When it comes time to pick your wedding/reception venue, we all know the choices, right? Church, hotel, charming country inn, someone’s backyard, the beach at Aruba, the local VFW hall… yeah, same old, same old. But have you ever considered your local zoo?
On a recent episode of Four Brides, one of the couples in the competition held their wedding and reception at the zoo. I was struck immediately by how charming a spot it was for celebrating. When guests arrived, they got to play at the zoo for a while before heading to the ceremony location. Once the couple had been pronounced legally spliced, the guests took a scenic tram ride to the reception area, where a giraffe peered over the wall into the festivities as if to request its own slice of wedding cake. All in all, it looked like a fun time. In fact, that’s the couple that won the honeymoon prize. I feel sure it was in significant part because of their fabulous location.
Some zoos have great entertainment and photo ops on their facilities that don’t directly involve animals, too. For instance, this is the Endangered Species carousel at the Lincoln Park Zoo:
I don’t know about you, but I think that looks like a lot of fun!
Of course not every zoo is set up for weddings. And not every zoo that is will have a package that you can afford and will be happy with. But if you’re looking for a slightly different venue, call or visit the website for your local zoo, wild animal park, or aquarium. You might just be surprised what they can do for you.
I was in a wedding at a zoo and got to feed a giraffe! The bride had cheetah-print shoes under the gown and gave all of the bridesmaids matching zebra-print tote bags to carry our stuff around in, playing off the zoo theme.
I went to a wedding on the grounds of a zoo, and though we weren’t really near the zoo proper, the couple could opt to have a couple animals brought around the reception.
They chose penguins, which although very cute, poop pretty much constantly. As I learned that day. So, you know, do your homework if you’re going for a similar thing, is all I’m saying.
We looked into doing a mini-destination wedding at a fabulous zoo a couple hours away but, alas, the catering minimum was more that our entire wedding budget! Eh, these things happen. I think zoo weddings can be fabulous 🙂