Cuyama Buckhorn Reviews

My husband and I celebrated our 10 year wedding vow renewals here. Everything from start to finish exceed our expectations. The location, the incredible food, the staff, all of our friends absolutely loved it and we can’t wait to go back!

My husband and I got engaged in 2020 and put off planning the wedding for a bit due to COVID. By 2021, we were ready to plan an intimate wedding and we found ourselves at Cuyama Buckhorn during a trip to New Cuyama. New Cuyama was already a special place for us and after spending the afternoon at the recently renovated Buckhorn (it had also been under new ownership for just a year or two), we just knew it felt right. We reached out to the team and after a bit of back and forth, we ended up working with them to plan our special day. As it turned out, we were actually their very first wedding! Some may have seen this as a red flag, but we saw it as an opportunity and I’m so glad we did. Truthfully, we would never have been able to plan such an amazing weekend if it weren’t for the brilliant Savannah Fox, the Marketing & Operations Manager at the Buckhorn. She worked with us on every last detail of the wedding and really went above and beyond, basically acting as our planner.

Just a little background info – there are about 21 rooms at the Buckhorn and very few other places to stay in the area so this venue is really meant for intimate gatherings/smaller weddings. We had a total of 53 guests and a few stayed at the nearby Cuyama Oaks Ranch (glamping in yurts). When it came down to it, the entire Buckhorn team was incredibly flexible and accommodating. From the food to the deserts, they did it all and pretty much had everything we needed on site. The only outside vendors we hired were a DJ and a photographer! This being said, we already loved the aesthetic of the Buckhorn, so our vision was pretty much already intact and we didn’t need much outside decor or anything. We went for a summer camp kind of vibe and booked the entire hotel for the weekend so it really felt like a magical escape for all our friends and family.

We worked with Executive Chef Daniel Horn to design our menu, Beverage Director Brandon on our custom cocktail menu, the in-house graphic designer Kiana on our wedding collateral and with Savannah on everything in between. They truly catered to our every need throughout the process, but what really makes this team stand out is how they kept our vision alive and the weekend feeling magical despite some unfortunate weather.

On the day of our wedding, it SNOWED early in the morning, hailed, and then rained. Our original plan was to have our ceremony and dinner outdoors and the venue was well-equipped with tons of heating lamps, fire pits, etc. so we figured dinner outside would be fine. Everything was set and then it began raining right before the ceremony. The General Manager, Paul Patino literally carried a pool umbrella over my dad and I as we walked to the aisle. Talk about above and beyond!!! Magically, it stopped raining just in time for the ceremony to remain outside, but it was pretty cold so the entire Buckhorn team rallied together to breakdown the already set up dinner outdoors and transition it inside. They managed to move the dinner in a matter of about 15 minutes and it looked just as beautiful inside as it did outside.

I should also mention that if you’re coming from a city like Los Angeles or Santa Barbara, this venue was much more affordable and accommodating than any others I looked into. They handled all of the details so well and included things most other venues would not have.

From the amazing food to the aesthetic, to the wonderful, wonderful staff, I could not recommend this venue more. If you have your wedding here, you are guaranteed to have the most incredible memories and photographs. The Buckhorn is truly an experience and the owners and staff are some of the friendliest, most amazing people in hospitality I have ever met. If you want a small, spirited, BEAUTIFUL wedding with desert valley vibes, this is the place for you.

I recently got married here (11.16.22) and | can't
say enough how perfect everything was. My husband and I chose the Buckhorn for several reasons - the natural yet modern venue, being able to host a multi-day event with a relatively intimate guest list, and the amazing food. Throughout the planning process, we worked very closely with the Buckhorn's Events Manager, Audra. She was bar-none the best to work with. Planning a wedding can be really stressful and Audra was able to keep the lines of communication open without overwhelming us with too many details at one time. If there
was ever anything she couldn't accommodate,
she was more than willing to find other
solutions for us. Chef Daniel, Pastry Chef Brandie and their teams were equally as accommodating. They have preset menus by season for weddings, which makes things so much easier than starting from scratch. They use seasonal ingredients and if you or your guests have any allergies or certain food preferences, they bring options to the table. This is is not your standard, bland wedding food. The biggest selling point
for us was the venue itself. If you go on their website and take a look at their photos, it's not hard to see why. The venue and the views around the venue are breathtaking. Overall, the Buckhorn provided a great service to us - the best service we could've asked for. No wedding goes off without a hitch, but the hospitality and efficiency of the Buckhorn's staff really made the day perfect. We couldn't imagine having had our wedding anywhere else. If you're looking to have an intimate (75 or under) celebration with great food in a beautiful desert location, I cannot recommend the Buckhorn enough. This is such a special place. You and your
guests will not be disappointed.

I’m updating my review to reduce more stars as after I left this review, the owner, who I had never spoke with during the whole planning process of my wedding, called my cell phone out of the blue (I didn’t give her my number) and was harassing me about my review, calling me a liar and saying accusatory things like, “you emailed to thank the chef saying the food was great but in your review you said the food was cold”. The food was great, and the chef did I a good job, but it was also cold.

I dont appreciate someone taking my number and calling me unannounced just to be aggressive. To me, she wasn’t calling for a resolution, she just wanted to vent her anger to someone. I told her if she wanted to talk she needed to email me first because I was at work at the time, then she never emailed me.

The whole situation was extremely unprofessional and unnecessary. If only she showed this level of involvement and interest prior to the wedding happened maybe things would have worked out differently for everyone.

———————-

I'm a little sad to have to write this review for what was overall a great wedding. While I was searching for venues I had a hard time finding reviews so I hope this helps someone in the future. Buckhorn is a very stylish and comfortable hotel. The pool is gigantic, big hot tub, sauna, well decorated rooms, fires all around the property, complimentary s'mores kits, etc. I loved coming to this place as a normal hotel guest.

For a wedding, I would not recommend them. For context, I was the bride. Our wedding venue (Blue Sky Center, who are amazing btw) was right next door to Buckhorn so we contacted Buckhorn about having our guests stay at their hotel for our wedding. Just to do a group reservation of all of their 21 rooms for our wedding guests (no events or anything actually happening at the hotel) they wanted to do a two night minimum and charge us a $90 *per person* food and beverage minimum *per day*. I travel a lot for work with large groups, we do group hotel reservations all the time and I have never heard of a hotel imposing a food and beverage minimum. If we were holding the wedding there, that makes sense. But just to lock out the rooms to let our guests sleep there after our wedding, to charge a fee like that was unconventional and came off as a wedding tax to me. To be clear, the kitchen and bar was still to remain open to the public. This wasn't a lock out of the entire hotel or anything complicated.

We ended up having to move the wedding date to the weekday so they would agree to reduce the F&B minimum to $45 a person per day. The menu items aren't even expensive enough for people to reach that type of minimum and they had no solutions to offer us for how our guests were expected to fulfill that type of minimum. But it was the hotel closest to the venue and it was nice so we begrudgingly accepted the contract as they weren't willing to budge any further.
Their restaurant and bar also closes around 7pm so the time frame in which our guests could spend money at the hotel was very limited.

To fulfill our F&B minimum we ended up having them cater the wedding. For an all vegan menu consisting of vegetables and tofu, it ended up costing $100 per person with no drinks or add ons. The price was extremely high especially for the costs of the ingredients. When we added tofu to the menu they charged $5 per person just for tofu. The food arrived cold even though they were next door to the venue and they charged a large amount for a delivery fee. Despite being cold, I will say the food was good.

The day after the wedding, we asked for a late check out as we had a lot to move out (again, we were the bride and groom) and the hotel refused to give us even an extra hour to check out. I was really shocked by that. We ended up leaving 30 mins after check out and they charged us and our friends who were helping us unpack a $50 late check out fee. None of us were notified of this fee, they snuck it in our folio but never sent us an invoice for anything. I think they were hoping we wouldn't notice. Ultimately they ended up waiving the late check out fee, but I really felt burned by the whole experience. We brought their business tens of thousands of dollars their hotel and they couldn't even give us an extra hour to check out, and low key tried to charge us for being 30 mins late to check out. Overall I'm disappointed by the experience with the hotel. Maybe their policies will work for some people but it was not working for us.