“Josephine Butler Parks Center (JPBC) is such a beautiful venue, we had our wedding there in November of 2024 and couldn’t have picked a better place. The entire process of venue selection can be daunting, and JBPC made it easy for us. We signed up for an initial walkthrough and fell in love with the history of the building, the unique layout, and the beautiful art and color schemes in each room. Steve guided us on our tour and answered all our questions, and we knew right away that this was where we wanted to hold our wedding. Taking several months to plan our wedding, we coordinated with JPBC staff to do two additional tours where they answered even more questions and allowed us to see what different lighting configurations looked like and make measurements to finalize our configuration for the big day. For the reception, we decided to seat our guests in the main ballroom, have the dance floor on the second floor foyer, place the bar out on the balcony, and serve the buffet and cake in the south gallery. Seating was a little tight in the main ballroom, as we had our 140 guests sit at fifteen round tables that were 5 feet in diameter, with a sweetheart table by the larger fireplace. But we made it work and it was a fantastic day for us overall!”

“For Brookside, how does this sound? Brookside Gardens is a stunning place to get married. We got married in March, and despite fewer plants being in bloom, it was perfect. The daffodils and cherry blossom trees were stunning. We got married on Sakura Hill, under the twin Sakura weeping cherry trees, and although they weren't in bloom yet, the intricate branches and light buds looked beautiful. We took some newly-wed photos in the Conservatory, which is gorgeous year-round! Our reception was in the auditorium, which made it much easier and less stressful to plan for the possibility of rain. We DIYd our decor (ivy hung from the ceiling and curtain lights along the two walls), and it looked like an absolute dream! Jennifer, the event coordinator for Brookside Gardens, is extremely knowledgeable, organized, and responsive. She is very direct in her feedback, which was helpful. She was initially a little concerned about our auditorium decor plans, but she allowed us a couple of hours to do a dry-run when the space was not in use, and that was incredibly helpful to us to work out our kinks and surely also put her mind at ease. Because she is so knowledgeable about the gardens, she knew exactly the best spots for photographs, where most plants would be in bloom. The Brookside staff were also incredibly helpful on the day of the wedding. Since it's a public park, it's not closed off during the event, but staff blocked off key entrances to our ceremony space during the duration of our ceremony so that we had some privacy. They also drove the golf cart to transport our guests who needed accommodations, as well as to transport us from site to site. Brookside Gardens, being a Montgomery County Park, is also extremely affordable, and they offer a lower rate for MoCo residents. We added features to our contract like the fireplace and access to the Conservatory for photos, and it all fell within our small venue budget. One thing to note is that you're required to rent a dance floor if using the auditorium (we used Sammy's Rental and had a really good experience), which adds to the venue cost. You're also required to hire a full service and licensed caterer, but you can hire whoever you want as long as Brookside approves of them. That flexibility was incredibly important to us as we wanted to cater Indian food for our wedding, and most other venues require you to select from their short list of approved caterers. We loved our experience at Brookside Gardens, and we can't wait to regularly visit our wedding site (for free!) and remember how special our day was.”

“We had a fantastic wedding experience at the Omni Shoreham. The on-site coordinators were knowledgeable and helpful leading up to the event and executed the day/weekend wonderfully. The outside gazebo where we got married was gorgeous and the ballroom was set up to perfection.”