We had our wedding here earlier this year. Affordable wedding venues are tough to come by in the Bay Area, and Coyote Ranch still stands out by still allowing a joyous event to happen here at reasonable cost without much price gouging.
Pros --
beautiful site with a real historic house on site, barns, flowering plants and trees, old fashioned carriage, and well maintained lawns (in spite of the drought, you'll still have grass), we fell in love immediately with the atmosphere. I wanted a low-key event that reminded me of my small-town childhood, and this was definitely it.
Campfire area for your wedding!! While there's a dance floor like any wedding venue, my guests loved hanging out by the campfire and roasting marshmallows. We like chilling more than dancing.
Price can't be beat for a wedding of this theme, not too far from civilization and accessible location near the 101 with a few hotels 3 miles away. It was one of the most affordable venues I got a quote from (I probably talked to at least 20 in the local area and Sac town), including other comparably rustic / outdoorsy places (i.e. Saratoga Springs, Roaring Railroads in SC), and your guests won't need to meander drunk out of mountain roads for a somewhat secluded outdoor experience.
Catering (all u can eat bbq with sides) and beer / wine (no hard liquor hosting, but all-u-can-drink) is part of the price which is a lifesaver. No frivolous cake cutting fee. They are ok with sparkler sendoffs in designated locations. In these respects, they are super flexible compared to other venues.
Wedding coordinator is pretty open to discussing things in person, or letting you visit the site when events are not ongoing. These discussions clarified a lot of questions. She also helped us broker some rentals (i.e. chairs, heaters) to be split with a wedding party the night before, which was much appreciated.
No cleanup fee and they'll take the garbage out / sweep the site (however, removal of all decorations / floral is up to you).
Cons --
Planning some things got lost in translation, it seemed. From the start, some aspects of our contract got changed over several email exchanges and had to go through several reminders.
While it was great that they were flexible about minor changes and adjustments to their requirements and offers, some of these things were somewhat ambiguous, particularly on how things we brought in were presented, as it would be a reflection of their work, which is a reasonable request. When we signed the contract, we were told that we could have our own appetizers there, as long as they were presented in a way that represented their catering (although, tough to say what parts of the wedding are whose work since some decorations, cake, floral and etc were not from by the venue) and left to self-serve. A month before the wedding, we were informed that we needed to hire licensed staff to supervise it, or order the appetizers from them. To simplify things, we ended up ordering from their selection, but my parents were somewhat disappointed at the lack of any cuisine reflecting our culture and ethnicity on an important day of our lives. Availability of fridge space was also ambiguous for additional beer we purchased and the cake, but fortunately our wedding was on a pretty cold day and our cake did not need refrigeration.
Lastly, we had some issues with the setup time prior to the wedding. A few weeks before our wedding, an event got booked to end 2 hours before our wedding (i.e. at the start of the latest setup time promised on our contract and 1 hour before our photographer was booked to start shooting the decorated site and the wedding party), which led to a great deal of anxiety since those of us in the wedding party were also doing setup / decorating ourselves, and I was not informed of this until after I specifically asked to confirm setup time. I had told them that the wedding party was doing the setup in several previous communications, but finally, it was suggested that we hire others to setup since "it wasn't a good idea" to have the wedding party do it. We did end up hiring people at the last minute and moving up our makeup appointment so we could all be present to help out in the last hour, but then the event booked prior to our wedding got canceled so we got to set up at the normal time -- thank goodness because cleaning up the prior event / the setup of the wedding would have been tough in 1-2 hours.
As the epilogue, the wedding did actually go off without a hitch and everything worked according to our timetable, so props for the actual outcome. Everybody had plenty to eat and drink, and the site was beautifully maintained and we all had a great night. If anything could be improved, it would be clear communication on available utilities and policies -- happy to oblige but knowing earlier in advance would have helped us in the planning process. read more