Oak Knoll Ranch Reviews

We are beyond excited to have our wedding here in 2020!!! It is absolutely perfect and everything we could want in a venue!!

This venue was perfect, it’s hard to put into words just how beautiful it was. Everything was perfect. And Bobbye was so kind and sweet with everything. Book here!!!!!!

I fell in love with Oak Knoll from the second I saw the pictures at the Fort Worth Bridal Show. Every aspect of the venue is absolutely gorgeous, and it has a wonderful story to go along with it. Our guests just raved about how beautiful and well kept the venue was. Denise and Bobbye were SUPER helpful and flexible, quick to answer emails and the millions of questions that I had. I was able to go out and take my bridal portraits, no problem, and our big day went seamlessly. They really do go above and beyond to help shape the day of your dreams, and I would happily recommend them to anyone!!!

Absolutely PERFECT rustic venue!

An absolute beautiful venue. We will treasure the memories shared for the rest of our lives! The pictures and video are amazing!

As a bride who is a hairstylist with a specialization in bridal work, I put a lot of consideration into my wedding location. When searching for a venue, my husband and I wanted somewhere that was 1. Beautiful 2. Not to pretty for a casual setting 3. Something that showed our rustic/country side and 4. Somewhere unique. Oak Knoll was one of FIVE venues I had tours scheduled at and it was my first stop. It simply took my breath away, pictures do not do it justice. I cancelled all other tours and we booked that day. For the cost, you definitely get what you pay for and I feel as if it's extremely affordable for the incredible setting they have. Your photographer will simply have a hay-day taking pictures of all the details of the antiques they have around. My wedding was an absolute dream, and people still go out of there way to tell me how amazing my venue was and they haven't been to a more unique place. It helped me so much to see photos and videos of weddings at the venue... To see a video of my wedding, hop over to wangnerweddings and select Juli and Martin, my photographer was Kate Pease Photography. Thank you Oak Knoll for one existing, and being so kind to me, my family, my vendors, and my 180 deep party crowd!

I loved everything about this venue from start to finish! Everything was very professional and they were very helpful from the second we signed within the last second of our wedding day. I would highly recommend using this venue!

Beautiful venue! Fits our personalities perfectly

November 13th, 2021 was one of the most beautiful days I've ever been a part of. Oak Knoll Ranch is the venue in which I married the love of my life, surrounded by family, friends, and the most BEAUTIFUL setting. Oak Knoll Ranch is the most incredible venue you can ask for when it comes to the visual appeal, layout, and visual details they have (really neat antiques everywhere, you don't even need to decorate TBH even though we did). We are still receiving compliments on how breathtaking everything was. The chapel is beautiful, the barn is well it, spacious, ADA compliant and I would get married there again in a heartbeat.

Here's the problem: as breathtaking as the venue is, the service is underwhelming to the point of frustration and pulling your hair out. Those "Details meetings" you hear about? Non existent. Bobbye didn't reach out to us at all in the 14 months that we had this venue booked. We had to reach out to ask every single question (questions that other venues have readily available in their contracts or on their websites), to confirm what was allowed, to let her know who vendors are, etc. She is the receptionist or office manager for the Anesthesiologist who owns the property and built the venue specifically for his daughter's wedding, so it's not like she's had proper training or any experience with this before. It's not entirely her fault, as I'm sure she could use some help.

However, you CAN control how you treat people. She snapped at my mother multiple times (who is a saint, not the monster in law you hear about, literally the kindest person I know and the most even keeled, plus she was excited for her only daughter's wedding and all the other vendors and her had great interactions). She told us we could use All Seated to create the floor plan we wanted, so we did, and sent it ahead of time, etc. with no complaints... the day of she snakily (in tone) remarks something along the lines of "We've never done this way before. This isn't how it's supposed to be blah blah blah" ... we've had 14 months where you could have said hey this is how we normally do it, or hey this is what is required, etc. Don't tell us the floor plan is up to us and then go off on people who are spending a sizable amount of money with you because it's not how you apparently want it.

She was kind to me and my dad- basically saw her one time and she smiled and said congratulations. Had I known how flat out rude she'd been all day to my mom I would have said something, but they didn't tell me until I got back from my honeymoon because they wanted me to enjoy the day. My mom called her numerous times, and I emailed several times with the same questions in order to illicit a response.. it shouldn't take multiple attempts.

Luckily, she only stopped by to make snarky comments and then disappeared for an hour or 2 at a time (The whole we have a helpful rep there the whole time isn't really the case). Hopefully this was just a really bad day for her.

The security they provided seemed nice, they didn't say anything to us but they smiled (Security guard and his wife) and I felt safer knowing they were on property.

The cube printer wasn't a thing, or if it was there and it worked it was never communicated to me or our guests- another thing that a coordinator should communicate.

The photo booth is tiny, and since it's upstairs very few guests use it, it's really neat because it's an antique, but if I did it again I'd bite the bullet and pay for a quality Photo Booth that we could do downstairs.

This venue is breathtaking, and a great value overall if you don't mind dealing with the interpersonal side and having zero assistance. I have so many friends that have gotten married at The Springs, or other venues and have had such a marvelous experience with the employees there that I knew this wasn't the norm. However, it was still the best day and the most beautiful site for a wedding I could have imagined.

I'd recommend the site all day long, but the service has leaves a lot to be desired.


Update 12/21/2021:
I rated Oak Knoll on Wedding Wire using Wedding Wire's criteria (you can hover over each section of the starts), not my own. I stand by what I said of recommending them overall. I upgraded the responsiveness section by a full star since they responded to this review on Wedding Wire, and because Bobbye called my wedding coordinator and my mom (Who hasn't had a chance to speak with her yet), and have also interacted with pictures I've posted tagging their location, as part of the criteria on Wedding Wire asks about post-wedding responsiveness. I also upgraded quality of service as the criteria has to do with following through on the contract/paying attention to those details and I agree with the venue's response that they were accommodating and honestly overall it was just such a great value that it doesn't seem right that the stars would average out to 2.8.

In response to the message they posted below my review, I wanted to clarify that I never made a "complaint" regarding the Photo Booth, but matter-of-factly posted about the size, how neat it is, and that I personally would have hired one of the fancy photo booth vendors if I did it again. This was not meant to be an attack on Oak Knoll, and shouldn't impact how you view the venue, it's meant to be helpful insight as you hire other vendors to complete your special day!

As far as the photo cube printer- this was part of the contract and was not referred to in the response to my review either, and again I was factually commenting.

I honestly don't remember who made the phone call or text on bringing my dog, but it was something we were considering the morning of so that makes sense. I appreciate that they approved it (which I don't remember, but I'll take your word for), although we did not bring her in the end.

As far as breaking down a table, this is also part of the contract, not sure why this is something that would have been in the venue's response as if it were above and beyond, and as far as the ribbons on the trees, they weren't there when we toured the venue, and we just wanted it to be the way it was when we saw it and booked it. We appreciate that Oak Knoll followed through with this request.

As far as "early setup" we asked to start hair and makeup earlier than the contract stated, and they did accommodate this request which we greatly appreciated. The reason we ended up requesting this is that our wedding was originally scheduled for May 8th, when you have sunlight until like 8-9PM. We post-poned due to Covid to mid November after the time change, and needed to get married earlier in the day in order to take pictures, and still didn't have enough time to get as many as we wanted. This accommodation that the venue brought up is a good point which I should have included in the initial review, and part of the reason I rated them so high in the first place in the other sections/overall review where I recommended them.

I thought the comment regarding security's job being to keep us safe not to be friendly pretty "Snippy", as I never said anything rude about security or that I wanted to talk to them, my review again (As you can read above) was just matter-of-fact, and I felt like that was a positive snippet anyways, which was clearly taken as a criticism- and not meant to be. Regardless, this goes back to the professionalism. As far as security being "provided" that's part of what you pay for in your contract, that comment may lead you to believe they went above and beyond in some form or fashion related to security, that was not the case. I had no issues with the security, as stated above, and felt safer knowing they were there.

The piece in reference to "Staying out of it" because we had a coordinator there is helpful to understand where Bobbye was coming from, what I meant by the disappearing is that when we booked the venue we were told (and I believe the contract stated) that a rep would be there the whole time, it was fine, I was again just stating how it went.

Regarding the "mere suggestion" of the floor plan, again, 14 months of preparation and we had no -suggestions- ahead of time, even though the couple is required to submit your seating chart a few days before so they can set it up for you. Regardless of the tone (which we clearly feel different about), the morning of, is not the time to make suggestions as we then had to decide if we flipped the whole seating chart which I spent hours on, or if we just moved the sweetheart table and sat away from the family we intended to be next to. It all worked out, but it was just another example of why detail meetings and responsiveness are important. Our coordinator told us that she and Bobbye talked on the phone, and that the person who trained Bobbye had never done detail meetings in the past, and that this may be something they'd include going forward. This tells me 2 things: #1 My review is fair in that it's not totally Bobbye's fault, as she didn't have a ton of training/help/assistance if the person before didn't do those, when those are standard at every other venue we toured. #2, It tells me that she/the venue genuinely do listen to feedback and want to improve the experience because they said they might do those going forward, which is all you can ask for when your time is through!

All in all, my review was factual and fair, and most importantly honest/guided by Wedding Wire's rubric. As I've repeatedly stated, I would get married there again in a heartbeat, and now I honestly hope I have friends who get married there in the future so we can attend and reminisce. It was truly the most beautiful day. I was surprised that the stars originally averaged to just a 2.8, as I felt the experience warranted a higher rating- however, I followed Wedding Wire's rubric, not my own. If I were Wedding Wire, I'd review my rating policies and perhaps break the categories down further, as the venue does deserve a higher rating, and I hope the start I upgraded makes a difference.

If you've read this far, you must really be considering this property, and if you're looking for a sign to get married here, this is it. It's incredible, and I'm sure the experience will only continue to improve as they receive and implement feedback going forward!