Kenwood Farms & Gardens

After researching and visiting several locations to accommodate our wine country wedding for about 75 attendees, including 10 children, we booked Kenwood Gardens. Most of our attendees were coming in from out of town so it was important for us to show them a memorable wine county experience complete with beautiful views, excellent food, great wine and memorable venue. Kenwood delivered across the board at a very reasonable price. The grounds were perfect for our wedding. The barn was ideal for the size of our party and the grounds outside allowed the kids to play safely but away from the adult fun.
We booked a Friday evening wedding which gave great flexibility on dates with venue and caterers. Kenwood catered the event and even coordinated with many local food vendors to ensure our favorite breads, cheeses, cakes and beer were there for the sampling. They also helped us find a very good DJ who kept people dancing all night. The Kenwood wines were a nice option given the price and the beer selection was very good.
We found Lorin to be helpful in planning the event but realize if you don’t get the full planning package you’ll need to do some heavy lifting yourself leading up to the event. I’d recommend the ‘day of’ planning package. If you’re reading this review to find a venue for your wedding congratulations, I highly recommend Kenwood Gardens.

My wife and I held our wedding here recently and everything about the experience was beautiful. The space is lush and holds gorgeous views of the surrounding area. The rustic barn was a perfect spot for a lively dance floor. Lorin did a masterful job of coordinating the wedding day and creating gorgeous floral arrangements. John made delicious tri tip, roasted chicken, grilled veggies, salads, and appetizers that our guests raved about. We cannot say enough about how amazing our experience was and were thrilled with the reasonable price to boot. Thank you again!

My husband and I got married at Kenwood Farm and Gardens in June of 2014. It was exactly what we were looking for with a beautiful yet rustic outdoor space in the heart of gorgeous wine country. We had dinner in the orchard and then transitioned to dancing in the barn. Everything, including the food, drinks, and flowers were handled by John and Lorin and everything went pretty smoothly. I definitely was involved closely with the preparations and décor, but it turned out beautifully. I would recommend this place for an unpolished but authentic farm wedding in Sonoma.

My daughter just got married at Kenwood «Ranch of Sonoma». John the owner had the entire place looking gorgeous !! Everything was green and flowering. The caterers worked so quietly and diligently that I never even knew they were there !! Setting things up and taking them down was seamless. The Sonoma Valley Caterers served fantastic food (recommended by John) and everyone enjoyed it. The wedding planner Lorin was top notch too. She kept everyone on track for a perfect day at this venue. Down to the smallest detail i.e. I spotted a worker carefully wrapping up glass from the candy table… Lorin and John know how to make a wedding day a memory to remember ! Thank you !!
Eve Sheehan

Aweful! We went to view the site today and met with Lorin. She seemed nice at first… then she had short answers and never once asked us what we wanted our wedding to look and feel like. She didn’t have passion for OUR wedding witch is what a wedding planners jobs is! (She is the required wedding planner for your event.) The property is lovely. That part Getz 4 stars from me. It was quaint and rustic exactly what we want for our big day. But Lorin was cold and actually rude. When we asked if we could view a copy of the contract she said no. She said if we wanted to move forward she would give the contract and have 4 days to sign. WHY would we say we wanted to move forward if we can’t see the contract!!! Sounded like there might be some secrets… not somthing we want. Who ever is the owner of the property… find yourself a new wedding planner that’s is a little better at her job!

Kenwood Ranch gets 5 stars from me. I have to say my wedding day was amazingly perfect. I can’t say one negative thing about the day. John and team pulled off exceptional food. Everyone was talking about how great the food was and still are. The anti pasta table was a special request and John had never done one before and he rocked it. People said the table was beautifully decorated and the cheese and meats were great. You rock John and team!!! My vision would not have been brought to life without Lorin Rose. Lorin was the wedding planner and she did our flowers, which were perfect and just what I wanted. Lorin you rocked it too. The day went by too quickly and if I had to do it all over again, I would have it at Kenwood Ranch
(Kenwood Farms & Gardens). Maybe someday we will renew our vows here.

While we ultimately chose to go another route for our wedding (we wanted a place where our out-​of-​town guests could stay on-​site), Kenwood Ranch was our frontrunner for several weeks of our exhaustive venue search. The outdoor space is really beautiful, with strung bistro lights over the lawn where dinner is served, and views of vineyards from the ceremony site. The 100-​year-​old restored barn is totally updated on the inside, with beautiful hardwood floors, a gorgeous wooden bar, and a pass-​through to the outside area.
Another Unilocaler below mentioned that the barn got very hot during the summer, but they’ve since installed some large ceiling fans that I’m sure help quite a bit. (We visited twice – both during the day in late June – and the temperature was comfortable.) The guest restrooms are also very nice, so I wouldn’t worry about those being too «rustic.» And, true, there is no kitchen, but I think most caterers are used to this sort of setup, and the catering company that works with Kenwood Ranch for their packages is pretty affordable.
The real reason for the 5 stars, though, is how flexible and accommodating the owner, John, and the sales/​events manager, Sandy, were with us. We told them that they were high on our short list of favorite venues but that they were a little outside of our budget. The owner sat down with us and worked out a package that actually DID fit within our (ridiculously tight) budget. This flexibility was unheard of anywhere else in wine country, where most venues have a take-​it-​or-​leave-​it attitude. It was actually really difficult to walk away from this sort of customer service.

My Husband and I had our wedding here in June of 2013 and it was the most perfect day I could have dreamed of! The Kenwood team worked patiently with me for 8 months to accommodate all the special requests and needs that we needed and were so sweet! It felt like working with friends by the end of the process, I would do it there all over again if I had too! We did have some hiccups in communication and some minor things forgotten on the day of but all in all I would highly recommend having your wedding here, especially if you have special needs or requests for your special day.

This venue is much more rustic in person than I had anticipated. They have a pretty grass area for a ceremony site. It faces a little creek and I’m sure is very pretty when the sun is setting. Their barn is really more for a bar and dance floor. Its pretty small. There wouldn’t be space for much more based on what I saw. Most tables would have to go outside. If you do set them up inside it still wouldn’t be very enclosed. We didn’t go with this location because it was quite exposed and we were looking for something with an indoor area. They do have a nice little bridal room and restrooms so its not too rustic, but it definitely appeals to the country chic aesthetic.

This is a tough review for me. I married my husband here on June 29^th 2013 and when push came to shove we had a great wedding, in a beautiful location that went off with out any major hitches (minus the fact it was 104 degrees on our wedding day… but hey, it was better then rain i guess). There where however, some issues with the planning and business aspects and some other issues I’d like to address.
The first major issue was with them «losing» a 7500 $ check I had written. I understand that they may have had changes in accounting but when you receive your final billing statement and they don’t have account of a check that large (and 3 weeks before the wedding) you can believe there was a bride-​zilla meltdown moment. Thankfully I was able to look it up through my online checking and show proof of payment but that SERIOUSLY put a bitter taste in my mouth. The second financial issue I had was when we had originally made our decisions and received our estimate which our payments where based on, they DID NOT include estimated sales tax, gratuity or estimated alcohol pricing. Now it was made very clear that these items would need to be paid for but what SHOULD have happened was that they could have been included in our estimate. They weren’t. So when push came to shove we were hit with a LARGE amount due extremely close to the wedding… which was unexpected for us, and had to be received in the form of a cashiers check. During their normal payment options they accept credit cards (plus a fee which I understand) but to have to come up with close to 7000 CASH 3 weeks before the wedding was EXTREMELY stressful. We almost had to cancel our honeymoon.
Now for working with Lorin… She is VERY good at her job. She is very knowledgeable and has been doing weddings for a long time. But she can also at times come off as controlling and unorganized. As our wedding coordinator, she did us a huge favor and did an offsite rehearsal for us as they were booked the night before with another event (and from my understanding she usually doesn’t do this). This was a big deal for my husband and we greatly appreciated it.
She is very precise and all the details that I had required came out on point. She kept us on our schedule and made the wedding run VERY smoothly. The only issue is how she came off to some of my guests during the wedding. I will say that we have a somewhat rowdy group of friends and keeping them in line is not always an easy task. But when threats to my guests about the bride and groom losing their security deposit if they didn’t do this or that got thrown around, I don’t believe that was necessary… My guests are not children. Some of our guests took it as being bitchy but like I said before, she did her job and she did her job well.
I thought the food was delish and haven’t heard any of our guests complain about anything other then the heat. It would have been nice to have a fan in the bridal cottage and the fact that they only allow you to be on grounds 2 hours before the wedding to get ready left us scrambling for time and unable to take most of the beforehand photos we had planned with our photographer. Timing of everything was on point but because of the heat, dancing in the barn without any air circulating led it to feel like a 120 degrees, which meant most of the guests where outside enjoying the shade instead of boogieing down on the dance floor. By the end of the night we didn’t even do a last dance because it was still too hot to go into the barn and honestly I didn’t want to go back in there. I commend my bridesmaids for shaking it down all night long though!
For the price in this area, KFG is a great choice. When you look at the wineries charging a 10k site fee, the 5500 $ at KFG sounds a whole lot more reasonable. Just be aware that you get what you pay for on the business end. Even though we had a 5 star wedding the entire experience, from start to finish gets 3 stars. If just a few things where different they would have totally deserved the entire 5 stars. Hope this is helpful for someone else.

If you are considering this venue be sure to look a little closer. Check around back. Look at the bathrooms. Lots of details overlooked. Vague answers to general and specific questions.
– BE SURE TO ASK TO SEE THE KITCHEN! — JUST DO IT! If you plan to have food at your wedding, –YOU SHOULD SEE WHERE THE FOOD IS PREPARED – . Really. Unless you don’t care about that sort of thing!
We were there to finalize a decision and the many inadequacies became all too apparent. Bride and groom are Napa locals and it would have been easy to have the reception at this location. We passed.
Groom said it best, «Its good we found out now instead of the months leading up to the wedding.» I agree.
After our experience I went back to recheck the Unilocal reviews. Simply wanted to see what I missed. I realized that there is only one reviewer with more than ten reviews and this place has more — filtered reviews– than published reviews. Hmmmm curious.

I’m a bride, just had a wedding April 20, 2013 at Kenwood Farms & Gardens.
Pluses: absolutely perfect, gorgeous, fun wedding, and a large part of that was due to the guidance of Lorin and Christy, the two wedding planners that worked with me. Lorin helped plan and organize in the weeks prior, Christy was our day-​of coordinator.
Lorin’s taste is very good, and she is full of helpful advice (like Starlettos — google them — and a polaroid photo style guest book which was a big hit) and guidance on flowers, food and more. I didn’t have many specific ideas about how I wanted my wedding to go down — just that I wanted it to be fun, lovely, and enjoyable for guests. ALL my guests have enthusiastically commented about how much fun our wedding was and what a beautiful, unique little spot Kenwood Farms is.
Lorin was a good fit for me. I think she would also be good for a bride who has stronger ideas and opinions too — she’s great at working with people.
This place is a great value over places like big, fancy wineries.
We had originally planned a wedding with them in 2010 — including putting down a deposit that we weren’t able to fully recover when my then fiancé and I put the wedding on hold. Lorin and John were very accommodating in working out an arrangement that was satisfactory for all of us.
If at first you are not able to get in touch with them, or if you have communication challenges early on — fear not. They will get the job done if you decide to have your wedding with them. They were a little slow to be in touch at first, and it was a little confusing about which phone number and which email they were calling from or that we should contact — and it made me a tiny bit worried about things as my date approached. But as the date approached, it was game on and John and Lorin absolutely performed beautifully.
One other thing — the front gate says «Kenwood Ranch,» which confused a few of our guests who ended up driving round and round trying to find the place! Might want to address that somehow in your wedding invites or Lorin, might want to square up your branding to lessen confusion. The gate and grounds were absolutely beautiful and perfect and I have no complaints.
THANK YOU!
Christie

Downgraded because I read the other reviews and now don’t feel like a crazy bride!

I got married at Kenwood Gardens last October and mostly had an excellent experience. The wedding itself was fabulous, but let me go back to the beginning. John, the owner, showed me and the fiancé around the site. John is very friendly and enthusiastic, he sold us on having the wedding there right away. The grounds are really pretty, very rustic and natural. They do all the catering, but let you bring in the wine which is a great cost saver. They can get you discounts at some of the local wineries but I didn’t really like those wines so I got my own. The site fee is pretty reasonable for this area. After you book with them, Lori helps coordinate everything. Lori was also very friendly and definitely knew her stuff. My one complaint about her was that she sometimes took a while to get back to me. She seems very focused on the weddings happening soonest, which makes sense, but sometimes you want to get things done earlier rather than later.
So onto the wedding day, Lori was very organized and things went smoothly. We started a little late and I never found out why but it wasn’t that big of a deal. We got married on the lawn, then moved into the barn for appetizers, then to a tent for dinner, then back to the barn for dancing. I liked that we moved around throughout the night. The food was tasty, we had tri tip and chicken. It’s not really fancy food but it was good. I did wish the hors doevres could have been a little more upscale but I was at least able to upgrade the cheese options. Lori recommended a DJ, Noël Plumb, who did a great job. Everyone said they had a great time and my husband and I thought it was the best wedding ever, no, we’re not biased.
So my few real complaints, the site fee does include china & linens, however it doesn’t include real glasses at the bar, real coffee cups & cake plates. I had to pay extra or else we would have been using disposable.
They don’t allow hard liquor.
I had told Lori we would have about 40 people and she used that number as our final count, so I had to pay for 40 dinners. I didn’t realize when I told her that she was doing that and would have appreciated it if she had let me know. In the end we had 39 people so no big deal but I like better communication.
The latest you can stay is till 10:00 with music ending at 9:45 because of a cranky neighbor. It’s a little bit of a bummer to end so early.
And they don’t allow sparklers, they said it’s a fire hazard which seems a little weird to me. I’ve never seen anything catch fire because of a sparkler.