Picture this .. I’m standing up at the alter waiting for my bride-to-be to walk down the aisle. Of course my heart is racing in this emotionally incredible moment. As I look out from the alter, I see beautifully kept shaded grounds, I feel a co...ol breeze amidst the summer warmth and as I listen to the soft voices of our guests filled with anticipation, I hear the sound of water from the pond and small rock waterfall off to my right. How did we get so lucky to find this place! Needless to say time marched on that Saturday, August 1st, 2015 and we had the most memorable, incredible day of our lives so far :).
My wife and I looked at a host of options in and around San Diego and we were incredibly fortunate to find Willow Creek Ranch, only about 30 minutes from Escondido. The owners are Sue and Ed, a lovely couple that has been doing weddings at their venue for a good number of years. In actually choosing this venue, my wife and I didn’t hire a wedding planner as we were hoping to find something that would fit our budget yet also be beautiful and provide a lot of extras to help lessen our workload… What’s incredible is we didn’t give up any of these things with Willow Creek. Sue includes so many incredible options in her wedding packages! We had tables, chairs, linens, silverware, many of the decorations, parking, a room for the wedding party, and access to the venue throughout the week leading up to the wedding amongst other things, which made our lives so much easier. She contracts with 2 DJs and as far as flowers, her daughter, Bethany, will help you set up beautiful flower themes for your wedding at very fair prices, able to work with most budgets. You’ll find huge savings and flexibility with your catering as you get to bring in your own caterer as long as they have insurance. We ended up using San Diego Taco company and they did a great job for about $17/head. Wow! Most caterers charge $90+ per head. Additionally, we were able to bring in our own wine and beer, which we got from Costco and Bevmo. This kind of flexibility is hard to find with such a beautiful wedding venue.
I can’t stress enough how lovely Sue and her husband are. They were truly amazing and helpful throughout all our interactions. Sue was really great at emailing back quickly and definitely helped my wife and I feel assured if there was anything that caused stress during the process. We wouldn’t have wanted to have our wedding any place else. Every one of our guests loved the venue, our photographer and videographer were in memory-capturing heaven, and we were repeatedly told that it was one of the most beautiful and delightful venues that our family and friends had been to. In total we had about 100 people at our wedding, but Sue can work with you depending on the size wedding you’re looking to do within reason of course :). All around we had such an incredible time and feel so blessed that we were able to celebrate our wedding day at Willow Creek. Thank you Sue and Ed for sharing your property with us and being so incredible throughout the entire process!