Eden Gardens — Attraction in Moorpark

All in all, our experience with this place left such a sour taste in our mouths, that even though we thought this was the best place to have our wedding initially, we backed out.

Basically, we, specifically I, fell in love with this place from the moment I saw it. It was exactly what I wanted for my wedding. When we took our tour, we did notice that the lady giving us the tour was a little flustered, and kept asking us the same questions many times. But she was very nice, so we let it go.

She mentioned that the property was under new management, by the owners kids, and that prices were being raised. However, she said multiple times that it was only the Friday and Sunday rates that were going up for the site fee to match the Saturday rate of $5,900. She said as long as we had at least 150 people, which we told her multiple times that we would, at our wedding the rate would be the same. Anything over 150, it was an extra $10 per person, and we said that’s fine. So we decided to book it for our wedding.

However, when we asked for the price breakdown, all of a sudden there was an additional $1,500 charge, even though we said we were only having 150 people. When we asked about it, she said that that was correct, that they made it so that in addition to the $5,900 site fee, they are requiring and additional $10 a head for each person, basically just to be on site. But remember they require a minimum of 150 people on Saturdays. So that is a minimum of an additional $1,500. Also you’re required to go with this catering.

So, in addition to all that they are charging us for, now they require an additional amount of money just for people attending our wedding, which, isn’t that supposed to be covered in the site fee? Don’t get me wrong, we understand that prices have gone up, and we would have paid for it if it had been an increased site fee, but this was never explained to us before, and it wasn’t anywhere on the website, which we pointed out, and we requested that they honor the original price that was quoted to us, since this additional charge kind of just feels like they are gouging us at every opportunity, which also feels like a kick in the teeth.

However, when we heard from her the next day about our request, she said the owners had said no. They had mentioned that prices had gone up due to renovations and everything they had going on there. To me, that is a poor excuse. That was their business decision to renovate. It is not up to me or the other people to pay for their renovations.

Here’s the kicker though, if they had just increased the site fee and said it was due to maintaining the property, we would have paid it. But it seemed like such a slimy tactic to not only charge a site fee, and charge a lot of money per person for catering, but to then charge basically an entrance fee per person, with 150 person minimum, to come to our wedding? That was not right.

After about 10 minutes of us hanging up with each other, I get a call back from the lady we had been working with. She said she spoke to the owner and they didn’t “want us to have a sour taste in our mouths, so they would honor the original price.” After all of this though, the sour taste was already there.

It seems like they were only willing to do that to keep us from writing a negative review, but that’s not okay. We weren’t throwing a temper tantrum, we just wanted the price we were quoted, and didn’t want to be taken advantage of for the fact that we are having an event with the word wedding in it. Everything to do with weddings is already expensive enough, but this one just felt like an additional...

After looking at several venues from West Hollywood to Malibu we visited Eden Gardens and fell in love with the plethora of greenery that gave us tropical vibes.

Our tour guide, Kay, made us feel at home immediately while showing us every nook and cranny of the property. We were so impressed with her patience and never felt at any moment that we were being "sold" something or pushed. Let me tell you that after going to other venues for tours that is not always the case.

Our coordinators Soltana and Heather were fantastic. Soltana helped alleviate any of the stress with timelines and put any apprehensions at ease. We had some revisions leading up to our wedding day and Soltana accommodated all of those with grace and precision.

The most important part was how amazing they all made us feel on the day. The coordinators and staff treated us like royalty the whole evening. Their attentiveness to us couldn't have been any more remarkable.

Our one concern prior to the wedding was that the venue had a sound limit which we thought might be too low and dampen the mood for the dancing. Soltana and Kay assured us that the music would be more than loud enough and that in all their years here no one had complained about the music being too low. When the dancing time came, they were absolutely right! There was no issue with the volume whatsoever. We had a REAL DANCE PARTY! My husband is Persian so trust me. If you don't know anything about Persian weddings, know that they tend to be one heck of a dance club and ours was no different. So many of our guests said this was the best wedding they'd been to in their lives. I'd say...

We hired Sultana’s event planning services through Eden Garden because we had no choice — the venue operates like a mafia, forcing clients to use their in-house vendors whether they want to or not. Marisa is the owner And sultana is producer work for the event From the beginning, Sultana was unpleasant and unhelpful. Just one week before our wedding, she suddenly realized she needed to contact our vendors for approval — something that should have been handled weeks in advance. When things didn’t go smoothly, she blamed us for it.

To make things worse, Sultana asked us for an additional $500, claiming she had worked overtime. This request came without any prior notice — she simply decided she deserved more money. She later backed down, acknowledging she was wrong.

It’s important to know that Sultana is the in-house planner at Eden Garden and a close friend of the owner, Marisa. The day before the wedding, we had a meeting with Marisa and Sultana. Marisa spoke to us in a very disrespectful and demeaning way, saying: “You should be thankful Sultana is only asking for $500. You’re lucky I’m not charging you, because my time is worth $250/hour.” My wife and I looked at each other in complete shock at the level of arrogance and lack of professionalism.

Also, the day before the event, my wife sent Sultana our guest list via text message. Sultana responded coldly: “From now on, contact me only via email.” This was clearly because we refused to pay the extra $500 she demanded.

Bottom line: I absolutely do not recommend working with Eden Garden. Our experience was stressful, disrespectful, and completely...