Aurora Vineyards — Attraction in Canby

My wife and I had a beautiful mid-October wedding at Aurora Vineyards. It’s a stunning valley location at a slightly higher elevation, looking down a small, bucolic drainage with sheep in the fields and views of Mt. Hood in the distance.

The reception space is also beautiful - lots of windows, covered outdoor space, and wood. There is also an indoor ceremony space in case of inclement weather.

Amanda, Chef Dave, and the rest of the catering staff at Aurora delivered excellent food and service throughout the evening. Multiple guests commented it was the best food they’d ever had at a wedding. My wife and about 25% of our guests have dietary restrictions, and Amanda and Chef Dave did a wonderful job coming up with new menu items and altering existing ones to accommodate them. We got the BBQ package, and the ribs were so good that some guests went back for thirds.

Something that worried us briefly is that they had live music at the tasting room during our ceremony, but they have a specific plan in place for these situations. It turned out to not be a problem at all - we couldn’t hear the music during our ceremony.

We were also a tad concerned about the proximity to a 45 mph road, but I do not remember the road noise (nor the nearby airport) affecting our outdoor ceremony at all.

Minus one star for communication - it was hard to get responses to emails at times, and sometimes the responses were only partial answers to our questions. They did have some staff turnover during the year which might have contributed to this. Not to mention that poor communication seems to be a general symptom of the wedding industry, and this level of communication was on par or better with other venues that we were considering before going with Aurora. Preparing a list of questions and scheduling calls with them ended up working way better for us. They definitely want to be helpful, accommodating, and answer questions, just weren’t always able to over email.

Despite some things going down to the wire and communication difficulties at times, they ultimately...

My cousin had her wedding here and the wedding coordinator did a HORRIBLE job, I didn’t like her the first time she mentioned that the bride and groom shouldn’t practice kissing in the rehearsal since it was considered “bad luck” we don’t believe in those old wives tales and thought that was rude to even talk about “bad luck” about their marriage and they wanted to practice the kiss and did anyway so her saying that just pissed me off. we didn’t get enough rehearse time to go thru every thing we needed to so the wedding was so stressful.. we had asked her to get a pillow and basket for the flower girl and ring boy since the ones we had were lost and she didn’t help with that.. instead gave so much attitude every time we asked for something , and 5 minutes before we were going to walk down the aisle together she calls the bride and asks WHAT SONG DO U WANT US TO PLAY WHILE YOUR WALKING UP ??” Like seriously ON THE DAY OF THE WEDDING...and couldn’t handle the brides father who wanted a table to be moved in a certain place and wanted to be added onto the speech list and pissed him off so bad that he almost walked off the day of her wedding, and this situation should’ve been handled, it’s terrible. And somehow they booked the hairstylist with the pictures the same hour and didn’t even notice, so that was great. Didn’t even show us where the other barn was where we had to get ready on rehearsal day so on the day of the wedding everyone is searching for the place she mentioned. Like seriously felt so rushed and sad for my cousin who had paid too much money for a wedding that didn’t even go accordingly. During photos with the guest there was no microphone to tell people where to go we had to run after everyone and didn’t even get all the guests attention to take photos.. I usually don’t leave reviews unless it needs to be mentioned so they can do a better job and hope nobody goes thru the same thing we...

My anniversary is coming up, and every year I stew over how horrible our experience was with this venue. This review is long overdue but much needed!

Our original wedding date was 6/20/20 and we had to postpone to due COVID. Our new wedding date was 5/1/21, and after being passed around to multiple coordinators from the venue, everything was finally settling into place. The Thursday before our Saturday wedding, we went into lockdown for COVID again, meaning we had to postpone or cancel our wedding once again.

The vineyard had a very “sucks for you” attitude and stated if we didn’t reschedule, we would lose everything we had paid for. They suggested we could use the credit for another event such as a dinner party, but who has a dinner party for the price of a wedding? They also stated we had until the end of the year to use the credit- mind you we are still in full on COVID times. The end of the year was just as unpredictable as the present, and I’m sure they knew exactly what they were doing.

We decided to proceed with our wedding at a different venue. When we contacted the vineyard to let them know we wouldn’t be rescheduling, they became very rude and dismissive. We were told we would not be receiving a refund for ANYTHING, which included the unopened wine we HAD to purchased through them. The vineyard stated that this was “not their fault” , “out of their hands” and “an act of God”. I don’t understand why our money was withheld from us when we didn’t use any of the things we had paid for.

I hope whoever got to drink the wine we bought for the wedding enjoyed it. I hope the vineyard used our 6,000 to hire event coordinators that actually do their jobs. I hope the owners sleep good at night knowing they scammed multiple brides during COVID. And I hope you have your wedding anywhere else besides Aurora Colony...