Deer Park Villa | World-Class Redwood WeddingVenue

As a venue, Deer Park Villa is one of a kind - the beauty of the redwoods, along with a thoughtfully laid-out indoor space for dancing and celebrating into the night, is a perfect setup for a wedding. The separate bridal / grooms areas were really helpful, and offered plentiful space for getting ready. The fact that such a space is so accessible without having to wind through the mountains to get there, is rare to find. We also loved the afterparty package with Mac’s, the bar around the corner. It was a great way to cap off the night in a more intimate setting. We did have a few issues with the coordination of the venue, however. While the venue has a coordinator, we highly recommend also having your own coordinator/planner, as the venue does 3-4 weddings a week during the busy season and it can be hard to reach their staff to get the answers you might need. The online floorplan they provide for the space was out of date when we were planning, and led to us having to scramble a few weeks before the wedding to rearrange all of our dinner seating, despite having been confirmed by the on-site coordinator weeks prior. Thankfully you are able to visit the venue during the daytime on most days, which allowed us to ensure that the reception setup would fit properly. We also felt like the venue was advertised to us as being able to have over 200 people. While we ended up with around 170, we felt like anywhere over 180 would not be feasible or comfortable in the space. In terms of working with vendors at DPV - we found it a bit easier to go with vendors who had already worked at the venue, especially for things like transportation, florals, catering (they have a preferred list). We did hire an external DJ as we wanted to include Bollywood music, which worked out fine, but they did have to go through training with Runaway DJ (the preferred DJ). One downside for us was having to go through DPV for alcohol, which they charge a flat fee per head, which was a bit inflexible as we had a mix of guests who do not drink. Finally, on the day of, we found that the setup staff was not very proactive in getting the venue set up for the ceremony on time, and our planner had to get very involved. However, the team was great through the evening, from serving wine at the dinner tables to making sure the heaters and firepits were turned on as it got chilly out. Overall, we were very happy with the venue and our guests continue to compliment us on the wedding months later.