Why Follow the Herd?

Lately, I've been buying lots of baby gifts all of which seem to feature a safari theme. Lions, giraffes, tigers, elephants. All so adorable. And so baby. But safari can be grown up. Sophisticated, even Paris Hilton hot. My venue is certainly not safari friendly (heck, it's a historic 19th century Episcopalian garden and arts and craft reception hall), but if I could choose my venue all over again, it might be a zoo!

I recently had the great joy of tagging along on a friend's tour of the local zoo for her wedding and I was impressed by what the venue offered. The zoo is the perfect place for a wedding if you and your fiance are kids at heart and it's versatile to boot. The zoo we visited had an arts and craft "great hall," exhibits, an animal encounter for the cocktail hour, carousel (perfect photo opp!), and of course 2 baby giraffes (and baby zebras and gorillas). Those were the first things we laid eyes on, and the oohing and aahing were non-stop.

For zoo chic style, I just love this wedding shot by Lillia Photography of a same-sex couple's wedding day at the San Franciso Zoo:

If you follow the Offbeat Bride, you might have also caught this off-the-wall yet creative wedding, also at the San Francisco Zoo. The self-described "nerdy-gamer" couple used Hungry Hippos as centerpieces, played Rock Band, and took their photos on the carousel.

Here's a sophisticated zoo wedding at the Santa Barbara Zoo, captured by Wedding 64 & Art:

And to cap things off, here's an Los Angeles Zoo wedding by Furious Photographers. I think I was drawn to this one because the bride also has an orange and blue color scheme like I do AND she's sportin' peacock shoes under that dress. How's that for a bit of animal print?