Brooklyn Botanic Garden Wedding – Laura and Nick

Laura and Nick married in a neo-Gothic church in Brooklyn and held their Brooklyn Botanic Garden reception in the Palm House, the glasshouse with the arched iron roof. Between the two they used the garden, which is the part most couples underestimate: the Japanese Garden, the pergola and the Lily Pool Terrace are three completely different backgrounds inside a ten minute walk.

The garden gives you backgrounds a ballroom cannot

The torii gate in the Japanese Garden, the pergola with its climbing flowers and the water at the Lily Pool Terrace look like three separate weddings. That is the argument for this venue over an indoor room, and it is why portrait time here is worth protecting in the timeline rather than trimming when the day runs late.

Getting ready and the walk over

The gown was beaded, the palette was purple and green, and the party walked Brooklyn streets between the church and the garden rather than being driven.

The ceremony

They married under the vaulting of a neo-Gothic church, which is a very different room from the glasshouse they spent the evening in. Pairing a church with the Garden is common here and worth planning around, because it puts a transfer in the middle of the day.

The two rooms also light completely differently, and that is the part worth knowing in advance. A church of this kind is lit by stained glass, which is beautiful and unpredictable: the colour on faces changes through the afternoon and moves as clouds pass. The Palm House is the opposite, a glass box that holds whatever the lighting designer gives it. Photographs from the two halves of the day will not match, and they are not supposed to.

Budget more transfer time than the map suggests. The distance is short but a wedding party does not move at walking pace, and the Garden closes its gates to the public on a schedule that your timeline has to respect rather than negotiate.

The decor did the talking

Vintage cases, a typewriter for guest messages, wildflowers in silver and tables named for New York streets. It is a scheme that works in a glasshouse because it does not compete with the architecture, which is the mistake most decor makes here.

The Palm House already gives you height, ironwork and planting. Tall centrepieces fight the roof and lose, and heavy floral installations disappear against greenery that is permanently there and better than anything brought in. What reads instead is detail at table height, which is exactly where this couple put their money: things guests picked up and looked at while sitting down.

The Palm House after dark

The Palm House is the room couples mean when they ask about the ballroom, and it changes completely once the light goes. The glass roof stops being a window and starts reflecting the room back down, so the uplighting colour you choose becomes the colour of everything.

What I would tell a couple looking at this venue

Protect the portrait window. The Garden is the reason to book here and it is the first thing sacrificed when a day runs late, which is backwards. Forty minutes across three locations is the difference between a gallery that looks like one venue and one that looks like three.

Decide the uplighting colour early and look at it in the room rather than on a chart. In a glasshouse the colour lands on every guest and every plate, and it cannot be undone afterwards. Warm amber keeps skin looking like skin. A saturated colour will be in every photograph of every person present.

And ask what else is happening in the Garden that day. It is a public institution before it is a venue, and the answer changes the walk between your ceremony and your reception more than any other single factor.

For capacities, guest minimums and how the Palm House compares with the Atrium, see the Brooklyn Botanic Garden venue guide.