How do you book a Portland public park for your 2025 wedding? Good question. Here’s the latest information.
The five ways you can reserve a Portland park for a wedding in 2025
Going in-person to reserve a Portland park took an (obvious) hiatus during the pandemic but this option is back! It’s also the way to get a reservation earliest.
Per the City of Portland: “Reservations will be held in person from 8 a.m.-12 p.m. on Monday, January 6, [2025].”
The other options — phone, online, fax, mail — start at 1 p.m. Monday, January 6, 2025. Get details specific to each option here.
How much does it cost to rent a Portland public park for a 2025 wedding?
It depends. This is the Portland Parks and Recreation (PP&R) brochure for 2025.
Read the information about your specific park carefully; some parks require insurance, security deposits, or other extra fees such as a fee to serve alcohol in your park (an option which, notably, isn’t available in all parks).
I also highly recommend reading this FAQ from PP&R.
Things to consider about a Portland park wedding
Electricity — Not all parks have access to electricity and some that do have access require you get a key from the city to unlock said electricity access. This is important information to have if you plan to have any kind of electrically-powered anything at your wedding (most commonly, a Bluetooth-enabled speaker and/or mic).
Parking — Many of Portland’s most popular parks have limited parking because, well, they’re popular. This might be a good situation to consider a shuttle or Lyft or Uber voucher. Alternatively, simply share what parking looks like when you correspond with your guests. A wedding website, invite, or other form of guest correspondence is an efficient way to do this.
Seating — Anything you bring in has to be taken out so when we’re thinking of a park wedding, I encourage you to consider “non-traditional” seating arrangements. Perhaps we “only” offer chairs for Wedding VIPs and those for whom standing for the duration of the ceremony would be a challenge. If you go for chairs for everybody, keep in mind that, ideally, someone would be at the park to receive those chairs upon delivery and stick around until they’re picked up.
Terrain — Is your chosen park accessible to all of your guests and vendors? Are there any who may need additional assistance over rough terrain, steep inclines, etc.? A vehicle drop-off closer to the location? This could also be a good situation to assign two or three Wedding VIPs to be ushers to help people to the wedding location.
Vendors — Folks often reserve a park to save on expenses; totally fair! While you will nearly always pay less for a park than you will for a more “traditional” wedding venue, consider how many vendors you expect to work in both the ceremony and reception locations, as applicable. Some, such as a DJ, wedding coordinator, or florist, will charge more for working in more than one spot.
Weather — Beyond Covid, weather is the one thing we can’t control on a wedding day. But that doesn’t mean it’s not on your mind. Here are five ways to plan for extreme weather.
Read more about how to decide if you should get married in a public park.
Portland parks where I’ve done weddings
In my eight years as a wedding coordinator and consultant, I’ve worked at the follow PP&R parks:
I’ve also worked at these other local parks:
Want to talk more about the logistics of planning a wedding in a park? Rent my brain for an hour.