Jael Sent on 11/16/2014

5 out of 5 rating

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Wedding date: October 2014

This is a beautifully renovated Inn in the Paso Robles area. They are also a winery, which is on a separate part of the property.

Location:
The Inn is decorated just like on the pictures on their website.It has several outdoor areas for ceremonies, dinner, cocktail, etc. The grounds are well kept and the views are beautiful.

Service:
I planned my wedding from abroad and I can not imagine having done it with out the support of all the staff. Kelly the Inn Manager and Executive Chef is amazing. She responded to all my emails in a timely manner. She accommodated all of our special requests, and took the time to meet with me and advice me regarding ceremony site, the menu, and even little details. The inn keepers were also great to work with. They were there for every little thing I asked for.

Not only were they amazing through out the planning process, but once there (we stayed at the Inn for 3 nights during the wedding weekend - the whole Inn was taken over by my family 9 rooms) they provided EXCELLENT service.

Flexibility: once I visited SummerWood for the first time, I changed my mind in regards to the location of the ceremony.They were flexible in working with me to make my special day come together the way we wanted.

Catering: all the catering is provided by their own Chef Kelly. Like I said before she was great to work with. The quality of the food is outstanding. The presentation was beautiful. The menu was creative rather than the usual wedding food. Be prepared to enjoy yourself and have your guest rave about the dinner. We had a plated dinner and passed Hors d'oeuvre.
I am a foodie, so food was a very important to me. It was also very important that dinner was nothing like the meals at every wedding I have been to, which is forgettable. Chef Kelly did not disappoint.

This is an amazing venue! Thank you SummerWood.

Molly Sent on 07/24/2014

5 out of 5 rating

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We cannot begin to express what a luxurious experience we had at SummerWood Inn. From the Inn Keeper's ability to accommodate all of our last minute requests and favors, to your smiling Sous Chef Christopher welcoming us back when we came "home" from our wedding -- our entire stay there was unforgettable. But without hesitation, I have to say bravo to Chef Kelly Wangard for throwing the most beautiful, intimate, delicious rehearsal dinner any of us have ever experienced. From the addictive avocado, edamame crostini to the last bit of fruit cobbler - everyone's plates were licked clean. Our guests, but most importantly, our parents, said this was one of their favorite moments of our entire wedding weekend! It was our intimate family dinner! The SummerWood Inn is an unforgettable experience with the most beautiful, cozy, California Chic rooms you will ever have the pleasure of staying in! A must see!

Annie Sent on 06/23/2009

5 out of 5 rating

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We fell in love with Summerwood the minute we walked around the property. It is a gorgeous setting in central coast wine country. The staff was absolutely AMAZING; they were so welcoming, helpful and flexible with everything we wanted. The ceremony & cocktail hour took place in the backyard of the Inn, while the reception was across the street at the winery. Everything was perfect!

A few notes --- They have a chef on site who you have to use to cater the wedding. His name is Ryan and he was terrific! Our menu was unique and tasted fabulous. If you have a Saturday night wedding, you also need to book all 9 rooms at the Inn - at first I thought this would be a problem, but our family & friends were delighted to stay at the luxurious Inn. Summerwood does not provide tables, chairs, china, linens, etc. so you need to order them from an outside vendor. The staff at Summerwood helps with this process.

Mary Sent on 05/11/2015

4.7 out of 5 rating

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4.5 out of 5 rating

This place was beautiful!!! I couldn't have chosen a better location for my wedding photo backdrop, wedding night stay and getting-ready time.

We were allowed to use the area for photos. When we arrived to the hotel for the night, the staff had hand-written a "Congratulations Letter for us with their names. We thought that was so touching and unique.

Ashley Sent on 02/15/2010

1.4 out of 5 rating

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First of all, let me start out by saying that the location is BEAUTIFUL. We fell in love with Summerwood right away. It is a good destination location for friends and family. The buildings and vineyard views are gorgeous, and the gazebo in the reception area is very cute, and perfect for hot summer evenings (it has air conditioning).

When we first signed up with Summerwood, we had the most amazing coordinator- Jan. She was WONDERFUL throughout the entire planning process, and always went out of her way to help us organize the event. She is so sweet, and was always available to help. She really made us feel like our wedding was important to her. The chef (Chef Kurt) was also wonderful! His food is amazing, and we were so excited about having him cater our wedding.

Shortly after we signed the contract, Chef Kurt left to start his own restaurant. We were bummed, but completely understood his decision. We met the new chef and loved him (fabulous food!), so we were fine with the change. Then, right before our wedding, we found out that the new chef was also leaving. We found out through an outside source, and it was clear that Summerwood had had this information for some time, but hadn't communicated it to us. We were so upset (our wedding was only a few weeks away!), so we contacted the site manager to ask if we could look into contracting an outside caterer. They refused, but we talked to the chef directly, and he agreed to come back to Summerwood to cater our wedding, which we were very grateful for. Jan left shortly after we were informed of the change of chef’s. The entire situation was handled horribly by the staff, and instead of apologizing for the inconvenience (as almost any customer-service oriented company would have done), we were forced to deal with very negative, rude attitudes.

The problems over the weekend started the morning of the rehearsal. We had informed the manager several times that the back lawn, where the ceremony was going to take place, could not be watered several days before the wedding, since a hardwood floor was going to be delivered the day before the wedding so my husband and I could stand on it during the ceremony (otherwise, we would have been standing on dirt). The Manager agreed; however, the morning of the rehearsal, we saw that the sprinklers were on. We asked the innkeeper, Tiffany, to turn them off, since the floor was going to be delivered that morning, and we had spoken to the Manager previously about it. She said she would, so we returned to breakfast. Ten minutes later, the sprinklers were still on, so we found Tiffany and again asked her to turn off the sprinklers. She was very rude, and snapped at us that she was working on it. The sprinklers remained turned on for another 5-10 minutes, and we never received an apology for the error, or the bad attitude. Luckily, the delivery guys were really nice, and still set up the dance floor, even though the area was soaked. Later that day, our guests started arriving for the rehearsal. We didn't receive any instructions about parking for the rehearsal, so our guests used the closest lot, and some parked on the side of the road. Right before the rehearsal, Tiffany found me to tell me that no cars were allowed on the side of the road, as it was a "fire hazard". I apologized and told her we had never received any instructions about this, and asked her if it would be ok to leave the cars there for 30 minutes while we did the rehearsal. She refused, and so I asked her to kindly communicate this information to our guests. She did communicate it, but in a very harsh way. We experienced one more unpleasant experience the day of the rehearsal. Summerwood has a "wine hour" for guests who stay at the inn. We asked them to have this wine hour right before the rehearsal, so people could have a glass of wine and an appetizer as they arrived. We went through the wine and food pretty quickly, which was fine- we told them we didn't need any more. However, my dad came down right before the rehearsal, and since he wasn't able to have any wine or food earlier, he asked Tiffany for a glass of wine. She refused, telling him that it had already been consumed. He told her he understood, but was asking if it would be possible to get one more glass (this is the father of the bride!). Again, she refused and made some very rude comments. I just can't believe how rude some of the staff at Summerwood were to us and our guests throughout the weekend! Maybe I expect too much, but I have never received such horrible customer service, and it was our wedding weekend!

The day of the wedding, we came to find that the staff had completely changed Jan's setup-she had arranged for us to have an experienced serving staff. What we ended up getting was the manager's daughter's friends as servers, and one of the innkeeper's boyfriends as the bartender. He was a nice guy, but not experienced- by the end of the night, he had opened ALL of the wine bottles, instead of just what needed to be opened for drinks. Summerwood then tried to make us take home a bunch of half empty wine bottles, instead of just giving us new, sealed bottles (all the wine had been paid for before the wedding). When I spoke to the innkeeper about this, she said I would have to take the half empty bottles, and then mentioned that her boyfriend worked our wedding even though he had a big event the next day, acting as though he did me a huge favor by bartending the wedding!? I argued with her, as I felt we should be given full bottles so we could keep them! Finally, after several discussions, the manager agreed and sent us new bottles.

Also, at the start of the reception, my mom realized the two bathrooms were locked. She asked Destiny, the innkeeper (who was also helping with the wedding), to unlock them so our guests could have access to them. Destiny said that she would have to clear this with the manager, as she wasn't sure we should have access to the restrooms!! We couldn't believe that they could be so unorganized as to not even discuss leaving the bathrooms unlocked (this had all been discussed with the manager ahead of time; she asked us to rent a portable bathroom as a third restroom, and we agreed to this). Finally, the innkeeper got a hold of the manager, who instructed her to unlock the bathrooms. This wasn't a huge problem, but definitely demonstrates the staff's inability to organize an event properly, and their unprofessional attitudes when you ask them to correct a mistake.

I would like to point out that Jill was our inkeeper for several nights while we were there, and she was AMAZING! She was sooo sweet and attentive, and went out of her way to make us feel comfortable. We were so happy when we came back to the inn the night of the wedding and saw that it was Jill there, instead of the other innkeepers! Thank you Jill, for taking such good care of us the weekend of the wedding!

Really, what it boils down to is that the entire process was just way more work for us than it should have been, and it was so frustrating to constantly feel like we had to argue with the staff to get anything done. They charge a fairly expensive "site fee" just to use the property, and basically you should look at this as simply a rental fee and not expect any support from the staff at all. Almost everything turned out fine, with the help of Jan, and with all the work our families did to prepare for the big day. We had an amazing wedding, and the pictures turned out beautiful. I just wish the process would have been a bit easier!

Please feel free to contact me directly if you have any specific questions!

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