Wine Country Weddings and Events

Pam would make things very difficult so I went into the agreement with low expectations and somehow I still underestimated how bad it would be. I was told to get everything signed and in writing. This turned out to be good advice because she never ‘remembers’ anything offered or discussed. In the early stages of planning she fumbled nearly everything. She was hours late to an appointment for our parents to see the venue. We were seated hours late for our tasting. Also worth noting that she had been drinking multiple glasses of wine during each tasting. Not exactly professional. Throughout the planning process any issue we had always got the response of “well none of my other couples misunderstood that” or “all the other couples received that information, so you must have”. Emails would go unresponded to for weeks even after multiple follow-ups. Eventually I would call and she would claim that she responded weeks ago, when she definitely did not. She always seemed so inconvenienced to ‘resend’ information that was never sent. She never took responsibility for any misstep and constantly spoke down to us like children. When we told her at the tasting that we had not yet seen a catering menu she proceeded to give us this big (semi-drunk) lecture about how she is a extremely organized person and that she would ‘prove’ to me that she sent the catering information months ago. I am not sure how proving I am wrong helps anything. We never received the information and she never did ‘prove’ otherwise. We had wonderful experiences with every other vendor that was involved in our wedding. They were all committed to the success of our event and we had zero miscommunications. Pam was the only issue and she added tons of anxiety/uncertainty to the process that just didn’t need to be there. In fact, several vendors who work with Crooked Creek & Pam often went on unprompted rants to us about awful she is. Some of their comments were so negative I would feel uncomfortable sharing them here. Our grievances with Pam extend to the day-of. Our contract suggested that we would be provided a ‘day-of coordinator’ which sounded great. Our ‘coordinator’ ended up being Pam and she did little other than handle the basic catering needs. She did not hesitate to bother the bride throughout the day with petty questions and even criticisms when she felt that vendors were not meeting her expectations (what are we supposed to do about it at that point? Also, most vendors were recommended by her…) As an example - she interrupted our post-ceremony photos by shouting at us that she didn’t know where to place a photo booth that just arrived. Towards the end of the evening we even had a guest flag us down concerned about an intoxicated partygoer stumbling around outside. Turns out it was Pam. Not my observation but something that was brought to our attention by others. Ultimately we have fond memories of our our wedding and the venue was beautiful, but getting there was way more effort and stress than it needed to be. I don’t take any pleasure in publicly disparaging a business but I can’t recommend one that is operated with such flagrant disregard of basic professionalism, integrity and courtesy. There are many beautiful venues in Northern Michigan, I encourage you to look around.

d say the same about the days leading up to the wedding. Unfortunately, when I woke up on our wedding day, I had NO IDEA what to expect once our guests arrived. There was such a lack of communication, attention to detail, and follow up that we pretty much went into the wedding day blind. Starting with the menu tasting, we arrived with both of our parents and asked to try to the Chicken Picata and a few other dishes. Instead, we were served pizza (??) and ribs (???) and other items we could not have cared less about. We actually had to go back a second time to try the Chicken and Pam made a large fuss over it as if we were inconveniencing her. Every question was answered in a very off-the-cuff way. For example, "what would the cost be to add an additional appetizer?" "Well, gosh I don't know that could be a few extra per person...but we love experimenting with new menus so any ideas you have, let us know!" Like I'm sorry, but that is NOT an answer. We only got to see the barn twice prior to the wedding and we never actually walked through it with Pam or her assistant. Nobody ever met us at the property. It's a shame that I have to write a review like this because again, our wedding was beautiful and the venue was perfect. Pam and her team just need an experienced event planner to assist with the brides. Pam is very nice but is probably the worst communicator I have ever experienced in my life. And that is NOT someone you want to meet when your wedding is in their hands. If you choose this venue, good luck!!!

oo many appointments that day. We drove almost 2 and 1/2 hours to see this place, and were very excited, so we were told just a few more mins. and it ended up being another 20 mins. before we decided to leave. We were extremely disappointed in the service and that we weren't valued as a potential costumer. We do not recommend this place at all.

All of our guests commented to us about how beautiful Crooked Creek is and I think there may be more business headed your way from some of our single friends and family ;-). The most wonderful thing about having our wedding up in northern Michigan was not just the beauty of the surroundings, but also the friendly, personal service. We live in Chicago and many people that we have talked to who have gotten married in the city said that none of their vendors were very friendly. Weddings were a business and they treated it that way...but EVERY vendor that we used was so personal and really cared about our wedding. It was wonderful to know that we were in such caring and loving hands. Not only is Crooked Creek Ranch the most gorgeous location for a wedding...EVER...but all of the people there are so nice and attentive. I know that I called Pam about a million times to go over almost every detail and she was always great about everything! We will always have such fond memories of Crooked Creek Ranch and the people who live and work there.