Red Barn Ranch Reviews

My husband and I had our wedding here at the beginning of November 2021. We absolutely loved our time, the venue, Kris & Rachael (the owners), and everything in between that Red Barn Ranch provided. All of our guests kept saying how absolutely beautiful the venue is and are happy that they have gotten to see a part of CA they didn't really know about. If you're looking for that beautiful outdoor venue with a rustic touch, this is your place!

Red Barn Ranch is gorgeous on it’s own.. but I think what really made our experience is working with the owner, Rachael. We booked with Red Barn well in advance of our planned 2020 wedding. During the process, Rachael was kind, caring, flexible, knowledgeable, helpful, and understanding of anything that we needed. Through all of the craziness of the COVID-19 Pandemic, she offered my husband and I so much support and always asked if there was anything that she could do to help as we continued to prepare for our wedding. After the COVID Wedding, we were FINALLY able to have reception and celebrate our marriage with our friends and family that could not attend in 2020. Red Barn and Rachael far surpassed my expectations in every way. As a lot of folks are, we were very nervous for our big day, but Rachael made us feel so comfortable, supported, and ensured we were not stressed on the big day. Rachael is warm, funny, professional, and prompt. She always goes the extra mile to make sure that everything is prefect for your big day! If you are trying to find someone to a stunning venue with amazing people that own it for your wedding, look no further! We cannot wait to visit in the future.

The venue is stunning, Chris and Rachael were awesome, super responsive, and willing to help. Best value for a venue as well!

Red Barn Ranch made our dreams a reality. It was our one stop shop for friends and family to stay and celebrate all weekend! The bridal suite and groom room plus so much space for people to camp out was incredible! The venue is absolutely breathtaking. Our caterers loved having the space and equipment needed. Rachael was so knowledgeable and pleasant to work with, treating us like family. Wish we could get married here every year!

They were awesome! Had a great day. We’re able to stay there and do a welcome dinner the night before

This place is beautiful! Rachel and Kris are so nice and professional. The best value in all surrounding counties, yet you aren't shorted on any detail about this place. And during my search the only venue that allows over nights for you and guests. Even if I had all the money in the world I wouldn't have picked a better venue than this. Thank you so much for sharing your piece of paradise!

Rachael and her husband Kris go over and beyond to make it an easy choice to book this place. And no wonder!! IT IS FABULOUS! I can not wait to marry my best friend in this amazing location! It is everything my fiance and hoped for and matches our personalities to the T! I look forward to the planning process with them in these up coming months!

Red Barn Ranch is one of a kind, from the setting to the caring people who own it. It is a place you feel at home in and want to share it with the people you love the most! We say RBR and booked it that day without seeing another venue! We knew it was perfect! The set up allows you to make it your own and have your dreams become a reality! Its a great day and the suite is beautiful and the lower suite and extra bedroom make it even more with the fair price!! You will regret NOT seeing RBR!! I would do it all over again !!

We just had our wedding at this fabulous venue! The Red Barn and surrounding areas are beyond beautiful and make for gorgeous pictures. The best part is you get the venue for the entire weekend. There are two rooms in the barn for the bride and groom AND guests can camp. Red Barn Ranch exceeded our expectations and are guests could not stop talking about how great it was.

Red Barn Ranch Events was a fantastic wedding venue. The owners are very nice and helpful, the grounds were beautiful, and barn was so fun as the dance hall. I would absolutely recommend it to other couples who want an outdoor wedding. Keep an eye on the time of year though, it can get pretty warm.

The Red Barn Ranch was the perfect Venue for our son's wedding! The Rorabaugh family was a pleasure to work with and very accommodating, they helped make this day very special. The property is beautiful and well maintained. An extra bonus is the lovely Bridal Suite located above barn and an additional room downstairs for those who chose to stay the night. There is plenty of room for camping as well. We could not have asked for anything more!

Red Barn Ranch was an absolutely PERFECT location for our ceremony and reception. It had enough room for everything we wanted to include on our big day: lawn games, outside dining area, indoor dance floor area, indoor cake cutting area, and areas for bride/bridesmaids and groom/groomsmen to get ready separately! We stayed in the upstairs bridal suite as well, and that was an amazing rustic atmosphere that we enjoyed so much! I will never forget this day, and plan on staying again as weekend guests!

The second my now husband and I stepped foot on this property we fell in love with it. We got married on Oct. 11th, and the place was beautiful by then! The upstairs bridal suite was the perfect touch, and the downstairs suite housed some of our groomsmen. It was SO nice to end the evening by just retreating upstairs in the jacuzzi.
The owners are lovely as well! Rachael was very professional and helpful before and after the wedding. She really made it so much easier to plan such a huge event. I recommend just checking the place out... you won't regret it!

We had such a beautiful wedding, thanks to Red Barn Ranch! They were friendly, flexible, and extremely accomodating! They allowed me to ride in on my horse, and even come to the property prior to the wedding date for trial runs with the horse. They were very helpful for the entire weekend. Answered all the questions we had, and always happy to help! We are so happy to have had our special day on their property!! Best place I found in the area!

Red Barn Ranch is a great family owned venue that is naturally beautiful (you wouldn't have to decorate a thing if you didn't want to!) affordable, easy to personalize, and totally FLEXIBLE. My husband and I wanted a place that allowed us to create our dream wedding without being nickel or dimed or handed a list of specific vendors or 5 page contract with tons of rules, regulations and restraints! Not only does Red barn Ranch have a 48 hour rental (which was perfect for hosting 200 people for an entire 3 day weekend of fun), it's so versatile which makes it easy to turn it into whatever your vision is for the day. There are so many adaptable spaces which make it easy to have a unique, personalized wedding that doesn't look like every other wedding. They also have accommodations right on site -which were great! Rachael and Kris are a wonderful couple who make your experience planning a wedding easy, comfortable, and fun. Working with them is like working with family, and that's a big deal when it comes to something as important as your wedding. We're grateful we found Red Barn Ranch and highly recommend it anyone - regardless of the type of event!

Overall, beautiful place. Lots of room and they seems to always be making improvements to the property. Everyone had a great time and loved the venue. Lots of room for parking and its private. What guests didn't see is that the ice machine wasn't working up to par, the fridge wasn't staying cool, we couldn't get the a/c to work in the suite and it was hot as hell, the jacuzzi tub was great when I was in it, but to come downstairs to find a waterfall of water coming down on the stage, dance floor and our linens was not a nice surprise. Thank The Lord that it was hot and everything dried nicely before the guests arrived. The lawn was torn up a bit too from work on the pipe lines... It would have been nice to get a little refund for the snafus, but overall we had an awesome time regardless and only myself and a few people helping set up saw the flaws...

We booked our wedding in March of 2020, when COVID was just getting started. We were excited to find a venue that could hold 200+ people for the entire weekend.

We checked in with Rachael several times in the months that followed to touch base about restrictions in the Hopland area. On one phone call, Rachael mentioned she was working on some updates to their contract to cover COVID-related issues, as well as elopement packages which might include a weekend stay on the property, a small socially distanced ceremony with 6 people, food arranged from local restaurants for the bride and groom over the weekend, etc.

In October (7 months out from our wedding), Rachael sent out an email to all of her clients, with a new contract that increased in size from about 7 pages, to 15 pages and several addendums and policy enhancements that were not included in the original contract. This was a huge red flag, as (how we interpreted it) the new contract locked clients into new terms with a point of no return after 9 months prior to the event date (since it was sent 7 months out from our event, that meant we were essentially stuck if we signed it). It seems unethical to us to require that clients sign a new contract after already entering a preexisting one.

In our opinion, The COVID-19 addendum was the only item that remotely protected their clients, stating that if the event needed to be rescheduled or cancelled due to COVID-related concerns, the event could be rescheduled in 2021 with no penalty, or 2022 but you would be subject to their increased rates, as stated in their COVID addendum. However, they were still going to keep the non-refundable $3,000 deposit as per the contract, even if they did not provide any services as agreed upon in the contract.

In November we requested a phone call with Rachael to discuss county regulations, what the possibilities were looking like for weddings in the spring, and to discuss our options. During this phone call she said the county was still only allowing small gatherings (25 or less) for ceremonies only- no dinner, no reception, nothing else. She said she was hopeful things would advance, but that it's hard to say. We asked her what other dates she had open for 2021 for us to reschedule to, because they were offering for couples to reschedule without penalty in 2021, but she said they were completely booked for the rest of the season in 2021.

At this point we told her we feel we have no other choice but to cancel the wedding, because there is no way county regulations would open up enough to host a wedding of our size as originally contracted, nor would we feel safe doing so. Rachael suggested the elopement package, but we said if we decided to elope down the road, we would likely do it somewhere like Yosemite that has special meaning to us, but there was no plan for elopement, as we were still hoping to have a large wedding down the road as originally planned. She told us we would not be getting our deposit back, so we suggested taking her up on the "getaway" portion of the elopement package, where we stay on the property for our wedding weekend and just relax and have a special weekend on what would have been our wedding weekend. At least with this option we would receive "something" for our $3,000. We left the phone call agreeing to this option - we would stay our wedding weekend on the property and cancel our large event since there was no available 2021 date to reschedule to.

A few days later Rachael sent us an email asking if we would move our "getaway weekend" to an off-season weekend to allow her to book our wedding weekend with another couple because she was receiving "tons of inquiries for micro-events". Basically she was saying she would have NO PROBLEM re-booking our wedding weekend and recouping costs from another couple, while also keeping our deposit. We believe a fair option would have been to say, "We don't normally return deposits, but since I am able to easily re-book your date, here is half/all of your deposit back". That is a win/win during an incredibly emotionally and financially devastating time, and would have left us totally happy and still able to recommend them to future clients.

Unfortunately, Rachael still refuses to refund any of our deposit, completely twisted our conversations to make it seem like we had cancelled our wedding in order to elope in Yosemite and not due to COVID, and when we pushed back on it, suddenly came up with available dates in 2021 pending other couples cancelling. Unfortunately because of our experience, we cannot recommend this venue.

We booked our wedding in March of 2020, when COVID was just getting started. We were excited to find a venue that could hold 200+ people for the entire weekend.

We checked in with Rachael several times in the months that followed to touch base about restrictions in the Hopland area. On one phone call, Rachael mentioned she was working on some updates to their contract to cover COVID-related issues, as well as elopement packages which might include a weekend stay on the property, a small socially distanced ceremony with 6 people, food arranged from local restaurants for the bride and groom over the weekend, etc.

In October (7 months out from our wedding), Rachael sent out an email to all of her clients, with a new contract that increased in size from about 7 pages, to 15 pages and several addendums and policy enhancements that were not included in the original contract. This was a huge red flag, as the new contract locked clients into new terms with a point of no return after 9 months prior to the event date (since it was sent 7 months out from our event, that meant we were essentially stuck if we signed it). It is also not legal to require clients to sign a new contract after they have already entered into a prior agreement.

The COVID-19 addendum was the only item that remotely protected their clients, stating that if the event needed to be rescheduled or cancelled due to COVID-related concerns, the event could be rescheduled in 2021 with no penalty, or 2022 but you would be subject to their increased rates. However, they were still going to keep the $3,000 deposit, even if they did not provide any services whatsoever.

In November we requested a phone call with Rachael to discuss county regulations, what the possibilities were looking like for weddings in the spring, and to discuss our options. During this phone call she said the county was still only allowing small gatherings (25 or less) for ceremonies only- no dinner, no reception, nothing else. She said she was hopeful things would advance, but that it's hard to say. We asked her what other dates she had open for 2021 for us to reschedule to, because they were offering for couples to reschedule without penalty in 2021, but she said they were completely booked for the rest of the season in 2021.

At this point we told her we feel we have no other choice but to cancel the wedding, because there is no way county regulations would open up enough to host a wedding of our size as originally contracted, nor would we feel safe doing so. Rachael suggested the elopement package, but we said if we decided to elope down the road, we would likely do it somewhere like Yosemite that has special meaning to us, but there was no plan for elopement, as we were still hoping to have a large wedding down the road as originally planned. She told us we would not be getting our deposit back, so we suggested taking her up on the "getaway" portion of the elopement package, where we stay on the property for our wedding weekend and just relax and have a special weekend on what would have been our wedding weekend. At least with this option we would receive "something" for our $3,000 (although she did say there was no longer food included in the package, so basically we are paying $3,000 to stay on the Ranch with nothing else included, when we could spend the same at a 4-star resort and have a luxurious getaway). We left the phone call agreeing to this option - we would stay our wedding weekend on the property and cancel our large event since there was no available 2021 date to reschedule to.

A few days later Rachael sent us an email asking if we would move our "getaway weekend" to an off-season weekend to allow her to book our wedding weekend with another couple because she was receiving "tons of inquiries for micro-events". Basically she was saying she would have NO PROBLEM re-booking our wedding weekend and recouping costs from another couple, while also keeping our deposit. Good business would have been to say, "We don't normally return deposits, but since I am able to easily re-book your date, here is half/all of your deposit back". That is a win/win during an incredibly emotionally and financially devastating time, and would have left us totally happy and still able to recommend them to future clients.

Unfortunately, Rachael still refuses to refund any of our deposit, completely twisted our conversations to make it seem like we had cancelled our wedding in order to elope in Yosemite and not due to COVID, and when we pushed back on it, suddenly came up with available dates in 2021 pending other couples cancelling. Our advice to anyone considering this venue: look elsewhere in Hopland where better business is being conducted.