Before we begin, please note that I am not in the business of telling anyone what they should or shouldn’t do when it comes to their wedding.
I’ll spare you all the “it’s your day!” sentimentality for which you may already have built up a resistance and instead just tell you the truth, based on my years as a professional wedding coordinator: It doesn’t matter what I think because this is your wedding, not mine.
But this stance, I realize, is exactly negative ten percent helpful if you have a pressing question like, “Yeah but where should we get married tho?” so, that in mind, here’s my take on whether your should get married in a public park.
You should get married in a public park if…
Budget is paramount. This one feels weird because, really, who doesn’t care about saving money but still, there’s “we want to spend $500 and that’s final” and “we’re OK to spend $5,000 it’s fine.”
Public parks are cheap. The couples whom I’ve worked with that booked a park usually paid somewhere between $750 and $900. (This is for parks in major Northwestern cities so adapt the numbers accordingly for your locale.)
Nearly $1,000 is still a huge chunk of change but it’s a far cry from the $5,000, $10,000, $15,000 that you will likely find at venues that regularly host weddings. That said, those venues do offer other benefits in exchange that a park won’t have. I go into those more in the “You should not…” section below but a quick list: a roof, indoor plumbing, chairs.
So think about it. If saving money on the venue allows you and your fiancé(e) to put your money toward something you care about more (handy list provided here), go for it. It’ll be hard to beat the price of renting a public park.The park means something special to you two. People get married in parks for a variety of reasons but one of the most common is, “We love this place.” It’s hard to argue with that logic when you’ve spent the past three years of your relationship taking an after-dinner walk through the rose garden where you’ll now be exchanging your vows.
Nature. This is not a plus to me but I’m also a Northwesterner who doesn’t own flannel. Maybe you two love nature? Parks are a nice way to have nature without requiring Grandma to hike to the ceremony. Also, parks are pretty and usually don’t require a lot of dolling up to look nice.
You should not get married in a public park if…
The thought of rain terrifies you. Weather. It happens and it’s one of the very few things that I can’t control as a wedding coordinator. You can’t either and with climate change, an almanac will only get you so far.
If the thought of rain on your wedding day stops you cold, do not get married in a public park. Perhaps don’t get married outside at all though at least when your venue isn’t a public park, you can more easily set-up a canopy or tent. This option isn’t as straightforward when you’re getting married in a public park where you’ll need to run everything by the parks department.You’re afraid of a little extra work. What you save on rental fees, you often make up for in the extra legwork that a park requires. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing but just know, if you get married in a public park, you will be responsible for arranging any chairs/benches/tables, setting up and cleaning up any decorations, and getting any keys from the parks department that open gates, boxes for the DJ to plug in to electricity, etc.
A quick addendum to those last two points: When it comes to cleaning up at a park, the rule of thumb is you can’t leave anything behind.
One of my most vivid memories as a coordinator is spending two hours kneeling on gravel as I picked up individual rose petals so the couple wouldn’t get charged by any angry parks department who insisted that all petals be picked up.
This is an extreme example (and if I was to do it again, I’d bring a broom) but the lesson still applies: Someone will need to make sure that the park looks like a park when the wedding is done. If you hire a coordinator, it will likely be this person (though always double-check). It can also be a helpful guest, a good friend, a teenaged child of your coworker in marketing. You get the idea.
This type of work — taking your stuff, paying for rentals, etc. — usually still applies if you book a non-park venue but other parts don’t. For example, a venue that often does weddings usually has a staff member onsite (perhaps called “the venue coordinator”) who will unlock doors, turn on heat, and restock toilet paper so you don’t have to. The same isn’t true at a park, which is why you pay for it at not-park.You expect the park rangers to be at your beck and call. I work primarily in Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington, and after doing nearly a dozen park weddings in both cities, I’ve yet to meet a single park ranger.
This was only a problem once. A homeless gentleman was quietly and politely napping near the stairs where, in about an hour, the couple was due to walk down the aisle. Honestly, he wasn’t bugging anyone and also sleeping behind a low wall but I knew the couple wasn’t thrilled and so I called the support line for Parks and Rec.
Voicemail.
I tried another number.
Voicemail.
It was a Saturday (duh because weddings) and the office was closed.
Eventually, I called the city’s non-emergency line. I’ll spare you the horrifically embarrassing exchange that followed and suffice it to say that if you’re expecting the parks department to be on-call when you’re getting married, think again.
Like I said, this shouldn’t be a problem. I’ve only needed a ranger once and even then, the problem resolved itself. (The gentleman in question woke up and politely walked away.) But still, know that when you book a park, you are doing that: Booking a park, not a staff.
And that’s it. That’s all there is to decide. Whatever you and your fiancé(e) pick will be the right choice. Be it park, farm, backyard, boat, or anything in-between, it’ll be the right choice because you made it, together.