New England Aquarium

ey work exclusively with the Patina Group for catering, and this company is a disaster. I’ll spare the internet the full details, but the short of it is this: They deferred our requests to schedule our tasting dinner until four weeks before the wedding (which was in mid October). The day after we finally had it and firmed up our menu, they emailed to let us know us know that they were increasing our contract cost by $10,000, or a full 33% of the original cost. Again, they did this four weeks before our wedding, with no forewarning, in a breezy 3 line email that referred vaguely to “unexpected price increases.” Notably, the increases were mostly associated with labor costs and managerial fee mark-ups, not food costs based in our selections at the dinner. We were blindsided. When we protested, they told us they would “work with us.” This largely consisted of leveraging the fact that we had fewer guests attending than originally estimated and also revising the number of hors d’oeuvres served down to 2/3rds of our guest count— because why should we want there to be enough for everyone? They also told us that we were the only couple to complain about a last-minute price hike in our contract, as if we were in the wrong. (Mind you, when I told people about the increase, the most common response was an astonished, “Is that legal?” ) To make matters worse, the night of our wedding, the service was a mess. They carved the wrong name for me into a decorative watermelon accompanying a flavored water station set out for guests before the ceremony; they repeatedly ignored our requests to open the sides of the reception tent (we wanted to minimize chances of COVID transmission and had discussed this explicitly days before the wedding, and then repeated it day of); they forgot to set aside wedding cake slices for me and my husband, so that we didn’t get any; they neglected to set out our wedding favors until all but the final guests remained, so lots of guests didn’t get them after we spent hours curating and copying a customized playlist onto 130 thumbs drives. The whole thing was disorganized, impersonal, and seemed sort of thrown together. We felt disappointed and taken advantage of, which was a real bummer because we love the aquarium and their staff members were great. If anything, I would just strongly urge the aquarium to consider dropping their exclusive contract with Patina and allow couples to explore other vendors. I’m sure there are lots of great local groups to work with. As it stands, with Patina as the only caterer/ event mgmt group to contract with, I sadly can’t recommend having a wedding at the aquarium.

azing as possible.

ing company) was wonderful about answering my questions and tweaking some menu items to fit our preferences (I do not eat pork/shellfish). She was very pleasant to work with especially on the day of the reception, and kept everything running smoothly.

uth Terrace area for cocktail hour and it was magical with the sunset and breeze! The tent right on the Boston Harbor is one of, if not the best, location in Boston for a wedding. You can't get any closer to the water than that! Our guests also loved having access to the Aquarium for the entire evening. Thank you to all the staff and amazing vendors for making our dream wedding come to life!

ould recommend 100 times over. I also love that they stay committed to sustainable fishing so the food choices are dependent on what's available. An environmentally responsible vendor.

ight feel differently however after having the unique experience of working closely with two venues, there are places that do it better. My husband and I were supposed to have our June 2020 wedding at the aquarium and rescheduled it for June of 2021. We reached out to the aquarium in January of 2021 to let them know that regardless of the status with Covid, we did not want to postpone again and were going to move ahead with our June date no matter what that looked like (limited capacity, etc). As the wedding approached in the spring, they never reached out to us. Even as government phases started to roll out, it was always us reaching out to them and getting a response maybe a week later; they never reached out to us and never replied in a timely manner. Fast forward to April and it's go time! We needed answers and to start reaching out to our guests and they were still like "we have time, we'll figure it out." Very wishy washy. We were about 60 days out from the wedding and had a conference call with them where they only had answers to about 50% of our questions. I understand a pandemic is unchartered territory for all of us and we are all just trying to do out best, but it seemed like the topics we were bringing up were things they hadn't even thought about, yet they are the event experts (I should say that actually the catering and planning is through a partner company called the Patina Group, which is where most of my frustration is directed). For example, a covid restriction was supposedly that we couldn't have a live singer in Boston but we already had a contract with a band. The aquarium/Patina Group just choose to say "no" instead of offering solutions. Meanwhile, our band and other vendors were bending over backwards to come up with solutions that worked in a covid world. 50 days out from the wedding we still didn't have answers from them on many of our questions, and their entire team was on vacation. Odd. Finally at about day 45 out from the wedding we changed to a different venue. Our new venue immediately started scheduling calls with us, and would answer any of our questions within 24 hours, because they are event experts and understand it's go time when you are within 45 days of a wedding. The aquarium would be an absolutely iconic place to hold and event, and I'm bummed it couldn't work out. However, my in depth experience with both venues was a night and day difference. The aquarium/Patina Group added stress when they should have been relieving it. I'm sure they run beautiful events if there are no wrenches thrown into plans, but they are not solution oriented or responsive if you need to make a Plan B.

the ceremony, reception, and cocktail hour all inside NEAQ. It was so fun and unique to host everything inside the building with the penguins as extra wedding guests! I cannot stress enough how easy it was to plan our wedding NEAQ wedding coordinator, Kelcee. She knew everything there was to know about all of the options the aquarium can offer to make your wedding go off without a hitch. We had a lot of questions about pretty much everything wedding related and Kelcee listened to our vision the entire time and helped make the event come to life! NEAQ understood our vision and executed it seamlessly so that we could fully enjoy the entire night with our guests. We were so not stressed on the day of the wedding that we were about to truly be present in the moment. If we had to do it again I would hands down choose the aquarium every time! Our wedding day will be a day that we never forget and we are so thankful to the aquarium for providing such a unique and memorable venue and easy to work with staff to help us really bring our day to life. 10/10 would recommend to anyone and everyone looking for a wedding venue!

ts were blown away by the entire experience — it was a huge hit! The NEA event planning staff came ready to help plan and were always available when I needed them. They made it easy for me to make decisions and were flexible with payments. Overall, we would enthusiastically recommend having your wedding at NEA (and kissing a seal while you’re at it!)

xplore the aquarium at night. The tent allows for a lot of areas for personal touches. In terms of communications, Della did a fantastic job in the sales process. There was a slight change of personnel in between us signing and our wedding which led to a couple of minor communication hiccups. Overall though we were very pleased with the level of service and support we’ve received from Erin in the lead up to the wedding. The food is fantastic for wedding standards and honestly would still be very good for a restaurant standard. The service during the event was impeccable and very attentive. A couple of things to note that you should consider before going with this venue: your wedding day will be fairly packed if you try to have both ceremony and reception at the venue (earliest start is 6 PM on a Saturday and end by midnight). Also consider there is a public walkway behind the area where the ceremony takes place (i.e. make sure you have ushers on docket to help move people along; the NEA staff is not legally allowed to do so). Besides this, we loved everything about this place and would gladly do our wedding there again.

emony on the back pier just before sunset. There were a few passing boat noises during our ceremony, but for us, was good to help cut the tension and add some giggles. We had perfect weather for our reception in the big pier tent, not too hot with the nice ocean breeze at the end of July. We opted for station meals and our guests commented that they really enjoyed the food. We arranged for just a few lantern lights on ceiling and uplighting in the tent with Groove Events and are happy we did because it looked really great (especially in photos). We did have a little stress in the weeks leading to our event with 3 rapid coordinator changes, however, the staff really pulled together for the night of and we are thankful for their attention to our every need. We only wish we could have celebrated longer, but that is a sign of a good wedding!

tanding on the spiral around the Giant Ocean Tank. They really made us feel like stars. Our whole wedding planning experience with NEAQ was amazing. They provide an event coordinator. Ours, Tie, guided us the whole way through. She arranged nights for our private food and wine tasting and a separate night, at our request, for a sound check of their audio system when we started to freak out about getting a DJ or not. She answered all of our questions in a timely and friendly manner and worked closely with our own wedding planner to arrange all of the crazy details we came up with. She provided complimentary parking for all of our appointments. On the day of our wedding, Tie also had her staff to help set up our centerpieces which was above and beyond (normally a separate vendor would do that). The wedding night itself was magical. The staff was extensive and all very professional (wait staff, servers, bar tenders, our 2 roaming educators, security, and everyone behind the scenes). All of the floors were open to our guests to enjoy the exhibits, and the bars were opened on each floor as the night progressed, which was excellent given the size of the venue. We kept the touch tank open and staffed during cocktail hour. The food was incredible, especially the salmon. They accommodated all special requests for allergies (vegetarian and gluten free). Our guests raved about the food. Surrounded by penguins, we danced the night away. NEAQ has everything you need for a wedding (well actually, for any event) and if they themselves don't handle it, they have preferred vendors for everything else. We didn't have to think about renting tables, chairs, dinnerware, etc; it was all included. The couples' night tasting happened about 2 months before our big day. All of the details that we stressed out about and/or didn't get around to, we found answers to that night. Yes, we hired the DJ, who was DJ'ing for the couples' night. We also went with their preferred limo company and rented 2 busses. Phew! If you want to experience what an evening event could look like, get tickets for the NEAQ Valentine's Day event, "That's A-Moray" which is also when the proposal happened (2018) and our engagement photos (2019).  The overall cost for having NEAQ as our ceremony site and catered reception was on-par with other venues we looked at. NEAQ captured our heart, and we are so glad to get married there. Every time we visit, we remember our wedding day all over again. We would do it again in a heart beat! (This review was written together by both the bride and the groom. We are both very happy with NEAQ.)

he day of. My ceremony coordinator was fantastic and my bridal attendant made the night so easy for me. There was some coordinator turnover during our planning process that required extra/repetitive communication, but I was very happy with the product I received, not to mention just how beautiful and unique the venue itself is.

cial cocktails and did not go light on the booze :-D Also during the day they had a waiter just for us who made sure we did not have to worry about anything! I will say there was some confusion on the day involving the food. Everything was delicious however there seemed to be some mixups around the appetizers we picked out and one of the entrees was significantly different from the tasting. While that was frustrating they did acknowledge the issue and worked with us to try and make it right. That aside we are really with the process and the evening overall!

nd it was a really unique venue.

one of our needs. Kelcee in particular made sure that everything that night went great. We couldnt have been happier choosing the Aquarium to host our wedding and definitely recommend it to everyone!

throughout the twists and turns of our planning, including adapting to the rain plan when a summer shower was identified for the hour of our ceremony. (getting married amidst the penguins was so memorable!) The food was amazing; we also received many complements from our guests there. And the pictures! We got some awesome images unlikely any of our friends' wedding pictures given how special and different NEAQ is. If only we could do it all over again! :) Thank you, NEAQ team!! (Erin, Della, and Tie in particular)

e, the Catering Manager. She was thorough and detail oriented which I definitely appreciated. Everything was delivered exactly as promised, I couldn't have asked for a better experience!

enguins that can't be replicated. I cannot thank Erin enough for going along with my crazy, random, ideas and setting up all of my decorations: mermaids, lobsters, pirate ships, treasure chests, vinyl records, disposable cameras- she met with me once, and set it up perfectly! The food was absolutely delicious and every single person that worked the wedding was so attentive and friendly. The incredible views was an added bonus! If you are looking for a unique venue that gives your guests an enjoyable experience, I can't recommend the New England Aquarium enough!

a family member with a health issue which I will forever be grateful for them for being so kind on this special day to make things easier. Specially Cynthia who was constantly in communication with my planner and myself over every detail . Thank you to the Aquarium I wouldn’t have changed a thing

the seals and fish down to the guac bar we had at the cocktail hour and the stations for dinner. A month later we are still having friends and family tell us how much fun they had. The aquarium has this down to a science and you will not regret getting married here. We went with mostly the preferred vendors and are happy we went that route! They know the aquarium inside and out, which helps especially with the flowers (there is a list of flower types you can have!). The tent is spacious and our guests did not feel on top of one another, even though we had close to 200 guests. I cannot thank The New England Aquarium enough for making my dream wedding come true. My husband and I are so thankful for their team and for everything they did!

planner and coordinator; we felt like we were friends with her from the second we met her. She helped us plan our perfect day and was incredibly well organized. Our ceremony was on the back patio outside and we were so lucky to get perfect weather. Tie made sure everything went off without a hitch and she made it so I didn’t have to worry about any of the logistical details (which I normally worry about!). Our guests loved the atmosphere of the aquarium and had a great time inside at the cocktail hour. Our reception was out back in the tent and it was a dream come true. Tie helped us stay on track so we accomplished all the major things we had to accomplish and didn’t leave until everything was taken care of. She answered all of our many questions during the planning process and was always prompt and clear. The space was gorgeous and far surpassed our expectations, and Tie was a dream to work with. Five stars just aren’t enough. Thank you so so much!

t have to worry about a thing. The team also set up the venue beautifully. We received endless comments about how much fun guests had - cocktail hour in the aquarium was a hit. Very happy with our choice and very appreciative that we had such a great team at the Aquarium helping us from day 1.

alism. She interfaced with all the other wedding vendors and made sure everything was very organized. The Aquarium was beautiful, the food was delicious, and all our guests are still raving about this unique venue. In addition, we had lots of little guests and they had a ball as well.

pieces, signs, random decorations and stuff for a taffy bar. I gave Tiesha (the social catering manager) little to no direction on how to set it up and everything came out amazing. She came up with creative ways to use all our decorations. We got lucky and had nice weather so had the ceremony on the harbor walk and got the best sunset. After cocktail hour the guest raved about the venue and how unique it was. As well as how nice it was to have the whole aquarium just for the wedding guest. After dinner I even had one guest tell me the steak dish was the best wedding food they have ever had. I would recommend this venue to anyone! It’s amazing how much adults love running around the aquarium with just themselves :).

e start. She was so responsive, she honestly made us feel like we were the only couple she worked with. From the food, to reviewing the space, to rentals, to day-of execution, everything was perfect. I was so anxious about the weather on the day of (we were supposed to have our ceremony outside) and Tie texted me throughout the day about how things were looking. I felt so much better about everything knowing we were in such good hands and, ultimately, the weather ended up being perfect! The whole night was just absolutely flawless. Guests still text me about how good the food was (I wish I had eaten more than two bites that evening!) but I'm so so grateful for the NEAQ team. The venue is simply stunning and we couldn't have asked for a more perfect evening. Thank you, thank you NEAQ for making our day so special!!