4.5 out of 5 stars and 35 reviews
4.5
(35)Best of Weddings (2x).3201 Rickenbacker Causeway, Key Biscayne, FL
300+ guest capacity
This venue can host 300+ guests
About this vendor
The most sought after wedding location in South Florida, with a dazzling view of Biscayne Bay.
Against the backdrop of the alluring Miami skyline, The Rusty Pelican is the perfect spot for your wedding and reception. Accommodating up to 1,000 guests.
Amenities + details
Handicap Accessible
Indoor Event Space
Reception Area
Covered Outdoors Space
Dressing Room
Liability Insurance
On-Site Accommodations
Outdoor Event Space
Wireless Internet
Guest Capacity
- 300+
Settings
- Ballroom
- Beach
- Waterfront
- Restaurant
Venue Service Offerings
- Bar & Drinks
- Cakes & Desserts
- Food & Catering
- Planning
- Rentals & Equipment
- Service Staff
Awards and Affiliations
Reviews
Your trust is our goal. Our community relies on honest reviews to help you make those big decisions with ease.
4.5
out of 5.035 reviews
Review photos
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Absolutely amazing!!! Words cannot express how happy and satisfied we are. We had our small (44 guests) wedding ceremony and reception at the Rusty Pelican, everything went as perfectly as I could have imagined. We worked with Jordan Babcock as our coordinator and Alberto as our banquet captain. The team was fantastic! Any time we had a question or a concern leading up to our wedding day, they answered within 24 hours. On the day of our wedding there was always someone available. The reception was beautiful, We chose from their preferred vendor list Nevot Flower Designs and can’t stop looking at the beautiful flower’s arrangement stunning!! The wedding cake by Todo Dulce (Everything Sweet) it was amazing, and we love it. For the cake, we could not choose better - also from their vendor list. It is a true pleasure to meet with professionals that love what they do and were willing to work with the bride and make her feel very special.
the food was also delicious! Complements to the chef. Our guests couldn't stop complimenting the delicious food served at the reception. Could not be happier with their excellent service. We had the Pelican room, the best panorama view Miami Skyline from the sunset to the night view stunning!!! We are so grateful for the memories created at The Rusty Pelican that we will cherish for a lifetime. This was the best night of our lives and the best decision of our lives to host our wedding here at The Rusty Pelican. Thank you to the staff for being so incredible and for making our entire wedding experience one we will never forget. Cheers!
The venue is beautiful but DON’T have your ceremony there and DON’T book them if your wedding is less than 200 people. It’s very noisy on the ceremony area with lots of boats sailing by with loud music. And they divide and double book the reception space if you have less than 200 guests. The result is terrible. You hear the noise and music through the thin divider and you may even get guests from the other event going into yours! We had no warning from them about this and it was shocking.
You won't find a better wedding venue in Miami! Everything from the view, to the food, the space, the staff and everything in between is perfect. Jordan was amazing to work with - so quick to respond, flexible and patient.
Bridgett was super helpful and made sure everything went smooth. Great views amazing food highly recommend!!
I had my wedding reception at the Rusty Pelican Grand Ballroom earlier this year. From the beginning stages of planning to the day of event, Jordan Babcock on the events team was fantastic to work with. She was super responsive, gave great advice, and was very on-hands and professional. All of the banquet staff were wonderful, and the food was DELISH. Our guests were raving about everything! And lastly- the space and views are the best in Miami. The sunset and the night lights from the skyline were a stunning backdrop. I highly recommend having your wedding, or any other event, at the Rusty Pelican!
We had our wedding at the Rusty Pelican on 3/25. Our guests kept coming up to us and telling us how gorgeous the venue is and that they had never been to a wedding where the ceremony was so close to the water! The views are incredible, the staff is amazing, the room is beautiful, and the food is delicious! The hotels nearby are also so convenient for guests and for getting ready. It was such an amazing experience.
The most gorgeous venue with the best views! Not only was the place beautiful, the food is delicious and the staff is amazing. Jordan was great to work with and always made me feel comfortable and made me laugh throughout the planning process. On the day of the wedding, the staff were impeccable. Everything was more perfect than I could have even imagined. It’s also very reasonably priced compared to other wedding venues and 100% worth it. 10/10 recommend!!!
This venue is definitely 5 stars. The food, the view, everything about this place is top notch. Jennie helped us plan our daughter's wedding reception and I cannot say enough great things about her. The service was also perfect - waiter and bartenders! Thank you Rusty Pelican!!!!!
We hosted our daughter's wedding on Feb 12, 2022 at the Rusty Pelican Miami and could not be happier! The event was in the grand ballroom with the most spectacular views of Miami you will ever see. We used their beautiful terrace for cocktail hour and our guests were all amazed with the atmosphere! We had a fabulous sit down dinner of filet and sea bass and everything from the drinks to the food and service were top shelf!! It was wonderful working with Jennie Franco and her team and we will never forget this magical day for our family and friends! We highly recommend this venue for a special event. We also went back the next day for lunch in their dining room! Same great experience with breathtaking views, great drinks and food! If you have never been, you must go and check it out next time you are in Miami!
If you are looking for a beautiful venue with great food, amazing service, and a team who cares, don't bother looking anywhere else. The Rusty Pelican will give you that and so much more!
I can't say enough about the Rusty Pelican! My wedding was supposed to be in May 2020 and after a postponement and cancellation, we thought we'd never get the wedding we wanted. But Brigette and her team were amazing and because of them (and that water view!) we brought our destination wedding back to Miami in June 2021.
The beauty of this venue left our guests speechless. After seeing the venue, eating the food, and experiencing the Rusty Pelican's amazing service, my guests continue to applaud our decision to wait and have the wedding of our dreams at the Rusty Pelican instead of scrapping our plans for a smaller hometown wedding. In their words, it was worth the wait!!
Our day-of captains Joel and Carlos were amazing! When your captain helps you with your shoes, grabs your lipstick from your purse and makes sure you have eaten before dancing all night, you know you are in good hands! I just felt so comfortable with them all and the Rusty Pelican team went out of their way to make sure we had a great experience.
Everything was great! Reasonable prices and they served plenty of good food. Beautiful view of the water. Highly recommended.
The Rusty Pelican was the perfect venue for our summer wedding. While we were really hoping to have an outdoor wedding, it's not practical in South Florida during the summer. However, the Rusty Pelican proved to be the perfect solution! We held our cocktail hour on the terrace and enjoyed the beautiful view of the city (our guests could not stop talking about the view and it was a great photo op!) while enjoying tasty cocktails and appetizers. We are seriously blown away by how beautiful the ballroom looked and all the staff that night was gracious and made us feel so special and supported. Also, the food (we served salmon and short rib) was absolutely delicious. However, we do have to give The Rusty Pelican 4 stars due to inconsistent communication throughout the planning process. For example, it was not always easy to get a hold of Jennie and Ryan. It was apparently, though, that our event was the priority the week leading up to the wedding. Therefore, all in all, it was a small inconvenience compared to the amazing result. We are so happy with our choice in venue and would definitely recommend it to anyone!
We had our wedding at the Rusty Pelican 3 weeks ago and we couldn’t be happier. We had the ceremony at the East Patio and a brunch in the coral room for 35 guests. Everything went really well, food was great, everybody was really happy. Nancy helped us with the organization and took care of every detail in a super professional way!!
Simply, a more perfect venue does not exist! I cannot even begin to describe how breathtaking this location is. In addition to this, the service is beyond anything you can imagine. It was an absolute pleasure to work with Brigette in planning our special day. She was professional, quick to respond to any of our questions/concerns, and made the experience of planning a wedding a stress-free one. The RP's day of experience was a pleasant surprise to me! From the moment I arrived on site, I was escorted to the bridal suite where awaiting me was champagne! From there, I was accompanied by the amazing Mario who was attentive to my every need. After the ceremony, my husband and I were escorted to the ballroom to see the culmination of months of planning. Mario also made sure that we were happy, fed, and with a full glass of champagne at all times. The Rusty Pelican knows how to make your special day everything it should be and more.
I am so thankful that we were able to have our wedding at The Rusty Pelican. It made all my dreams come true! We are thankful to the staff and to all of the vendors that came together to make this happen. I would recommend this venue hands down. I have not stopped receiving compliments on the food and the service! If you have the chance to have your event here, do so!
There are no words for how amazing this venue is! The staff and service was exceptional, the view of the ballroom was gorgeous, the food was delicious. They truly made our wedding a dream come true!
The past month I had a wonderful opportunity to film an emotional and intimate, but exceptional wedding at the Rusty Pelican. And I will admit after filming weddings for a while now I thought nothing could surprise me. I was, however, gladly mistaken! Rusty Pelican blew my mind away with breathtaking waterfront views of Miami framed by spectacular floor to ceiling glass windows, modern and chic décor, tufted and elegant furniture, and extravagant chandeliers and light fixtures it was a true fairy tale setting for a lovely couple, who had the best day of their lives! I am extremely happy to add Rusty Pelican to one of my most loved venues as it is a true Florida gem and a must for your perfect day! RIMAS FILMS cannot recommend Rusty Pelican highly enough!
If you would like to see the video:
https://www.facebook.com/rimasfilms/videos/483137168697215/
The team at The Rusty Pelican did a great job for our ceremony and reception and I'm happy to provide this review and recommendation. The venue location is incredible. Great locations around the property for pictures of the skyline. The event space upstairs is clean, well lit, comfortable. They can accommodate ceremonies on the covered terrace outside as they did for our wedding and the event space inside can accommodate small events and large. The service level by the wait staff was great. The food and drink packages are great and the menu options are all wonderful. Hats off to Ana Maria Martinez, Nancy Moore, and Alan for making our wedding ceremony and reception great.
The venue was beautiful.Has really nice views of the city. The food was great too.
Dream come true wedding! Stacey and her team were amazing. From our first meeting, Stacey guided us through the process. She was always available to answer our questions and willing to help. For the night of, we had requested a quick service of the dinner in order to start the party early and they delivered! The entire night went seamlessly all thanks to the staff. Wish we can live the night all over again!
We celebrated our wedding with a brunch at Rusty Pelican and couldn't be more pleased with the way this turned out. The service staff was outstanding the day of the wedding as well as all the managing staff communicating with us the days prior. The set up turned out gorgeous and the staff was easy to work with. We couldn't recommend them any higher!
Ana Maria was great to work with right up until the day of the wedding. The rest of the staff had a lot to be desired. Shall we start with the fact that we had to ask several times to have the bathrooms cleaned. We were running late from the ceremony so we agreed to open the doors to the reception a little early so maybe we were 5 minutes behind. It then took them more than 20 minutes after we requested that they serve the salads for it to be done. We were serving a duet dish and had told them ahead of time which tables had exceptions. Rather than asking who had the exceptions they started asking each guest what they were having - there was not a choice to be asked. Rolls appeared to only be served to those people that were sitting at the time they were served. My husband (the one paying for the event) was supposed to get a plate of double beef and was told by the waiter that the chef said no. It was not until he got angry with the waiter did he get what was ordered. In addition, it was in our contract to have the outside area turned over after the ceremony with tables and chairs. When we asked if this was being done we were told well we can if you want - it was not a matter of want we had contracted for it to be done. A vegetarian meal was ordered for our photographer and when he inquired about it he was told no he couldn't get that and ate a roll instead. Ana Cofino then called us after the affair and her only comment after hearing the issues we had was well they did what they were supposed to in the end. The venue and the food were excellent but given the stress throughout the evening I am not sure I would recommend this as a venue for your wedding.
If you are looking for a venue for your event, I highly suggest Rusty Pelican in Key Biscayne. I just had my wedding reception on 9/26 and was extremely happy with everything. The venue, food, drinks, and services was outstanding.
The Rusty Pelican is the BEST wedding venue in Miami! The views are spectacular and the customer service is Stellar! Ana Maria was my coordinator and she was always helping me with any question I had and made everything so easy for me and my husband! Edgar, Mario, Julian and Carlos in the banquet leadership team were all top notch! Seriously the customer service was amazing. The food was to die for. The filet mignon and the yuzu shrimp are the best ones! Thank you everyone for making our wedding a memorable one!
Despite a few hiccups along the way Rusty Pelican turned out to be a great venue! Their wait staff was impeccable. My Butlers for the night were amazing and super catering to me and my husband. They truly have an exceptional staff on hand and they really did make our night unforgettable. The view is so amazing it only adds to the already beautiful venue!
My wedding reception turned out perfectly thanks to the staff at Rusty Pelican. They made sure to take care of us and our guests. Their service was impeccable. My husband and I we're worry free the entire time and were able to enjoy our reception to the fullest. Highly recommend this venue for wedding reception.
If you enjoy DISRESPECT, FRUSTRATION, DISORGANIZATION, UNPROFESSIONAL ISM, AND CONFUSION, please have your reception and ceremony at THE RUSTY PELICAN, TAMPA FLORIDA. The Sales Manager refused to work with my wedding coordinator. He PROHIBITED her from communicating or even coming close to me before the ceremony. I was utterly confused as to what was going on with my ceremony for 30 minutes. Before the reception began, almost all of Rusty Pelican staff were disrespectful to my vendors, especially my wedding coordinator. They yelled at her for standing up for my wishes and wants for the reception. They did not follow my timeline, refused to serve my vendors on time, and THREW AWAY MY DECORATIONS WITHOUT MY PERMISSION! If you are a bride that enjoys HEADACHES AND DISAPPOINTMENT, please have your wedding here.
Even though our wedding is still months away, I really felt the need to write about how excited and grateful we are to be working with Ana Cofino at the Rusty Key Biscayne. She has been beyond amazing. My fiance and I live in Chicago, which makes planning our wedding a bit more challenging. The Rusty Pelican's beauty ofcourse speaks for itself. Ana sat with us for hours and made sure all of our thousands of questions were answered. She really took the time to help us plan our wedding at the Rusty. She was warm, relatable and very professional. Ana walked us step by step through all the details of the contract and put everything we discussed into writing in a folder for us to take home. Because of Ana, we had no hesitations to sign at the Rusty.
I highly encourage anyone looking for a wedding venue to look into the Rusty Pelican.
The only stressful experiences I had throughout my year of wedding planning were caused by the Rusty Pelican. There were several things that were informed to me during my initial meeting (before booking the venue) that were then changed later on, including the price of the premium beverage. They mistakenly worded the price in the 2013 wedding package, which was what was informed to me during the initial meeting, they then corrected this in their 2014 package and refused to honor what had been initially informed. So please make sure to receive everything in writing, specifically when dealing with Ana Colfino. Two weeks before my wedding while I was at my Bachelorette weekend getaway I received a call saying that they had double booked the Terrace where my ceremony would be taking place... my options were to move my ceremony downstairs or change my time.... this was informed to me two weeks before (so that I couldn't move my wedding to a different venue) even though they knew about it months in advance. In the end they got the other party to move their event and the conflict was resolved but it ruined my bachelorette weekend (I received a 3% discount on my event for the inconvenience) . The day of my wedding they had an event booked in the same ballroom during the day giving all of my vendors only 2 hrs to set up. Also, the food was served 45 minutes late reducing the dancing time (even though I reviewed the timeline with Ana countless times). In the end, I had a beautiful wedding. The views were amazing, the food was great. However, it is not worth to spend your hard earned money on a place that (1) cares about quantity not quality (if they could they would book 10 events per day), (2) is not honorable (they really don't care to honor their words), (3) doesn't give you the value for the money you're paying. There are many beautiful places in Miami, take your money elsewhere.
Omar did a wonderful job helping me out with every concern and question I could have. I was concerned when weather made the ceremony move indoors but the staff did an amazing job making it everything I could have dreamed of. The food was great and we even got to have a private moment to share together. I had a wonderful time and I couldn't have asked for a better venue!
We did both ceremony & reception here and it was a dream! The stunning views of the miami skyline were breathtaking. The ballroom was a perfect size, I only had 60 people and was worried it would look too small but their smaller room was perfect. The food and drinks were amazing! The views from the room just really made for great photos with the different lighting.
The location is perfect, you have the view of all of the Miami skyline as well as the ocean. Two room sizes to choose from so from a small intimate wedding to a large wedding they have something for you. The staff was extremely helpful went above and beyond to make it a very special day. Photo opportunities are endless and make for a great album. The food was delicious and looked great. Just an overall perfect place.
Completely disappointed and would recommend future brides & grooms to be very cautious and specific on what you expect if you decide to book. There are some good and many bad things I have to share about this place. The good is the place is beautiful and we were extremely excited to have our wedding at the Rusty Pelican, the appetizers and food where good and that's all the good I have to say about this place. I had several complaints from my guest(including my other vendors) on how poorly they were treated so much so that I was made aware that one of my guests took it upon themselves to make a formal complaint to the corporate office , I had to hear from my guests how they ran out of meal selection from the menu so some guest had to wait to get their meals while the other guests had already eaten and were getting served the cake. We paid for a premium open bar and the bartenders were limiting the drinks to the guests. I paid PREMIUM "OPEN BAR"!!! So there should be no limitations as to the drinks served to my guests and that is the reason I made the upgrade on my contract. Later, Bride(me) and Groom were put to blame as to why they ran out of food because we did not specify who was eating what. The event coordinator only asked of me how many guests per table, number of tables, amount of kid's meals, vendor meals, and the number of beef/chicken meals needed. All that information was sent via email and confirmed, if anything else was needed from us then it is their fault for not inquiring us in regards to the matter. There is no excuse as to how or why there was a shortage of my menu selections even if some guests had changed their minds at the last minute. There is always a surplus of meals for these events to assure everyone gets what they want. All I have to say is that I am embarrassed and utterly humiliated by all of this and did not expect this kind of treatment from the Rusty Pelican. I also will write a formal complaint to corporate. Because there are still other complaints I have. I know not everyone has a bad experience as I did but unfortunately I did and after reading some other reviews I am not alone with the feeling of disappointment. Good luck to future bride and grooms and hope you find a great place for your memorable day.
The service was amazing! I loved the food! The head chef custom made the dishes to our liking! We had the reception out on the Terrace! The view was breath taking!
Tampa location. I was very pleased how nice everything flowed. Don was the best coordinator and there to answer all your questions,
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3201 Rickenbacker Causeway, Key Biscayne, FL
Rusty Pelican Restaurant
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