Estancia La Jolla Hotel & Spa

otel was, and many said it was the best wedding they had ever attended. Truly, it cannot be understated how stunning a location it is. You pull into the hotel off the road and feel as if you've been teleported to another country. There are so many little nooks to hang out in, and adorable little details all throughout the venue. I also LOVE how dog-friendly they are. That being said, planning this wedding with Estancia was not an enjoyable experience. Our relationship with the team was transactional at best and adversarial at worst. We were treated like wallets rather than people, and efforts were made to squeeze money out of us at every turn. One example that comes to mind is we were already paying thousands of dollars for the bar package, and an additional ~$1000 to have a signature cocktail, and they wanted us to pay the full price of additional cocktails (~$16 per if I recall correctly) to tray pass some of them at our cocktail hour. Their communications with us were callous and cold. It felt as if every request we made was returned with either a "no" or an unreasonable upcharge. There were instances where we heard of other guests getting discounts that they refused to give to us. There were frequently severe delays in communication from the team, and we had to follow up as many as three times to get a response. Throughout the last year, our contact for the venue and our contact for catering both changed. I do get the sense that these transitions were not handled with care, and they certainly did not help the already fragmented relationship we had with the planning team. No one really ever went above and beyond to make our experience better. Several careless mistakes were made during our wedding weekend. For example, we were assured the fountain would be turned off during our ceremony, as it was loud, and that did not happen. We were assured up and down that the ceremony space would be blocked off, but random hotel guests were walking through the ceremony the whole time. One thing that was important to me in wedding planning was that we were the only wedding, which of course Estancia refused because money is the only thing they care about, and there was indeed another wedding party there that had the actual wedding off-site but their ancillary events at the hotel. We were given no heads-up that this would be the case. Also, about an hour after we arrived, we were sent a plate of salami as a welcome from the team, which would have been nice except we are vegetarian, which I think goes to show how minimal of a relationship we had with our team. All in all, I would say if you don't care about being taken advantage of, and you don't care about being treated like a VIP, this is a great choice. This hotel truly impressed our guests, and even knowing everything I know now, I still would do it all again, because our wedding was absolutely phenomenal. But the reviews on here are so positive that I had to give my honest experience, because I wish I had known going in that working with the Estancia team would be so disheartening. I think they know how exceptional their venue is, and they certainly use that power to their advantage.

ing guests throughout our venue/wedding weekend! As soon as we stepped foot on the Estancia property, we noticed its Spanish charm, wonderful staff, and beautiful scenery. It was the perfect venue for us to create that amazing wedding experience! We primarily worked with Isabel Barnachia, the corporate catering sales manager, and Molly Lawler, the event services manager. Both Isabel and Molly demonstrated exceptional and timely communication throughout the planning process. Molly, in particular, was phenomenal! She was pivotal in helping us execute the most perfect day and was so kind/sweet throughout it all! Every vision we had was made possible because of Molly! If you have the opportunity to get married at Estancia, I would highly recommend it! Thank you Molly and Isabel for being so wonderful! 

One hour before the event we learned the bakery we were using to bring in desserts had the wrong date and did not have our desserts. When I alerted Molly, shot got on it immediately and the chef and team came through with cookies and other desserts in a very short time. They saved us! We received countless compliments about how wonderful the welcome party was and I owe a lot of that to the incredible Estancia team! Our guests were also very pleased with the hotel rooms and property. Many of the wedding guests stayed there and said the service was excellent and the grounds were lovely.