquist/Table for a 30 person wedding on a Sunday evening. This broke down as follows: $400 for a 3 person tasting; $2,325.00 for 3 food stations and 3 Hors d'Oeuvres; $1,670 for service staff (1 bartender, 2 servers, and 3 chefs); $3,300 for the event space (greenhouse and restaurant); $250 for a cleaning fee; $870 in bar charges; $1,052.29 in taxes; and $1,851.30 in mandatory administrative fees. The mandatory administrative fees are described in the contract as “Admin fee includes all gratuity and service charges”. Despite paying over $3,500 in wages and mandatory gratuities for 5 service staff, on the day of our wedding we received terrible service and the staff actively solicited additional tips from our guests. The bartender went so far as to put a tip jar front and center on the counter and place a $20 bill slung over the side to encourage our guests to tip more. It was incredibly tacky.