JS
Google
A few years back, two of my dearest friends were planning their wedding. Like many other folks, their wedding plans were derailed by the pandemic, and they ended up having to cancel their mostly planned wedding in Sedona in favor of a ceremony with just the two of them and their officiant. Not what they had in mind, but there was a consolation - a planned celebration with a close knit community of friends post-pandemic.
Prior to the pandemic, I stayed at oz farm with a few therapist friends as a little retreat since one of them was personal friends with dean. At the time, I really felt oz farm was a magical place, with its old growth redwoods, functioning organic farm, history and quirky dwellings. Dean was warm and kind.
Based on this experience, I recommended that my friends look into holding their celebratory post-wedding friend gathering at oz farm, and after checking out the property and meeting dean and his (ex?) girlfriend who ran the farm at the time, they felt it was the perfect place.
Flash forward to the week of their celebration. After paying the multi thousand dollar venue fee for said celebration at oz farm, and as furniture vendors are delivering furniture to oz farm for said celebration, my friends received an irate phone call from dean and his girlfriend. They believed that my friends were indeed attempting to hold a wedding ceremony, and attempted to shake them down for several additional thousands of dollars (the difference between their fee for a celebration and for a wedding - those familiar with the wedding industrial complex are already familiar with these kinds of opportunistic price gouging scams).
This approach was of course, deeply upsetting to my friends, who had already been through the wringer financially, logistically and emotionally with the planning of their wedding and wedding ceremony and now, with the planning of their post-wedding friend celebration? It makes me sick to my stomach how quickly my opinion of dean and oz farm changed. It was beyond disappointing. It was heartbreaking.
Fortunately, my friends are scrappy. We’re burners, and so with two days lead time, we were able to recreate the entire celebration at Cosmo’s camp in ukiah through hip camp. And guess what? It was a magical time.
I tell this story because it’s important to me to tell the truth, because you, the consumer deserve to know and also because Oz earned this review. They never did anything to make amends.
They sell their apples at birite, too. And I can’t even bring myself to buy their produce. Super sad.
