BEWARE the new owners! Pine River Ranch is a beautiful venue run by a rude, disorganized, and non-communicative family.
I was a bridesmaid in a wedding at Pine River Ranch on the weekend of July 11th. When we arrived on Friday we were prepared to work with the new owners to make sure this wedding would proceed as planned. What we weren't prepared for was the new owners total unwillingness to work with us and complete lack of knowledge about how to run a bed & breakfast wedding venue! Here are some highlights of my horrible experience:
Day 1 - Check-in:
No one came out to greet us and there were no signs or anything to indicate where we might check in. One of the brides (who had met the owners previously and who also happens to be a service industry professional) came outside to direct us. The "check in" process consisted of my friend telling the owners what they needed to do for me (e.g. give me the keys to my room). The owners are a husband and wife, the wife followed my friend's directions to get me checked in, but never said a single word nor made eye contact with me. Is this how she treats all guests in her home?! The husband was a bit more friendly. He told me where to park, which areas were off limits (their living quarters), and invited me to visit their chickens. Later on I discovered that each person had a totally different check-in experience. For example, some people were told not to use the in-room Jacuzzi's due to a septic issue, and only some people knew about the chickens.
Day 1 - Set-up Sneakiness
The majority of what we did on Friday was build all the flower arrangements in the kitchen of the main barn. It was incredibly hot, so we opened all the windows to avoid heat stroke and wilted flowers. There was at least one instance of the owner quietly closing all the windows and leaving without saying a word. He was so sneaky, and we were so consumed with flowery business, that I barely even noticed what was going on until he was almost out of the door. Somewhat confused, we opened the windows again and continued working.
Day 2 - Zombie Apocalypse
I woke up extra early to do some last minute chores before the caterers arrived. I was the first one up by a long shot, so I carried the coffee maker that was in my room over to the barn kitchen to make coffee for the early morning crew. There is coffee provided in each room, but I brought my own high quality Stumptown coffee cause I'm a coffee snob. While coffee brewed, I opened up all the the windows to prevent the kitchen from getting suffocatingly hot again. The owner stopped by and started closing the windows again stating that they needed to stay closed because the windows let bugs in, and then the bugs will get all over the dishes, which will make them more difficult to wash. I hardly saw any bugs the entire weekend, and I'm quite confused how a few bugs makes dishwashing more difficult. Anyway, I didn't want to argue, so I just poured myself a cup of coffee and went outside to bask in the sunshine and wait for everyone else to wake up. Once other guests began to crawl out of their cottages it became quickly obvious that the only coffee stocked in each room was decaf. I told them not to worry! I had just made a full pot of delicious Stumptown! We walked over to the kitchen only to find that the owner had poured my coffee down the drain! DECAF ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE. Someone eventually got fully caffeinated coffee from the owners, and then we realized that there wasn't a single room with a complete set of coffee consuming equipment (mugs, sugar, creamer, stirs, etc.).
Day 2 - "Breakfast"
Breakfast was delivered to our rooms. For the three people in my room we received a single plate with two of the scariest little sausages I've ever seen, a basket of two blueberry muffins, and a carafe of red juice. No breakfast at all would have been better.
Day 2 - Mad Max: Fury Road
Just two hours before the wedding ceremony the owners turned off the water to the bridal suites without saying a word. The mother of the bride had to ask why the water wasn't working, to which the owners had the nerve to say that they waited to turn the water off until they had showered, but failed to mention to the bridal party that they might want to shower too before they turned off the water!! ...Then the teenage daughter of the owners showed up at the door wearing rubber gloves and very awkwardly interrupted the bridal parties as we were getting dressed to ask if it was alright for her to clean the room at that moment... NO. Just, no.
Day 2 - The Wedding
The wedding was wonderful because the owners had very little to do with it. Except that they were very unprofessionally dressed (as if they were headed to the gym) for a formal occasion like a wedding.
Day 3...
Breakfast was improved from the previous day. As we were packing up, the owners told us that it was our job to pick up the petals from the flower girl because they would ruin the grass, which is just plain BS. read more