Seymour Marine Discovery Center Reviews

The Seymour Center helped make our wedding day so special! We had our wedding in the La Feliz room with ocean views! I believe it is so worth the price, especially knowing that the money goes back into the education programs and exhibits at the center. Clay helped us on the day of the wedding and they were so incredibly kind and thoughtful. They made sure everything ran smoothly and just made the whole day more special. Also huge thank you to Emily for helping us book the venue and kindly answering the hundreds of questions I had. I can go on and on about how great the venue and workers all were. I’m forever grateful.

We could not have asked for a more perfect location for our wedding day! The view is breathtaking, there are tons of exhibits for guests to look at during the reception, and plenty of space to hold all your guests for the ceremony and reception. Communication was always clear with the Seymour Center staff and they were super helpful whenever we had a question. Tables and chairs were provided by the venue and we had access to a kitchen right next to the reception room. I cannot put into words how perfect this location is! Added bonus: all the funds you put into this venue go straight to their education programs which furthers their amazing marine education opportunities for the whole community.

We are so incredibly lucky we were able to get married at the Seymour Discovery Center. The venue is such a unique and beautiful place. After visiting the Seymour Center for 5 minutes, we knew this was where we wanted to get married. The ceremony took place on the breathtaking bluffs overlooking the ocean. At our rehearsal, we saw dolphins swim along the coast. We utilized the exhibit hall, class room, and all of our guests enjoyed the opportunity to see the fish and sea life. The resources, preferred vendors, and information provided by the Seymour Center staff made planning our wedding easy. Everyone was friendly and professional to work with throughout the planning process. The only challenge is the hours the Center is open to the public, I wish we could have at least set up or started the ceremony outdoors earlier. We are still grateful the money for the venue goes to education and research rather than the very pricey wedding industry! We love the Seymour Center and can't wait to bring our kids there one day. It is a magical place to have a wedding.

Seymour Center is an incredible wedding (or other event) venue!

In short: communicative, engaging venue, and beautiful views, all for an unbelievable price.

We are not local and the event coordinator (Emily) answered all of the questions we had during our year of planning. There are a good number of forms to fill out, which is typical for any venue, but expectations were clear, and there was plenty of time to handle any issues that came up.

The venue itself is incredible - there are gorgeous ocean views a stone's throw away from the building, and there are exhibits that are open during the event. Our guests are still talking about getting to touch starfish at our wedding! We ended up needing to hold an indoor ceremony due to rain, but luckily there is a built-in rain option in the La Feliz room.

They are very flexible about vendors - anyone insured can be a vendor, and their suggested vendor list was very helpful when planning our wedding.

Additionally, holding a wedding at Seymour Center helps support marine science and education, which is a fun bonus!

We had the BEST WEDDING EVER (according to all of our guests). The unique experience of an indoor/outdoor beach wedding without the sand, and having a touch pool exhibit available for the younger (and adult) kids was just so wonderful. Everyone we needed to communicate with through the UC was extremely friendly and over the top accommodating. We just cannot praise this beautiful venue enough!!

As two marine biologists, there couldn't have been a more fitting venue to host our wedding reception than the Seymour Marine Discovery Center! The venue sits on the bluffs, overlooking Monterey Bay with a beautiful section of coastal trails for guests to explore. We had access to the two outdoor patios, the large conference room with a wall of ocean facing windows, as well as the full exhibit hall and it made for quite the party!

Emily, the event coordinator, was great to work with, very responsive and helpful with all of our many, many questions. We were able to have two docents work at the touch tank in the exhibit hall, and it was absolutely the most fun and unique part of the experience, really fun for both the kids and adults. With all of the exhibits to peruse, we were able to do minimal decorations. For the views and the perfect sized setting, there isn't a better location for such an affordable price.

We are also very happy that the cost of the venue actually goes towards funding the outreach and education center. I grew up visiting the Seymour center in elementary school, and it was awesome to have our party at such a unique and memorable site, and end up with some wedding photos in front of a blue whale skeleton! SO awesome!

We did a *VERY* DIY wedding, and there are a few things to think about when planning. The Seymour center can recommend someone (Sarah at A Paper Flower Wedding) to do lighting in the Feliz Room, which looked great and I would highly recommend going for it. For the dance area, we purchased our own uplights, which was an added task that our crew of friends helped set up, but were great to set the mood. The sound system in the center was not functional at the time of our wedding and we ended up having one set up, there were a few snafus with set up, although I don't think anyone noticed, and the dance music sounded great.

The Feliz room has beautiful windows out onto the bay and the patio also has a great view, but if you have seating outside on the Feliz room patio, it might be hard for guests to hear if speeches are going on inside. We had enough space in the room to have everyone sit inside, and I'm really glad that worked out. I would also note that on the Monterey Bay, you can't be too sure what the weather will be, and while it was perfectly beautiful out, it was quite windy. We had our ceremony in a redwood grove earlier in the day so it didn't matter at all. Luckily we also didn't have any fog roll in, although I would honestly guess it would be very pretty in the fog as well. Wish we could do it all over again!

Photo credits:
All of the photos from our wedding are thanks to our epic photographer: Austin Greene Photography (austingreenephotography.…), check him out on Instagram @austinanywhere.

GREAT views at a very affordable price. Get an ocean view without getting sand on my wedding dress - and guests get to learn about marine life. We love the Seymour Center!

We had our ceremony and reception at the Seymour Center. We rented the whole center (Exhibit Hall and La Feliz Room) for our 90 person wedding. Our ceremony was on Shipwreck Deck, the main deck off the exhibits hall, and dinner was in the La Feliz Room. This venue was a great value!! We were able to have our wedding on the bluffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean for a great deal. The best part: the money goes towards marine research done at the center.

The La Feliz room fit 90 people comfortably for dinner even with the buffet and coffee station set up. Off the La Feliz Room, there is another deck for more outdoor space for guests to hang out in. We had dancing out in the Exhibit Hall and those who were not big dancers were able to wander around the exhibits and aquarium, as well as go back out to the bluffs to look at the ocean. The whole venue was dynamic and provided so many different spaces that entertained different guests.

As for the staff, they were great to work with! They were very responsive and answered all of our questions up until the wedding day. They also gave us some insight on how past weddings worked at the center. Since the center is first and foremost an aquarium, the Exhibit Hall is not available until 5pm and Shipwreck deck was not available to us to set up until 4:30pm. If you want an earlier ceremony, you will have to use the La Feliz Deck, which is available to you at 10am. Music needs to be off at 10pm, and breakdown and clean up must be done by 11pm. If you are looking for a longer event, you are limited to the La Feliz Room and Deck. This venue also has a list of restrictions to make your event more environmentally friendly, which worked for us, but may not work for others. They do allow you to bring in your own caterer and alcohol, as long as you run it by them first. Overall, as long as you keep open communication with the staff, this venue is a great value for the location and for its versatility to entertain different people.

I had trouble when I first booked the venue with getting communication returned however I think there was a change in staff (we booked about 14 months out) because closer to the event (last 6 months) communication was fabulous!

There are a lot of restrictions because of the location, but if you can play by their environmentally sound rules then it's an amazing venue.

We booked both the reception room and the exhibit hall because we wanted to get married on the Shipwreck Deck. It is a gorgeous site! Plus our guests were able to walk around the exhibits (which was great since many of them didn't dance).

You will want to use your own sound system. Theirs is great for meetings but not a wedding. And you will want a portable sound system for outside ceremonies because of the wind.

Biggest downside is that there is a noise curfew and we had to shut off the music at 10pm.

I love the Seymour Center. They really came through for me. I was able to rent out the entire facility for the entire day, and the exhibit hall for the evening. I only wish that I had gotten the volunteers who signed up to show up. I also found it irritating that the facility rentals contact kept changing. Oh well, awesome wedding all the same!

GREAT VALUE! Beautiful views and a totally private event that felt like a much more expensive party than it actually was. Plenty of scenic photo locations, plus for a little extra you can have the entire place (including the exhibit hall with all the tanks!) for your party. They even had volunteers work the touch pool at no extra charge so that our smaller guests were entertained during the cocktail hour.

Location, location, location!! Their is no better location than Seymour for something different and breath taking views! We got married on the shipwreck, where you can stroll in along the bluffs overlooking the gorgeous Monterey Bay. Our cocktail hour was in the exhibit hall so guests could see the aquarium and displays while strolling with their drinks. Our dinner and dancing was in the La Feliz room which was intimate with lovely floor to ceiling windows. The facility is part of UCSC and their event staff are student positions. It was challenging to reach staff, their response were delayed and often we received different answers depending on who we spoke with. It was frustrating and things changed right up to the night before the event. If you are patient and have nerves of steel this location is worth it!