Brooklyn Botanic Garden Wedding Venue

A Brooklyn Botanic Garden wedding is really a choice between two glass rooms and fifty-two acres of garden around them. The rooms are the Palm House and the Atrium, and which one you can have is decided almost entirely by your guest count. The garden is what you are actually paying for, and it is the reason the photographs from here look like nowhere else in the city.

The ballroom people search for is the Palm House

There is no space at Brooklyn Botanic Garden called a ballroom, which causes a lot of confusion. When couples say the ballroom they almost always mean the Palm House: a glasshouse with an arched iron and glass roof, hung with chandeliers, that seats up to 250 guests, or 220 once a dance floor goes in, and holds 275 standing. It is the larger of the two rooms and the one that carries a full wedding.

It also carries a guest minimum, which is the part couples get caught by. The Palm House expects somewhere between 125 and 200 guests depending on the season, so a hundred-person wedding is not simply a cheaper version of the same booking. Ask what the minimum is on your specific date before you fall in love with the room.

The Atrium is the smaller room, and it is not a downgrade

The Lillian and Amy Goldman Atrium seats 130, or 110 with a dance floor, and holds 150 standing. Its minimum sits nearer 60 to 100 guests. For a wedding of that size it is the better room, because a hundred people in the Palm House will read as a sparse hundred and the same hundred in the Atrium will read as a full house. Photographs follow the same rule: a room that looks occupied photographs warmer than a large room with gaps in it.

The garden is the reason to book here

Both rentals come with access to garden locations for the ceremony and for portraits, and that is the real argument for this venue over any indoor room in Brooklyn. The pergola, the Lily Pool Terrace and the Japanese garden each give you an entirely different background within a few minutes’ walk, in a city where most venues give you one.

The practical consequence is that portrait time here is worth more than at a conventional venue, and it is worth protecting in the timeline. Twenty minutes gets you one location. Forty gets you three that look like three different weddings.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden or the New York Botanical Garden?

These are two different places and couples mix them up constantly. Brooklyn Botanic Garden is in Brooklyn, off Washington Avenue beside the museum, and it is the more compact of the two. The New York Botanical Garden is in the Bronx, roughly ten times the acreage, with a far larger conservatory. If you are searching and finding contradictory capacity numbers, that is usually why.

For a wedding the practical difference is travel. Brooklyn Botanic sits inside a dense part of the city with hotels and a subway a short walk away. The Bronx garden is a genuine journey for most guest lists, which is worth pricing into the day before you decide the gardens are interchangeable.

Season changes this venue more than most

The Garden is the product here, so what is in bloom is not a detail. Cherry blossom draws the largest crowds of the year and the grounds are busy with visitors, which is lovely in photographs and a genuine logistical consideration for a ceremony. Later in summer the beds are fuller and the garden is quieter. In winter the glasshouses do all the work, and a Palm House wedding in January looks almost identical to one in June once the doors close.

What a Brooklyn Botanic Garden wedding costs

I am the photographer rather than the venue, so I will not quote you a rental figure, and I would be wary of the numbers floating around on third-party wedding blogs. What I can tell you is the shape of it. There is a room rental, and it changes considerably with the day of the week and the season. On top of that sits a guest minimum, which is the number most couples underestimate. Food and beverage is all-inclusive through the Garden’s caterer rather than a vendor you choose, and that package covers linens, glassware and cutlery.

Because it is all-inclusive, the usual lever for controlling a budget, shopping the catering, is not available here. Ask for a written proposal against your real date and guest count, and compare it on the total rather than on the rental fee, because the rental fee is the smaller half of the number.

The full gallery from a wedding in the Palm House is here.

Questions couples ask about Brooklyn Botanic Garden weddings

Is there a ballroom at Brooklyn Botanic Garden?

Not by that name. Couples searching for the ballroom almost always mean the Palm House, the larger glasshouse with an arched iron and glass roof, which seats up to 250 or 220 with a dance floor.

How many guests can Brooklyn Botanic Garden hold?

The Palm House seats up to 250, or 220 with a dance floor, and holds 275 standing. The Lillian and Amy Goldman Atrium seats 130, or 110 with a dance floor, and holds 150 standing.

Is there a guest minimum at Brooklyn Botanic Garden?

Yes, and it catches people out. The Palm House expects roughly 125 to 200 guests depending on the season and the Atrium nearer 60 to 100. Confirm the minimum for your specific date before choosing the room.

Can you get married in the garden itself?

Palm House and Atrium rentals come with access to garden locations for ceremonies and photographs, including the pergola, the Lily Pool Terrace and the Japanese garden.

Can you bring your own caterer to Brooklyn Botanic Garden?

No. Food and beverage is all-inclusive through the Garden, and the package covers rentals such as linens, glassware and cutlery. It removes a decision and also removes the usual way of controlling that part of the budget.