The Empress Estate

would happen without a hitch. And it did. Zoe and the rest of the staff were wonderful to work with. They were reassuring the whole way along, and had great communication with us. When our wedding day came our expectations were exceeded. The venue itself is stunning, the staff made it a breeze and stress free for us and our family & friends. The food, cake, and drinks were exceptional. The serving staff were so professional and kind. Our day was truly magical and more than worth the wait. Thank you for everything and we recommend any engaged couples to tour the Empress Estates!

haven’t had a chance to check out this venue I highly recommend a picturesque autumn drive up to view the grounds!

's set well back off the road. Once you cross the property line though, it's beauty takes over. Whether it's the castle-like residence (where our wedding party stayed over night) or the three-tiered landscape where we were able to host the ceremony, cocktail hour and reception. I don't have the best words to describe, check out the website, or better yet take the trip out to Woodland and see for yourself. Thanks for hosting an awesome wedding, Zoe!

Zoe and his staff were very friendly and helpful. Food was amazing and the cake was beautiful. I loved everything about my day there. I highly recommend The Empress Estate for your wedding day!! Thank you Zoe, Stevie and al the Empress Estate crew for making my day perfect!!

o settle for our new date Thursday, July 22, 2021. Even though we had originally paid a weekend price for the event, the venue made no accommodations to adjust the price to a Thursday event, which is less expensive. The “treatment coordinator”, Rose, was assigned to us to help out during the planning. She had an attitude the entire time which made us uncomfortable, even unwelcome, and made it very obvious she doesn’t care. Definitely not the attentive/sharp/caring coordinator you’re looking for. During our chain of emails, I reminded her multiple times to change the “no champagne” to “yes champagne” since we wanted to toast. She reassured us champagne will be served during our toast, only for it to NOT happen. She never even corrected the contract!To make things worse, the owner then pulls out the contract in the middle of the wedding to prove a point that we didn’t want champagne.. extremely unprofessional. Thankfully our friends took over the situation and handed out the drinks quickly for the toast, but it was an absolute unnecessary chaotic situation, which could be prevented had Rose done her job. Rose had also reassured us that our candles will be lit during cocktail hour by the venue staff to be ready for reception , she failed AGAIN to communicate that to the team, hence NO candles were lit. My friend and her father had to scramble and take care of it. Pure negligence. We had about 180 guests, and the venue KNOWING that number, still only had ONE bartender and ONE dinner buffet. excessive long lines for both, which again, could be avoided. When addressed w the owner afterward he said “we have never had a wedding this big so we didn’t know”. You knew the guest count! We were taking photos during cocktail hour but apparently the servers took control of the food and barely served the guests! the guests were restricted and not allowed to eat as much as they wanted! Very cheap!! This applied to the dinner as well! The owner also kept pushing the DJ to lower the music from early on and all throughout the night We had a lot of ceremony decoratives which we had hired workers to pack up by the end of the night, looks like they left a box or two by mistake, and the next day some of the items were found in the venue trash by my husband. Luckily a worker was kind enough to show him the items. However, there are still lots of large items missing and I would like to go through all the trash, but my email requesting that is getting ignored!We have expensive items missing! the emails regarding Rose not doing her job are not being acknowledged either. Figures! Our gut feeling was right all along about them not really caring about the couples. Out of all the unprofessionalism we witnessed, treating us like this after the wedding is almost expected. Even if you are SURE our items are not there, have the decency to at least acknowledge our concerns and let us come search anyway! What a shame that we paid this amount of money for a venue that is CLEARLY not about making the couples have a peaceful/stress-free night. There is some MAJOR lack of communication between the staff and owner and a lot of negligence which costs the couples unnecessary stress on their most important night.

e page there and the owner is a LIAR! DO NOT BE FOOLED, THEY ARE HORRIBLE!

de a timeline of how the day would look like and mapped everything out. Was actually very stress-free, which is one of the most important things I had wanted my wedding to be like. I had also wanted my ceremony and reception to be held outdoors if the weather was supposed to be good, which kept changing between rain and sun that day. The venue thankfully had made a backup plan in case it were to rain, and did our rehearsal in both places, so had peace of mind. My wedding here at The Empress Estate was a dream, thank you so much for everything!

ice, florist, etc! The venue itself has so many beautiful areas, including the Empress Estate, the Chateau, the open fields, gardens, arbors, and more. They truly help your wedding go smoothly by bringing the services to you, providing an excellent staff catering to your every need, and consistent communication during the planning process. XOXO Marquesa & Bejian

all of our special requests for details and cultural preferences. We got everything in writing on the Empress planning guide and we stuck to the plan. Everything went very smoothy during our event (Zoe and Stevie were around to help out when needed). We attached a glimpse of just how amazing this venue really is! Best day of our lives! We received great reviews from our friends and family and we will definitely recommend this venue to anyone who is interested. Huge thanks to Zoe and the Empress team for making our dream wedding come true! PS: We were initially concerned about some of the negative reviews but we've personally had a great experience. After sitting down with Zoe, we've learned he has very extensive experience with weddings and he gave us a lot of great advice beforehand to make sure our wedding runs smoothly. If you show respect for the venue and the owner Zoe, you will have a blast! TIPS: #1 Prepare a solid plan with your future spouse & the Empress wedding coordinator. #2 Get it in writing on the Empress planning guide #3 Trust the Empress team to make it happen #4 Don't change things last minute #5 Have fun, and if it's not perfect, enjoy the day anyway! :) - Max & Anna Bondar

get married in The empress estate 🥰😘

INESS WITH THESE CROOKS. Honestly, I’m only writing this review because it looks like sometimes if you leave a negative review, the owner will contact you and after three unanswered emails regarding rescheduling our event due to COVID-19, I’m desperate for a response. We signed a contract with this venue before the pandemic and now that our wedding date is getting closer and our state’s restrictions are getting more stringent, my fiancé and I decided to start the process of rescheduling our big day. When I contacted The Empress Estate to discuss options, I received a very poorly written COVID policy almost instantly and have received zero communication since (other than our automatic payment reminder of course). The “options” this venue has given us are laughable and include: going forward with our date as normal and adhering to whatever restrictions are in place at that time, rescheduling for a date in 2020 and paying half our space rental fee on top of the thousands of dollars we are already paying them, rescheduling for a date next year and paying the full space rental fee at whatever the 2021 rate is (they don’t know what the rate will be yet), or canceling our wedding and forfeiting all money paid this far per signed contract. When I asked for more information about the 2021 rates, I received no response. I tried several more times to get ahold of someone and have received zero communication. I looked through some reviews from other people who have been screwed over by these people and I’m so disgusted and so horrified. I also found glowing, positive review left by one of the wedding coordinators on Google reviews. If a business needs it’s own employees to leave positive reviews to boost its rating, you know there is a problem! In addition to all this, the online portal that these guys use doesn’t sync with the payment system they use. So even though my fiancé and I have made all our payments (roughly $6500 worth), their portal system says we haven’t made a payment to them since February. So if you already booked a wedding with these crooks, make sure to save your payment receipts! ALSO, the person who WAS our wedding coordinator appears to have been let go and we were not notified. So I’ve wasted quite a bit of time trying to get in touch with a person who doesn’t work here anymore. We had high hopes for this venue and in the beginning, they were great and got back to us right away. We were told they’d be there to support us every step of the way and then once we signed the contract, it was like flipping a switch and communicating with these people is like pulling teeth now. It’s clear they’re only in this business for the money. OH AND! It appears the owner likes to lie and claim not to “have any record of any couple with that name” when he gets a negative review so beware! I’ve got a screenshot of our contract at the ready for anyone who doubts the authenticity of this review. Again, just to be PERFECTLY CLEAR: Walking barefoot through a field of hot glass shards while birds peck out my eyeballs would be a pleasant experience compared to dealing with this venue. DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR BUSINESS I AM BEGGING YOU.

oney you have already spent is going to be as valuable "when" you can plan your wedding date. GARBAGE PEOPLE, GARBAGE SERVICE!@

are misdirected and do not relate to anything I asked them about. They proposed that we could change our date, but we would have to pay the rental fee again! The empress estate is running a racket pyramid scheme! It is evident that they have spent our money on other events or improvements to the venue the minute we made the payment and it is clear they don’t have the funds to refund us even though they cannot fulfill their end of the contract.

after weeks of our questions going unanswered, the vendor manager was our only point of contact. The Governor recently announced that weddings are prohibited, every single one of my vendors reached out to me immediately...except the empress. After a week of emailing and calling every single day, the manager finally responded and all he said was "I prefer communicating through email, if you want to speak on the phone we can speak when you have your next planning session which isn't until 30 days before your event." My fiance and I both continued to email and call him everyday because this venue charges large monthly payments and we were no longer feeling comfortable making these monthly payments considering the situation, we didn't want to continue paying for our event not knowing when or if it would happen. We continued to get ignored. The manager finally called us, in his voicemail he claimed that we cannot make a decision to cancel or postpone more than 30 days in advance. NOWHERE in our contract does it say that AT ALL. He completely made up this rule because our final payment would have been due 30 days prior. He then stated that if we wish to postpone, we can do so if we pay the venue fees again to hold our new date. So not only are they expecting us to continue making payments for a cancelled event, he's telling us we can't make the official call to postpone until we have PAID HIM in full, then we have to pay the fees AGAIN even though we are not choosing to do this, we are being forced to by the fact that there is a worldwide pandemic and gatherings are now illegal. We understand that the business is being hit hard and that many couples are probably panicking and contacting them, so we were more than willing to communicate with them to find a happy resolution, unfortunately they have chosen to ignore us all together again. We are now having to go through legal representation just to get them to speak to us. No couple should have to see their wedding day turn into a legal battle. This place is completely robbing their couples that are already going through emotional hardships due to this lifetime milestone being stolen away from us. They are completely morally corrupt, all they seem to care about is getting an extra penny, not showing any support or compassion towards the couples.

to an email theres either two outcomes. A. The employee doesnt know how to. B. Their doing it intentionally. Either way not the level of competence I want running my wedding. I'm glad it worked out for some of you but if anyone else runs into these issues dont wait four months like I did. It wont get better.

e with the DJ for us right away and everything went smoothly! The food here is AMAZING, they weren't kidding when they told us they take pride in their food --- and our guests even got to meet the chef! We did the all-inclusive package so after the reception, my husband, myself and the wedding party got to stay at the location and the staff brought out midnight snacks for us to eat by the fireplace. We had such an amazing day and couldn't have asked for more. Thank you Empress Estate and the staff for helping us create such a magical moment!

r date was available. Planning for our day was very simple and wasn’t stressful what so ever. The Empress has a variety of wedding packages and they coordinate a few planning sessions to make everything flow and come together with ease. During the year of planning we did have a transition between a few event specialists but nothing got lost during the transition in staff. Our wedding was in July 2019! We used three areas within the venue. The ceremony was held outside in a lovely forest terrace, we used the Woodland Chateau for dinner, toasts, etc. and then moved down to the Empress for dancing! We were one of the Empress’ first same sex marriages as well and all of the staff made everyone feel welcomed! Zoe even agreed to switch out the lights around the Empress from white lights to rainbow colored lights. The venue was glowing in color during the late night hours. We also rented out the Empress suites for the wedding party to stay in. Zoe brought out an outstanding midnight snack and fixed up a scrumptious breakfast the next morning for all of our guests who stayed overnight. All in all the Empress Estate staff was fantastic and having Nichole, our event specialist, available on the day of to help watch the clock and manage the timeline was as huge help to the overall flow of the day. We highly recommend the Empress Estate to every engaged couple.

y as planned and perfect! Stephanie was amazing the day of at making sure everything was exactly what we wanted. This place is worth the price tag!

Ambree and Nichole was fabulous, easy and fun. Zoe, the owner was fantastic and eager to please. The Empress mansion is incredible and breath taking, and has hundreds of amazing photo opportunities, just calling your name! My now husband, Scott and I had our reception at the newer building, the Woodland Chateau. Wow. Just wow. The space is absolutely gorgeous. We didn't feel the need to bring in much decor at all. Natural lighting just flooded the space and allowed for some amazing photographs. The venue's grounds are breath taking as well. It is high up on a hill so you will be able to see the river in the distance and the town down below. Awesome selfie opportunities just everywhere ;) Back to the day of the wedding. Nichole is the woman of the hour, let me tell you. She made it happen and made everything flow so smoothly from beginning to end. She made sure everyone stuck to the schedule and that everyone was happy and had what they needed. ALSO. MY WEDDING DAY WAS HER BIRTHDAY! HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY NICHOLE! She is the true MVP. I couldn't recommend this venue more. Go take a tour, you will not regret it. Oh btw, the food is to die for.

IT and the set up was perfect. I was initially a little worried with the spacing and table set up during our planning session/email correspondence, but it all worked out day of and the staff made every effort they could to ensure everything went smoothly and set everything up with my wishes in mind. Long story short - based on the mock-ups, I was nervous that we weren't going to have enough dance floor space with the amount of tables and our 6-piece band (usually, weddings booked here use a DJ service..) but we did and it was AWESOME!! The grounds are so beautiful, you truly do not need much decoration. However, they allowed us to bring flower petals for the reception tables and our own small pre-made floral arrangements for the aisle and later used them on the cocktail tables. Nichole was OUTSTANDING day of and had the help of Stevie co-owner/florist for all things coordination. We had an extreme last minute change of ceremony location because the weather took a turn for the BEST and allowed us to stick to our original outdoor setting, the staff was so flexible and helped make it happen! So many people commented on how it was the best and most beautiful wedding they have been to because it truly was so magical.

this venue to anyone looking for a flawless magical wedding! Dinner was excellent and I enjoyed the chef coming around to check on us

a great time! It is truly beautiful and I would recommend to anyone wanting a special day!

ing a day of coordinator was AMAZING. The food and cake were so good, couldn't have been happier!! Thank you so much empress team!

ing our rehearsal. We met with the other owner, who was late instead. Our reception area was not fully set up at that time but we were assured that it would be by the time of our arrival the next day. It was not. The venue was locked, even though we had to pay for a full extra hour to get there early for set up. We wasted about 20-30 minutes that we paid for where we couldn't even get in the building. The day of coordinator was training someone else and was constantly gone. She disappeared to find table clothes for about 15 minutes, and then disappeared again because they were dirty. This meant that we couldn't set up that part of the reception. The chairs were not at all of the tables either. There were also dead flowers on the fireplace outside (where we were having the ceremony) that the owner from the day before told us could be removed, we just needed to tell the wedding coordinator. She was MIA for so long that we ended up grabbing some of the servers and asking them to remove them. One of the other wedding alters outside had dead flowers all over it as well. This was a place that we were hoping to use for photography but couldn't. I gave the B & B room assignment list by email to the multiple addresses I had for the estate, and when my guests arrived, the coordinator started interrupting our set up wanting to know what rooms people were in, even though they had that information and we were behind already because of the lack of the venue being open and ready like it should have been. We also had no warning that the Estate, where we were staying with most of our guests for the B & B, was missing part of a roof and there was a giant crane in the backyard. It would have been nice to know this because most of our guests were freezing cold at night (we would have told our family to bring extra blankets) and we also couldn't use this area for photography. The photographer was a recommended vendor, and he didn't know either and was planning to use that area and had to come up with other pictures on the spot. The honeymoon suit had a sink full of water that no one unclogged before we arrived. It really seemed like the zeal for our wedding from the estate staff (other than Zoe) disappeared after we had paid and the wedding season was towards a close. Zoe really made our day special and did everything he could to help us. The estate is beautiful and we would like to stay again in the B & B. However, if you are considering a wedding here, be prepared to have to email multiple times to the staff (other than Zoe), a lack of general communication, and that most staff will be late. The food was very good. The cake tasted excellent but didn't really match the photograph that we provided (the venue bakes the cake) and looked decent from one direction. The lights outside were not turned on, and the photographer had to go find the switch. My relative fell down the outside stairs in the garden area because no lights were on. This has the potential to be a great venue. Overall, we are happy, but a lot of things seemed unprofessional, and this set our entire day back with time. For an afternoon fall wedding, this really cut down on our photos. Be prepared to micromanage.

re left with no where to sit and management was not able to adapt and were rude to the bridal party. There are last minute fees that they will hit you with a few weeks before the wedding ours was about $1500 for convenience that was not mentioned beforehand. They do not do private tastings for your menu. They do group tastings with other several couples and serves specific foods, we went to three tastings and not once did they serve what we had requested so we had no idea how our food was going to turn out on our wedding day. Luckily the food did turn out very good, the cake was delicious. The reception must end at 10 pm which is early compared to other venues so the whole night was very rushed trying to fit in dinner, special dances, speeches and then dancing. Other than the venue being beautiful we did not have a great experience. I felt embarrassed talking to guests days after the wedding hearing their experiences with the owner and management. Our wedding turned out beautiful but at an unprofessional cost.

the ceremony, which was planned to be outside. In the end we were able to continue on as planned with the rain finally subsiding. Lindsay was the coordinator we primarily worked with and she was AMAZING. She helped us every step of the way with our planning sessions and the day of. Beautiful grounds and everybody was in awe over how great the food was. The only reason I'm not giving all 5 Stars is some hiccups we had along the way with pricing and ownership. They changed their pricing and some policies after we signed our contract, and then tried to tell us that basically our contract wasn't good enough and the new fees/policies affected us. In the end, it all worked out how it was supposed to, but it was extremely frustrating being told one thing and not taking into affect our binding contract.

to come. After visiting our Top 5 options, we quickly chose to book with the Empress Estate. The packages offered were very clear and inclusive. Things that are add-ons at most venues were included as standard, and that made planning and managing vendors easier for us and our coordinator. The venue itself offers tremendous flexibility, and we built a plan that leveraged the full capabilities of the property. We used the mansion for our Cocktail Hour and overnight experiences. We used the Forest Amphitheatre for our Ceremony, and we used the Woodland Chateau for the Welcome Reception and the Wedding Dinner & Dance. Working with Lindsay was a pleasure, as she is very precise and offered helpful suggestions during planning, the rehearsal and the day-of. The chef prepares food that has great flavor, seasoning, and presentation – far above most wedding providers. The cake was superb, and many of our guests kept asking who we ordered it from (Empress!). Finally, we added on a Dessert Bar for midway through the dance and our guests LOVED it! Working with Empress was easy, and when the weather for our wedding weekend was forecast to be significantly warmer than normal, Zoe sat down with us and helped us work through some event modifications based on how the sun/shadows work at the property. He even had bottles of iced-down water placed by the ceremony venue for our guests. Overall, I would highly recommend the Empress Estate for a wedding or even for a corporate offsite event.

amazing coordinator, she was just the right mix of light-hearted humor and down-to-business attitude that made the wedding day go off without a hitch. The food was delicious and Zoe made sure I got my cheesy potatoes (because what bride isn’t craving cheese on their wedding day!?) and even made extra for the midnight snack. I booked my flowers through Two Poppies Floral (closely affiliated with the Empress) and Stevie nailed my vision all the way down to the flower crown. If I could I would do it all again! 10/10 in my book.

n when you cancel 14 months out on a Saturday in the summer & Zoe tells you they have a waiting list until fall of the following year! (Knowing they filled this with a waiting list of brides the moment I cancelled) Zoe, the owner was unrelenting in his policy and will keep all the money! It's not a matter of re-booking your date at that point! Outside of the policy, the communications were terrible at best! From the early inquiry on the website with no answer, to waiting unattended for over an hour past our appointment "tour" time. The wedding coordinator, Katie, left after 3 months of planning with her, leaving very little details noted. When we came to the food tasting event, the staff were uneducated on the food they were serving and appeared very unpolished and unprofessional despite their uniforms. Overall in the first 4 months, we had lost trust that our wedding would be handled professionally. We tried to look at the positives as the Chateu reception and grounds were well kept and beautiful, but the lodging accommodations put us over the top. The location is remote and the Empress Estate interiors are very dated and the carpets appeared dirty and worn, thus it was not an option for us to stay here. We looked around, but Woodland only had a Best Western and local Motel Inn's, Kalama had the new McMennamin's but it was a far cry from the Elegant grandeur of the estate theme and required all rooms be paid up front. Travelling into Vancouver, was about a 45 minute commute on a Saturday evening & a very long trip for your guests travelling after an evening wedding. Overall outside of the unprofessional experiences we had early on, along with the logistic challenges of finding surrounding lodging, we decided to cut our losses and move on from this venue. Be Prepared to Travel!

o that we had a ton of alcohol left over. They told us our keg was empty and stopped serving that, come to find out that it was still half full. Short staff on the bartending they only had one bartender , whom was not friendly at all and went missing half the night. We were told to bring as much ingredients for our signature drinks as we wanted served and they served not even half! I had two pregnant bridesmaids and all they wanted was coke and it was really hard for them to even give us that because the owner said it was for the mix drinks. Just little issues like that, which kept it from an amazing venue to a perfect one. The owner is very strict and he has ALOT of rules... But beautiful venue and our coordinator Lindsay was wonderful

ted. I forgot the ribbon to my dress and she made sure that she found one that was like the exact one that I had. Zoe and his wife Stevie are wonderful people as well. I have 3 young children so I really wanted to have something where I did nothing myself. Katie sent me names and phone numbers to great vendors that we used. She made the process extremely easy for me.For being all-inclusive, I would say that the price is very reasonable. The Empress Estate staff went above and beyond for my special day. I am very pleased with how my wedding day turned out. Very well recommended! Also - EVERYONE loved the food. A variety of options and the guests could eat as much as they wanted. Winter wedding - 12.2.17

s amazing!

us. we booked that day. We loved that they had multiple locations to get married so they could alter at the drop of a pin. from the moment of booking all the way till the wedding it was a pleasant experience. They worked with us on payments which is a huge help when trying to plan a beautiful wedding. they offered multiple food/cake tastings that helped us pick out just the perfect items for us and our dinner. The wedding coordinators were there every step of the way and answered every silly question i had along the process. the day of the rehearsal it was due to rain the day of our wedding. The coordinator told me its a high chance of rain. I kind of felt at that point i was being pushed into having it inside, mostly due to my guests. So we did the rehearsal based on an inside wedding. As the coordinator was explaining the layout to us we ran into the owner Zoe who asked why i was so calm when i was getting married the next day. i told him they handle everything so why should i be worried, i had none other than having an inside wedding, Zoe said than we have an outside wedding! We than rehearsed for an outside wedding as well and played it by ear. The day of my wedding it was still due to rain but we were not totally sure when the rain was going to come. Zoe watched the weather like a hawk and made sure we got the dream wedding we really wanted. He knew our heart was set on outside and so he was going to do everything he could to make sure that happened. AND IT DID!!! The food was amazing, the cake was perfect, the whole staff was wonderful. I can honestly look back at my wedding day and say it was 100% perfect. This would not have been possible without the help of Zoe making sure i got what i wanted.

edule but then they would direct message me about the dates NOT being available and blamed it on a glitch.The staff specifically Katie and the owner Zoe, have made my experience so confusing and so stressful. The owner and i discussed and agreed on a package, they then sent me the final form to fill out and sign to finalize my package and right after that Zoe had katie inform me they have changed their mind. They offered me packages way more expensive. I called to get an explanation and Katie told me and I quote. "You must have really liked the venue, when things get confusing people just leave". What kind if customer services is this? I drove 4 hours to meet the owner and discuss my package, after agreeing to the package and not being satisfied they abruptly changed my package I called and spoke with Tia she informed me the entire month of June was still available and also did not understand why they decided to change my package after they had already sent me the final agreement form. Katie wanted me to return for a for a 2nd tour and re-explain to her what I wanted. I was like why??? I have already explained myself 3 times to 3 different people, no one knows anything. Everyone is playing she said he said, the coordinator/planner Katie isn't even up-to-date on the packages she sounds super unsure about everything.

you, and you can even stay here over night for an additional cost which honestly is pretty fair. It's also close to additional places to stay and I do think they offer a shuttle service. The venue is amazing to at least consider. Beautiful views.

dding!