The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens

I recently had my wedding at the Living Desert Zoo and I cannot say enough how much I loved the whole experience. Stacey Watson, the special event coordinator, worked with us every step of the way. Though she was often hard to get a hold of, she really delivered during all aspects of the wedding. You can really customize your day, be it by the areas you choose or the animal encounters you have! We had our wedding ceremony in the Chase area off the Chase Administration Building and our wedding reception in the Irvine Patio area just a short walk away. The price was very very reasonable and many things come with the reserving the space, like the chairs and tables. I'll post plenty of pictures, but really I can't express how amazing it was to have our wedding here! Thank you all!

Wow. The Living Desert was such a perfect place for our outdoor wedding! My goal was to find somewhere relatively local with a cactus garden and was having little luck. By chance, TLD crossed my mind and I decided to check out the website and find out if they offered weddings. Turns out, THEY DO! Tom, the special events manager told us that while they haven't done many weddings in the past, they do host them and they have a variety of options available (Tom was so helpful with everything and so was his assistant Stacy! Such great people to work with). We opted to have our ceremony on the Chase Administration Patio which held 150 people comfortably. Its a small intimate area with pretty lights strung across the patio. The backdrop is a gorgeous desertscaped hill with a small waterfall in the center (the waterfall is a bit noisy, so we opted to off center our alter a bit so we could hear better- they did offer to turn the waterfall off, but we liked the ambiance of it on). In late October everything was blooming so there was lots of color surrounding us. The walk to the reception is a short 2 minute walk from the ceremony spot. We took advantage of their offerings of "animal encounters" for our guests to check out along the way. While my husband and I didn't get a chance to see any of them due to us having pictures taken, our guests LOVED it. According to the pictures I've seen so far there were 2 or 3 owls, a hedgehog, an iguana, an opossum, and an armadillo. Definitely a must do for a wedding held at a zoo. The reception was at the Palm Garden. This place is huge. I believe they said it can host up to 400 people- don't quote me on that though. We sat 8 to a table and spread out our 19 tables (which they provided at no cost- they also had chairs available but we chose to rent fancier ones) so that this huge area was perfectly filled in. Its all paved so there was no need to rent a dance floor (unless you want to be fancy of course). At night it was lit up with twinkle lights strung between the palm trees and across the open space above. Just gorgeous. If you like a bit more light, I'd suggest renting some, but we certainly don't regret not having extra. It was pretty warm that day, but I refuse to hold TLD accountable for that (after all, they can't control the weather). Its what we get for taking the chance on getting married in the desert. :) I cannot say enough good things about TLD. The staff was great. The onsite Catering was delicious. Everyone was just an email away throughout the planning process. Its a non-profit organization and the money you spend on their services goes right back into the park and the wellbeing of the animals, which we love. If you're looking for an offbeat place, maybe something along the lines of the cactus/succulent themed like ours was, THIS is your place. I'll wrap this up with the line I used SO many times that night. Our guests kept saying what a neat place to get married and that it was so beautiful. To which my reply was, "Yes, its gorgeous all on its own, all we did was dress up and bring the chairs!" :)