Matthaei Botanical Gardens Reviews

Great location and venue! It has beautiful flowers inside the greenhouses and outside in the gardens guests can enjoy before and after the wedding. Staff was so nice and friendly. Highly recommend!

My partner and I planned our wedding from Australia. We are both from the US and still have family in the Midwest which is why we wanted to get married back home. Linda and the staff at the Conservatory were fundamental in helping us pull this off. We only had our ceremony at the Conservatory, our dinner was at a restaurant. We had a total of 19 people in attendance. Regardless, I cannot imagine doing it all over again without Linda's help.

She was straight forward about the limitations of the botanical gardens / conservatory. We had to abide by the time limits and rules, which makes complete sense. My husband and I both do research on plants, we understand that one cannot ask the humidity controls be turned off for the ceremony. I appreciated that Linda was up front about what was possible. She didn't mind my regular emails to ask new questions as they arose.

More importantly, Linda gave me recommendations of restaurants, beauty salons, hotels, Bed and Breakfasts, etc. She sent out vendor lists that were compiled from previous weddings at the conservatory. For someone who's primary role is not weddings, she certainly blew us away!

My husband and I were so fortunate to have worked with Linda. However the most important thing to note is that the website does not do the conservatory justice! Our wedding was in the middle of December. This could have been a dreary grey Michigan day. However, the sunset was spectacular with just a dusting of snow on the ground. That was all a lucky chance. The inside of the conservatory was spectacular. I highly recommend a sunset wedding at the conservatory. Inside, the light changed so dramatically during our ceremony. It emphasized our place within a broader context of this world and nature. The colors changed as natural light diminished and artificial lighting came on. The subtle mood change was breathtaking. Thanks to Linda and all the conservatory staff for helping create our wedding!

It was beautiful and the staff was amazing!

The botanical gardens were beautiful for our early fall wedding. The flowers and the grounds were very well maintained. We had the ceremony in the Perenial Garden and the reception at another venue. Linda was very helpful in organizing the timeline of events for the ceremony. We used the white metal arch and it was a pretty backdrop for the alter area. The bridal room was very useful in final preparations before the ceremony.

We had a winter wedding inside the conservatory and it was absolutely beautiful with the flood lighting. Many guests commented about the beautiful location. Just be careful not to have too many guests. About 60 guests can sit comfortably. We ended up having guests all around us on the sides and above as well to see the ceremony.

I had a lovely wedding ceremony at Matthaei Botanical Gardens, not only because of the beautiful venue with lots of plantation but also the informative and professional service provided by staff there.
My wedding is in winter but I wanted a lot of greens, their indoor Conservatory was perfect with plenty of tropical trees and plants.
The coordinator not only provided all the information and help we need for our ceremony but also recommendations for photographer, music, flower, officiant and many more. It saved us a lot of time researching for these services. In the end, our officiant, photographer, cake and flower are all from the selected lists provided by Linda.
At the ceremony, the staff at spot did everything she could to help. I can't ask for more and I'm so happy to have had my ceremony here.

I'm sure a lot of what I'm about to say has already been said.

Linda's a doll. She was great to work with. Communication was on point, offered helpful advice without being pushy, and did everything I could have asked for.

It is a bit pricy when comparing to other venues- it was $1100 for my ceremony in September. I scheduled my wedding for 5pm so that I could have the greenhouse as backup in case of inclement weather. The weather was perfect, so I was married in the Gateway Garden.

The timing thing is a bit tricky- a lot of rushing to try to do everything in time constraint.

However, not having to pay for ceremony decorations was nice :)

We loved the gardens! Our wedding was perfect! It is a great spot for pictures! The staff there went above and beyond to make sure our wedding was a success. Linda and Cathy are amazing! I would highly recommend the gardens for your wedding!

Absolutely beautiful venue, especially for a smaller wedding!!! The staff was very responsive, flexible and helpful.

Loved the gardens, it was amazing how beautiful everything looked the day of my wedding. Would def. recommend this site for anyone wanting an outdoor wedding.

This was a fabulous place to have our ceremony. The staff was very helpful in arranging times, seating, and helping us choose the perfect location for the size of wedding.
We had an outdoor wedding and were surrounded by the sounds of birds during the ceremony. It was perfect.
If it rained, we could have used the conservatory, which was also a beautiful sight.

We had our summer wedding in the Perennial Garden and we could not have asked for a better place to wed. Linda was an amazing coordinator and so patient with my many questions in the weeks leading up to the wedding. The only "con" to having a wedding at the gardens is the tight timeline of 2 hours to setup, marry and get pics, and that you are responsible for setting up your own chairs. We had family volunteer to help, so no big deal!

We had a small ceremony of about 15 people in the Conservatory. We got extremely lucky because our wedding was last minute and a student so kindly stayed after work for us to be able to get married there! It was absolutely gorgeous all said and done. The only tricky part about this location is figuring out a place for everyone to stand and watch the ceremony.

We had planning to have our wedding on Willow Pond Island but a looming thunderstorm moved it into the conservatory, which was absolutely beautiful. I'm actually glad we ended up inside as our pictures are amazing and there was still room for all of our guests to sit. There are pretty strict rules about timing, but we paid for the extra 1/2 hour to get dressed, did a first look before the ceremony, and found we had plenty of time to get all of our pictures taken. Additionally, we hired a student to set up and take down our chairs, which was well worth it as we didn't have to worry about having additional people come early to help with that. The only negatives were it was somewhat difficult to get someone on the phone during the planning stages (a few months before the wedding). Once the wedding day was closer everything was fine and our day of coordinator was great.

Nothing but positive comments to say about this place. Our wedding ran a bit late (my wife's dad didn't arrive until 15 minutes AFTER the intended start time -- go figure), but the Garden staff was very gracious about the whole thing. They allowed us to go a few minutes outside of our scheduled 90-minute period even though we were the last wedding of the day, and I'm sure they wanted to head home. We didn't have our reception here -- too many people -- but the facilities looked nice for a smaller wedding. The weather was gorgeous, to boot, which made the whole experience fantastic. Worth every penny, in my opinion, and the lady in charge of the weddings really knows her stuff.

Absolutely beautiful. Quite expensive but worth it cz we didn't have to add or buy any decorations/ flowers.

The gardens were gorgeous and the service was great. The ladies were very organized and helped our rehearsal and ceremony run very smoothly. I would recommend this location to anyone who wants an outdoor wedding.

The gardens were beautiful for my wedding! I LOVED the Perrennial garden. The only thing that causes a little stress is the strict time rule. You only get 2 hours for everything, including pictures. We weren't allowed to start setting up anything, or even get out of our vehicles until our time started. THe fact that my music person and others were flexible was the only thing that saved a potential disaster. Because of this, we couldn't use the arch that we had built, because it took too long to set up. I also did not like was the big purple puffy 2 foot high flowers in the middle of the garden where my ceremony was. My photographer knew I didn't like them, so he tried to keep them out of the pictures, thank goodness.
Otherwise, we were allowed to go anywhere we wanted to on the grounds to take pictures, and there are so many great backdrops. We were allowed to use a room to prepare and do last minute prep, that was wonderful, too.

Show up to your rehearsal on time, or you'll get the stink-eye from the staff. And don't expect to get any advice from the wedding coordinator as far as photographers, etc. The best photographer for the botanical gardens is Chris Trafford out of A Candid Image Photography. He was spectacular!

Overall a very nice place for my daughters wedding. The flowers in the Gateway garden were a little bare compared to last year at the same time. It may have been because of the extremely hot summer we have had. But the flowers that were there were beautiful and so were the pictures! The hostess was very good, she made sure the ceremony ran smoothly.

the gardens were a little overpriced (they charged me for a holiday weekend). I also didn’t like that we had to set up our own chairs. For the price they could provide someone to do this. Despite everything, I wouldn’t have gotten married anywhere else. It was magical inside the garden at night. If you are using the gardens and want a DOC, I'd recommend Jen (see below) because she knows Ms. Neely who runs the gardens.

They were always very responsive when I called and were prompt to answer my questions. They even allowed us to stay a little after our contracted time to take a few more pictures. Our ceremony was in the Gateway Garden and it was gorgeous. I couldn't have imagined our ceremony anywhere else!!

Even in the rain our Ceremony pictures are gorgeous! Just wish we had the option to have our ceremony in the greenhouse area since it was raining, only because our hair turned a little flat from the weather. They weren’t to flexible with anything, which was another downer. However everything else turned out great.

It is a pretty venue and the day of event staff are friendly and helpful. However, the main contact, Linda is not terribly friendly or easy to work with. Every time we talked, it felt like she was doing this for the first time and that it was really more of a hassle to her than anything else. She had an air about her that she had a lot of authority to make decisions and willy-nilly would say yes or no to our requests. I would recommend the venue because of it's beauty and price, but just be prepared for a little bit of an unpleasant planning experience.

While the gardens are absolutely gorgeous, and our photos will reflect this forever, the best word to describe our experience with the wedding coordinator and treatment from the other staff onsite in the process of planning and especially on our big day is "unaccommodating".

The coordinator, Linda, made our experience much more stressful and disappointing than it needed to be. And when we were so poorly treated the day of, I don't think we would've picked this venue if we'd known what to expect beforehand. Very poor service for such a gorgeous venue :( a new, more personal and respectful coordinator would really make a positive difference. Hopefully this is taken into consideration for others planning their upcoming weddings, and the other employees who were rude and intimidating to us and our guests can receive some customer service training.

VERY disappointed with the site. They ripped all of the flowers out of the center of the Gateway Gardens so it was just a barren area. I had seen it about a month before the wedding and they were just planting flowers. I asked if it would be in bloom by my wedding day and they assured me they would, however, there weren't any sprouts.

Furthermore, our hostess was completely clueless. During the rehearsal, she forgot to place the best man, maid of honor, and the fathers. She had no idea what was going on. On the day of the wedding she wasn't much more help. The biggest thing she was concerned about was kicking us out of the bridal holding room in time despite the fact that I was trying to recover from a near heat stroke. I'm sure we still got some great pictures but very poor service.

Booking the rehearsal was a hassle as well. Linda had to check what time the wedding at 5:30 (Ours was 2:30) wanted to do a rehearsal before she would book mine despite the fact that I obviously had called her to book it before them. It was like their wedding was more important than ours.