Vine Hill House — Local services in Forestville

My husband and I recently got married at Vine Hill house. The venue is absolutely beautiful and with the venue being small and intimate it was what we wanted. However, the owner Dan makes it very difficult. From the beginning he mentioned we could do as we pleased with our wedding day, since it is our day. Before we booked we double checked with him what our vision was for our wedding. We had 2 meetings with the venue to go over our plans, I remember trying to give them my vision and ideas, but Dan would rush through the meetings when the itinerary wasn’t done his way. The last meeting we had was 3 weeks out from the wedding, it was Dan, my husband and I which at this point I had everything planned for the big day and when I tried to explain my seating chart he moved right past it and it felt like we had to dig information out from him regarding the step by step process on the day of the wedding. Our wedding had everything DIY’ed by us, I had written down everything so I could share but I felt like I wasn’t being listened to and he was very adamant on some things he wanted at our wedding. But I stood my ground and he absolutely did not like that, he would raise his voice when I would say “no, I don’t want that”. The day before our wedding we were allowed to bring all of our stuff so we brought all of our DIY’ed projects including vases and floral arrangements. The day before the wedding he said at 11am my daughter will show up and sort through your stuff and we will ask you all the questions we have. I told him the day of the wedding I would rather not answer any questions because I was already anxious enough and would prefer all questions be directed at my sister. He said “that’s okay, we will ask you since you’ll be here.” That was my tipping point because the venue had 8 months to ask us all the questions. On the day of the wedding while my bridesmaids, mothers and I were getting ready we found out there was a separate rehearsal happening at 11am when they should have been focusing getting things ready for our wedding. Dan knew the men from our wedding including dads would be arriving at 11am to hangout and have our photographer take photos of everyone. However, we were unable to do some of those photos because the rehearsal party was passing through or being in the background. He also wanted to change the cocktail hour on the last minute from the original 60min to 90 minutes which was already set on the invitations. The day off, I gave them a timeline of our wedding day because I already knew it was an issue. We had a church ceremony so we ended up getting back to the venue around 5:15ish, so we started dinner at 6pm, during that time we were listening to music that was never part of our list. We had a Mexican wedding (Spanish music we wanted) and all the songs were in English and had commercials. One of the members of vendors came up to us and stated that Dan had gone up to the musicians and told them to play specific music which was never informed to us until later during dinner time which is absolutely not okay. When my husband and I went to talk to him, he started to raise his voice at me and he treated me like a child. I still remember it vividly when he raised both hands at me and started pointing his fingers at me. I told him he is not allowed to do that or talk to me like that. I had to step away because I started crying, my husband kept calm and explained to him that he was not allowed to talk to us that way and that he is not to raise his voice or point fingers at me. We had been very professional and polite the entire 8 months. He kept his distance after that incident but it was very difficult working with him since he wanted to do things his way. There were some things that were not placed correctly, but I let that slide. they were no coordinators when they never bothered to ask before the wedding day what our plans were or what we had in mind. My sister had to run the whole wedding day because when it came down to the reception there was no coordination from Vine Hill House, including...

We had our wedding ceremony and reception at Vine Hill House on May 27th, 2023. The whole event and evening went better than we could have imagined, and we’re thankful to Dan, Brigitte, and the rest of the Vine Hill House team for making our visions for our wedding a reality.

From the beginning, we were looking for an experienced vendor who could help support and guide us through the often chaotic and overwhelming wedding-planning process. Dan, the owner of Vine Hill House, and his team took a lot of the stress out of planning. Dan has a lot of experience, knew what questions to ask to keep us on track with the planning process. It should be noted that Dan can be set in his ways and often has his own vision for the event. We had some nontraditional elements in our wedding that required talking through, and in the end they brought a personal touch to the wedding that our guests loved, but be prepared to talk these through and stand your ground on aspects that are important to you.

Vine Hill House has a collection of vendors with whom they’ve cultivated strong relationships, which made finding vendors very easy. The vendors we contracted were used to working on the property and the setup and execution was seamless.

The property itself is stunning, with views of vineyards and apple trees and a redwood grove that we used as a “tasting grove” for sampling Japanese whiskeys and sakes, which was a huge hit with our guests. There’s a small house that I used to get ready the morning of that is available to the bridal party. The setup on the day of the wedding was very quick, and Brigitte provided kind, personable assistance on the wedding day, popping up at my elbow and helping direct us through the event. She also did an excellent job of gathering and packing up all the remaining decorations, food, and other materials we had brought and having them ready for us to pick up the next day; she was very helpful throughout the weekend.

The rates for using Vine Hill House as a venue were reasonable for such a beautiful Wine Country property, and purchasing only two cases of wine from O’Connell Vineyards is required. This is rare in Wine Country—many winery venues ask that you purchase much, much more wine from them or use their wine exclusively for the event, so we were very happy to be able to use mostly our selected beverages for the guests. However, we thought Dan’s estimates for how much alcohol we’d need to buy for the wedding to be very, very generous. We purchased the amounts of wine, beer, and liquor that he recommended, but we ended up with about 100% more alcohol than we needed and gave a lot away (and our group were not light drinkers!).

I’ve recommended Vine Hill House to many friends and acquaintances seeking wedding venues in Sonoma County...

We didn't come across Vine Hill House during our first round of venue searching and booked with a venue that went out of business and cancelled on us several months after booking. After a second round of searching for venues that had availability for our date, we visited VHH and immediately knew we had found our venue. Then COVID, and we had to change our date, and Dan was willing to work with us to pick a backup date. To us and all couples that had to reschedule, he offered the ability to host a smaller gathering while waiting things out, at no additional cost. We didn't take him up on this because things opened up quickly enough to host the main event, but really appreciated that he was going out of his way to help us, especially considering that it had been such a hard year for him and all others in the wedding and private party industry.

VHH is the perfect place to have an outdoor wedding in Sonoma, and Dan, the owner, knows exactly how to throw the perfect wedding and reception. We (the couple) have had the benefit of going to several Sonoma weddings before hosting our own, and we quickly learned the importance of shade before the sun sets and sources of warmth after the sun sets. Dan has the evening planned out perfectly so guests are in shade for the ceremony, cocktail hour, and then dinner, with patio heaters if it gets chilly after sundown. In addition the space is laid out perfectly so that everything is compact and easy to find, while still spaced out enough that guests (and the wedding couple) can find moments to themselves. The space is also wired for sound so our DJ could easily make sure that everyone was heard during the ceremony and speeches, and enjoy the music during dancing.

As part of the wedding package, you have use of a private house all day, and we didn't really understand the benefit of this, so let me tell you it is so nice to have access to a private bathroom and a place to catch your breath between ceremony and dinner, all while still being able to see your guests having a great time right outside.

Our guests couldn't stop raving about how beautiful the view was, both during and after the event. Several times during set up and during the event we would just stare off into the distance, down the hill of grapes to the valley and water below, thinking how lucky we were to get married at such a...