Griffith Woods

Got married at Griffith Woods 30 years ago today! And still married !! Awesome memories and what an amazing place. It’s a perfectly beautiful spot with majestic redwoods that’s an open canvas to whatever you want to create there.

Griffith Woods is an absolutely gorgeous wedding venue! As a wedding planner myself, I was looking for the perfect redwood forest wedding venue with no restrictions on vendor selection. Ned and Elaine were very accommodating and our wedding turned out absolutely stunning!

Ned! Ned is such a sweet guy. This is a pay-in-cash-no-there’s-no-website kind of venue. DIY space that pays off. Sorry to hear about the people who called and talked with Ned’s wife… but the fact that this guy is third-​generation on a property of old growth redwoods and he wants to run a wedding venue business on the side and his wife doesn’t really like it and only let’s him do 10 weddings per year is frankly, part of the charm, y’all.
Despite our best intentions and planning, and California’s serious drought, it rained on our wedding day. We still had the ceremony in Ned’s woods but Ned helped us out dramatically by helping our family and our wedding coordinator secure a place down the road (the Druid Hall) to move our dinner/​dancing the morning of our wedding. He even showed up to the Druid Hall at the end of the night to wish us well and tell us that he’d never again let someone get married in the last weekend of September, because with this climate change stuff, you never know.

This venue is CLEARLY gorgeous. I just got off the phone with the owner, who was absolutely charming. Although it might not be great for us (weddings/​receptions end when the sun goes down), he said he would let us check out the space, and recommend other places if he couldn’t accommodate us. Really friendly, lovely folks!

Last summer I had the distinct pleasure of getting married at Griffith Woods. This site is stunning in it’s natural beauty. The property accommodated my 135 person wedding beautifully. Throughout the planning process I worked directly with the property owners who were wonderful and helped to facilitate all my dreams. They were willing to meet with me on several occasions and even talked to my coordinator. They were extremely helpful in offering information about which caterers had worked on the property and knew the particulars of what worked best. The setting cannot be beat for its gorgeous redwoods, and secluded private location with a wine country flair. I feel extremely lucky to have been able to get married there.

I just created a Unilocal account today solely to express how rude my phone call just was. After 2 attempts where I could tell the staff was picking up and hanging up the receiver, I spoke with a woman and asked about their availability for a wedding of under 50 people next year. I unexpectedly was given a lengthy and undeserved lashing about how they don’t know their availability, and even if they did they don’t like to do weddings. The woman complained of people calling about weddings and «its just been making their lives miserable» and then hung up immediately. After that sob story I here on out promised to not make their life miserable with my money and patronage and will be sure to protect this poor woman’s delicate sensibilities by letting others know this public event space hates business. If all it took was a few phone calls, I’m pretty sure your life was miserable to begin with.

Let my start off by saying that this place took a lot of hard work to get! In response to the last review with one star, yes. they get full really quickly. They only do about 10 weddings a year because it is their own private property and they are getting older and ready to retire this business all together and when I called last year, the owner seemed frantic and almost did not want to do wedding anymore because they were getting HUNDREDS of calls when it used to only be by word of mouth or close family friends. It is overwhelming for them. I had to call and bug them about ten times. BUT, I got my dream venue! Griffith Woods is AMAZING. All my dreams came true here. It was the most beautiful and perfect day. Ned, the owner, was so friendly and really accommodating. We could do whatever we wanted and decorate with whatever we needed. We even built our own 10 ft tall wall backdrop and they let us use it on the stage. They did not care what vendors we brought it and were so flexible about the time and flow of the day. The only downside was that we had to be out by «dark.» Which thankfully we brought string lights and had the most beautiful full moon that really did light up everything so we got to party late into the night! (by late, I mean 9/9:30. which was late for us haha) The best part was that we had the whole weekend to set-​up and tear down so decorating and cleaning was not as stressful as it could have been! This place is amazing thought. there are 4 different spots you could use so we had a different location for the ceremony, cocktail hour and the reception. There is a river flowing through it and the canopy of redwoods was just breathtaking. They even had vineyards next to the venue so that we could take some vineyard sunset photos and have different backgrounds for our photos, which I appreciated. I couldn’t have imagined getting married anywhere else. Ned, thank you so much for everything! You guys were amazing! Best experience ever.
Here’s a link to our photographers blog post about our wedding so you can check out some of the photos from the venue!

Let me come look and then all of sudden they are «full», For the whole year. 2015. YUP Basically a campground «full» over a year in advance. They don’t seem to even like doing the weddings. Can’t imagine they would have made my day very enjoyable. Also very dirty and bathrooms are gross.

This is just one of those Rare Gems if true nature is what you need. I first was here for a sad but extremely beautiful event to say good bye to a close friend/​family who was take by a rare cancer way to early to only touch young manhood. I fell in love with this place but I believed it was actually a private family place that our friend knew only to find out about a year ago it was actually an event place. The owners answered the phone and wonderfully friendly. Bad news the Date we need is booked… Yes I am a bit heart broken but I can guarantee now that I know my next wedding renewal June 27 will bee booked on time we wanted to do every 5 yrs but life happens so I have a bit of time. I feel as if my heart is home when I walk into this place!

We just got married at Griffith Woods last month — it was absolutely beautiful! The owners are very nice and flexible with their clients. Our guests had a great time, we were able to bring our own food/​drink and our own décor.

Well I just had to jump in here and make an official entry. My husband and I got married and had out reception at Griffith’s Woods in … 1973. WE were indeed the first ones to reopen the wedding traditions there as it had been closed for many years prior to that. My Aunt knew the Knootz family who owned it then and got special permission to hold the event there. My dad worked for PG&E then and was able to get electric service in there for a one time use. We had to bring in our own Porta Potties and had to build a stage for our band. Its was fantastic and we still hold it dearly in our Married hearts after 39 years… SO I have to say WE were the first ones to run on this wedding road and because my family cleaned it up so well, and removed all fixtures and debris, many many more weddings followed. It has been greatly updated since then, but we were blessed to have used it then and I hope many more will enjoy it and cement their relationships there in years to come.
Nancy LIbby-​South Lake Tahoe

I’m going to date myself here a bit, but I just (surprisingly!) ran across Griffiths Woods here on Unilocal,and got excited about posting a review here… albeit from 1993. (yes, I said 1993)
You see, my wife and I had our wedding reception there back in July of that year. I dare say that we were one of the first receptions to be held at Griffiths Woods. Emily, looking at your photos, it appears as tho the property has undergone some upgrades since our day. I’ll have to try posting some photos from my wedding.
But I digress. The site is gorgeous, and even now, 18 years later, we get family and friends reminiscing about the «wedding in the redwoods.» Most of my family is from the midwest, and were simply in awe of the surroundings.
Great place. Highly recommended.

We held our wedding ceremony at Griffith Woods in June 2010. The site was beautiful, and the owner was helpful, responsive, and easy going. There are 3 or 4 different sites for use by weddings, and most people have their reception there as well. We chose to use the flagstone area for the ceremony, which was perfect. It was a very natural and noncommercial setting — highly recommended.