Deer Park Villa Reviews

I shot a wedding at Deer park villa this past May and it was stunning! Great staff and the location under the trees makes your wedding look so magical! Deer park villa is also big enough to have all your favorite people and vendors to be there

They were very helpful and accommodating and provided the perfect backdrop to my wedding. Had a few hiccups in communication but they would fix it and it ended up perfect and everything ran smoothly.. Already have been recommending this venue to others

I was a professional event planner for 5 years so I know how hard it can be- working with tough personalities, challenging circumstances and lots of chaos in keeping the space maintained, pristine and professionally run. DEER PARK has been outstanding since our first interaction - great tour by Mark Dawson who totally sold the beauty of the place and I am so thankful for our decision. Our wedding has had to be postponed 2x due to COVID and UK relatives on a travel ban and they have been so generous, offering us dates open throughout the next year for our rental. The empathy, kindness and thorough communications have set our mind (and heavy hearts) at ease. I can't wait for our wedding with these wonderful folks; in a gorgeous redwood grove setting with gorgeous facilities and a laid back atmosphere that our guests will just love. Mike- Miguel- Marisole and Mark --- you are amazing.

Our guests cannot stop talking about how beautiful the venue was...we might be spoiled by living in California full time but we were still in awe of the serenity of the venue, the redwoods, and the epic architecture. The staff could not have been kinder or more accommodating in our wedding process. This venue is top notch!

I had a January wedding here and was a little bit worried about the rain and my guests being cold but it turned out great! Communication was great with Mark and Miguel, they were very flexible with my rehearsal and site visits with my coordinator, probably because there weren't that many other weddings going on in January. My guests loved the venue, thought it was so pretty and there were enough heating lamps all over to forget that we were outside for the ceremony and cocktail hour. The venue had some perks for booking in winter included a reduced rate, a round of pizza at night, His and Her cocktails during cocktail hour, included all the table and chair rentals, among other things. In hind sight, I wish I had planned a summer or fall wedding to take advantage of dining outside under the redwoods but my January wedding did not disappoint. Go check out the venue, you will love it's natural beauty.

It's no wonder almost everyone I know has been to or had an event at Deer Park Villa. Between the family owned feel, the gorgeous setting and the convenience of services, this is THE place to get married in Marin County.
Not only did we have the convenience of having our ceremony and reception in the same location (perfect when you have out of town guests!), Deer Park also provided all the tables, chairs, linens, food, drinks, alter...everything! Not a single rental needed! They were also incredibly flexible when it came to us bringing in some of our own furniture and helping us to have it set up properly as well.
Debbie and Jessica are excellent to work with and they just want their clients to enjoy their event. It shows.

Just perfect all around. The redwood grove is a beautiful place for a wedding and reception. What a special place! Debbie Ghiringhelli was fantastic at helping us figure out the details of our event, and she delivered 110% when it came to the actual wedding day. Low-key, no stress, and incredibly helpful. I can't recommend this site enough.

Our wedding was at Deer Park Villa and it was a pleasure working with them. The venue itself is gorgeous and well taken care of. There were no problems at all, and all of our guests were asking how we managed to find such an awesome place.

Everyone we talked with was able to answer our questions or knew exactly who we could talk to, and their recommended vendors were all fantastic.

We thoroughly enjoyed our wedding at Deer Park Villa - Mark is a wonderful tour guide and so helpful in getting everything up and running. Marisol and Miguel did a fantastic job executing on our wedding vision and were so accommodating with our various requests - we wanted a specific beer for the bar, which Miguel was able to source for us, and had escort drinks rather than traditional escort cards, which required alcohol to be poured during our ceremony to prepare for the cocktail hour and people looking for their escort cards.

The venue itself is beautiful - the minute my bridal party saw it, they all commented that they completely understood why I wanted to get married at DPV! Being outside but on the flagstones really helped with limiting the amount of "the nature" that got on my dress and walking in heels. The flagstones also made it easier for my grandmom, who is 88, to be able to walk down the aisle and just generally get around. The property is so well landscaped that we really didn't need a ton of flowers at the ceremony to decorate - just the bouts and bouqs flowers were needed. And the inside bar is to die for! I love that bar!

There were a few times that I got a little nervous because I felt like the communication in the days and months leading up to the wedding would sometimes fall to the wayside - I had to ask a few questions a couple times to get an answer. But, ultimately, everything went amazingly on my wedding day, so I chalk this up more to DPV doing lots of weddings (so while I was like "OMG, must figure this thing out ASAP or it'll make the wedding less good", they were more like "oh, that's a thing we don't need to work on right now, so do later").

All in all, if I had to do it again, I would pick DPV again and just tell my inner voice to be chill and not stress. I cannot wait to get my pictures back from my photographer, so we can see all the beauty again!

We loved this venue. So beautiful, Literally perfect. I can’t wait for the photos! At times was a little stressful and hard to get in touch with people while planning but overall they ended up answering all of my many questions and did a great job. Also, as a bride, if you go with this venue, their bridal cottage although an upgrade was TOTALLY worth it!!! Huge cottage for all the girls and moms to get ready, on site and is my what a woman’s dreams of wedding day prep are made of. Absolutely gorgeous.

Our experience with Deer Park Villa was a bit of a roller coaster ride. In the end, Gina and Andrea were brought in to take over the event side of the venue and they were absolutely incredible. Everything that they had control over went smoothly; the location was breath taking and was more than I could have hoped for.
This venue is beautiful, has incredible food (with amazing vegetarian options), and the staff was professional and fun.

Deer Park Villa is GREAT! Danny is a masterful professional through and through....

We got married here in mid-September and it was such an insanely beautiful spot to exchange vows, share toasts, and boogie down. The value of Deer Park is not only in its incomparable visual beauty but also in its heart. It’s one of the reasons we chose this space: it didn’t feel like an "event space” like some of the spots in SF where we were herded around by smooth sellers, overconfident in the fact that if we didn’t choose their venue, it’d be snatched up in a second by some other couple foaming at the mouth. Instead, Deer Park from start to finish exudes laid-back, family… and Fairfax.

Now, there were some communication snafus in our planning process and we were super relieved, as we got closer, that we had hired an external month-of-coordinator to help us. Given changes in staff (stressful to us and not superbly managed, but this seems to be improving) and gradual transitions at the space (they upgraded a ton over the last year, adding firepits, painting, and sprucing up the outside so it’s a lot more polished), if you’re thinking seriously about getting wed here, just know that you have to be direct and persistent in hammering out the details of the food, drink and venue rental. But overall, Deer Park is fabulous. It's gorgeous. It's serene. It's unique. It's timeless. Oh yeah, and the food was great, and the service was totally solid. All our guests marveled at what a special ambiance our wedding had, given the stars, redwoods and space. We feel eminently lucky to have found at Deer Park. We look forward to going back for many anniversaries to come.

I really enjoyed working with Debbie. She made everything very smooth and comfortable due to her many years of serving the public. Everything was set up just the way I wanted with no mistakes.

This was the first venue we toured and we kept coming back to it because there just wasn't another venue that was close to what we envisioned for our wedding. Deer Park is a truly beautiful setting perfect for an outdoor wedding. They are not cheap though! If you're having a small wedding, it may not be worth the price tag. We read reviews that communication was a challenge, but we didn't have any issues.

My husband and I got married here in July 2019. It was exactly what we were looking for - outdoor + indoor venue with a redwood grove. We generally had a great experience working with Deer Park, and I think a lot of that came down to the fact that we worked with a wedding planner recommended by them - she had experience working with the venue, and took main point on communications with the venue. We ended up going with a DJ not on their recommended list as well as a caterer - there was just a little back and forth to make that work. The bridal cottage was great and I recommend it if you have a decent sized wedding party. I guess we hadn't been invoiced or charged for it so there was a bit of a last minute panic when we realized the night before that we hadn't paid for the rental cottage. We wrote a check and brought it the day of, so it all ended up being OK. It was great that we were able to set up all day, and were able to make sure everything was out by 10am the next day.

My husband and I used Deer Park to cater our wedding at the Falkirk Cultural Center. Everyone loved the food, which of course is the most important part. The price was great too, but dealing with the catering management staff was not always so smooth. The issue is that there is one email for the whole catering staff - so even if you have been working with one particular person, you might send an email and get a response from another staff member who does not know the whole story. I think that is how I ended up with no champagne flutes at my wedding, even though I had asked and been told they would be provided. Turns out they don't even have champagne flutes! My coordinator (Va De Vie Events) covered the caterer's rear and got us the glasses, but that was a bit frustrating. For the money, they are a great deal. I guess they do most of their catering on-site, so you can tell they get a bit flustered with the off-site jobs.

We just got married here in October 2023 and booked the venue in December 2021. We loved our wedding but dealt with a fair amount of avoidable issues, many the property director Mark Dawson was responsible for. Pros: stunning venue with amazing amenities like a huge 3 bed/3 bath cottage for getting ready (for extra fee) and beautiful redwoods. You'll also catch deer wandering the property, hence the name! Cons: Having a near 2-year engagement with this venue proved to be troublesome. There were so many changes and little to no communication over those 2 years. A smaller example: the bocce ball court removed - not notified. Completely new staff within that time so a lot of revisiting old conversations we'd checked off (DJ, bar, Mac's after party). For the bar, had to negotiate to have them honor old selections with the previous bar manager. The wine list ended up completely changed 3 weeks before with no notice. We selected the initial list 1.5 years prior. They completely overhauled our package with their after-party venue, Mac's, even though we had a contract (albeit fairly vague). All these issues popped up from 3 months to 6 days before the wedding. Many can be attributed to Mark Dawson. I think had Mark been more proactive this would've been a vastly different experience but we learned he is a salesman. After so much back and forth with Mark and coming to a compromise on the after-party only a couple of months prior to our wedding, he went back on all of it. We received an email days before when our coordinator checked in that he thought we were continuing the party at Deer Park Villa, not Mac's. That had never been a discussion and we were terrified he cancelled something we planned nearly 2 years prior! Luckily our incredible coordinator figured it out but this could've all been solved if he reviewed his own emails within that same email chain. So aesthetics of the venue 5/5, property management 2/5. But luckily we had the best vendors: Forks & Fingers (Debbie), Green Petal Designs, Elisse Deline Photography, Booth Bus, Kyle Mize Videography who made it such an incredible event.

We got married at DPV in October 2021 and the venue was absolutely beautiful- exceeded our expectations. However, we rented the bridal cottage for the wedding party to get ready in before the ceremony, and it was not available at the agreed upon time. We had a team of makeup artists and hair stylists arrive first thing in the morning, and had to wait a full 40 minutes to be let in. This put a huge kink in our day, and the artists were never able to catch up. This, along with the fact that I woke up on my wedding day to frantic phone calls, made for a very stressful morning. I reached out to the manager Miguel, who apologized and agreed to a partial refund of the cost of the bridal cottage rental. I thought this was fair and I appreciated him working to make it right. However this was 3 months ago and we never received a dime despite repeated (polite) emails and phone calls. This lack of professionalism and integrity is so disappointing, and really just added insult to injury.

Our wedding itself was gorgeous, perfect and picturesque. Deer Park Villa really has natural beauty on their side. Plus the updates they are doing to the property are great. Our biggest qualm visually is that the gravel is an eyesore and also noisy and not easy to walk on. Otherwise the place is stunning.
Because my husband and I had a fairly difficult experience with DPV, I reached out to some previous brides. Each had been exhausted by how the DPV team handles their clients, and the way it runs.
I understand now, as I am personally 2+ months out of my wedding and feeling that drag, as well. But unfortunately it was a fairly upsetting experience in the months leading up to our wedding, and people should know that.
The leading staff in place are an overzealous salesman who presents excited but is fairly checked out after you sign, and the Bar and Day Of Man is irritable and overworked. Mark and Miguel. Generally I would not name folks, but this is a special day and should be treated carefully. Ones wedding day it's meant to be special and sacred and handled with care and sensitivity. We did not feel like this was honored.
Brides and grooms are meant to be handled gently and with true kindness. We were not. As far as Miguel goes, we thought he was more thoughtful and invested in our experience than Mark was for a while. However, that view changed rather quickly when my generally gentle and measured husband and he had a yelling match about a misunderstanding on DPVs part. DPV lied to or misled us on multiple fronts which I won't list here (there isn't enough space).
Ultimately the wedding day was smooth and it was all worth the difficult lead up. I suggest if you're going with DPV to hire a planner or a go between communicator. It seems like they're just running too thin and the folks leading it are worn out.
Ultimately, I come away with a beautiful memory of what my wedding day, but a bad taste in my mouth about the processs with DPV.