Memphis Botanic Garden

Botanic Gardens is a BEAUTIFUL venue, but it comes at a price. You will be nickeled and dimed for EVERYTHING! The dance floor-extra. The tram-extra. To use the newest pavillon-extra. There is a cost to rent the reception hall and a separate price for the wedding ceremony. You must use their bar services, which are pricey. Flexibility- forget it. The rules are the rules!
The event coordinator is nice enough, but more than likely over-worked with not enough help. She never seems to really have the time to deal with you- always seems rushed to "get it over with", whether it's a phone call or a meeting, in order to move on to the next task.
I'm sure this is ideal in many settings, however, when a bride is spending thousands of dollars, the last thing you want to feel is rushed or like you are being bothersome and hindering another task from being done. Don't bother leaving a message- none of my calls were ever returned! You will do much better with email (maybe), otherwise just keep calling until you get her (after all, you're just planning a wedding). Closer to your wedding date, you will get called to confirm details, but don't look for much else.
Also, make sure your rain alternative is REALLY available (if doing an outdoor ceremony). Luckily, it did not rain on my wedding date, since another event was going on in the lobby which was my designated rain spot.
On the plus side, they do have 8 bistro tables for use at no charge, the brides room is nice (though it was not cleaned from the previous wedding on my day), and it IS a pretty venue and will make for great...

The botanic garden is an absolutely beautiful setting for a wedding and there are many different areas you can choose to have either your ceremony, reception or both in. It is secure, you don't have to worry about your guests having enough parking spaces and it's really nice that they make all the gardens available to you and your guests so you can explore and walk around during the reception.

Now, on to the negative things: it is really expensive for what you get; you have to use their bar services and pay a hefty price for the very limited alcohol choices they have; the event coordinator/contact person there is awful about communicating and not very professional or helpful in general--she is really difficult to get in touch with, never responds in a prompt manner and isn't very good about answering questions fully; the botanic garden basically offers nothing in the way of amenities after you book them as your wedding venue-you don't get chairs for the ceremony, don't have a representative from there to help with coordinating things on the day of the wedding, no decorations of any kind (although in the right season the garden itself would provide decoration enough). And apparently they don't even really provide anyone to kind of check out the place before the wedding to make sure everything is looking OK or something because we found a dead mouse in the garden where we were having the ceremony that we had to clean up ourselves. Overall, I expected much more out of the botanic garden especially since they charge so much for the use of their facilities+the cost of their alcohol. I would have been much more satisfied if the event coordinator had been more professional/helpful/easy to get in touch with or easier to communicate with in...

It was a beautiful place to get married at and lots of great photo ops! Price was a little steep for a 30 minute ceremony but it is what it is. They couldn't find our check that paid our balance, and yes, we did bring it but they did find ultimately find it. Other than that, I loved everything about getting married at MBG!

A little pricey. We paid $600 for an hour and then had to pay an extra $75 to use the bridal room. You would think that would be included in the price.

Beautiful venue if flowers are in full bloom. Staff are nice...only downside is you can't bring in your own alcohol and not a fully equipped kitchen....

Botanic Gardens is beautiful but pricey. Not a fan of outdoor weddings to chancy for bad weather, not their fault. Service was good I got everything I asked for. Jennifer Jones was professional and made some helpful suggestions, but hard to contact. Room was beautiful and large, policies are extremly strict.

The venue itself is nice, but the staff leave much to be desired...I'll just leave it at that. If you're in love with this location, just make sure you ask all of the questions about all of the details upfront. Once you sign the contract, good luck getting responses from these people. Joe was the best of them all. The "bride's room" is not attractive at all (there's actually a conference table from 1970 or something in there, so don't expect to get good "getting ready" pics in there.

The botanic garden is very pretty and a good setting to have both your ceremony and reception in the same spot. However, there were many negative things about having a wedding here. Jennifer Jones, the person in charge of events at the botanic garden and who you will have to deal with if you book a wedding there, is very friendly but horribly unorganized, incompetent and generally not helpful. First of all, she never answers her phone, does not return voicemail messages at all and does not return e-mails promptly. Second, she seems clueless about the contract that the botanic garden gives you. There were several times throughout the planning process when I had a question about something it said in our contract (that she and I both signed at the same time) and she could not answer the question because apparently she doesn't even know the botanic garden's rules surrounding events herself! She botched our payments and did not put them through in a timely fashion. She answers questions by continuously repeating information she has already given you/that you already know and not addressing your question at all. It's like she doesn't know how to think-she just responds with useless, inane facts. Other than our problems with her, we did not like the fact that the botanic garden is so restrictive...for instance, you are not allowed to provide your own alcohol and must use their bartending services/their alcohol. They do not have a good selection of alcohol but they do charge quite a lot for it. 5$/glass of cheap, Lindeman's wine! That is ridiculous. I can buy a whole 1.5 Liter bottle for $7. It's not terrible wine, but it's not all that great either. All in all, I was happy with how nice everything looked on the day of (although disappointed that despite having a wedding at the botanic garden we still had to spend a small fortune on flowers because the botanic garden actually doesn't have many--it's all green space) but I wish we had booked somewhere else with someone who actually knows what they're doing helping us with planning our event and somewhere that wasn't quite so expensive and strict.

When I paid my money for the Iris Garden for June 4, at 2:00pm, they plan another event that day at a much later time at 8:30pm. Jennifer the rental sales manager guarantees me that the band rehearsal will not infer with the wedding, but it did. I call her to resolution the matter. In her response, " the band had a sign contact with them to practice anytime before the concert, and I cannot stop them from rehearsal during your wedding. Sorry!!!" So, I had one of the Groomsmen to go over in the next garden and talk with the band that was rehearsal during wedding ceremony to stop play for at least 30 minutes. After 10 mins later they stop and give time to perform the ceremony without the help Jennifer or Botanic Garden staff assistance.

On May 14, 2011 I got married at this beautiful garden. We didn't pay anything but the entrance fee. Our family & friends joined us along with the minister and photographer. We have great pictures & priceless memories. In todays recession saving money is my goal.

Working with the staff at the Memphis Botanic Gardens in Memphis, TN was awesome. They made sure we had everything we needed with no problem. The Goldsmith's Auditorium has been renovated and very warm and breathtaking. Our color scheme was turquoise, cream and chocolate. The pictures in the garden and by the waterfall all turned out perfect. We chose the perfect venue for our wedding and reception. Corey and Angela (6/27/2010)

Such a gorgeous venue, but at a cost.
Pro's are a great staff who were incredibly accomodating on the wedding day. It started down-pouring about an hour before the outdoor ceremony (I handled it really well though!). Anyway, everyone on staff pitched in and set up chairs inside the gorgeous front hall... it turned out so pretty, even for a rain plan! We got all our formal shots in during the sunny weather and you simply can't find a prettier venue in Memphis.
Cons: It's a little pricey and management was hot and cold in their helpfulness - not great when you are planning a wedding from another state. You must use their bar so you are subject to their prices which can get pretty high if you request anything other than their house booze. They tracked how much people drank, and I left feeling overcharged. Also, we requested beer/wine/champagne, but I realized 2 hours into our reception that no champagne was being served... apparently there was an oversight and it didn't make it in the contract. It was pretty lame having the bar manager argue with me during my own wedding reception... really lame actually. Lesson learned: Make sure you double check the paperwork!

My experience with MBG was less than ideal, due to poor communication on the staff's part, and serious lack of attention to detail. Though the grounds are lovely and even though it is one of Memphis' few outdoor wedding options, if I knew in advance how difficult it would be to work with their management, I would hold my event somewhere else.

All it took was a phone call a few months ahead and we were able to get the garden of our choice on the date we wanted.

My wedding was so beautiful!!!! The Memphis Botanic Gardens is an ideal place to get married. The Japanese Garden is one of the prettiest places I've ever been! We choose to get married with the audience facing in the lake. Swans swam by during the song...it was magical! I highly recommend!

The place is beautiful but they are on a strict schedule and there's not much leeway in times. Also, my rental coordinator was not helpful at all with things as simple knowing if there were power outlets near the garden I chose. The experience was great except for not returning calls (even though I only called a few times the entire planning process), strict times, and little help. It sure was beautiful though!

Fine service but room needs to be updated- not pretty at all.

This venue was very flexible for letting me come in frequently to look at the gardens and reception hall to plan for my event.