Richmond, Virginia (original) (raw)

I have a couple of questions for you, rva. my fiancee and i are getting married on october 29th of this year, and we fell in love with libby hill park for our ceremony site. the problem is, we called parks and rec and the park is already booked for our date. we can't change the date (reception is already scheduled @ gallery 5), and according to the person we spoke to, they can only allow one wedding per day for that park.

my questions:

1. when we were originally looking, we found another couple online who got married at libby hill. they specifically mentioned that because they were keeping their event under a certain amount of time, they were told by the city that they didn't need a permit. i'm wondering if anyone here had experience with this type of loophole. our wedding is going to have under 50 people attending and we are planning to have a pretty short ceremony- probably no longer than 30 minutes. we wouldn't be bringing in chairs or anything, just a few decorations. and, because we are same-sex, technically it isn't even a legal wedding. do we still need a permit? the person we spoke to on the phone was not very helpful with this issue.

2. can you think of any other public park type areas in the city that have an area similar tothis? what we specifically love is the built in seating (stone benches surrounding the fountain), the view, and the easy access from the street. oh, and the price- permit for a wedding in a park is $100.

of course, ideally i would love to talk to the couple that has already booked the park, because the last thing we'd want to do is show up there with no permit and get in the way of their celebration. but if they only planned on being there from, for example, 2-4, we could schedule for 5pm and never even see each other. so if you happen to know someone who is getting married october 29th at libby hill park, please pass my info along ;)