Roaring Camp Weddings Reviews

I got married here one month ago and I am so glad we chose this venue for SOOO many reasons. I'll start off with the most important aspect for guests: THE FOOD! I didn't know what to expect since they aren't a restaurant, but I was blown away with the multitude of options and all were delicious. Heather, the event coordinator was so easy to work with and really cared about making our day everything we wanted it to be. There was plenty of parking for guests, large restrooms, ADA & pet friendly, and the location CANT BE BEAT!!! Hotels in the area were hard to come by or very expensive though during the summer, so plan accordingly! If you are going for a woodsy vibe and want a bit of action, choose Roaring Camp! Guests said it was the most unique and fun wedding they've ever been too. They let you rehearse there for free the day before which is an aded bonus. Also one of the most cost effective venues in the area! (Shoutout to Take Delight Photography for the amazing pics!)

I videoed a wedding recently at Roaring Camp, and it was a uniquely wonderful magical experience. The wedding party and attendees board a train that transports you through the Santa Cruz mountains and redwoods to a special ceremony area. The ceremony was beautiful and then we all ride back to the reception held in the hall. The food was great - the staff were so friendly. Heather does the planning at Roaring Camp and she made sure that the event went smoothly - everyone had a wonderful time. I highly recommend.

We had our wedding at Roaring Camp, and it was a hit! Some guests described it as the most fun wedding they've ever attended. We had lawn games outside, a steam train rolling by (we did a ceremony offsite), a DJ recommended by the venue, and the venue's catering. We had about 100 adults and 15 children <5 years old. We were happy how timely everything was, from the appetizers and then buffet, to the tables being ready to decorate at 9am the day of the event. The venue was easy to work with, and was just the right amount of DIY that we wanted. The children were happy with the lawn games, which means the parents (our guests) were happy. This space met our requirement to be campy fun (which we love), but also approachable by our non-camping-loving guests. We used the venue's catering, and everything tasted exactly as it did in the tasting. They have an event in Feb to taste many of the offering. Overall, our event was perfect!

beautiful scenery, helpful and nice staff. very responsive to emails and phone calls and flexible with requests

Heather and the Roaring Camp staff were great to work with on our wedding day and everyday leading up to it. Heather answered all of my questions in a timely fashion, helped coordinate with our vendors and made me feel like I did not need to worry about the room being ready on our big day. My husband and I chose to get married on the lawn, the weather was awesome and the setting was gorgeous. The hall looked wonderful with the lighting provided by Roaring Camp (we did not do any additional lighting and it was absolutely fine) and the tables and chairs suited our needs. We had 215 people at our wedding and the hall did not feel overcrowded by any means. The schoolhouse adjacent to the lawn was fine for changing into dresses and applying last minute makeup with the ladies. We used outside catering so I can’t comment on the RC catering but used many vendors from RC’s preferred list and all of them were great.

A couple things to note (we were fully aware of these things though before booking): the bathrooms are a little stroll from the hall (we provided flashlights but this could be tricky for older guests) and the venue only allows beer and wine (again, not a huge deal but worth mentioning).

Our wedding was amazing and I can’t thank Roaring Camp staff enough for their help.

Roaring Camp was the most beautiful and unique venue and the team there is incredible! They truly help you so much with every detail and the location is unmatched!

I took my fiancé, mother and grandmother with me to the site tour. Heather went at my pace, provided a quote on site with my estimated count, and was very helpful. She provided my group with train tickets to check out the cathedral of redwoods where I have chosen our ceremony to be!

This is a beautiful, fun, and unique venue. The train ride will wow your guests, it is an unforgettable experience.
Leatha, the new site coordinator, is great to work with. I did have some hiccups because my original coordinator left, and I had to start from scratch with the new one at the last minute. Because of this not everything was communicated clearly. But overall it was a perfect day, just a few stresses leading up to it.

I wasn’t in love with the wedding coordinator. She was often short and sarcastic and made odd comments... and the staff doesn’t provide much help in certain things. For instance they won’t help you with ice. Even if you buy your own ice they won’t fill up the buckets for you (the buckets you paid for, that you already filled with your own drinks). So our family had to get there early to take care of the ice, which is kind of a bummer.

But I do appreciate that they’re hands off in other ways. They didn’t bother us or get involved in our business. They just did their job and left. I was happy overall, I would 100% Roaring Camp’s Bret Harte Hall as a venue. It was beautiful, cozy, dreamy... exactly how I envisioned my dream wedding. Hats off to Roaring Camp, it was an affordable venue with many wonderful options and we had the absolute perfect wedding there.

We got married at Roaring Camp in July 2018 and it was absolutely incredible! The venue is gorgeous and speaks for itself. Our guests are STILL raving about how beautiful the location and the day were.

Word of warning - we did not find Heather nor the rest of the staff to be that helpful, sometimes even troubling. We wanted to make our day special and unique, and Heather very much would like you to stay in the box. Thankfully, we were very organized, as we took more of a DIY approach (brought food trucks, etc.), but this was really an "all on us" situation, including the actual wedding day.

Final note - they nickel and dime you for set up time and you MUST break everything down the night of the wedding or you'll be additionally charged. A fantastic venue, but if you're not really on top of your game (and aren't paying others extra money to assist), this can be a challenging venue. If you're on top of your game, go for it. We loved it!

The site is gorgeous and has a lot of potential. However, the wedding coordinator that you must work with for this venue isn't really the most helpful. It was difficult to get answers to questions or helpful information from the coordinator. All in all, I feel the planning experience could have been less stressful and the wedding day could have gone smoother had we had a more helpful coordinator.

We were so excited to get married at this beautiful venue and had a great experience with our tour and getting our contract started. From that point on however things did not remain as we were expecting.

The staff had both of our email addresses mistyped so we were not getting emails for months. We even almost missed the February showcase because of this. I was told to check spam and told them we still were not getting emails. Finally I asked them to forward us the original they sent to a different email and then that's when we found out both of our email addresses were mistyped.

Another huge typo we came across was being misquoted for food. The typo was charging us $100 per plate instead of $65 per plate so we almost overpaid for food significantly. Definity double check your paperwork.

Also we almost didn't have bartending secured. You go through the bartending service Raise Your Glass and I had to do the following up because for some reason our wedding date did not have a bartender assigned. Quote from the email, "Our team recently went over weddings booked with [redacted] over at Roaring Camp, and it seems we never officially had gotten you on the books for this weekend. We are unsure about how this may have happened, but I want to make sure we have your bartending officially scheduled for this weekend." We were thankfully able to secure the bartending and fix that.

Okay, now we are at day of wedding. Day of wedding train was delayed which pushed back our timeline quite a bit. I know they still service the public so things can't always go on schedule but that delay pushed into our timeline and we had to skip table visits because of it.

We were also told during the tour that inside the Bret Hall barn there was supposed to be a bathroom for the wedding couple but there was not. So it was public restroom situation for all of us which is not fun in a wedding gown. There is a private restroom behind the schoolhouse but its more of a portable set up and very small. Not ideal for someone in a wedding dress.

You pay for parking for your guests, which is fine, but since they do not reserve a section for the wedding it's first come first serve parking with the public and a lot of my guests had to park and walk quite a bit. Just a heads up on that.

The last big bummer was that we won a free tator tot add on bar back when we did the showcase (that we almost missed) and it was never brought out. It was on our final invoice (as comped) but we were excited that we won it and that we were giving our guests the opportunity to have more food. We didn't realize it hadn't come out until it was too late and catering was done.

They offered us two free train tickets and a sack lunch in the apology email. I do not know what would have remedied the situation, but it was something we looked forward to.

We still made the best of our beautiful day and had a great wedding despite all the behind the scenes let downs. It was a unique wedding experience for all of our guests and I know they enjoyed themselves despite bathroom and parking not being super convenient.

We were hoping Roaring Camp would have sent out a follow up questionnaire for feedback but maybe that's not common for venues.

We do want to say big shout out to our conductor, he was great and made the train ride up to the cathedral grove fun.

It's a beautiful and unique venue. It's just so disappointing pouring your hard work and money into a venue that consistently had us fall through the cracks.