We had THE BEST experience working with The Living Desert as our wedding venue! Nicole and the entire staff were professional and communicative, accommodating and flexible to our vision as well as our budget, and overall just a joy to be around throughout the planning process as well as the day of. We were floored how they were able to transform our reception space to look as magical as it did! Our guests had a blast from start to finish! And of course, the giraffes were the star of the show!

Wow! This venue exceeded our expectations! Jared and the events team went above and beyond to make our wedding perfect. Our guests can not stop talking about our wedding. Every step was thoughtful,professional, and they made the entire wedding planning process enjoyable. Paul the catering manager was also a true professional and delight to work with. The food was delicious and beautiful. Setup was easy for the guests to navigate and his team made the experience so special. All the staff were top notch, and the animal keepers were over the top amazing! They spent so much time talking with the guests about the giraffes and making sure the feeding experience was awesome for both the animals and the guests. I can’t say enough about this group! I consider them all family and I look forward to using this venue again in the future and recommending them highly for any event, but if you want the most memorable wedding this venue has it ALL!
Thank you Jared!!

We loved every minute of planning and hosting our wedding here! The staff were amazing. They care so much about the amnimals, the venue, and about our event! They had many many reccomendations, which we greatly appriciated. The prices was reasonable and lower than almost any venue we found in the area, but no a thing about the evening felt cheap. I read in someone else's review 'the venue was so beautiful, all we had to do was bring chairs'. That was SO TRUE. Don't waste your time, energy, and money trying to beautify the venue, it's already AMAZING!!
We used Savannah's landing for the ceremony, the cactus garden for the happy hour, and the Palm Garden for the reception. Our guests had so much fun traveling around the zoo for different events all night.
Recommendations:
1) Do the animal encounter. We almost cut it because we didn't think our guests would care or like it, but they LOVED it!!
2) Give yourself more time than you think to do photos, there are photo opts EVERYWHERE!!!
3) The house caterer was great and really easy to coordinate with - no need to pay to bring someone else in.
4) We rented a bus to get guests to and from Palm Springs. The drive is further than it seems.
5) Really, don't worry too much about the decorations, they will get lost in the beauty of the zoo & desert.

I WOULD HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS VENUE TO ANYONE LOOKING FOR A FUN FILLED, BEAUTIFUL, OUTDOOR WEDDING!!