How many guests do we need?

Around fifteen to twenty. Rehearsal dinners are the one private event we take below the usual thirty-guest floor — that floor would rule out most of them, and a rehearsal dinner is a smaller evening by nature. If your list is shorter than that, ask anyway.

Can we book if we are getting married somewhere else?

Yes. Plenty of the rehearsal dinners here belong to couples marrying elsewhere on the mountain or down in Lake Arrowhead. You do not need to be booking a wedding with us, and it is not a lesser booking if you are not.

What does a rehearsal dinner cost?

It is priced per person, with a 20% service charge covering the servers and the coordinator, plus sales tax. There is no separate venue rental fee. The rate depends on the evening and the menu, so tell us roughly when and roughly how many and we will send both with an exact number.

Can we serve alcohol?

Beer and wine, yes. Spirits, no — the same rule the rest of the property runs on, and part of how a venue in a residential forest community stays a good neighbor in one.

Is a Friday realistic in the summer?

Fridays go, and May through October goes first, so the earlier you come to us with a date the better. Bring a range rather than a single evening if you have one and we will tell you what is open in it.

Rehearsal dinners near Lake Arrowhead

The rehearsal dinner everyone plans last

It is the evening nobody gets to until the end, booked in the week it happens. This one is straightforward: a private park near Lake Arrowhead, yours for the night from around fifteen to twenty guests.

Dinner is cooked on the property by the family’s own restaurant. The tables are laid before the first car arrives and cleared while you are still saying goodnight.

Ask about a date See the evening

Tables set among the pines for an evening dinner at Willow Woods Park near Lake Arrowhead

What the evening is

Most of it is arranged before you ask

Set up for your dinner

Not a wedding half-dressed for the next day. The tables go where your evening needs them and come down afterward, however the following morning is being used.

The park, privately

The same ground a reception uses, for fifteen or twenty people instead of eighty. It is a lot of forest for a small party, which is most of the point.

Food from the property

LouEddie’s is fifty steps away and the same family owns both. No caterer to book, no vendor list to work through, and one fewer thing to arrange in the week of a wedding.

Almost any evening

The windows run Sunday through Thursday and Friday through Saturday, so the dinner sits wherever the weekend needs it. Summer Fridays are the ones that go first.

Round tables set for dinner under the trees at Willow Woods Park

Place settings laid on wood slab centerpieces at Willow Woods Park

Guests gathering among the trees before dinner at Willow Woods Park

Wherever you are marrying

You do not have to be getting married here

Some of the rehearsal dinners here belong to couples getting married on the other side of the mountain, or down by the lake. That is a normal booking, not a favor — the evening before a wedding still has to happen somewhere, and it is usually the part nobody has planned.

What you get is the same thing a wedding party here gets: the whole property, one coordinator running the evening, and dinner from LouEddie’s, the family’s restaurant fifty steps across the property. Most venues hand you a vendor list instead.

Ask about a date

A dessert table of cake, pastries, and doughnuts set out at Willow Woods Park

Rehearsal dinner FAQs

What hosts ask about the night before

If yours is not here, calling is usually faster than writing.

A welcome card and a candle set out on the table at Willow Woods Park

Willow Woods Park address: Willow Woods Park
28561 State Hwy 18Skyforest, CA 92385
Phone number: (909) 916-0002
Directions: Get directions

Next step

Tell us which evening

The date, roughly how many, and whether you are marrying here or somewhere else. We will come back with what is open, a menu, and an exact number. Or call (909) 916-0002, which is usually faster.

Ask about a date Other private events

String lights over the garden paths at Willow Woods Park after dark