How to Plan a Tower Hill Botanical Garden Wedding
The Ultimate Guide for Planning a Tower Hill Botanical Garden Wedding (complete with pricing and photos)
Planning your wedding can be stressful, but it should also be an incredibly happy time! Part of that happiness comes from choosing the perfect location to look forward to. A great example is the Tower Hill Botanic Garden, one of the most beautiful gardens in Massachusetts.
A wedding in a botanical garden? It’s true! Here is why you should consider a Tower Hill Botanical Garden wedding and how to plan one!
Why You Should Have a Tower Hill Botanical Garden Wedding
If you want a beautiful wedding that you will always remember, then Tower Hill is perfect for you. It has walking trails, woods, and even 17 separate and unique gardens. There will be tons of wonderful views and photo opportunities!
If you’re worried about weather, you’ll be happy to know that their garden weddings also come with a plan to move indoors. That means that you will have a wedding that is beautiful, well-planned, and prepared for a weather emergency. You will have a perfect Tower Hill Botanical Garden wedding!
If you’re convinced, congratulations! Now let’s go over how to plan the best ceremony for you.
Tower Hill Botanical Garden Wedding and Elopement Pricing
Elopement Fees : $500 – $1250
Wedding Fees : $3500 – $11000
The first thing you will want to do is decide on the type of ceremony that you want. Tower Hill offers an elopement package, or the standard larger wedding package with more guests and a bigger ceremony. Decide what you and your partner want, and that will help you begin planning.
The elopement package will include the couple and up to 20 guests for an hour-long rental in the garden of your choice. There will not be food, drinks, or chairs, which makes it the perfect ceremony for pictures before heading to a reception somewhere else. If you are a couple with a small circle who wants things to be short and sweet, this package is for you!
You can also choose the standard wedding ceremony, which can have up to 120 guests. It comes with a ceremony and a long reception in whatever location you want. This is more expensive, but it is perfect for a more traditional wedding with many guests.
Best Time of Year for a Tower Hill Botanical Garden Wedding
Once you have picked out the type of ceremony that you want, it is time to pick a date! Tower Hill Botanic Garden has an “on season” from May to September, and that will be the time for a bigger wedding in good weather. There is also an “off season” from February to April that would be smaller and have fewer dates available.
A date and a budget will help your wedding planner build the perfect wedding. That’s right – a Tower Hill Botanical Garden wedding includes a wedding coordinator to make sure everything goes smoothly!
A Ceremony and Reception Venue
It is important to note that Tower Hill books the actual wedding ceremony for 30 minutes, starting anytime after 6:00pm. That might seem short, but it is still a good amount of time for the bridal procession, a speech, and exchanging vows. The perk of being offered a shorter ceremony is that you can have a long reception – up to five hours!
There are not many places that offer a ceremony and reception in the same location. At Tower Hill, you can have both on-site! This cuts down on the time spent rushing between locations and lets you and your guests start the party as soon as possible.
Tower Hill Botanical Garden also offers you a ceremony rehearsal to make sure that everything goes smoothly. You can do this the day before your wedding from 3:00-4:00pm. Decide what you want your ceremony and reception to look like, and you will have a great time.
Tower Hill Botanical Garden Wedding Restrictions
A Tower Hill Botanical Garden wedding is one of the most beautiful venues to choose from. However, there are some restrictions that you should be aware of. The first is if you are getting married in the on-season May – September, your wedding cannot include more than 120 guests. That number falls to only 50 guests in the off-season February – April, due to limited availability.
Tower Hill also does not have a bridal suite on location, mainly due to their primary function as a botanical garden. Without a bridal suite to get ready in, you will need to arrive at the site fully dressed and ready for the ceremony.
Pictures, Food, and More
Tower Hill makes things easier by working specifically with one catering company: Peppers Artful Events. This company will provide all of the food and drinks for your wedding; the cost of catering is not included in the cost of the venue. You can meet with your wedding coordinator and with Peppers Artful Events to build a food and drink menu you will love.
You can take photos starting one hour before your ceremony. With a wonderful photographer that you trust (ahem!), these photos will bring back fond memories of your wedding for years to come.
Conclusion
With careful planning and a little bit of luck, you will have an absolutely gorgeous wedding that everybody talks about for years to come. The location is beautiful and filled with flowers, making it the perfect place for a ceremony and an even better place for photos! Begin planning and making your decisions to prepare for a perfect Tower Hill Botanical Garden wedding!
If you would like to discuss your wedding, please CONTACT ME to chat details!
20+ Places for an Elopement in San Francisco
20+ Best Places for an Elopement in San Francisco Ultimate Guide to the 20+ Best Places for an Elopement in San Francisco(with prices, photos, and packages) Eloping and curious about the best places for an elopement in San Francisco? Want to say your vows in the outdoors but don’t want to drive too far away from the City? Elopement locations in San Francisco range from redwoods to rooftops, and choosing a venue setting can be just as varied. While everyone raves about Yosemite or Lake Tahoe (with good reason), the reality is we don’t always have the time or desire to drive several hours one way to get married. This being said, I created this list of best places for an elopement in San Francisco (and locations outside of San Francisco proper) to help those who still desire an intimate and beautiful location in the San Francisco Bay Area for their wedding. If you would like to see what an elopement might look like, check out these full galleries from previous Bay Area elopements: SF City Hall Elopement (Mayor’s Balcony)SF City Hall Elopement (Rotunda)Golden Gate Park ElopementOld Mill Park ElopementMuir Woods ElopementMarin Civic Center ElopementHastings House Garden Weddings Elopement Where to Elope in San Francisco – My Top Picks 1) Muir Woods2) Shelldance Orchid Gardens 3) San Francisco City Hall4) Palace of Fine Arts5) Filoli Gardens 6) The Mountain Terrace7) Hastings House Garden Weddings8) San Francisco Botanical Garden9) Shakespeare Garden10) Deer Park Villa Where to Elope in San Francisco – My Top Picks 1) San Francisco City Hall Marriage License : $110Ceremony Fee : $901 Dr Carlton B Goodlett Pl, San Francisco, CA 94102 This is easily the most popular and best place to elope in San Francisco hands down. The stunning interior and exterior rival actual wedding venues and its centrally located in SF so you can easily explore the City afterwards. With over 200 weddings photographed here, I always strive to give you images that aren’t so cookie cutter and like anyone else’s. If you want to keep things as simple as possible, let San Francisco City Hall do it all for you! They will provide the officiant, standard vows, and your ceremony will be done in less than 5 minutes. Check out my Ultimate Guide to San Francisco City Hall Weddings for more detailed information! 2) Palace of Fine Arts Reservation Fee : $506Hourly Rate (2 hr min) : $144Refundable Deposit : $5003601 Lyon St, San Francisco, CA 94123 One of the most recognizable landmarks and best places for an elopement in San Francisco, the Palace of Fine Arts is known for its rotunda and architecture in the heart of San Francisco. For such a popular and ornate location, just having your ceremony is surprisingly affordable since it belongs to SF Park and Rec. Take a look at my ultimate guide to a Palace of Fine Arts Wedding for more detailed information! 3) Stern Grove (currently unavailable – under construction 2022) Reservation Fee : $50 – $150Hourly Rate (6 hr min) : $153 – $178Outside Fees : $200Refundable Deposit : $75019th Avenue and, Sloat Blvd, San Francisco, CA 94132 Locals will know this location for its free summer concerts, but for most of the year it is a quiet park that occasionally holds smaller weddings. This park sits near the edge of the City and offers a small redwood grove seemingly meant for intimate weddings. The Trocadero Clubhouse can also be rented out if you want to host a little reception as well. Since it’s not the most centrally located SF venue on this list, it is one of the more forgotten wedding venues, which makes it one of the best places for an elopement in San Francisco in my opinion. Check out my “Ultimate Guide to a Stern Grove Wedding” for more details! 4) Shakespeare Garden Reservation Fee : $506Hourly Rate (2 hr min) : $144Refundable Deposit : $500335 Martin Luther King Jr Dr, San Francisco, CA 94118 One of the more popular and best places for an elopement in San Francisco, this small garden in Golden Gate Park allows a great setting for an intimate place to say your vows. Because of its size and isolation from the other more popular gardens, this is a preferred setting for those wanting a more natural background with less natural foot traffic compared to the Botanical Gardens. Check out this Shakespeare Garden Wedding for inspiration! https://youtu.be/JIF4ytamSm0 CONTACT ME TO DISCUSS YOUR ELOPEMENT IN SAN FRANCISCO 5) San Francisco Botanical Garden Reservation Fee : $875 – $10,000 (5 locations to choose from)Golden Gate Park1199 9th Ave San Francisco, CA, 94122 This well manicured Garden in the middle of Golden Gate Park is a passed over gem from even San Francisco residents. With 55 acres showcasing plants from all over the world, they o