Pemberton Weddings

Andrew G. · Married on 22/08/2020

Dream come true at Dreamcatcher Meadows!

Upon our arrival meeting with Jill & John we couldn't be more excited and relieved of our wedding day!

They both are there to ensure the day is as special as it can be, and we couldn't be happier to allow us to use their property! Beautiful views all throughout, the thought and hard work in every detail they have created has us confident this was 100% the perfect choice for our day.
We had also got a tour of the entire property, and Jill spent time showing us her horses explaining a lot of her rescue's, the story behind their farm and the reasoning of how and why this has all began. With us meeting off season, they used lots of detailed explanations of what to expect, also showed slide shows of previous set-up examples, and were there for any questions we may have had. They are very open to any customizations or requests, and mentioned they can be as involved or uninvolved as we want them to be.

The pricing for this venue is also very reasonable, with outlined and in detail of what extra fees are/will be upcoming. Discussing with Jill while viewing the property she is very clear on what to expect.

Another thing we liked, Jill & John are so accepting for our same sex marriage that will be taking place. Immediately after being there we felt comfort from both, Jill has even mentioned gay weddings are fun and was excited.

Excited, thrilled, & relieved. These three words are the best way to describe how we both feel and can't wait for this day!

Sent on 11/11/2019

Michelle F. · Getting married on 26/06/2021

Gorgeous venue and wonderful owners!

We booked our wedding for June 2021 but due to Covid restrictions we decided to cancel our wedding and elope. Jill gave us the option of rescheduling the day for 2022 or cancelling with a full refund. She gave us our deposit back with no issues! We would have loved to have our dream wedding there and will hopefully have a celebration at a later date.

Sent on 08/12/2020

Pemberton Weddings's reply:

We wish you and Ryan a dream elopement and all the best in your married life. It will always be a privilege to share the magic of Dreamcatcher Meadows, our riverside mountain valley oasis, with you and yours for any celebration in the future. As disappointing to not celebrate your marriage here in 2021, know we are grateful you took the time with your review to share with others what is here for anyone wanting a truly life changing celebration.

Please also remember, and if you have the time to comment on our social media and anywhere you think effective, to let others know that all proceeds from our weddings and events venue rental go to our animal rescue program. It is increasingly important that we spread the word as the COVID pandemic has meant no events in 2020, income designed for our continuing their support and care.

Hopefully you are aware venues typically do not return rental deposits. We wanted to do right by you and were also aware you had only recently booked. We hope you will let others know the challenges we face to continue this 20 year program. If you are eloping, perhaps suggest your intended wedding guests, now not attending, help support us by an elopement wedding present of a donation to DMV? We accept e-transfer donations to info@dreamcatchermeadows.com to support caring for "The Girls Club", the herd of rescued horses and the other 30+ various creatures we care for (including the impossible Cockatoo Lilly.

Anyway, Michelle and Ryan, we wish you both catch your dream life together, from all of us at Dreamcatcher Meadows. www.pembertonweddings.com

Reema H. · Married on 13/10/2019

Please read if considering Dreamcatcher Meadows for your wedding

I’d like to start this review by saying that the venue itself is absolutely gorgeous. My husband and I visited lots of different places before selecting this one and nothing else even came close. We got amazing pictures and lots of our guests complimented our unique choice. The venue itself deserves 5 stars. However, this review is about the service provider who we had a lot of difficulty with after the wedding (and potentially before if our wedding planner hadn’t taken over communication on our behalf).

Our wedding was held on October 13 with less than 100 guests. We signed the contract before the wedding and put down the full amount, as well as credit card information for the damage deposit (this was all in the contract which we received from Jill, signed and then sent back to her). There were some extra rental items which we knew we would use but we would decide the exact number on the day of based on the weather and our needs.

The day after our wedding, Jill sent my MIL (who had offered to cover the cost of extra rentals) an invoice for $3,166. In her email, she told my MIL that it was very generous of her to cover “the outstanding invoice and last-minute rentals”. Just to clarify, there was no outstanding amount left for the venue rental fee (we paid it in full BEFORE the wedding) and the “last minute rentals” were all items we’d discussed 2 weeks before the event.

I reviewed the invoice, got some clarification from our wedding planner and emailed Jill with some questions. Just to be clear, I never said to Jill that we didn’t want to pay (on the contrary, she’d already charged my MIL’s card without giving us a chance to review the invoice so not paying was out of the question). We simply wanted clarification on the items listed in the invoice. I won’t go through the whole thing but there a few items I’d like people to be aware of.

- Heaters– our contract clearly stated that heaters were $110 each but the invoice didn’t even say how many we used – there was simply a lumpsum amount charged for the heaters. According to our planner, we used 7 so I asked Jill why we were being charged for 8 and never got an answer.
- Tent set up and take down for our caterer – Jill’s husband, John, offered to set up a tent for the caterer. The caterer didn’t know there was a charge for it and it wasn’t approved by me, my husband or our wedding planner. In fact, our caterer had brought his own tent and would’ve put it up if he (or we!) had been told we would be charged for using theirs.
- Firewood – this wasn’t in the contract, nor was it ever verbally expressed to us but we were still charged for it.
- Labor per hour for her husband and his assistant – our contract stated that their assistance would be $50/hour as an extra item and nowhere was it stated that it was required. We NEVER put in an official request. John was there at the wedding and offered to help without making it clear that we would be charged. We ended up paying $300 (for 6 hours of labor) for help that we never requested and that was after she reduced it from 9 hours (so basically she billed us for the whole event). If onsite assistance is mandatory for the whole event, that should be clearly stated in the contract.

I was expecting a reply from Jill with an explanation for the charges but unfortunately, all we got was a long emotional diatribe about how happy everyone was, how many last minute requests they accommodated and how we left decisions until the day of which caused unnecessary panic (still don’t know who was panicking and why since we’d discussed everything ahead of time). None of the above items were addressed in her email except for the first one.

Not only that, there were accusations in the email against us which were blatant lies (we have documentation to prove everything).
- Apparently, once our wedding planner made initial contact, Jill only heard from her once until the day of the wedding. This is false and we have the emails to prove it. Our planner was in constant communication with them, both via email and over the phone.
- Jill claimed not to know that our caterer would arrive the evening before to set up but our planner discussed this at length on the phone with John. Maybe there was some miscommunication between them (?) but that wasn’t our fault.
- Jill was unable to take a damage deposit as she apparently didn’t have a credit card on file. That’s not true since the contract had a specific section that clearly stated the credit card information being provided was for a damage deposit (which we completed and sent back to her). If she didn’t this information, why didn’t she simply tell us instead of bringing it up on the day of the wedding?
- We were accused of not sending her a list of rentals 7 days before the wedding. However, our wedding planner sent us a copy of the email she sent Jill 14 days before the wedding which clearly stated which rentals we required.
- Jill expressed unhappiness that I didn’t communicate with her after holding my makeup trial at the venue (which Jill was kind enough to let us do) but that’s the purpose of a wedding planner; once she took over, she handled communication with ALL the vendors. I wasn’t purposely ignoring Jill and if she expects the bride to be in touch with her, that should be stated in the contract.
- Jill stated that a bear broke into the food truck left on site by the caterer. When I asked our caterer, he said that didn’t happen. A bear DIDN’T break into the truck; he did drag some empty containers away from the truck down near the river but at no point was the food truck broken into!

I found Jill’s communication to be extremely unprofessional and condescending at times. When we did the initial site visit, we weren’t informed that are no guest bathrooms on site. When I expressed my unhappiness at not being told this important piece of information, her husband kindly offered to pay $300 towards the cost of a rental unit but in Jill’s email, she said “I felt bad I had not specified that necessity, and as a gesture of goodwill and help you with your limited resources, offered 50% credit toward the $300 quote for Carney's economical rental units. I guess your budget must have increased as you ordered a $1500 Sunshine unit. We still applied $300 toward this high end rental and did not apply like other venues, any charges for early drop off and late pick up.” WE DIDN’T ASK FOR CHARITY! Whether our resources were limited or unlimited was none of her business. What we eventually decided to rent and pay for was none of her business. Her comment about our budget/resources was completely unprofessional and unnecessary.

Also, part of the labor charges were for wiping down the tables and chairs that were to be provided as part of our contract. What kind of venue charges for cleaning their own tables and chairs?! It’s a very reasonable expectation that they would be set up for us without us incurring any extra charges.

After several emails back and forth where we were reminded that the only reason the wedding was a success is because of the extras Jill provided and all the running around she did, the final straw was when she called my MIL and told her she no longer wanted to communicate with me and my husband. We, the clients, who signed the contract and paid $6,000 to use the venue are no longer welcome to contact her and try to get clarification on the items my MIL paid for.

In addition to all of this, please be aware that we often felt like Jill’s main objective was to promote her business.

- She asked my MIL if we would put HER business’s logo on OUR wedding favors – what kind of vendor asks a couple to put their logo on wedding favors?! We’re not there to provide free advertising!
- Jill also pushed us to write a review before the wedding. Again, who expects a review before goods/services are actually provided?!
- After all this mess, she still had the audacity to tell us she would be majorly disappointed if we’re not willing to share our pictures with her. She even asked our videographer for pictures! Just because we used her venue for our wedding, doesn’t mean she owns the wedding now…we’re not obliged to provide her with any pictures or videos nor was it stated in the contract. She shouldn’t be reaching out to our other vendors to acquire goods that she has no right to.

In a nutshell, the venue is gorgeous. There are tons of great spots for pictures and you’ll get a great rustic farm atmosphere with a lot of natural beauty. John is very easy-going, helpful and a pleasure to work with.

However, beware before signing a contract that communication with Jill will tough. It will be difficult to get a straight answer if you question anything and you’ll feel as if your wedding is owned by the venue.

We had to deal with false accusations and blatant lies. All our other vendors were amazing and a pleasure to work with. However, we spent our honeymoon dealing with Jill and the invoice she sent my MIL all because we asked a few questions (which remain unanswered) so we ended up paying for stuff without either knowing we would be charged for it or without clarification on why we were paying the amount that we did.

If you decide to have your wedding here, please make sure you write every single thing down (although that didn’t help either since we were wrongly accused even when things were documented). Don’t let Jill push you into writing a review BEFORE your wedding and don’t feel obliged to let her take pictures. It’s YOUR wedding. YOU decide who takes pictures and YOU decide what you want to share.

Sent on 03/11/2019

Pemberton Weddings's reply:

James Young recommends Pemberton Weddings & Events.
October 20 ·
Dreamcatcher Meadows
(Jill and John)

We may be bias since it was our wedding but we have been told everyone agrees with us.
Dreamcatcher was the best Venue we could ever have imagined for a wedding.
The scenery was breathtaking. The place was huge, every corner of the property was beautiful and had something to offer. Jill and John were super accommodating. We saw this place in the winter even before it was at its best and one main thing that sold us was we did not have to coordinate, think or worry about everything. Their venue already offered a lot of important items. They had a place to get ready, they had the grass area, the covered area, an area for rentals, caterers, hand made harvest tables that fit the scene perfectly with chairs to match, wine barrels for small tables, power and even amazing party lights that were extremely elegant. Then we got to see the place in spring with all its natural beauty. Flowers, horses, river, grass, wildlife. Everything was alive and beautiful without needing much more. The day before John freshly cut the grass, set up hay bales and a few antiques that just put icing on the cake. They had patio heaters if we needed them and even brought out firewood for their fire pit (no fire ban at the time) to top it all off John set up games everyone could play together on the grass and Jill took pro photos of the wedding throughout, we couldn’t even notice her and the photos were awesome.
At one point of the wedding we just stood there and looked around, apparently a few others did this too. The place was perfect. The children playing in the grass field, people conversating beside the river, others grouping together to play horseshoes, a few around an open fire pit drinking wine, the partiers living on the dance floor and still a bunch of people at the tables stuck in conversation. Even the rental toilet area was hidden away but with its own area surrounded by enough beauty that they didn’t feel like typical outhouses.

We would get married here again if only to have this experience in a place like this one more time.
Beyond expectations.