Chester Zoo Weddings

...had our hearts set on Chester Zoo as the venue for our wedding. We wanted to get married as a sign of commitment, rather than for any religious reasons. The traditional church setting would have felt like starting our wedded life with a lie, as we would be making our vows in the sight of a god neither of us believe exists. We decided on Chester Zoo as we both have a child-like amazement when around nature and having visited Chester Zoo yearly since ...
...
Address: Oakfield Manor, Chester Zoo, Upton by Chester, Chester, CH2 1LH.
Phone Number: 01244 650209
Facsimile: 01244 389497
E-mail: events@chesterzoo.org.
Website: www.chesterzoo.org

The website has a children's areas, photographic competition and covers many more areas than I have here.

Overall
The event organisers at Chester Zoo (Jane and Ian) made our wedding day exceed ... more

Checking out the venue

Now we are at the Zoo, our chosen venue, full of weird noises and bizarre noses. We glance at each other grinning as Jane shows us round. She tells us what will happen where. Where the groom will be stood nervously awaiting his bride. The door the bride will come in by; imagining the soil borders will be flower-full September beds; photos in the Roman gardens, the claw of a lion, the tail of a coati, the nose of a tapir may all sneak into the back of our wedding photos. Yippee.

The patio, is that what they called it? Or was it veranda? It was the terrace. Yes; after a walking safari taking in the Elephant enclosure and tapirs (my favourites), with a zoo guide to impart information about the handsome beasts. We return to the terrace for Pimm's cocktails, reminiscent of student barbecue days, with a glass full of all the fruit and vegetables found stuffed in the fridge of whoever's digs the party was at, until they are used up and it goes back to doing its usual beer cooler job.

As we consider how our day will be, very different to this cool November, we stroll past squealing, running otters, an unusually visible red panda, red river hogs; meerkats looking out for that special somekat they never seem to find. Tigers growl, as they calculate how to have us for dinner. Chimps yammer in a battle for superiority and launch themselves at the plexiglass. We recoil every time, at the menace in their features. They swing with ease and grace from floor to rope. It is evident that if they were hunting us we would be pulled apart within seconds of a flying leap.

As we walk past the hall I visualise the people who will be gathered for our wedding. Some of these are friends I have known since I was four and found again by chance five years ago, along with my groom. The years were pulled back together, in the manner of a toggle tightening a sleeping bag hood. In September a crowd will be in one wood-panelled room at the Zoo awaiting my arrival. As I crunch the gravel driveway to the door, my Dad holds my shaking arm, I see the shoulder of my groom at the window. This calms my nerves. He is standing there - confident, all I have to do is go through the door, past seventy of our closest friends and stand next to the man who I will be proud to call my husband in half an hour.

It can't be that hard. Can it? Our song starts. The Beach Boys 'Don't cry (put your head on my shoulder)'. I have promised I won't cry.

The Venue

We already had our hearts set on Chester Zoo as the venue for our wedding. We wanted to get married as a sign of commitment, rather than for any religious reasons. The traditional church setting would have felt like starting our wedded life with a lie, as we would be making our vows in the sight of a god neither of us believe exists. We decided on Chester Zoo as we both have a child-like amazement when around nature and having visited Chester Zoo yearly since childhood know its brilliant reputation for conservation and knowledge of animal territory sizes. I have never seen the pacing bored tigers (and neither polar bears nor hippos are kept here due to the huge amount of space and food they need).

After telling everyone at our engagement party that we were going to get married at the zoo we made an appointment to see the venue. On the day we arrived a little concerned that Oak field Manor House would not be quite right. We were wrong. It was perfect for our needs.

Oakfield Manor House

Cost of Venue: £1750 to rent out whole manor house.
Numbers: Maximum Daytime (70) evening: Minimum (70) Maximum (120)

This is a beautiful venue and is divided into several rooms, which means your guests can choose where to be, not all have to be shouting over the music to be heard if they want a quiet chat. For the ceremony we used the mahogany-panelled Terrace room. Our photos from this room came out rich with the mahogany backing and few people we showed them to believed it was held at the zoo.

The lawn at the front of the Manor house was ideal for large group photos and the sunken garden was better for the smaller groups. This garden is often missed by visitors to the zoo and we had not noticed it in years, until we started looking for backdrops for our photos. The sunken garden is very green and has a decorative bridge and gnarled man fountain.

For the evening we had access to the boardroom set out with small tables our wedding cake was set up at the back of this room for the ceremonial cutting. We also had a table for cards and presents with laminated pieces of my wedding-themed writing for guests to read.

The café was turned into a dance-floor and another seating area. Our PA man set up the system and we had compiled our own CDs. We didn't trust any DJ to play our type of music. The zoo staff were fine with us sending a PA man and they met him on the day to set up the system and let him collect it the next morning. If you want to drive any gear in this has to be before the zoo opens at 10:00 as there is no access after that time, apart from the wedding car.

Event organisers

The event organisers were wonderful. They have both being running this venue for many years. The two main people we dealt with were Jane and Ian. Jane was our contact in the months leading up to the wedding and she provided us with phone numbers for coaches and advised us about local DJs.

We visited several times before the day and were allowed free entry after these visits.

November: Bride and groom went to check out the manor house.
January: We went back with the Mums and Dads to show them this wonderful place.
June: With Maid of honour and Best man and their partners
August: four weeks before the big day with best man, maid of honour, Mums and Dads and Ushers. Everyone that had a main job so Jane could make sure everyone knew exactly what they were doing. Confirm final details.
September: Day before the wedding to drop everything off. Knowing after handing this over everything would go well.

I trusted our wedding organisers so much that after sleeping poorly all week, I had my first six hours solid sleep after knowing everything was in their very capable hands. We had told them exactly what we wanted and they asked all the right questions.

We gave Jane and Ian our seating plans for people we needed in certain seats, the cake, flowers, table decorations and place cards. They were exactly as we asked.

Jane wasn't there on the day. I am not sure if this is how it usually runs or she just wasn't available that particular day. It is a shame that she put so much hard work in and couldn't actually see the outcome. Ian was brilliance in person.

We wrote our order of the day from the details given to us by Jane:

Order of the Day
2:00pm Guests to assemble
3:00pm Wedding Ceremony
incorporating three readings
Signing of the Register
3.30pm Drinks Reception, sandwiches.
4:00pm Time for guests to explore the zoo
(Avoid elephants/tapirs- you will see these later).
6:00pm prompt. Return to Oakfield House for speeches
6:30pm Walking safari to elephants and tapirs
7:30pm Pimms served on the terrace
8:00pm Barbecue
9:00pm onwards dance the night away

Safari Barbecue Option

We chose this option as the day would be divided into more sections and this would make it feel longer. This did work, we didn't have the 'it didn't last long enough' feeling by the end of night. We were ready for our honeymoon.
Cost per head in 2007: £29.50 per head for a walking safari and barbecue.

Safari

Options include

Spirit of the Jaguar (with leaf-cutter ants): Jane told me you could put some of your flowers in the bottom a couple of hours before and by the time you visited they would be carrying pieces of the petals up their tree.

Twilight Zone: Was a possibility, but could have been messy. No-one would like their wedding outfit with bat poo on it.

Red ape House: The orang-utan's new house. This is humidified and a little warm for people in their best outfits (we did visit it in the afternoon when we ran away from the cameras for an hour). This was our first choice, but we were advised the red apes didn't like evening visits and hid when they were disturbed in the evening.

Elephant House: We chose the elephant house, this took us right through the zoo and between chatting to the guests I remember seeing the lions, deer running across their plain (we scared them, I think) and a tiger in the dark on the way back. In the elephant house we met the keeper and he answered many questions guests had about elephants. Then out came a bucket of apples and we got to throw them at the elephants. Playing softball, I wanted to prove to my Dad I could now throw, I could and hit my elephant rather hard. He pretended not to notice. There was a baby elephant under a Mum who was curling her trunk around him to keep him safe from these evening visitors hurling apples. I had told Jane that tapirs were my favourite animal and that I would like to see them (as they were near the elephants). We had a small detour to the tapirs on the way back and got to see the more active Capybaras too. I was hoping the tapirs may be a bit more awake at twilight, but they still lay still, flashing their trunks at us a couple of times.

Barbecue

Instead of the traditional three course meal we had sandwiches in the afternoon and a barbecue suitable for both the vegetarian and meat-eaters amongst us.

Meat: Cajun Chicken Kebabs, Traditional Cheshire sausage, Lamb Cutlets.
Veg: Marinated vegetable kebabs, |open cup mushroom filled with cheese
Both: minted new potatoes, Freshly made coleslaw, Garlic bread, salads and dips.

The food was great and the extra touch made it special. When we returned from the safari the catering staff were assembled on the lawn in full black and white outfits ready to serve us the food. Seeing them standing there on the lawn in the early evening light ready to serve us made me feel important once again. I thought we would help ourselves to the barbecue and was hugely impressed by this additional perfection.

Animals

Some of my favourites: Tapirs, Jaguars, Coatis, Elephants, Lions, Tigers, free-flying bat cave, chimps, giraffes, okapi, sea-lions, penguins, The new Red Ape house.
For full map of animals see website.

Toilets and Access: The toilets are plush with a huge mirror area and at least ten cubicles. Access to toilets is downstairs, but the rest of the manor is all groundfloor.

Contact Details

Address: Oakfield Manor, Chester Zoo, Upton by Chester, Chester, CH2 1LH.
Phone Number: 01244 650209
Facsimile: 01244 389497
E-mail: events@chesterzoo.org.
Website: www.chesterzoo.org

The website has a children's areas, photographic competition and covers many more areas than I have here.

Overall
The event organisers at Chester Zoo (Jane and Ian) made our wedding day exceed both our already high expectations with their attention to detail and excitement at doing something they are so obviously naturals at. Thank you. 

...less