MountainGate Country Club

This wedding venue was a nightmare. Positives: The venue itself is beautiful, the food was amazing and the price was reasonable...if you're willing to deal with the venue going back on their word about everything and having absolutely no clue what they are doing... Negatives: You will want to pull your hair out by the time you are done fighting the staff to uphold your contract details. Our venue event coordinator changed a minimum of three times between the two years we had booked the venue. Each time our amazing wedding planner Samatha Hall (who we absolutely loved and could not have made it through this without) would have to put in hours catching them up to speed. Per our contract, we were allowed to use their conference room to hold all of our decor and other items 24 hours prior to the wedding. We dropped all of our items off during our rehearsal and the manager locked the room for us. The morning of our wedding my Grandmother and Aunt went to the venue to meet my florist as a favor to me. At this time the front desk woman began to yell at my grandmother to remove all the boxes from their conference room as the members needed it to take their phone calls as they weren't allowed to take calls in the restaurant. When the newest venue event coordinator heard wind of this (who mind you started 2 weeks before our wedding but was on all of our email threads and had access to our contract) went to my grandmother and instead of helping her and backing her up, also told her we needed to remove everything. This room was also rented out for the groom and groomsmen to be in prior to the wedding and for my wedding planning team and vendors to use for the night. Once my wedding coordinator arrived and settled this dispute the venue then told her I would not be allowed to walk out on the turf in my heels...an hour before my ceremony started and I was already at the site with no other shoe option. When we first signed on we were told we could not have large speakers outside to walk down the aisle but they would allow us to have a small speaker but would need an acoustic player for cocktail hour. Amplified music would then be allowed again inside for dinner and dancing. About six months before the wedding, we were told we were allowed to ONLY have acoustic players for the ceremony and cocktail hour. With the help of Samantha again, we were able to get the venue to agree to have 3 songs played on the speaker during our ceremony. Day of the wedding my DJ arrived to set up and the venue told him that he was not allowed as we are not allowed to have ANY amplified music outside or inside the venue. Luckily again Samantha was able to fight for us to get our DJ approved for setup. We also had items get broken and go missing during cleanup as staff would not allow us to double-check the outside cocktail hour if we had left anything. These are just a few hiccups we had with this venue. We absolutely loved our wedding but without our wedding planner, this wedding would have been a complete headache. Weddings are stressful enough and having staff that have no clue what is going on nor what was agreed upon in their contracts is infuriating.

I've been a member for a year and a half now and think it's a great club to join! It's really the only affordable club in LA and the course is challenging, yet fair and the facilities are top notch (newly renovated). The staff is all super nice and they've got everything from car wash and valet to locker rooms, bag storage and lessons. It's a no brainer to sign up if you're looking for a solid course that won't break the bank. I joined mainly for the golf and love the course - rounds are consistently around 4 hours 10 minutes on weekdays and much less if you go during off peak times. The course is in pretty good shape and it's really nice that there are 3 different 9 hole courses because I feel like I would get tired of playing the same 18 holes every week. They do a good job of maintaining the course but there are some weird quirks like right now during Covid, there are no sand bottles on the carts, guess they didn't get the memo 9 mos ago that covid is mainly spread through aerosols? :) I haven't found it too tough to get a tee time but it's definitely a busy course. You won't ever be out there all alone but the rounds go by pretty quickly. Another thing they could improve is keeping an eye on slow play. Some guys are just out there taking their sweet time and slowing everyone else down, it would be nice if they were more proactive here but it hasn't been a huge issue for me. But still the rounds are never longer than 4.20 or 4.30. I have yet to play tennis but the courts look nice. The food at the restaurant is pretty solid and they have an epic outdoor patio with tables, couches and firepits, all overlooking the course, mountains, etc. Pro-tip: If you're considering joining, reach out to MGCC and ask for a couple comped rounds so you can try out the course. And if you have any further q's, shoot me a message here or @therideshareguy on twitter or IG and I'll be happy to answer them for you. They do offer referral bonuses so I'm always looking to sign up my friends lol :)