My then-fiancé and I had firsthand experience with Youngberg Hill and it wasn’t pleasant. Due to COVID-19 guidelines, we and several other couples were unable to have our wedding as contracted. In fact, KGW did a story about it (link below). Ou...r caterer also confirmed that we were unable to have the contracted number of guests. They confirmed this with the Health Department in Yamhill County as well.
We had asked the venue owner, Nicolette Bailey, to postpone our wedding and requested that she apply all the fees we paid upfront to a new Saturday in the summer of 2021 at no additional cost, as we paid the $2,000 extra to have a Saturday. She tried numerous times to sway us that the county regulations do not apply to her venue and therefore, we could safely hold our event of up to 250 guests on our scheduled wedding date. When we sent her a letter requesting to postpone, she responded by stating that: "I understand how hard all of this is for both of us. You agree to follow the State ordinances no matter what they are so YH is not part of or liable for any of those changes. Any issue you have are with the State and not YH. Your deposit paid for the venue mortgage, maintenance, and upkeep until the original date. Extending it is an extreme hardship for us as we are a small family business."
She also stated that "We are in compliance with the ordinances and have been approved to host 250 guests" and that our facts – which have come straight from the Oregon Department of Health – are not accurate. Right. Like the couple is supposed to police everyone on the night of their event. That's impossible with more than 25 people, and any respectable venue owner knows it. We even sent the business owner a snippet from our contractual agreement with them that states, "All rules & regulations including any County or State ordinances or Laws in or about the premises of YE (Youngberg Events) apply." But she disregards this on her contract.
She offered us postponement options if we wanted to have a Saturday next summer, but we’d have to pay for the inn rooms and the site fee all over again. Thus, costing us an additional $8,400, which the KGW story doesn’t mention. Our other options were:
1. Reschedule the same event to available dates from October – February 2021 (coldest/wettest months of the year, thus requiring a tent rental of over $5K) .
2. Reschedule the same event to weekdays in March 2021.
3. Reschedule the same event to April – September, M-Th, 2021 with additional payment of the inn rooms for the new date.
None of the options are apples to apples to what we had paid. She is extremely inflexible and admitted she already spent our money (quoted above), which includes over $5,000 in estimated bar consumption, gratuities, and the inn rooms. All services which were never rendered. What hotel or inn does that?
By the way, all the other vendors have been wonderful, bending over backwards to help the couples figure out alternate dates/venues. Not Youngberg. They aren't flexible at all. So, don’t be fooled by the glowing reviews you find here and elsewhere. There are so many other wineries with great views and with staff that is easy to work with. Do yourself a favor: book your next event anywhere else but Youngberg. Trust me, you'll be a lot happier than we were based on our own experience.
https://www.kgw.com/article/news/investigations/couples-lose-thousands-dollars-weddings-oregon-winery-coronavirus/283-47a620fb-9246-44c7-8994-7aa3a84e75f6