Horticulture Gardens — Attraction in East Lansing

My husband and I just got married in the North Gardens / Conservatory in August 2022. Overall the venue was absolutely beautiful, though I felt compelled to leave this review and share my experience working with Amy and the other event staff.

We toured the gardens in February 2022 and were told with an overwhelming amount of certainty that we would be WELL taken care of on our wedding day. The event staff said they would act as day-of coordinators by making sure our vendors knew where to go and had everything they needed, helping the wedding party get down the aisle on time, and continuously monitor the entire event to ensure it was going smoothly. Sadly that was far from the truth.

The entire planning process with Amy was very frustrating as she would rarely respond to emails. We were left guessing when the final count, payments, and other important information such as the layout was due to her and despite trying to call or set up a meeting, we were at the mercy of whenever she decided to respond. The staff during our rehearsal the day prior to the wedding were difficult to track down and were wildly unhelpful. On the day of, a handful of things went wrong such as a hose being turned on INSIDE the conservatory. Just moments before I walked down the aisle outside, our reception space was quickly flooding. Thankfully our florist was there and was able to handle the situation, though overall my husband, our wedding party, and our parents were all left very disappointed by the staff as they were no where to be found. Another frustration on the day-of was getting my phone back to see a handful of texts from the gardens staff asking basic questions about our wedding that I had THOROUGHLY communicated via email. You're really texting the bride on her wedding day? Are you kidding me? I guess the list of other contacts I sent them several times was not enough, because they didn't care to read it!

Overall our wedding day went very smoothly, but that is because of our other vendors and wedding party that were able to quickly compensate for the changes and small road bumps.

The gardens themselves are gorgeous and a wonderful space to check out if you are a student or passing through, though if you are considering having your wedding or other special event here, beware of the very unorganized...

Overall: Beautiful Grounds with lots of potential - decent wedding planning experience with room for improvement.

We got married at MSU Horticulture Gardens in June of 2022. We booked very early, in December of 2020. Throughout the process Amy was helpful, even made a blueprint of the gardens for us. I did notice throughout that there seemed to be a lack of organization at times and often, I had to double check or circle back to things that had been forgotten or incorrectly placed. I also had to email follow ups on a couple occasions or follow up with a call to get an answer. Overall, it wasn’t anything too terrible - I would just say to make sure to double and quadruple check things on your end. Amy is super flexible and laid back which is a definite pro, so I didn’t mind having to follow up and be more on things as a trade off.

The day of the wedding, there were items on the ground in the venue (half eaten crackers, plastic cups) and it looked like no one had swept or prepared the night before for a wedding to take place. We ended up finding a broom and a friend swept the area.

Overall, it turned out beautiful and I am happy with the venue for the...

We were very happy with our wedding at the MSU horticultural gardens. They coordinated closely with us through the entire process. There team was prompt at getting ready the day before and the day of. They were flexible with allowing us to play yard games and bring dogs to our wedding. We held the ceremony outside the greenhouse, and reception in the greenhouse (in bad weather we would have done both in the greenhouse). When we did the first walk through we were worried because the fans were quite loud, but during the actual event, you can rent standing fans that keep the greenhouse cool without the noise. We were also worried about it getting hot, but they can extend a cover on the roof that can block the sun, so on our day, it was very comfortable in the greenhouse. We did our wedding on May 10, and it was a little too early for the garden to have fully bloomed, but it was still pretty with all of the greenery, but a date a little later in the year would probably have had more flowering plants. One other benefit: we were both MSU alumni, so it was a meaningful venue, and we were happy to give our school the...