Calamigos at the LA Equestrian Center

I got married at Calamigos on Sunday, May 18 and I can't even begin to tell you how wonderful they were.

I first met with them last September and booked them almost immediately. I went to a few other places to make sure that this was the place. I remember when the rep first took me over to The Little White House, I thought, this could work. Then she took me to the Grand Prix ballroom, and I had the thought that this wasn't what I had in mind. Then we went into the Polo Room and I thought, this is out of my price range because it was just so beautiful and perfect. Low & behold, it was within my budget, especially for their Sunday prices. I was beyond excited.

During the planning process they were great with me stopping by any time I had questions or needed to see how something would work. Annah was amazing to work with. She was very patient and helpful through all of the planning.

The tasting was absolutely amazing. The food was sooooo excellent. When I was first looking at Calamigos, my best friend had recently been to a wedding there, and I asked her how the food was, because I didn't want typical wedding food. She had said that it was probably in the top 2 of all weddings she has been too (and she has been to quite a few). She wasn't lying. I loved that they let us sample everything they offer on their menu, but it made it that much harder to make a decision. We ended up with the beef tenderloin and salmon with citrus ginger sauce.

Tana was our coordinator the day of the wedding and she did a superb job. She was there with us for the rehearsal and from the time we got there to the beginning of the reception. She even cried during the ceremony! She made sure DH and I had everything we needed or wanted. I can't say enough.

Steve, the kitchen captain, was amazing for the reception. And we got nothing but compliments about the bartender. After you ordered your drink once he knew what it was the rest of the night. If he saw you coming to the bar he already was pouring the drink.

The Little White House and Polo Room were absolutely perfect and gorgeous. Everything was in bloom. It made our day perfect. I couldn't have asked for anything better.

So far we are having a great experience with this venue. I will update after the wedding in April. But I love the place. The staff has been very accomodating and the The Little White House is a great place for our ceremony and reception.

So far my experience with Calamigos Equestrian has been great! Annah has helped me out so much. My original wedding date was supposed to be last year September, but my little angel Jonas changed our plans and was born in September. Since our initial non-refundable deposits were paid, we had to postpone the wedding. Annah was able to let us move our date to May 16, 2008.

The rest of the staff is easy to talk to and work with. And the food tasting was fantastically set up for couples having their reception there.

We're having the ceremony and reception in the Equestrian Terrace and Ballroom. I'm in love with this location.

My sister had her wedding there last year on March 25th 2007. It was the Morales wedding. I say this so you can call and confirm everything I am saying , if you want to.

The site was nice. The service was horrible. I forget the names of the two coordinators there, but they are the rudest people I have ever met. I wish I could remember her name, but one was a tall blonde woman with short hair.

She policed the entire event, She walked around the room making sure that all people eating were people we paid for. She was counting plates, chairs etc. Our mariachi band sat down to eat (it was a buffet) and the coordinator decided that we had not paid for them (we had, but there was a miscommunication) she would take their food. She literally snatched plates from under their noses and dumped them in the trash. This was in front of our guests. This was only the tip of the iceberg.

We paid for open bar, paid for by the hour, they ran out of alcohol and were rude about it. One bartender actually swung an empty bottle in front of myself and a guest and said - "sorry no more" and laughed about it with the other bartender.

There was no DOC that day, so I was the point of contact throughout the day. They definitely tried to make myself and our guests feel like we didn't belong.

We were so thrilled to find the L.A. Equestrian Center. Their "Equestrian Room" and its adjacent garden proved to be the perfect ceremony/reception site one-two punch. The staff was so incredibly gracious, the food was excellent (despite it being just okay when we went for our tasting. phew!). The room decor was classy and the ceremony area was just gorgeous. Highly recommended!

We had our ceremony at the Little White House and our reception at the Polo Room. As far as location, we couldn't have been more pleased. We also loved working with Deirdre and Annah during the booking and planning process - they were both top notch.

We were a little worried becuase our rehearsal was a little rocky (read: disorganized), but the ceremony went off without a hitch and it was just fantastic. The food at the reception was very good (especially for banquet food), but there was no one at Calamigos responsible for releasing the tables for the buffet, so that got a little hectic. If I had known in advance that no one was going to be in charge at the reception, I would have made a plan for doing so instead of leaving it up to the band (who knew zilch about the seating arrangement).

Note to brides: when they say "day of coordinator", they mean "ceremony coordinator". There is no point of contact at the reception. This would not have been a problem except for the temperature in the Polo Room, which got really hot after dinner when the dancing started. My MOH tried to talk to someone about it, and was told that they "TURNED THE AIR CONDITIONING OFF because one our guests opened up a door to the patio". She told him to turn it back on, and we had the band make an announcement to please keep the doors closed, but the room never really got comfortable again. Many of our guests left early becuase of the heat, which was very disappointing. Given the cost per head, I would have expected the AC to have been on full blast all night long. We were also disappointed that the kitchen cut the "spare" sheet cake first instead of our tiered wedding cake, leaving most of our large bottom layer left over at the end of the night, which was awkward.

I don't mean to suggest that we had a bad experience; we didn't. I look back on our ceremony and reception fondly and would recommend Calamigos. I just wanted to share some parts of our experience so that other brides could be mindful of these issues & make requests in advance accordingly (i.e. keep the AC on no matter what, unlock the doors to the patio so guests don't have to prop them open, cut my wedding cake first, release the tables in this order, get the information about the major players before the day of the rehearsal, etc.) Good luck everyone!

Let me start off by saying that Calamigos is a beautiful property. We had looked at a lot of places in our price range, but Calamigos is the one that had the look that we liked. It has a big park/garden feel to it. We had our ceremony at the Little White House and had our reception at the Grand Prix Ballroom. We had about 160 guests. Annah and Robin were the two people we talked with the most when renting the place and they were professional. Although they provide a coordinator for you when you rent the facility, we hired our own coordinators and they dealt with Calamigos for us after the intial renting process.

The only thing that was frustrating was that there were a lot of surprises on the day of the wedding. My coordinators had sent them a lot of information on the schedule that we wanted, but on the wedding day, we were told that the ceremony had to start at 6:30p, even though, IN OUR CONTRACT, we had the Little White House starting at 6:00p and had sent out all of the invitations SAYING that the wedding would be at 6:00p because that is what the contract said. I still don't really understand why we had to start at 6:30p. It had something to do with our reception having to start at 7:00p and them not wanting the guests at the ballroom a second before 7:00p. They have a certain way they do things (that they don't disclose until the actual day, in contravention of the language of the contract) and they are not compromising or accommodating. I would highly recommend getting a coordinator of your own to help look over the contract and make sure that things get done the way you want them.

The venue itself was actually very nice. The food was delicious, the service was great. It really is a night I will always remember.

My rating and review may change after March 22, 2008... cause that's the day I get married at Calamigos! But so far the location seems perfect. The staff seems great and have so far been very good. They respond to my questions almost immediately through email or over the phone. The food was also great at our tasting. The property itself is very beautiful, we're getting married at their Little White House which is a beautiful outdoor area and then moving into the Grand Prix Ballroom. It's a beautiful setting and room, we're so excited!

*** UPDATE Post Wedding *** Calamigos was great! The food was good, everything went smoothly. I would recommend making sure appetizers are brought to the bride and groom and wedding party, if you aren't in the reception hall for food already. You're paying per person for appetizers, including yourself and the wedding party, so make sure someone brings you some food! That's about it. Otherwise it was great!

The Equestrian Center is a great place to have a wedding! We just had our ceremony and reception there at the Little White House and Polo Room. They are very reasonably priced and the location is beautiful! The staff is very professional and accomodating. The food was phenomenal.

We were asked to rate Calamigos in each of the following areas:

1. Quality of Food: We had a BLAST at our menu tasting, and all of the food was absolutely delicious. My husband is a Chef, so I was a bit worried that he would be very finicky, but at the end of the evening, we had some very difficult decisions to make. We were extremely happy with our menu selections, and many of our guests were extremely complimentary of the cuisine for the evening!

2. Beverage Service: I wish that we would have had more opportunity to sample more of the beverage service, but we did get excellent feedback from many of our guests.

3. Event Space: The Little White House and The Grand Prix Room were absolutely beautiful and I only use the word “perfect” when I mean it. The venue was indeed, perfect.

4. Wedding Coordinator(s) : Robin met with us and showed us the facilities on our initial tour of the facilities, and going into our appointment, we really didn’t expect to make our decision so quickly. Robin was such a professional in her mannerism and her showing of the various wedding sites. She made our decision very easy, and I really appreciated her no-pressure style. Tannah, as my Bridal Assistant was an absolute pleasure to work with. She was impeccably helpful during our rehearsal and even though our rehearsal was running late (due to the rehearsal before us having half their wedding party held up with multiple cancelled airline flights) she handled the situation like a pro in directing and keeping our wedding party informed as she worked between two different parties.

5. Sales Directors Annah was always very responsive to my many questions during our planning stages, and although we played a lot of phone tag, I appreciated that she always left very detailed and explicit phone messages so that I didn’t have any question after listening to her message!

Overall Rating of Event: We would not have done anything differently!! Our Wedding was absolutely amazing and we have the staff at Calamigos to thank for an exquisite evening. Annah, Robin, Tannah, and Roselle, were all so friendly and easy to work with. They all helped to make our dream wedding flow like we could never even imagine