Falkner Winery

Our wedding in April 2025 was beautiful, because of the winery itself. It was fun, because we refused to let the Falkner Winery staff to ruin it. The only solid employee they have is Gwen, it was her first day at our wedding, Danielle Santiago probably didn’t ruin her happiness yet. From the beginning, Rachel in sales, overpromises and guarantees you that the winery includes and happily does everything for you… then once you sign she doesn’t do anything to communicate that to the next person. They didn’t even have my file, paperwork or date saved… once that was figured out and Loretta ensured Danielle would take care of things. Scary. If you’ve already signed for your wedding here… demand Danielle not be on the property, Or Jenna. Hire your own coordinator and/or planner. Make sure Loretta or someone trustworthy knows the contract and timeline. They are so quick to tell you what they’re not willing to do, Danielle is a nightmare, she should not have a job in weddings… or any sort of service. She can’t handle anything herself. She gets angry, panicked and argumentative, constantly changing her story and lying. Thankfully, all of our vendors watched her behavior and called her out to the owner for lying about everything she did. She was asked to leave and no longer our day of coordinator by the time of the ceremony. She allowed some vendors event to set up in the reception area, on top of, operating the winery on the patio. She promised they would all be out of the reception area for our photos by 3pm. So when we were all there at 3:15pm with our vendors, photographer and videographer. She was just yelling at my bridal party, our families and me saying she never said that. She exchanged quite a few very unprofessional words with our Best Man, who was very rational and just asking her to resolve the situation and end the event and clean up for us. She had a mental breakdown and started calling managers and owners to try and cover her tracks before offering any help. On the contract, it states there’s a main point of contact, for people to communicate with— AKA, do NOT come to me on my wedding day with problems. She put her sunglasses on, crossed her arms and brought some no-named “manager” (who refused to give us his name and we had never met him through any of the planning meetings) and he held his phone in front of him as if he was filming and accused me of “bulldozing” Danielle. Told me never have they ever allowed wedding parties to do their photos in the reception area… and that my photographer had no idea what she was talking about (pull up her website and she has years of experience shooting at Falkner… in the reception area)… and the timelines have been written and shared for months, between Danielle herself, and our vendors… I returned to the bridal suite, crying, trying to reset before I walk down the aisle in 10 minutes. Danielle came upstairs, stood in the doorway of the bridal suite and called Loretta on speakerphone (supposedly) calling me names and lying about what had happened. I stepped out into the hall and asked her to leave me alone. She ran down the hallway to her office and shut the door. Eventually she “left” Falkner winery and they replaced the wedding day manager with Jenna… also a nightmare. Not a witch like Danielle, but she cuts corners, smiles in your face and talks in circles to avoid doing her job well. Reassuring me Danielle will be going home and they will refund me later. Then Danielle showed up again during our reception behind the bar smirking and watching. Nonetheless, We chose not to let this circus of unprofessionalism ruin it… but as you guessed, more occurs at the end. They love referring to the contract, but, in a span of 5 months they “updated” their FAQs 3 times, nobody is on the same page, they lost my file for our date etc. Security guard? We never saw one. Winery shuts down by “X” time, wasn’t done well at all, had 5 drunk girls trying to come to our reception, nobody did a thing about it. Thankfully our guests handled it. & in the contract, 9:30pm is last call for bar, what we paid for. Just after 9pm, Jenna nowhere to be found, we have guests in a long line trying to get a drink, their two bartenders (14 year olds??) were hiding, breaking down the bar, awkwardly standing around not helping our guests. I asked what was going on, she said they ran out of glassware… Jenna finally appears at 9:25pm and tells me two different things: they don’t feel comfortable serving anymore (why?? Nobody was rude, in fact, everyone was being patient and assumed you were resetting the bar. Nobody was too drunk, I asked her to point out one guest who looked over served) and then it became, oh we don’t do last calls, it’ll bring a line to the bar. How does that make sense? The least they could do after the BS they pulled all day already, could’ve followed through the contractual agreement and given decent service. They clearly all hate their jobs, want to cut corners and go home. No respect for the bride, groom, family… any guests. I’m sad to see a lot of other reviews also confirming this behavior, I wish I would’ve known!

Everything about this venue has been such an amazing experience. Not only is the venue gorgeous on its own, private, Tuscan style, delicious food, delicious wine and gorgeous views but the staff was lovely. Rachael made our experience here one of a kind. I have requested over 25 quotes from different venues and she was the only one to make the experience feel like we were her top priority. She followed up with me after our tour and truly was such a kind person. There are so many gorgeous venues throughout San Diego but it’s difficult to find one with a good team behind the venue. We know we are in good hands with falkner and we can’t wait to have our wedding here.

Let me just start off by saying how beautiful the venue is. You have amazing views, and on top of that the trees by the ceremony make you feel secluded and in a different place separate from Temecula Valley. 2nd, the food is amazing. Everybody that I have talked to told me how good dinner was. 3rd the staff really takes care of you thank you Danielle and Jenna for making sure that we didn’t have to worry about anything. They went above and beyond in ensuring my husband and I had the most amazing time. There was an issue and Danielle handled it and resolved it so quickly. It was truly the BEST NIGHT of our lives and we don’t regret for a second picking Falkner Winery!

When we toured with Rachael and saw how beautiful the roses would look for our ceremony, we knew we had to get married here. After we met Danielle, we knew we made the right decision. The staff took care of every thing. The food was delicious and everyone had an amazing time. Everything Rachael promised us, Danielle and her team delivered. We couldn’t have asked for a more perfect day!