Preservation Park Reviews

To say our wedding venue was spectacular seems like an understatement. Preservation Park was absolutely the venue that dreams are made of. The staff was like a well oiled machine from the very first contact over a year ago, and they had recommendations for our other vendors that made our wedding perfect, (Miraglia Catering and Event Magic). The park had all of the tables and chairs on site and the staff seamlessly moved them between our wedding ceremony to our reception around the fountain. We had a room on site to get ready in and to leave our things for the night, and the natural light at the park has made for some incredible photos. Listen… everyone has done the wine country, barnyard wedding with the burlap. Preservation Park is an incredibly unique place and they support local small businesses and nonprofits so do your yourself a favor and stop looking for a venue right now.

I photographed a wedding here and I can't get over this venue. It is so unique and gorgeous. In the middle of Oakland, it's super convenient for everyone. Yet it has such a cute and intimate feel. The buildings are beautiful and everyone had such a good time here

We recently got married in Preservation Park and cannot praise it enough! Preservation Park is affordable, can support a 150+ person gathering--and when you rent the park, you're renting an 1880s Victorian neighborhood and garden that is both grand and intimate. We held our ceremony on the bandstand and our reception just a few feet away in the courtyard around the fountain. There are sound/AV hookups on the bandstand and in the courtyard and two entrances, which give both guests and caterers easy access. For only a nominal fee, we rented the parking garage across the street and provide free parking for guests. Best of all, Barbara is an excellent coordinator. She is proactive, knowledgeable, timely, and incredibly calm and supportive during the most stressful moments.

Like us, our guests fell in love with the park. I can't count the number of compliments we received. Almost every single person admired it and asked about it. We didn't have to decorate because the grounds are so beautiful, and we didn't have worry about access because the park centrally located near BART and Jack London Square. The gardens and Victorian architecture create beautiful photos, from wisteria covered verandas to a beautiful stained glass picture window to a delicate French fountain. (FYI, there's no water in the fountain because of the drought--which actually added to the fun, as kids could play in the empty basin and parents didn't have to worry about them running too far out of sight. Also, the architecture of the fountain is so stunning it doesn't need water. Given the drought, brown is the new green, and paint is the new wet.)

Overall, we highly recommend Preservation Park! It's as close to perfect as you'll get.

I had read that Preservation Park was beautiful and that it had an amazing wow factor but I couldn't have imagined how it had turned out and just how beautiful it was. It was absolutely beautiful on the day of and heightened the beauty of my decorations. Barbara was very helpful in the entire process. She understands that most couples have never planned a wedding before and helps to cover all the basics of planning a wedding.

Everyone love our venue! This is the prefect site. If you are looking for an all in one ceremony and reception then this is a cute site. No need to decor the ceremony site (bandstand) because it's already got a lot of fabalous green. Parking was across the street with a low fee but it was really worth it.

The event coordinator Barbara was great. She is so patient and worked with our schedule. She response right away and work with us to get our dream wedding.

We had the reception inside and it was wonderful. The inside reception was nice and cheaper as long as you know how to dress it up. Even the business chairs didn't look so bad. Please check this place out it's a hidden treasure you do not want to miss.

From the moment I saw Preservation Park I knew this was the place we would be getting married...it litterally brought me to tears! It sort of looks like Main Street on Disneyland with all the old fashioned homes and the cobblestone street with the little street lamps. The garden bandstand is a beautiful and intimate place to have a wedding ceremony and I loved the option of doing the appetizer hour ourside around the fountain. Nile hall was PLENTY big for our 130 guests, and Barabara was fantasic at helping to suggest ways to make even more fit into the room. As it turns out, we thought it would be fairly cramped with 130 but it was really roomy and felt intimate at the same time! The employees of Preservation Park, namely Barabara are VERY good at what they do and will give you plenty of pointers on how to make the space work best for your event. We used one room as a bridal changing room (a whole seperate house from the reception hall), and a room next to the reception hall as a child care room (a HUGE hit at the wedding), Ginn Hall held the buffet. The stairs inside Ginn were the perfect place for our formal photos and ALL the pix so far have been tremendous!!!! The thing that really helped us out with this choice was that they will allow you to choose an outside caterer (given that the caterer has the right kind of insurance), which meant we could choose one that was recommended to us and would give us a good deal. That alone made Preservation Park within our budget. They FAR exceeded our expectations. We were proud to bring our family and friends to this little-known spot in the middle of Oakland, and the fact that not to many people have been there made it a very cool place to entertain. I cannot reccomend Preservation Park highly enough!

We chose Preservation Park after looking through numerous venues around the bay area. We were looking for a location where we could have both the wedding and reception in the same space, a venue that gave us some flexibility in terms of catering and bar, somewhere that didn't require a long travel from the hotel and located in a city that people could go out, as well as something in our budget. Preservation Park fulfilled all of those qualities and truly turned out to be the best venue choice. The main contact person, Barbara Ackerman, is extremely warm and professional. She helps you lay out all of your plans, will work with your caterer, and even gave me a personal call before my wedding. She will truly put your mind at ease. Also, the grounds of the park are immaculate, my guests loved the open space and all of the natural beauty. We opted to have both the ceremony and reception outdoors, and it was beautiful, we played on the vintage theme and it came out perfectly. The indoor space can be a little dark and the bathrooms are a little dated, but with a few decorations, no one pays much attention. Oh they are pretty strict about the time you have to set up (about 2 hours) and to clean up (about 1), so that scheduling can get a little tight, but just need to have the right coordinator to pull it off. I loved my wedding at Preservation Park and would recommend it to any bride.

Got married here 3 weeks ago and I have been looking forward to review PP b/c it was just a truly wonderful place for a wedding. It is totally the "Diamond in the Rough" and the unknown/people who have low expectations makes this place even better.

1. Barbara Ackerman is AMAZING to work with. Incredibly nice, but more importantly on top of her game, she went over every single detail, was very professional, yet also warm and friendly.
2. The site: immaculate flower and gardens. We had an outdoor ceremony, indoor/outdoor cocktail hour and indoor reception. I was not in love with Nile Hall where the reception was held, but with all the tables done and people inside it was beautiful with the high ceilings. The Ginn Parlor has AMAZING photo spots and is just adorable while the outdoor bandstand and fountain are are the truly beautiful part of PP. The people who work there really care about the place and you can tell. We had a May wedding and the flowers and trees were in full bloom (wisteria was amazing). It is also the perfect size, we had a little over 100 people but the place felt incredibly intimate and we had it all to our self. We rented the parking garage next store so parking was not a hassle for our guests.
4. Vendors: There is only a preferred vendor list for caterers--with price and cuisine options. We chose Blue Heron catering and couldn't have asked for better ( see my review). The rest (flowers, photo, cake, etc you could chose which made sticking to my budget WAY easier.
3. People's reactions said it all: They LOVED the site and had no idea there was anything like this in downtown Oakland!!!

A few misc:
This is a photographers dream, our photo's have been beautiful so far!
It is right on the freeway but you REALLY cannot hear or tell that you are anywhere close. It is like there is a sound barrier around the place or something...I swear.
It is moderately priced as far as wedding sites go. While Barbara is incredibly easy to work with, she is not very flexible in negotiating or times. She has her way of doing things (which comes from years of experience) which you have to follow. It is not like a hotel or some fancy schmancy place where they will cater to your every need....but that probably is not the type of person who would get married here!

They are re-doing the website so hopefully this wonderful place will get more business. Honestly, I was SUPER picky about our site and Pres Park was IDEAL and a good bang for the buck.

This was the perfect venue for our May wedding. This venue is picturesue, easily accessible and relatively afforable. Guest can sit in the shade for an outdoor bandstand ceremony. Onsite parking is available. Barbara, the site coordinator, is easily the nicest person to work with.

Have your wedding at Preservation Park if you want a unique and romantic venue.

Pros:
1. This is a non-profit so your money is going to a good cause.
2. Venue. I had an outdoor ceremony for about 175 people in June. I used the bandstand for the ceremony and had the reception around the fountain. It was a beautiful weather but I also rented heat lamps too. My guests felt that they were at a neighborhood block party even though the venue had a lot of space to mill around. There are beautiful greens that are well kept. The only decorations I needed were for the bandstand and string market lights. I highly recommend the market lights for an outdoor reception.
3. Location. This place right off the freeway and BART. I rented the parking garage out across the street. Ubers were plenty.
4. Value. This place is really cheap to rent. They also have tables and chairs for rental.
5. Outside Catering. You can bring your own caterer and licensed bartender. The preferred vendor list was about 5 vendors that were not that appealing to me. I paid more for an outside vendor.

Cons:
1. I had the most difficulty with the Coordinator, Barbara. I felt that if you did not have a typical wedding that she was not flexible and tried to push her vision of where things should be located, how it should flow. A few times she allowed me to do something but then would then backtrack and take it back. She would tell me something was against the rules but then could not point to any written rules. Then she would suddenly come up with an addendum rule. It was really frustrating to not know from the very beginning what I could and could not do. I had to hire extra helpers to clean up since I didn't have a full-service caterer. This was not spelled out.

2. As a trade-off for the price, the set up time is VERY tight. So I don't recommend too many complicated set ups. If you are it outdoors, you cannot have it go past 10 because of the neighbors and noise.

We wanted our wedding in Oakland, and Preservation Park is a uniquely beautiful setting. We were very happy with how everything worked out. We did have some challenges with the coordinator for the venue trying to substitute her vision for ours - evidently most people have their ceremony outside near the fountain, and go into the hall for a reception. We wanted more quiet for our ceremony, so the speakers could be heard, so we wanted the ceremony indoors in the hall, followed by a champagne toast outside at the fountain. For some reason this didn't jibe with the venue coordinator, and we had to really insist to get what we wanted. In the end it worked out great - we hired the fantastic Brass Monkey Brass Band, and had a New Orleans-style parade down to the Washington Hotel, which we had taken over for out of town guests and served as our reception venue as well. So in spite of the challenges, it was a great experience. Also, this was 10 years ago - there very well could be someone new in that position now, or the same person could well have had a change of attitude in the intervening years, so highly recommended, even if the "star rating" doesn't indicate that.