We have filmed and photographed weddings in Phoenix for years, and the details that matter most are the ones you only learn by working inside these rooms: that a venue’s beautiful west facing lawn is unusable in June, or that a chapel you have your heart set on will not rent to you.
So this is the version we would give a friend. Twenty two Phoenix wedding venues, grouped by where they actually are.
One note on geography before we start. A lot of venues sold as Phoenix are not in Phoenix. Mountain Shadows, Andaz, Sanctuary and El Chorro are all Paradise Valley. Marriott Phoenix Resort Tempe at The Buttes carries both cities in its name, and the address is Tempe: the Phoenix in front of it means the metro area, not the city. Everything below is inside Phoenix city limits. If you are looking further east, in Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa or Queen Creek, our guide to East Valley wedding venues covers that side of town. For Glendale, Peoria, Goodyear, Litchfield Park or Buckeye, see our guide to West Valley wedding venues.
Downtown Phoenix and the Warehouse District
This is the part of Phoenix that has changed most in the last decade, and it is generally where you’d go if you don’t want to use a resort for a wedding.
Champagne Haus
515 E Grant Street. Up to 350. Indoor and covered patio.
A restored warehouse in the Lawrence Building with 8,600 square feet inside and another 2,000 under a covered patio. Exposed brick, high ceilings, a gated private lot, which matters more than it sounds like in that part of downtown.
We have been in this building for events, though never for a wedding: corporate events that ran presentation style in one room and then spilled into the coworking area for food and mingling, and a wedding industry networking event. The brick walls are the thing you will remember. There are also large rooms off to the side that would make a genuinely good getting ready space, rather than the converted closet a lot of venues call a bridal suite.
One caveat on that, and it is worth reading before you get attached. The building at 515 E Grant is shared. Galvanize, a coworking company, operates out of Suite 150 at the same address, and the events we attended were in that part of the building. We have not confirmed exactly which rooms Champagne Haus rents to couples versus which belong to the coworking operation, so treat our note about the getting ready rooms as a description of the building, not a promise about your contract. Ask on the walkthrough which specific spaces are yours.
The Teapot
818 N 5th Avenue, Roosevelt Historic District. 80 guests, hard cap.
A historic house rather than an event space, with covered porches front and back, a private garden, and air conditioning that matters in this city. Eighty guests is the max. All alcohol has to be bought through the venue, which may be important to know before booking the venue.
It is one of the smallest venues we have worked anywhere in the valley, and that is the appeal. It is a cute, genuinely intimate house. The thing nobody tells you is that your wedding will involve a flip. There is not much usable space inside the building, so ceremony and reception both happen in the back yard and the space has to be turned over between them. That must be built into the timeline rather than discovering it on the day.
When we filmed Missy and Simon here, the inside was doing the supporting jobs: cupcakes for guests, a table for the guest book and gifts. The ceremony, cocktail hour, and reception was out back. We used the front of the house for bridal party and family portraits, which works well, and then drove over to the Arizona Science Center for bridals after their ceremony. That combination is worth stealing. The Teapot gives you the intimacy and the Science Center steps, five minutes away, give you a completely different look in the same afternoon.
Monroe Street Abbey
302 W Monroe Street. 225 seated, 600 standing.
A 1929 First Baptist Church that burned and sat as a shell for decades before being brought back. The rose window facade and the seven story bell tower are still there, and the courtyard inside the original walls is open to the sky. There is an indoor gallery and a loft overlooking the courtyard.
This is one of the most elegant buildings in the city to shoot in. There is almost no color to work with, though that is not necessarily a weakness. Getting married inside the restored remains of an abbey is a look nothing else in Phoenix offers. The giant rose window is iconic and you should plan to use it at least once in photos and again in video. There are good portrait spots on the floors above and out in front, and the views from the upper floors are worth the climb. A lot of elegant weddings get held here and the area in the center earns it.
One honest warning that is not ours. A couple vendors we know do not like this venue because of the pigeons living in the bell tower and the mess they leave. We did not notice it on our day, though we did not go up into the tower, so take that as a secondhand caution rather than something we can confirm. If the tower is part of what you are booking this place for, ask to see it.
Do not confuse it with the Monroe Street Abbey Apartments at 334 W Monroe. Different building, different address.
The Dauz
750 W Polk Street. 365 seated inside, 200 in the courtyard.
White brick, twenty foot vaulted ceilings, ten dimmable chandeliers, and two garage doors that open the room up. There is a cobblestone courtyard with a fountain. The rental structure is unusually clear: full day runs noon to 11pm with everyone out by midnight, and there is a four hour minimum. That midnight number is worth planning against. It is one of the few venues in the city that publishes its end time rather than burying it in a contract.
We have been here for an open house but have not worked a wedding, so take this as a walkthrough impression rather than a shooting report. It is a very large, long space. There is a nice little lawn that would suit cocktail hour well.
The thing we would want a couple to understand is that this room does not arrive pretty. Left alone it reads as a modern warehouse, which is exactly what it is. You have to plan on dressing it, and budget accordingly. That is not a criticism, it is how a blank box venue works, and a blank box is the right choice if you have a specific look in mind and want nothing arguing with it. Just do not tour it expecting the room to do the decorating for you.
The Woodland
911 W Woodland Avenue. Chapel seats 150, Great Room seats 150.
A church from around 1900 with the brick left exposed floor to ceiling. The Chapel is 2,000 square feet with a forty foot aisle and pews that seat 150. The Great Room is 1,852 square feet with terrace access, and the Brick Room is a smaller 800 square foot space that connects to the chapel through arcadia doors. Bridal and groom suites both exist.
A forty foot aisle is long. If a long processional matters to you, this is the room in Phoenix that has it.
The Valley Garden Center
1809 N 15th Avenue. 150 seated, indoor and out.
Four ceremony settings, which is unusual at this size: a giant mesquite tree that is roughly 125 years old and seats 120 under its canopy, a Japanese teahouse with an elevated stage at 90, a palm garden at 150, and a courtyard for strolling. The West and East banquet rooms combine to 150.
Irish Cultural Center and McClelland Library
1106 N Central Avenue. Great Hall 120 for weddings, courtyard 220.
A Norman style stone castle on Central, with a library building full of exposed beams and stained glass, a walled courtyard strung with lights, and a cottage built in mid 1800s Irish style. It genuinely feels like a small castle, and that is not a stretch on the venue’s part.
The capacity here needs care, because the venue publishes two different sets of numbers on two of its own pages. The wedding rentals page says 120 in the Great Hall and 220 in the courtyard. The general facility rentals page says 180 and 300. The wedding page is the one that applies to you. Plan against 120 and 220. The naming is inconsistent too: the wedding page calls the outdoor space the Heritage Courtyard, the facility page calls it The Clos. Same courtyard.
The wedding we shot here was Halloween themed, and we have never seen a venue suit a concept better. Gargoyles, jack o’lanterns, skeletons, all of it at home against the stone. If that is the wedding you want, stop reading and book it.
Practically, the best thing about it is that everything happened in the courtyard. Ceremony and reception in the same place, no shuttling, no long walk between spaces. For guests that is a real kindness and it is rarer than it should be. We did bridals in front of the doors and the stone arch at the entrance to the Great Hall, which photographed beautifully, and used the stairwell there for the bridal party.
We should be straight about one gap: we have never been inside the Great Hall. There was another event running that night so nobody was allowed in. The venue lists it as an indoor room seating 120 for weddings, and it does not publish which of the buildings it sits in. If your plan depends on the Great Hall interior, go see it in person, because we cannot tell you what it is like to work in and we are not going to guess.
Wedding rates are separate from the general event rates, and holidays are priced differently again. There are discounts for summer months and mid week dates. The center closes to the public for all of August, and again on New Year’s Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day and Veterans Day. Ask specifically whether private rentals run in August, because the published closure is for visitor hours and may not be the same thing.
Arizona Science Center
600 E Washington Street. 400 to 450 seated on Level One, 500 plus for a buyout.
Not an obvious wedding venue and that is rather the point. Level One takes 400 to 450 seated and includes the Cracchiolo Theater with a built in stage. Level Three has the SRP Canyon Terrace outside with the downtown skyline behind it. The Dorrance Dome is an LED dome theater that seats 60, which is a genuinely strange and good option for a small ceremony. Events are after hours, since the building is open to the public until 4pm.
We have shot bridals here, and we want to point you at one specific thing, because it is the answer to a question a lot of downtown couples have. The steps behind the science center are the spot. It is all concrete back there, which sounds unappealing and photographs modern and urban in a way very little else in Phoenix does. There is real shade on those steps in the late afternoon and into the evening, which in this city decides where you can actually stand. We have also shot out front among the trees in the fall for the colour. But the steps are why you come.
That makes it valuable even if you are not getting married here. If your venue is one of the small downtown houses, this is fifteen minutes of your timeline for a completely different set of portraits.
Kimpton Hotel Palomar Phoenix
2 E Jefferson Street. Receptions 10 to 140.
242 rooms at CityScape, which solves the guest accommodation problem in one move, plus a rooftop deck and pool with the downtown skyline. There is roughly 5,000 square feet of outdoor space and around 15,000 total, across the Dreamcatcher Ballroom, the Calavera Junior Ballroom and several smaller rooms.
We have not worked or attended an event at this property, so everything above is from the hotel rather than from us. We are including it because a downtown hotel with 242 rooms on site solves a problem most venues on this list do not, and you should know it exists.
One thing to check on the tour. The hotel’s own wedding page says 10 to 140 guests for receptions while the general venues page says the property hosts up to 300. Ask which number applies to the specific room you want.
The Camelback Corridor and Arcadia
Where the money is, and where most of the photography you have seen of Phoenix weddings was shot.
Arizona Biltmore
2400 E Missouri Avenue. Grand Ballroom 300, Paradise Garden 400 for ceremony.
The 1929 building, Frank Lloyd Wright influenced, historically designated, at the base of the Phoenix Mountains Preserve. Paradise Garden takes 400 for a ceremony, the Cottage Court 250, the Cottage Lawn 150. Inside, the Grand Ballroom seats 300, the Gold Room 250, the Aztec Room 120. Roughly twenty event spaces in total. Bridal suite included, and it is a Waldorf Astoria, so the room block solves itself.
We should be clear about what we can and cannot tell you here. We have spent time on this property and it is a beautiful resort, expansive in a way that is easy to underestimate. It is also easy to get turned around in. Twenty event spaces across a property that size means you should walk the actual route your guests will walk on the tour, not just look at the rooms.
But the weddings we have shot on the Biltmore estate were at the golf club across the road, not in the resort. So the entry below is the one where we are speaking from the day rather than the walkthrough.
Arizona Biltmore Golf Club
2400 Biltmore Estates Drive. 300 on the lawn, 300 in the ballroom.
Separate operation from the resort and considerably less expensive. The event lawn takes up to 300, the ballroom takes 300 with big windows, and there is a rooftop balcony that holds 40 and a Legacy Room that holds 40. Catering comes through Adobe Bar and Grille.
This is the Biltmore address at a fraction of the Biltmore price, and having worked weddings here we think it is underrated. The ceremony happens on the lawn behind the clubhouse, and the view is the whole argument: the golf course runs away from you and keeps going, with mature trees along it. It is a long, open, green view, which is not what most people picture when they picture a Phoenix wedding.
The balcony above the lawn is the other thing to know. It is right there, which makes it ideal for a quick bridals session without burning half an hour of your timeline getting somewhere.
The tradeoff versus the resort is accommodation. There is no hotel here, so your out of town guests are staying across the road or further afield.
Wrigley Mansion
2501 E Telawa Trail. Capacity not published. Call them.
Built in 1929 by William Wrigley Jr, sitting on a hill with 360 degree views of the city and the mountains. A rotunda with a gilded inlaid ceiling, a Great Room with sandcast walls and a solarium roof, circular and zigzag and stone staircases, Juliet balconies, and a tiered lawn running down the hill. Two dressing suites are included with the ceremony fee. Geordie’s is on site.
The ceremony and reception spaces are genuinely special. Sitting on a hilltop does most of the work: you get views off the property in several directions and tall trees framing the lawn, and the staircase coming down into the ceremony space is a gift to anyone filming a processional.
Two practical notes. The ceremony space feels intimate, and we would read that as a real constraint rather than a charming description. It does not look like a space built for a large wedding. And the interior is dark. Flash is a must inside, so make sure whoever you hire is comfortable lighting a dim historic room rather than hoping for windows. The bars and the stairwell are the standout interior spots and they are worth the extra setup.
On capacity, every directory quotes a different number and none of them come from the venue. Wrigley Mansion does not publish a seated wedding capacity anywhere on its own site. Here Comes The Guide says 200, The Knot says 250. The only capacities Wrigley publishes are for its private dining rooms, which top out at 40, and those are not the wedding spaces. Call the special events team and get a number on the record before you plan around it. Given how the ceremony space reads in person, we would not assume the higher figure.
Royal Palms Resort and Spa
5200 E Camelback Road. Alegria Garden 120, Vernadero Lawn 180 seated.
One of our favourite venues in the valley, and we have written the full entry, with every ceremony space and capacity, in our guide to Scottsdale wedding venues. It sits in Phoenix rather than Scottsdale, but couples shopping the Camelback corridor look at both sides of the line, so that is where the detail lives. We shot Katie and Garrett’s photos here.
What we want to add here is the one thing nobody tells you about Alegria Garden, since it is the space everyone asks about. It feels enclosed. You are surrounded by walls, you come in through a gate, and large trees cover the whole space. The trees are a real asset in this climate because you get proper shade. What you give up is the view. Almost every comparable venue nearby sells you one, and Alegria does not.
There is a Camelback view on this property. The Orange Grove courtyard has it, and it is lovely. You can see the mountain from Vernadero Lawn too, sitting above the surrounding buildings. What you do not get anywhere here is an open, uninterrupted mountain backdrop, because the views are broken up by buildings, trees and walls. Alegria gives you none of it at all. So if the picture in your head is the two of you with Camelback clean behind you mid vow, stand in each space on the tour before you decide. What you are trading for is style, detail and architecture, and on that the Royal Palms is top tier. For a lot of couples that is the better trade. Just make it knowingly.
Papago and the 44th Street corridor
Desert Botanical Garden
1201 N Galvin Parkway. Ceremony ceiling 100. Everything ends at 11pm.
The full entry, with every room, capacity and published rental fee, is in our guide to Scottsdale wedding venues. Like Royal Palms it is inside Phoenix, and like Royal Palms the couples touring it are usually touring Scottsdale too.
The one thing worth repeating here, because it catches people out, is that this venue has two different ceilings. Dorrance Hall takes 250 seated for a reception. The ceremony spaces, the Amphitheater and Binns Pavilion, take 100 each. So if you have 180 guests, the reception fits and the ceremony does not. Work out your ceremony number before you fall for the reception room, and note the Amphitheater is only available from 4pm.
Phoenix Airport Marriott
1101 N 44th Street. Arizona Ballroom 500 seated, 750 reception style.
Fourteen rooms across 24,842 square feet, which makes the Arizona Ballroom the largest in the airport corridor. The Diamond Ballroom seats 250. There is an outdoor terrace that holds 80. Airport shuttle, group rates from ten rooms.
Nobody dreams about a wedding at an airport hotel. Here is the honest case for it: it is huge, and if you are planning a large wedding, huge is the thing that is actually hard to find in Phoenix.
Hanna and Ejaz’s wedding here was a large Pakistani wedding, and the room absorbed it without strain. They brought in a full stage for the couple to sit on, with guests and family coming up throughout the night for photos. A lot of venues cannot physically take a stage that size plus the floor plan around it. This one can, and if a stage is part of your tradition that should move this venue up your list considerably.
The limitation is outside. We did bridals out front and the space there is tight. If portraits matter to you, plan to drive somewhere nearby rather than expecting the property to deliver them. Build the travel into the timeline.
North Central and North Phoenix
Aunt Chilada’s, Dreamy Draw
7330 N Dreamy Draw Drive. Garden Patio 250.
At the base of Piestewa Peak. The Garden Patio is an outdoor pavilion with brick arches and railroad ties that seats 250, and there are seven smaller spaces inside and out, including a Train Room with a train circling the ceiling and a Palm Court Patio with fountains.
We filmed Kevin and Sheetal’s Sangeet on the Garden Patio, which is the use case this space is quietly excellent at. It comfortably held around a hundred guests with room left over, and it absorbed everything a Sangeet needs at once: a stage area for the cultural dances, a separate area set up for henna, and the bar off to one side so it was not in the middle of everything.
What makes it work at night is the small fireplaces nearby. They warm the space both literally and in the way it reads on camera, and the whole patio ends up feeling romantic rather than like a function room with the lights down. It is a large, genuinely attractive outdoor space, and for a reception it is a strong choice whenever the weather cooperates. Which, being outdoors in Phoenix, is the one thing to think hard about when you pick your date.
Be specific when you book: there is a second Aunt Chilada’s inside the Arizona Grand Resort, and they are different venues. This is the Dreamy Draw one.
Royal Palace Event Venue
1915 W Thunderbird Road. Up to 1,000 seated.
Three ballrooms totalling more than 20,000 square feet, and one of the very few Phoenix venues that will genuinely seat a thousand people. Chandeliers, white draping, a large dance floor, getting ready rooms. Indoor only.
If you are planning a large cultural wedding and every other venue in the city has told you no, this is the room. The address is 85023, not 85029, which is listed wrong in several directories.
South Mountain and South Phoenix
The Farm at South Mountain
6106 S 32nd Street. Canopy in the Grove 250, Stone Grove 150. Outdoor.
Ten acres of mature pecan grove. The Canopy in the Grove takes 250 across 2,400 square feet, the Stone Grove 150 with a wood burning oven. Handcrafted stonework, grassy knolls, and real shade, which in this city is the whole argument. Elegant and rustic at the same time, with views, which is a harder combination to pull off than it sounds.
Two corrections to what you will read elsewhere. First, The Farm publishes no end time. Directories list 10pm; the venue’s wedding page, its private events page and its own booking form are all silent on it, and the only hours it does publish, 10am to 3pm, belong to its daytime picnic product and have nothing to do with a wedding. Get your end time in writing.
Second, the “outdoor only” line needs a footnote. Both wedding spaces are outdoor. There is indoor seated space on the property, but it belongs to Quiessence, the restaurant, which tops out around 100 and is booked separately. So plan an outdoor wedding, and know that a small indoor dinner is possible through a different door.
Full disclosure on our objectivity here: this is where our founder got engaged.
Secret Garden by Wedgewood Weddings
2501 E Baseline Road. 225 seated. Five acres.
A 1929 Spanish Colonial Revival manor with hand stamped century old tiles, a grand staircase, wrought iron balconies and fireplaces, on five acres of garden with South Mountain behind it. The ceremony lawn has mesquite trees, date palms, an iron cupola and a carved stone altar. The Manor, the Pavilion, the Courtyard and the Carriage House handle receptions. Two getting ready suites.
Wedgewood runs an all inclusive model, which suits some couples and frustrates others. Know which you are before you tour. We have worked weddings here.
Arizona Grand Resort and Spa
8000 S Arizona Grand Parkway. Grand Ballroom 1,200. Sixteen spaces.
The largest capacity on this list by a distance. The Grand Ballroom seats 1,200 and the property will hold 2,000 across sixteen spaces. South Mountain Ballroom takes 400 with its own patio. Outside there is Fountain Circle with a staircase and an elevated landing, Paseo Garden with lit palms and fireplaces, and Island Green, a lawn with water features. 744 suites on site and a private water park on 160 acres.
Two things stood out filming Ashoraya and Stephney’s Assyrian wedding here in December.
The first is unusual enough that we would lead a venue tour with it. Arizona Grand let us fly a drone indoors, inside the reception room, after we signed a liability agreement and provided proof of insurance. We do not know of another venue in the city that will do this. It transformed the reception and detail coverage. We also took the bridal party to a stairwell nearby and got a shot we still think about: the bride lying on the stairs with her bridesmaids around her, the drone rotating and descending toward them. If you are hiring a filmmaker with a drone and an insurance certificate, ask the venue about this early, because it is a genuinely different look and most properties will simply say no.
The second is the space around the room, not the room itself. The lobby outside their reception space was large enough to be its own venue. The couple put a live photo booth out there along with tables for guests to mingle over drinks and hors d’oeuvres. On a wedding this size that overflow area is what stops the evening feeling like a crowd management exercise, and very few Phoenix venues have it.
Fair warning on the outdoor spaces. There is a lot of ground here and plenty of options for portraits, but on our day it poured. We ended up working only under cover and spending real effort keeping the dress dry and clean. Phoenix rain is rare and it is not impossible, so if you are booking a property where the portrait plan is outdoors, ask your photographer what the wet plan is.
Rio Salado Audubon Center
3131 S Central Avenue. 150 seated.
A riparian restoration site on the banks of the Rio Salado, with wetlands, a pond, desert habitat and the downtown skyline in the distance. The Dorrance Skyline Room opens through glass doors onto a terrace. There is a shaded ramada.
The least conventional venue on this list and the one with the most specific appeal. If the birds and the water are the point, nothing else in Phoenix does this.
If you are getting married in a church
Brophy Chapel
4701 N Central Avenue. Ceremony only.
The most beautiful ceremony space in Phoenix and the one most couples cannot book, so let us lead with that. Brophy Chapel is available only to graduates of Brophy College Preparatory and Xavier College Preparatory. That is the school’s own wording, and it reads as narrower than most people assume. If you are not a graduate of either school, ask before you plan around it. If neither of you went to one of those schools, this entry is not for you, and we would rather you learn that here than after a tour.
If you are eligible: 1928 Spanish Colonial Revival, a hundred feet square, a 135 foot bell tower, a pink tufa altar in Mexican Baroque style, stained glass from An Túr Gloine in Dublin, wrought iron chandeliers, and a fifteenth century Italian painting of the Holy Family above the altar. The exterior is gorgeous and it is one of our favourite buildings in the city to shoot from the air.
Now the part that will actually affect your photos, from having shot weddings in there. It is a dark building. That is the defining fact of working in it, and it is compounded by a set of restrictions on how your vendors can operate.
When we shot there, photo and video were not permitted to stand in the centre aisle at any point. Side aisles only. That single rule changes what your ceremony coverage can look like more than any gear choice, and it is worth raising with your photographer before you book, not after. They do allow you up to the second storey, which gives you a high wide angle you cannot get anywhere else in the room, and we would make sure whoever you hire plans to use it.
Our recollection is also that you cannot bring your own lighting in. We want to be careful here, because we are going from memory and the school does not publish its photography and videography rules anywhere online. We checked. So treat all of this as what one vendor was told on the day, get the current rules in writing from the chapel coordinator, and have your photographer read them before you sign. A dark room plus a no lighting rule plus a side aisles only rule is a combination your vendors need to know about in advance.
The calendar is the other thing to know early, because the closures are substantial. The chapel is closed through July and most of August. No weddings on Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Year’s Eve weekends. October is lawn overseeding. Mid December through 6 January the Christmas decorations are up. Add those together and a meaningful share of the year is gone before you start. There is a $500 chapel fee deposit and it is nonrefundable once paid. There is no reception space, so you will need a second venue.
A note if you are getting married in a church anywhere in this metro. Most parishes have no reception space, so plan on a second venue and on moving your guests between them. The exceptions are worth hunting for. We have shot at a parish with a full hall across its own parking lot and it changes the whole shape of the day: no convoy, no gap, no second load in. If a parish you are considering has one, that is worth real money to you.
Choosing by what you actually want
- The largest rooms. Arizona Grand at 1,200 seated, Royal Palace at 1,000, Phoenix Airport Marriott at 500. Below that, everything drops to 350 and under. For a large cultural wedding that needs a stage, Arizona Grand and the Airport Marriott are the two we have watched actually handle it.
- A small wedding that does not feel underfilled. The Teapot at 80, the Dorrance Dome at Arizona Science Center at 60, the Brick Room at The Woodland at 40. Alegria Garden at Royal Palms at 120 belongs here too.
- Real shade in summer. The Farm at South Mountain’s pecan grove. Aunt Chilada’s Garden Patio. Alegria Garden’s tree canopy at Royal Palms. The covered patio at Champagne Haus. The steps behind Arizona Science Center, if you only need shade for portraits.
- A view. The Biltmore Golf Club lawn down the golf course. Wrigley Mansion from the hilltop. Rio Salado for the skyline. Note that Royal Palms, despite sitting at the foot of Camelback, does not give you the mountain from its ceremony spaces.
- A blank room you will decorate yourself. The Dauz, Champagne Haus. Both are warehouses and both will look like warehouses unless you dress them. Budget for that before you fall for the square footage.
- A room with history. Wrigley Mansion, Arizona Biltmore, Royal Palms, Secret Garden, Brophy Chapel, Monroe Street Abbey, The Woodland. All 1929 or earlier except the chapel.
- Guests flying in. Arizona Biltmore, Royal Palms, Arizona Grand, Kimpton Palomar and the Airport Marriott all have rooms on site.
- Ceremony and reception in one spot, no shuttling. The Irish Cultural Center’s courtyard. The Teapot, though it costs you a flip.
- Something nobody else has done. Arizona Science Center, Rio Salado Audubon, The Dauz, Monroe Street Abbey, the Irish Cultural Center if you want a themed wedding the architecture will meet you halfway on.
The heat and light conversation nobody has early enough
Phoenix has two wedding seasons and one long stretch where outdoor ceremonies are a genuine welfare question rather than a style preference. October through April is the season. Everyone knows this and prices reflect it.
May through September, an outdoor ceremony before sunset is asking a lot of your guests and your grandparents. We have watched vendors go visibly flushed standing in it. If you are set on a summer date outside, plan the ceremony after sunset, and think about shade, water and fans before you think about anything else. The venues on this list with real shade are a short list and they book out.
The light question is separate and gets asked even less. Every venue here has a window of maybe forty minutes when it looks like the photographs you saved, and that window moves across the year. Ask your venue which direction the ceremony site faces, then ask your photographer or filmmaker what time that means for your month. It is a five minute conversation that changes what your pictures look like.
And since it comes up once every few years and ruins a plan when it does: have a wet weather answer for your portraits. We lost the outdoor portrait plan to rain at Arizona Grand in December and spent the session working under cover and keeping the dress off the ground. Ask your photographer what they would do.
Questions worth asking every venue on this list
Most of what is above came from being in these rooms on a working day. These are the questions that produced it, and they are worth asking on any tour.
- What time does the event have to end, and is that in the contract?
- Do the ceremony space and the reception space require a flip, and who does it?
- Where do portraits actually happen, and is there shade there at my ceremony hour?
- Can my photographer and filmmaker bring lighting, and where are they allowed to stand during the ceremony?
- Is a drone permitted, and what paperwork do you need to allow it?
- Which direction does the ceremony site face?
- If the building is shared with other tenants, which rooms are actually mine?
The lighting and standing question in particular gets asked almost never, and at somewhere like Brophy it is the single thing that most shapes what your ceremony photos look like.
Filming and photographing these venues
We shoot wedding films and photography across Phoenix, and most of what is in this guide came from working these rooms rather than touring them. You can see the films on our wedding films page. And if your wedding carries a tradition of its own, here is what we have learned filming them.
If you are planning a Phoenix wedding and want to talk about coverage, get in touch. Even if we are not the right fit, we are happy to tell you what we know about the venue you are considering.
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