Fresno Chaffee Zoo Reviews

The venue was the first thing we booked and it was because the Zoo is such a unique and beautiful place. Kristen Wong, the Zoo Event Coordinator, was absolutely incredible. She walked us through the planning process and worked with our vendors to create a truly memorable experience for us and our guests. We also decided to do the catering through the Zoo, which all of the guests LOVED. The food was absolutely delicious! Thank you to Kristen and the Fresno Chaffee Zoo for all that you did to make our day extra special!

Kristen and team are absolutely amazing!!
Kristen was extremely helpful and responded fairly quickly. I would get some conversation confused at times but that’s because we communicated primarily through email lol

The ceremony at the sea lion cove was amazing! And the reception area was awesome. Definitely recommend the in house catering “Taste,” my guests could not stop talking about how good the food was!! They also enjoyed the open bar package we chose with Taste too!! Our cocktail hour was a feed the giraffes hour and it was so worth it!!


Overall recommend everything! The zoo is a fun place to get married 🥰

My day couldn't have been more perfect. Megan and the whole event team were wonderful to work with. I got married in Canopy Grove and it's a great value and beautiful! There is also so many great places for pictures.

When I found out they did weddings at the Fresno Chaffee Zoo, I knew I couldn't get married anywhere else. The event staff at the zoo, Megan in particular, were so wonderful to work with and went above and beyond to make our wedding so special. I got so many compliments on the venue, food, atmosphere, and everything the zoo provided for us. The food in particular was ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. I've had multiple people tell me it was the best wedding food they'd ever had. The venue/catering combination was surprisingly affordable for something so special. It was such a wonderful and unique experience from start to finish. I really can't say enough good things about the entire Fresno Chaffee Zoo staff.

Loved my wedding Pam was extremely professional. She coordinated my wedding before the big day. She thought of everything I would need. The day went extremely smooth thanks to her. She's just awesome!! I had the best wedding ever. My guests are still talking about it. (Year after)

We held our reception at the Zoo. It was a wonderful experience. The Zoo has several "venues" but the only one big enough for a wedding reception is the Dining Garden, located at the back of the facility. The area is a beautiful lawn, pre-strung with lights and plenty of space. The part we liked best about using this venue is that at 5pm, when our reception began, the Zoo closed to the public but remained open to our guests. Granted, this took away a little bit from our dancefloor, but hey, you get to wander the Zoo at night!

Currently, the wedding coordinator at the Zoo is Pam Wheelan. She is very well-organized, extremely helpful and very pleasant to work with.

We absolutely LOVED having our wedding at the zoo. It was so elegant. We had our ceremony in the bird show amphitheater and our reception at the canopy groves garden area in the African section. Megan was SO helpful and answered any questions we had. The team at the zoo could be more helpful in making our day perfect. All of the guests thought it was so fun and such a creative idea to have it there. I would recommend this to anybody! The canopy groves is a particularly lovely section for a reception. They also worked with Pardinis, our caterer, and handled everything for us. It was seriously such a lovely experience, and also made for some really fun wedding photos!

This was the first and last venue I looked at for my wedding (ceremony and reception). It is beautiful and the event staff is great. I would also like to say, I was determined to have my wedding at a Zoo since I am a huge animal lover.

Pros: 1. Your guest will love it. At first family and friends thought it was a "strange" place to have a wedding, but once they were there and saw how beautiful the place was and how exciting it was to have animals in the backdrop they thought it was awesome. 2. The service. I always felt that the event coordinator was helpful with whatever I needed. 3. The options of were you can have the ceremony/reception. There are a lot of great locations inside the Zoo for both ceremony and reception (they do change in price though). I had mine at the African Adventure grass area. 4. The price. It may seem expensive to some, but for the scenery and the service it really is a value. We had a budget wedding and we still pulled it off. 5. Flexible with vendors.

Cons: 1. The time. You really only get the venue for about 4 hours for the Ceremony and Reception (this doesn't include set up or take down though), so our wedding was short and sweet. We still had everything we wanted, there was just only 2 hours of dancing and drinking... which ended being fine. But this may not work for everyone or for larger weddings. And at the time there really wasn't a way to extend the time unless you wanted your wedding to be taking place while Zoo Patrons were still there, which we didn't want. I also would like to note, the wedding party came 1.5 hours early to take photos before the ceremony. The Zoo is flexible with things like that.

Honestly, I loved my wedding. The pictures came out amazing. I got to feed giraffes. I think even if you are not super into animals like me, this is still an amazing place to have a wedding.

When my husband and I began looking for different venues we wanted something versatile, unique and a great place for lots of kids to be at a wedding. Our wedding at the Fresno Chaffee Zoo was a fun, family oriented wedding. The entire night our guests had a chance to roam the zoo and interact with the animals after the zoo had closed. Pam and Megan provided outstanding services for our wedding. Our location was gorgeous and their event planning services helped to make my pre-planning and choosing vendors for the wedding extremely easy. My husband and I had such a wonderful time and I would recommend this venue to any brides who want a different and unforgettable experience!