Denver Museum of
Nature & Science
A terrace looking west over City Park to the Front Range, glass atria full of daylight, and exhibit halls where you can stand under a dinosaur in a wedding dress.
The most varied venue
in the city
No other Denver venue offers what the Museum does — and we know the building unusually well, because we photographed its own 360-degree virtual tours of every event space.
The Museum sits at 2001 Colorado Boulevard on the eastern edge of City Park, about ten minutes from downtown. Hosting an event here also supports the Museum’s work, which is a real part of the appeal for a lot of couples.
Practically, it is a large building with very different rooms in it. That is the opportunity and the thing to plan around: a day here can move from bright glass atrium to dark exhibit hall to open-air terrace within a few minutes’ walk, and each needs a different approach behind the camera.
Three things that shape
the day here
The Sky Terrace gives you two photographs
Shoot it at sunset for warm light on the mountains, then come back twenty minutes later when the skyline lights come up. Same spot, completely different frame. It costs half an hour and it is consistently the set couples enlarge.
The light changes room to room
The atria are bright, glassy and cool. The exhibit halls are dark and lit for the displays rather than for faces — often coloured, often from odd angles. Neither is a problem, but they need different gear and settings.
The weather can only cost you the terrace
Apart from the Sky Terrace and the park, this is an indoor venue, which for a Colorado wedding is a genuine luxury. It is not quite a free pass: the Museum calls the weather at 2pm on the day and sets up to the rain plan you agreed in advance, no exceptions. So the plan exists whether you think about it or not — better to have chosen it. A wet forecast costs you one location, not the day.
The spaces, and how
each photographs
The Anschutz Family Sky Terrace. The skyline-and-mountains view, and the best ceremony site on the property.
The exhibit halls. There is nowhere else in Denver you can do this. Lit for the displays, so they need a different approach from the atria.
The Morgridge Family Exploration Center and the North, South and Central atria. Glass and daylight, height, and the park beyond the windows.
The Schlessman Lobby and Spratlen Lounge. The arrival space and a warmer, smaller room — where a lot of the candid coverage happens.
City Park, five minutes away. The lake, the long lawns and the cottonwoods, which turn gold in autumn. The cheapest variety you will get all day.
Boettcher Plaza and the Australia and South Pacific Hall. Open-air space at the front — 26,000 square feet of it, and up to 800 for a reception — and a wildlife hall that makes a dinner here unlike a dinner anywhere else. Hall access depends on your package: a standard rental includes one permanent exhibit near your space, and the run of the building is a full Museum buyout.
The rooms, and how
each one photographs
Capacities, availability and pricing are set by the Museum’s events team, and their roster changes — the Sturm Lobby, the Leprino Family Atrium and the Ricketson Auditorium all rent too. What we can tell you is how these nine behave for a camera — we lit and shot all of them for the Museum’s own virtual tours.
The Anschutz Family Sky Terrace
The skyline-and-mountains view, and the best ceremony site on the property.
Boettcher Plaza
Open-air space at the museum’s front, good for larger receptions.
The Morgridge Family Exploration Center
Glass, daylight and a huge LED wall — a genuinely striking room to walk into, and the one space here that photographs like a modern building rather than a museum.
The North Atrium
Clean lines and height, with the park beyond the glass.
The South and Central Atrium
The largest single room — 8,600 square feet, 400 seated or 650 strolling — with palms and stonework.
The Schlessman Lobby
The arrival space, and where a lot of candid coverage happens.
The Spratlen Lounge
Smaller and warmer, good for cocktail hour or an intimate dinner.
The Harry T. Lewis Community Room
A flexible room that takes whatever shape your event needs.
The Australia and South Pacific Hall
An exhibit hall you can actually dine in.
A few of the days we have
photographed here
Worth knowing before
you book
Light, timing and the
practical details
Light and timing from a photographer’s point of view
The light changes completely from room to room
This is the practical difference between the Museum and a single-room venue. The atria are bright, glassy and cool. The exhibit halls are dark and lit for the displays rather than for faces — often coloured, often from odd angles. Neither is a problem, but they need different gear and different settings, and a photographer meeting the building for the first time will spend your day solving that.
Plan the day around dusk, then work backwards
The terrace at sunset is the fixed point. Everything else — portraits, the exhibit-hall set, the wedding-party walk in the park — gets arranged around it. Get that one decision right and the rest of the timeline falls into place.
Indoors means weather is irrelevant
Worth stating plainly: apart from the terrace and the park, this is an indoor venue. A wet forecast costs you one location, not the day. For a Colorado wedding that is a genuine luxury.
Planning notes
- Ask which spaces your package includes — especially the exhibit halls and the Sky Terrace. It shapes the entire portrait plan.
- Protect the dusk window. Fifteen minutes at sunset plus ten after dark on the terrace. Put it on the timeline in writing.
- Budget five minutes for the walk outside into City Park. It buys a completely different set of pictures.
- Ask your photographer if they have shot here before. Not a sales line — the range of lighting in this building genuinely punishes people who have not.
- Parking and arrival are straightforward, which is not true of most Denver venues with this kind of view.
Planning a wedding here
Can you actually get married among the dinosaurs?
Yes, and the specifics matter more than you would think. A standard rental includes access to one permanent exhibit near your space — so which room you book decides which hall you get. If you want the run of the building, that is a full Museum buyout, which opens all the main atria and the permanent halls: Space Odyssey, Coors Gems and Minerals, the Wildlife Halls, Expedition Health, Egyptian Mummies and Prehistoric Journey, the dinosaurs. Buyouts exclude the Planetarium, Infinity Theater, Discovery Zone and temporary exhibitions. It is the first question to ask the events team, because it changes the entire portrait plan.
What are the best photo spots at the Museum?
The Anschutz Family Sky Terrace, for the Denver skyline and the mountains at dusk, is the signature. Then the exhibit halls for something no other venue can offer, the glass-walled atria for clean daylight, and City Park itself — the lake, the cottonwoods and the long lawn — which is right outside the door.
Is City Park part of the venue?
Not formally, but it is immediately outside, and it is where a lot of the best daylight portraits happen. In autumn the cottonwoods there turn gold and the whole park becomes the backdrop. Worth building fifteen minutes into the timeline for.
What is the light like inside the Museum?
It varies more than at any other venue we shoot. The atria are bright and glassy; the exhibit halls are dark and dramatically lit for the displays rather than for people. Both are workable, but they need different approaches, and a photographer who has not shot there before will lose time figuring that out on the day.
When is the best time for portraits?
Late afternoon into dusk. The Sky Terrace looks west over City Park to the mountains, so sunset there is the best fifteen minutes of the day — and the skyline lights come up shortly after, which gives you a second completely different look from the same spot.
Do you know the Museum well?
We do. We photographed the Museum's 360-degree virtual tours of its event spaces — the Sky Terrace, Boettcher Plaza, the Morgridge Family Exploration Center, the North, South and Central atria, the Schlessman Lobby, the Spratlen Lounge, the Harry T. Lewis Community Room and the Australia and South Pacific Hall. All nine are linked from our DMNS virtual tour hub — the same tour the Museum links from its own events page.
Other Colorado venues we know well
We have photographed enough at each of these to write a guide to it. If you are still comparing, these are worth a look:
- Denver Botanic Gardens — 24 acres of cultivated gardens in the middle of the city.
- Chatfield Farms — 700 working acres against the foothills, and a separate Botanic Gardens property.
- Grant-Humphreys Mansion — a 1902 Beaux-Arts colonnade minutes from downtown.
- Devil’s Thumb Ranch — 6,500 acres in the Fraser Valley, and weekend-long celebrations.
- Spruce Mountain Ranch — 450 acres in Larkspur — the venue we have photographed most.
- Arrowhead Golf Club — red sandstone fins twenty-five minutes from Denver.
- Della Terra — above Estes Park at the edge of Rocky Mountain National Park.
- Moss Denver — industrial, indoors, and the best winter venue in the city.
- Boettcher Mansion — a 1917 Arts & Crafts lodge on top of Lookout Mountain.
- Blackstone Rivers Ranch — riverfront aspens 35 minutes west of Denver.
- Mile High Station — historic industrial downtown, and up to 1,200 guests.
- Denver Union Station — the Great Hall — the best indoor portrait location in the city.
- Hudson Gardens — thirty acres of free public garden, and Colorado’s best winter lights.
Still assembling the rest of your team? We keep a list of the Denver wedding vendors we love — the caterers, florists, planners and bar teams we have worked beside on real wedding days.
Let’s talk about your date
We have shot every event space in this building, including for the Museum itself. Tell us your date and which rooms you have.
Get in touch