January 2011 - Parks & Recreation - 24

Who, What, Where & how Around the Parks

T r end s

Cutting Costs and Cutting Loose
The Rise of Public Park Weddings

O

ver the last decade,
reality TV shows and
bridal magazines have
documented the lavish weddings of women they term " bridezillas. " High-priced
wedding planners teamed with exacting brides-to-be to design weddings according to templates that might include
an exotic destination or a swanky hotel
ballroom. The recent recession, however, prompted the rise of the simple, casual public park wedding. Not just about
cutting costs, park weddings present
couples with opportunities for expressing their individuality, celebrating the
outdoors, enjoying both invited (and
uninvited) guests, and giving the inner
child free rein.

The Driving Factor
There's no doubt about it: Most couples
who choose to get married in a park setting are driven by budget concerns. They
are wary not only of the high booking
fees of commercial wedding venues-
but also of hidden fees and surcharges.
Ariel Meadow Stallings, author of Offbeat
Bride: Creative Alternatives for Independent Brides and publisher of the blog
OffbeatBride.com, explains: " As the wedding industry slowly starts moving away
from the over-the-top opulence that defined many weddings in the '90s and
early 00's, there's a growing number of
couples...looking outside the traditional
churches and hotel ballroom templates
for their weddings. These couples know
that many locations that define themselves
as wedding venues tack a significant
" wedding tax " onto their pricing. They're
looking for venues that will be honest and
straightforward with them about pricing
and usage, without weird hidden fees for
things such as " slicing cake. "

22	 Parks & Recreation

JANUARY 2011

" My husband and I decided to get married at a
park because we're both kids at heart. "
-Lenore Tucker-McLeod, married in June 2010 atop a
park climbing apparatus in Pioneer Park, Lewiston, Idaho
Brides and grooms who choose park
venues might pay as little as $50 for a
reserved pavilion area-and for that
amount, they can often seat 100 or more
people. Compared with traditional facilities that might charge several thousand dollars for the day's festivities,
public park weddings allow couples to
have beautiful, distinctive, and affordable weddings.
On Stallings's blog, brides contribute photos of highly individualized park
weddings. One recent ceremony, at a
historic mansion in Pennsylvania's Ridley Creek State Park, was described as
a " gothic, faerie, Victorian wedding. "
The bride sported a faux hawk, and the
groom wore a black vampire cape. The

www.NRPA .ORG

century-old trees of the park and the
wainscoted interior of the historic mansion offered the couple a sort of canvas
upon which to paint their fantasy nuptials.
Whether the bride and groom are offbeat
or more traditional, public parks offer
great possibilities for incorporating creativity and whimsy into the special day.
" The park is gorgeous, so we didn't
have to worry about decorations, " says
Wendy McBride of her recent nuptials in
Frank Liske Park, Concord, North Carolina. Indeed, most couples who choose
park weddings would consider additional decoration tantamount to gilding the lily. Whereas a hotel ballroom
might require greenery, special lighting, and artful bouquets to create an
January 2011 - Parks & Recreation

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