Asilomar Conference Grounds

I recently got married at Asilomar Conference Grounds. The area and lodging are beautiful, but could use an update. The room was very large and they offered it to us free for the night of our wedding, which was appreciated. During the reception the wait staff was excellent and overly accommodating. The food was fantastic and we were very appreciative that the head chef did a tasting with us when we visited in December. The lead up to the wedding was the reason I gave this 3 stars. My husband and I were less than impressed with the "wedding planner." Asilomar defined this person as our wedding planner, but she basically was in charge of payments. 3 weeks into choosing Asilomar as our venue, the original wedding planner quit. No one informed us of this and it was not until we contacted the GM that we found out. 2 months later they hired a new wedding planner. I understand that she was new to Asilomar, but she was in no way helpful and left 20 minutes into the wedding reception. She did designate someone to take over for her, but this person did not seem to take charge of the planning duties. This resulted in the top of our wedding cake being taken off prior to us cutting our own cake. When we visited the the venue in December we were under the impression that she was taking notes for us. Two months before the wedding she sent us a packet with many of the questions I had sent her months prior or answered during our visit. My husband and I chose Asilomar Conference Grounds, because we wanted a place that everyone in our party could be together. This was not the case. The wedding party and our families were in two separate buildings. We were not far from each other, but it was frustrating that they did not make this accommodation for us after indicating that they would. When we attempted to originally book a group rate the first person we worked with did not communicate with us and simply sent us paperwork to sign. After countless phone calls, two months later we were able to speak with the GM who assigned us someone else to work with to accommodate our request. Many of the members of my wedding party called to book a room multiple times without a call back.

Great place, great service. Awesome!

Asilomar Conference Grounds is a spectacular location for a wedding; we chose the beach for our ceremony location and Seascape hall for the reception. This property is a beautiful blend of beach and woodsy, which was exactly what we wanted. We live locally and surveyed a number of locations for the wedding and found this one to be competitively priced. Coordinator - the wedding coordinator, Joselynn, is a dream to work with. She is very responsive via email and really willing to work with you and help you get the very most out of your budget. I loved working with her and cannot recommend her highly enough. She answered my millions of questions (seriously), and could not have been nicer. Food/Wine - My family is extremely picky when it comes to food (they are foodies for sure) so I was very worried about having bad wedding food, but everyone raved about the food. We didn't know exactly what our wedding food would be; the chef will design the meal based on what is local and in season, so we had a general idea of what we would be getting but we didn't know exactly. Our passed hors d'oeuvres were great, Ahi Poke on a wonton, chilled Tenderloin with horseradish cream on a crostini and a chicken and apricot curry in a phyllo shell, all delicious. We selected the buffet option and ended up with a beautiful salad with beets and oranges, a crab cocktail, potatoes, green beans, mahi mahi, steak with crispy onions, roasted butternut squash ravioli and fresh baked bread. We chose chocolate covered strawberries and cupcakes for dessert and those were delicious as well. You are not allowed to bring in your own alcohol, but that is pretty standard for most hotels/wedding venues. Lodging - since this is a conference grounds, the lodging here is more rustic and does not include many amenities that some people would look for (TV, updated rooms, etc.) Included in the wedding package (if available), is a complimentary room for the bride and groom for the night of the wedding. We had a room right by the water and could hear the waves crashing all night - it was heaven. We were also able to secure a small meeting room for during the day as a getting ready local for the groomsmen at a very reasonable price - a cheaper option than selecting an overnight room. Ceremony - our ceremony was located on the beach, a beautiful location that you cannot beat. Asilomar contracts with a local company to handle the ceremony, (chairs, sound, arch, set up, tear down, etc.) This is the main reason I'm giving four stars instead of five. The vendor requires that you bring your own music for the ceremony, which I found to be a bit overwhelming (others may not!) But trying to plan out how much music I needed for before the ceremony, during and after felt a bit daunting. You had to provide the music to the vendor on a phone/mp3 player yourself, and you had to make sure that he knew what music to play when, etc. There were two small snags, we did not get the arch we requested and they didn't play any music during the post-ceremony recessional after the big kiss, which was kind of a bummer. But I must say, this was a very, very, very small snag in an otherwise perfect day. If you are looking for a beautiful, rustic location, a dream coordinator and fantastic food, I really recommend this location. The staff was incredibly easy to work with and kind. Our wedding was such a dream, the weather was perfect, I really could not have asked for more.

It was a fantastic venue at sunset. The staff made it soooo easy in that they prepared the cake and the food was exceptional. There were many types of food choices.;It got cool after the sun set due to being on the coast

outdoors in a beautiful rustic but classic setting;catering options not as expansive as other venues