San Clemente Historic Cottage — Attraction in San Clemente

We chose the Historic Cottage for the price, fantastic view of the ocean, and charming location. That said, while the venue has a lot to offer, they are missing some key elements. Covering all those missing pieces to host a successful event takes an immense amount of work (even with a coordinator). While we are thrilled with how the actual day of the wedding went, it took a lot of effort to make it as successful as it was. Ultimately, if ocean views and a Spanish California theme at a decent price are your highest goals, this is probably the best venue. But if you care deeply about the accommodations, ease of logistics, and helpful venue staff, we would recommend looking elsewhere. Pros: 1.Once you get past the tents and RVs of the State Park campground, the Historic Cottage is a naturally beautiful location. White adobe walls and red Spanish tile, a full 180 degree view of the California coastline and the Pacific Ocean. The only decorations we felt needed to be added came from our tables, the wedding arch, floral centerpieces, and small personal touches.

Comparatively affordable beach wedding venue

As of 2023, you get to bring in your own vendors with approval.

Cons: Public bathrooms. This is a venue located in a California State Beach park. Everyone at the wedding and all visitors to the beach and/or campground use the same restroom. They are large, open air restrooms that flush, but at the end of the day they are public bathrooms with sand, ants, and missing soap. The State Parks staff “thoroughly” cleans them before every wedding but depending on how many people visit the beach that day, you have to accept the state of the bathrooms as being a part of your wedding. We provided luxury soaps, paper towels, electric candles, toiletries, etc. but it was frustrating to provide these items on top of our venue fee. There is a small bathroom in a closet basically for the bride/elderly/disabled, but it isn't as accessible for all of those groups and still no soap/towels.

The contract. They can change anything they want, whenever they want, even a few days before your wedding.

You need stand alone lighting on the lawn after dark. They said they are in the process of purchasing lights but for ours, we had to provide our own, otherwise our guests would have been walking around in the dark to get to the bar/their cars.

You need sturdy bottom-heavy centerpieces. The ocean breeze will topple any tall vases/table signs.

Unprofessional staff. From one of the State Parks coordinators who scolded us for being on-site during business hours even after we called ahead and asked permission to be there to plan our wedding layout, rude teenage park entrance staff refusing to let us enter the park until 1:00 PM on our wedding day (as in turning the groom away at 12:58 PM) to a Parks Monitor basically ordering our DJ to play his favorite song "Sweet Caroline", and then later telling us we might be getting a fine because some food from the wedding spilled onto the floor tile. If you don't want food to fall on your tile, you should probably stop hosting weddings. All of their staff need serious training in customer service.

On the whole, we were willing to put up with these challenges for the beauty of the cottage, an outdoor venue during the Pandemic, and a way to cut costs. Our wedding was nearly perfect with gorgeous weather, great photos, happy guests, and an overall excellent day. But this happened in spite of the Historic Cottage staff. It would have been a less stressful wedding planning process had the staff been more cooperative in their behavior and regulations. Our recommendation if you decide to book this venue is to hire a wedding planner and one stop shop catering vendor. (catering/tables/chairs/bar/staff, etc.) This will help with the Cottage DIY logistics issues. At the end of the day, many of the cons we mentioned will still exist. Our hope in writing this review is to help future couples consider this place carefully before committing to it for their big day. N&R (Photo...

I have never worked or tried working with a vendor with such unprofessionalism. We had reached out to the venue a week ago and all correspondence then (phone/email) had been fine, we even toured the venue and the person we met with was pleasant. On the night before submitting our documents to secure their supposed last date for 2025, we were met with this email (included). We had some specific questions regarding lines or statements in the rules and regulations which we had read a few times that we wanted to make sure of, noise levels *since you know at weddings, people typically dance, culturally we're Mexican, so we wanted to ensure our culture could be represented through mariachi, etc. We had a few questions because during the walk through we heard comments and things said that contradicted what was stated in the rules, so we wanted to be sure. After that email we were definitely sure that we would never use this venue or ever recommend anyone to use it. Such a beautiful space, held hostage by someone really nasty, possibly racist. Save your...

Just had my wedding here. The coordinators are extremely communicative and available for any questions. The guards up front were extremely welcoming and all of our guests made it into the park on time. The venue is extremely gorgeous and our guests all loved it. The only thing the bathrooms were not clean, we understand it is a state park and there are so many state guards but it is slightly frustrating. The venue installed more lights, so it was lovely through the night. Strongly recommend bringing your own portable toilets for...