Rest Yourself River Ranch Reviews

My best friend got married here. LOVED IT.. This place is amazing. The customer service was amazing. The ranch was VERY cleaned and anything we needed they was there to help without question. So if your looking for a beautiful place with amazing customer service, wonderful housekeeping and a fun time. I would book here.

We wanted to do a semi-destination wedding as a military couple so that we could spend a long weekend with all of our family! And this was the perfect place to do it! Yes, it is a bit outside of Dallas and people had to get rental cars to drive in - but RYRR and Mineral Wells were the perfect place to host a fun, Texan, comfortable, but classy wedding weekend. There are enough little restaurants and shops in Mineral Wells to find fun things to do around town for those attending the wedding, but lots of space on property for family and close friends to stay if they wished. The staff was SO accomodating, helpful in everyway that they could have been and they became our friends leading up to the wedding! We couldn't imagine our wedding anywhere else, it was the best weekend of our lives. Also, the weather for a December wedding was perfect. Highs in the 40's the day before and 30's the day after - but our wedding day it was in the 60's. So find you a prayin' granny and book a winter wedding here. Was the perfect place to host bonfires in the evening and soak up the sun in the day for all of us that traveled from the north!

Rest Yourself Ranch is a truly magical place! I had the pleasure of getting married here on December 4, 2021 and it was the wedding of my dreams. The views overlooking the river made for such a romantic rehearsal and ceremony, and the lights in the courtyard after dark created the perfect party atmosphere. I worked with the event coordinator on staff, Melinda Wilson, who was literally a dream to work with. She was responsive, professional, and so easy to work with. She advocated for me as the bride to help make all of my wishes come true with as little push-back as possible. It felt like working with a friend! We rented the ranch for two nights and all of our family and wedding party stayed on site, so it was like a weekend retreat. I would recommend Melinda Wilson and Rest Yourself Ranch to any bride looking for a boutique and one-of-a-kind wedding experience near Dallas/Fort-Worth, TX. I wish I could do it all over again! Thank you Melinda and Rest Yourself Ranch! Can't wait for a return visit. I love this place with my whole heart!

To see the other review about this wedding venue is very disappointing because we had an AMAZING EXPERIENCE AT RYRR. The venue is like no other venue you will get in the area. Yes, you have to do a lot of it yourself but that is communicated from the VERY beginning. The venue can be rented out for all of your guests to stay and we loved that. I have always hated the weddings that are rushed and by the time you spent all this money on a wedding its wasted for 8 hours and this way you get the wedding venue the entire weekend. The communication was very honest and so was the contract. When you have the opportunity to rent out the whole property they tell you that you are responsible for a lot of the things... JUST AS IF you were renting out a VRBO. Same thing but in a venue form. We loved that we had so much privacy at the ranch and that our guests loved it and thats what really mattered. I think hiring a wedding planner is always a good suggestion so that everything can run smoothly and if you can't afford that I would just make sure you get all your questions asked which is what is so great about the staff at the ranch. I gave this a 5 star because our wedding was perfect. It's a new venue and they are doing everything they can to make brides happy. Be careful when you read brides complaining just to complain.

We toured Rest Yourself River Ranch (RYRR) in December and were so excited to have our Oct. 2021 wedding there. We decided to book an entire weekend.

I'm not quite sure how to review RYRR: on one hand, I can't imagine our wedding anywhere else... on the other, there was a monumental amount of work done for our wedding.

Firstly, know that there are a slew of unexpected costs. You don't really rent the whole property as they say during your tour. You pretty much have to rent the UTV to access the river, you have to pay extra for wood to use the fire pit (which we learned a week before our event) even though we paid for a s'mores package through RYRR, you will probably need to purchase additional rental hours, and honestly the list goes on and on.

Secondly, they are a new venue and still figuring things out. The first contract they sent over was so egregiously wrong, I couldn't believe anyone had ever signed. For example, it said all materials had to be flame-retardant. Turns out they had sent us over an old version! When we toured, there was not a spec sheet of spaces for vendors. Then on the day before our wedding I was provided detailed measurements for all the event spaces. Another example: you are responsible for managing booking rooms and collecting monies from guests. We booked out all the courtyard rooms based on an exact price from RYRR which turned out to be incorrect. So not only had I collected thousands of dollars which took meticulous planning, but I had in fact been provided incorrect details to do so. Also, it functions as a VRBO, so if a guest trashes their room, you're on the hook. Another example, the booking documents outlining the suites miscounted the beds. But the number online was correct. They say they have ceremony sound for the amphitheater, but it's so basic, you definitely should have your DJ provide it. I tried to use the RYRR-recommended event insurance only to realize when reading the contract that it didn't even accurately cover the event. The insurance company (when made aware of this) then revoked coverage. I did find a great insurance company that accurately covered the event and it was reasonable. The list goes on and on.

Thirdly: no one from the venue is on-site. You hand out room keys. You call maintenance if a toilet backs up during your rehearsal dinner. You ensure that your guests rooms are tidy when you leave. On a bit of a funny note, if someone is going to the bathroom in Preston's Place, you can see his or her head on Bri's Patio. That's right, during our thank you speech we could see a groomsmen using the restroom. While we thought it was funny, that could really ruin someone's day. A simple curtain could have alleviated this.

A major thing to know when booking is that typically a representative is on-site for most wedding venues that works alongside your planner. This person makes sure that if there's no toilet paper, they can fix it. If something stops working, they can get it up and running. RYRR's contract said that someone would be on-site during our event. No one was planned to be there until I brought it up the week before our wedding. Then, RYRR provided a name and number of someone who would arrive at the on-site office to be on-hand. When I asked my planner toward the end of the wedding night, she said no one came. Well, in reality, someone did come! She texted me, the bride, at 5 p.m. (the exact time our ceremony started) that she would be in one of the on-site cottages if we needed anything. So we had no idea she was there until the next day!

In good news, when we did have to call maintenance, the guy came out quickly and he was really nice!

We had a wedding planner for our wedding day, but not the surrounding events. If you can afford it, definitely bring on a full wedding planner for the entire thing. I wish I had.

I can say that this place is stunning. Over and over again, our guests commented on the amazing experience. We got to spend so much time with each of our guests that attended events throughout the weekend. Our wedding weekend was priceless, but it wasn't easy. We learned so many things in the week leading up to our wedding that should have been communicated so much sooner.

Again, looking back, we loved our wedding. It was beautiful. But be aware of what you're getting yourself into.