VanDusen Botanical Garden

Some wedding venues are decorated with flowers.

At VanDusen Botanical Garden, you are getting married inside an entire world of them.

Spread across 55 acres in Vancouver, VanDusen gives couples the rare opportunity to build their wedding around gardens, water, mature trees and changing seasonal landscapes while still having substantial indoor reception spaces available on the same property.

Outdoor ceremonies can take place in three very different settings.

The Great Lawn offers a generous green space surrounded by the garden and can accommodate celebrations reaching approximately 200 people.

Heron Lake is more intimate, with water, garden views and a large willow tree creating an especially romantic ceremony backdrop for up to approximately 120 guests.

Then there is Meadow Pond, designed for tiny standing ceremonies and elopements of up to about 30 people.

That range means VanDusen can feel completely different depending on the couple.

One wedding may involve rows of chairs across a sweeping lawn.

Another may gather beneath the willow beside the lake.

Another might be only the couple and a handful of people standing quietly beside the pond.

After the ceremony, the garden itself becomes part of the photography.

Paths wind through changing plant collections, water features and woodland areas, giving couples the opportunity to wander somewhere beautiful without ever leaving their guests far behind.

Indoor reception spaces add an important layer of flexibility. The architecturally distinctive Visitor Centre looks toward Livingstone Lake and Woodland Garden, while additional halls give couples options for bringing dinner and celebration indoors. Private events in the Visitor Centre can also include access to the garden during operating hours.

That creates one of those wedding days that can keep changing as it unfolds.

Vows outdoors.

Photographs among the gardens.

Dinner inside as daylight begins to disappear.

Then one final walk through the greenery before the evening is over.

For couples who have always pictured flowers and nature surrounding the wedding rather than simply decorating it, VanDusen Botanical Garden offers something difficult to recreate anywhere else.

You are not bringing the garden to the wedding.

The wedding is happening inside the garden.