Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden

I would highly recommend the Crystal Springs Rhododenron Garden! The event coordinator, Rachel, was friendly and easy to work with. The options for where to have the ceremony were beautiful, and the garden has so many areas for pictures! Pricing is incredibly reasonable as well.

I had my perfect, dream wedding in the meadow at Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden. My husband and I loved exchanging vows beneath the beautiful trees along the water. Many of our guests came from California and New York and they just adored Crystal Springs! I think they finally understand why we love living in Oregon so much. The venue was very easy to work with and my other vendors knew the gardens well, so I never worried about logistics. Everything just flowed, so my husband and I could simply enjoy the day! I'm so glad we chose this venue because we can revisit the gardens and relive our day whenever we like. It's been really fun going back there since our wedding!

The Meadow site was absolutely beautiful! The staff was very easy to work with and helped us through all the way to the end. I would definitely recommend this venue for ANY family gathering, but especially for a wedding.

I'm a caterer and adore working at this location. What a lovely spot for your special day. Each time I've worked here, I've had great communication and support from the Garden staff and Rachael the Garden's event coordinator, helping make everything as smooth as possible. Highly recommended.

As an event planner who has worked at this venue many, many times, I can safely say this is a magical place. If getting married in a beautiful outdoor garden is your dream, this venue should be high on your list. Both the Meadow and the Woodland offer unique, private settings, while remaining central in the city. The venue makes every effort to make the event as seamless as possible. I always feel at ease when I arrive to see the set-up crew going the extra mile to rake the lawn, set up chairs and tables that have been rented through the garden, place out event signage, and direct guests. More impressively, they're always available to lend me an extra hand, or tidy up a restroom (guest experience is important!). The event coordinator has gone above and beyond countless times when we've had unexpected rain, last-minute client meetings, and questions that needed answers. She even brought in green straw when the lawn had some unforeseen mud one day! Truly a great spot!

Crystal Springs is a beautiful space and was absolutely perfect for our wedding. But there are definitely some serious cons. First off, the price far exceeds any other park in Portland. If you can keep your wedding under 100 people, definitely look elsewhere. One bad aspect of the space is the Event Coordinator. She told us she is the type of person to "always be on top of everything." But she consistently forgot or lost information and had to request from us many times. Which was interesting since my wife and I are an executive director and project manager respectively. So we know what it actually means to be on top of your work. She provided very little support throughout the entire planning process and none on our wedding day. I created an extremely detailed layout for our wedding for her and her staff, but when I arrived nothing was set up because her staff said that the chairs/tables were not part of our contract, they 100% were. It's also worth noting she was no where to be found and left this task to some teens that had no idea what was going on. When they finally set everything up, it was all in the wrong place. Which was impressive because my map had details dimensions on it for all the tables and chairs. They must have looked at it and threw it out. Myself and my groomsmen had to run out and move all the tables and chairs before the ceremony. So basically plan to micromanage every aspect of your day if you choose to use this venue. Also, during the wedding the power went out in the not very nice bathrooms. Left overs were left there by accident and the staff threw out the very nice food before we could come back and get it that same night. Last you have to be out by 10:00 and are insanely strict about it. We had a little trash left afterwards and she tried to charge us $500 b/c of this little fact. Even though everything was out by 9:30. Once again this venue is very pretty, but if you choose it, a day of coordinator is a must.

So, for a few years now, I've told myself, "If I ever get married, I'm doing it at the Rhododendron Garden." Well. A few weeks ago, I got married. At the Rhododendron Garden. (AKA my dream basically came true.) Don't get me wrong, there were MANY snafus leading up to the wedding, and most of them pertained to the venue. But I must, in all good conscience, give this venue five stars because, after all was said and done, it was absolutely THE MOST stunning wedding venue ever, and I'm not just saying that because it was my wedding. I could have negated a lot of the issues we had by choosing the Meadow venue of the Garden. OF COURSE, I went with the Woodland, which, in my opinion, is about 100 times more beautiful than the Meadow. And cheaper to rent by about half. Here are some of the problems we encountered (let's just get this out of the way): • No service entrance for Woodlands. This created a whole host of problems. Vendors didn't want to work with us. Finding a rental company that wouldn't charge us thousands for delivering a few tables was near impossible (but it happened). Everything had to be walked in, which was a supreme pain in the ass. • Only available rentals were chairs. Everything else needed to be brought in. • No nearby bathrooms for guests. • We could not use golf carts to transport people. • We had to rent our own wheelchairs because, even though we did pay for the venue, they would not reserve the two they own for us. • No electricity or outlets. This was fine, but it also meant that we had to have a caterer drop off food and leave, instead of actually cater the party. We also had to purchase our own wireless speaker for the ceremony and to play music later. • The staffed event person (not to be confused with our actual Wedding Coordinator who was amazing) was very nice, but really inconsistent--she constant got our event and account confused and was always giving us different information. • No candles, sparklers, cigars, etc. • We had to bus out our own trash. And we really had to bring EVERYTHING in ourselves--linens, tables, altar things, soap for the bathroom, trash bins, etc. • Everyone out by sundown. (This was actually a-okay in my book as neither myself nor my fiance are all-night dancing partiers. We had a subdued garden-party luncheon-style wedding.) However, all of these things were, in my opinion, totally outweighed by the serene beauty of the venue. I mean, really. No rhododendrons were in bloom in mid-July, but that was okay. We didn't even need flower arrangements (though we had a few) because the intense greenery was just so stunning. The Woodland provided a beautiful and private retreat that included a stunning pond, a "forested" area, and a just-big-enough clearing for the reception. It really was the wedding of my dreams. (And the weather gods cooperated, and it was totally clear, halleluia!!) The fact that the venue is around the corner from where I grew up was just the icing on the cake. I felt AT HOME in the Garden and the Woodland, and I couldn't be more thankful that we had our wedding in this seriously underrated location.