Each year this event brings out the crowds! Vendors selling everything from churrasco and coxinha  to jewelry and clothes surrounded Hancock Park’s grand circle.

Entertainment included bands, drummers, Capoeira demonstrations and a very colorful Carnival Parade! For a list of the performers please visit http://braziliandayla.org/main/performers/.

And it just wouldn’t be a Brazilian Festival without dancing, dancing and more DANCING!!

To learn more about Brazil Day in LA please visit their website at http://braziliandayla.org/main/ And a big thank you to our friends at the Brazilian Consulate for a wonderful day!

The photos are all from the works of Liza Lemsatef Cunningham. To see more of her work, please visit http://photography.ellelens.com/ or contact her at Liza@ellelens.com.

For more information on holding your festival or outdoor event in Hancock Park, please call 213-763-3221 or email us at specialevents@nhm.org.

October 28-29

What spook-tacular adventures await you in the dark of the Tar Pits? Come to this hands-on overnight and find out! 

When the visitors have left for the day, YOU can come out and play. Join us for an extraordinary night filled with fun activities, a behind-the-scenes experience, and the opportunity to sleep in our enchanting exhibit halls inside the George C. Page Museum. Costumes are encouraged!

The cost  is $75 per person for members and $85 per person for non-members. 

Family Overnights Include:

• The once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to sleep alongside our world-famous exhibits
• Adventurous activities and games designed for the whole family
• Hands-on science demonstrations
• A casual dinner
• Continental breakfast
• After-dark tours, and much more!

Registrations are only accepted by phone. Please call Katy at (213) 763-3536  to register for the program. Payment in full is due at the time of registration. Once you have paid for the program, a confirmation letter containing information pertinent to the overnight adventure (including a parental consent form) will be mailed to you. Parental consent forms for the family overnight can be mailed to the overnight program office in advance, or may be brought with you on the night of the event.

Family Overnight Adventures are for groups of fewer than 10 people with adult participation. If you are a group of 10 or more, please look at our Group Overnight Adventures dates at http://www.nhm.org/site/activities-programs/overnight-adventures.

Cocktails were held in the Grand Foyer and dinner and dancing took place under the watchful eye of an African elephant in the African Mammal Hall.

The happy couple also made sure to take advantage of the rest of the museum for some amazing photo ops.

The gem hall shots were too funny!

This wedding would not have been the same without the careful eye of event producer Nathaniel Neubauer and manager Jenny Dennis, both of Contemporary Catering (http://contemporary-catering.com/index.php).

Lee Dyson from Hey Mr DJ (http://www.heymisterdj.com/indexb2.htm) provided both ceremony and reception music, Jackie Combs (http://www.jackiecombsfloraldesign.com/) designed the beautiful florals for the evening, the cake came from Joleen Medina at A Sweet Design (http://asweetdesign.info/) and the rentals were handled by Rob Kuehn and our friends over at Town and Country Rentals (http://townandcountryeventrentals.com/).

And please check out the website of Alex Neumann at http://www.alexneumann.com/. He is the man behind these stunning photos! I still can’t figure out how he made our rainforest look so big!

And of course a huge thank you to Lauren, Mike and their families for choosing to spend their special day at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County! For more information on holding your wedding here, please call the Special Events Information Line at 213-763-3221, email us at specialevents@nhm.org or visit http://www.nhm.org/site/about-our-museums/event-rentals-filming/event-types/weddings.

If you don’t remember, Dorian and Lynn had the Night at the Museum save the date cards and the fantastic Aquarium Engagement photos – all of which can be found by scrolling down. I couldn’t wait to see what they would come up with, and boy they did not disappoint!

The ceremony was held in the Grand Foyer and the bridal party made their entrance from the African Mammal Hall into the Foyer to the sounds of the theme song from “Jurassic Park.” Incidentally, one of their tables was the “Jurassic Park” table. The linens were green and black and the centerpieces were glass globes with terrariums and floating blossoms.

Committing the cardinal sin of nearly upstaging the bride was the cake. Now this is not the first time Kimberly from The Butter End Cakery has created a masterpiece for a wedding at NHM (See April and Earth’s Wedding below), but it is the first time we have had a fully edible replica of the Millennium Falcon in the North American Mammal Hall!

To deter the lure of tiny fingers making their way to the ship before it was time to cut the cake, a generic interplanetary galactic bounty hunter was on hand pacing back and forth throughout the evening. He looked just like Boba Fett- you know, the bounty hunter from the movie Star Wars, but those characters are owned by George Lucas, so non-specific bounty hunter it is!

So congratulations Dorian and Lynn! I hope you had fun on your honeymoon trying to make the Kessel run in twelve parsecs! (For all geeks reading this, yes I am well aware that a parsec is a measure of distance, not time. Take it up with Captain Solo :-) )

All of these stunning photos are from Matt Miller at Our Labor of Love. Please take a minute and check them out at http://www.ourlaboroflove.com/#weddings-f4818.

Also, I want to say a very special thank you to Laura Guerrie at Rebel Belle Weddings. She worked tirelessly to ensure that this wedding went off without a hitch. It was simply a pleasure to work with her and her team! If you would like to take a look at her services that range from some simple help to full on wedding planning, please visit http://rebelbelleweddings.com/ or  call 626-888-1729.

For more information on holding your wedding here at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, please call the Special Events Information Line at 213-763-3221, email us at specialevents@nhm.org or visit http://www.nhm.org/site/about-our-museums/event-rentals-filming/event-types/weddings.

The Main Gallery of the museum was strewn with cocktail tables on the west side where guests were served drinks underneath a Columbian Mammoth! The east side of the museum had delicious finger foods from Truly Yours Catering.

DJFX Entertainment set up their music and a dance area in the timeline section of the museum, a popular place for the dance floor!

Please enjoy these photos from inside the main gallery:

We also got this opportunity to show off the upper terrace of the museum. The terrace is open-aired and looks down in the museum’s atrium where cocktails were being served.

While the terrace is exceptionally beautiful in daylight…

…nighttime brought out a whole new attitude!

And who could forget the goodies?

Thank you to the evening’s sponsors:

Whitney Wing Drake and her team at Wish Wonder Dream

Jessica Williams at Get Married Magazine

The Page Museum

Classic Party Rentals Culver City / Designer 8

La Belles Floral Couture and Curios

The French Florist

Honedew Flavors and Floral Designs

The Swing Kings

Todd Elliot Entertainment

Night and Day Productions

DJFX Entertainment/DJFX Photobooths

Truly Yours Catering

Baked It Myself

Gotta Have S’More

Korbel Champagne

KTB Weddings

Visioneer Media

Want to see more photos?

    Check out Whitney’s blog post here: http://www.thebridespot.com/the-blog/2011/5/19/a-toast-to-southern-california-co-hosted-by-get-married-maga.html 

Caitlin Wing Photography also has some amazing shots on her blog at :http://caitlinwingphotography.blogspot.com/2011/05/get-married-magazine-wish-wonder-dream.html 

For more information on hosting you wedding or any kind of event at the La Brea Tar Pits, Hancock Park, please call the Special Events Information Line at 213-763-3221 or email us at specialevents@nhm.org.

We here at the Natural History Museum were fortunate enought to have Alix and Shawn celebrate their wedding here! This is easily one of the most creative couples we have ever encountered. They created everything from the invitations to the dress. Alix even found the time to make stuffed animal place cards/gifts for her guests! Their suggested attire for the evening was “Vintage” and their guests seemed to have a ball, as there were clothes from every time period imaginable!

They chose to have the ceremony in the African Mammal Hall, dinner in the Rotunda and dancing in the Fin Whale Passage. I would love nothing more than to post every single picture up here, but Alix has a great blog where she has these photos posted (http://cuteanddelicious.com/2011/05/the-wedding-part-2/) so I will encourage you to head over that way and check them out!

The photographer for the evening was from Photo Pink and you can take a look at their work at http://www.photopinknyc.com/.

For more information on holding your wedding here at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, please call the Special Events Information Line at 213-763-3221, email us at specialevents@nhm.org or visit http://www.nhm.org/site/about-our-museums/event-rentals-filming/event-types/weddings.

The Rotunda served as a dramatic backdrop for the wedding of Jill and Erez here at NHM back in January! This couple was determined to show their guests a good time and they did not disappoint!  

After the ceremony, cocktails were served in the Grand Foyer where the guests drank martinis from the trunk of an ice-sculpted mammoth as they waited for dinner in the African Mammal Hall to be served. Our dueling dinos have been the centerpiece of many a cocktail hour here at the museum and seldom fail to impress!

As guests took their seats for an amazing dinner provided by John Kinderman and his team at About Thyme Catering (http://aboutthymela.com/), they were greeted by wooden jungle animals that the couple purchased from our own museum gift shop. They even had special gift tags ordered with the couple’s name and wedding date!

This was such a beautiful wedding- no detail was overlooked.  Everything from the flowers to the food was simply stunning, it was almost hard to believe that this was our African mammal hall!

These amazing photos were taken by Joel Eckman Maus at EMP Studio Photographer (http://www.studioemp.com/), rentals were provided by Town and Country Rentals(www.townandcountryeventrentals.com), Ixora Floral Studio (www.ixoraflorist.com) designed the gorgeous floral arrangements and the chuppa that was used in the ceremony was provided by Dina at I Love Chuppas (www.ilovechuppas.com). To check out the favors or other gift from our museum gift shop, please visit www.enssc.com/default.aspx?store=301 or stop by the museum!

Congratulations Jill and Erez!  Thank you for choosing to spend your special day with us here amongst the dinos and mammals! We hope to see you both around the museum!

For more information on holding your wedding here at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, please call the Special Events Information Line at 213-763-3221, email us at specialevents@nhm.org or visit http://www.nhm.org/site/about-our-museums/event-rentals-filming/event-types/weddings.

If you recall, these are the folks who used the Night at the Museum movie poster as inspiration for their save the dates which I posted previously. Since you couldn’t see their faces, I decided to post one of my favorite photos from their engagement session.

And another one of my favorites, although the faces are missing again:

Have these photos left you wanting more from these two? Well check out the steampunk invitations!

The engagement photos above plus a few more can be found at http://www.ourlaboroflove.com/showit/dorian_lynn_engagement/

The invitations were made by Royal Steamline: http://royalsteamline.com/ , who Dorian says were ”totally awesome throughout the entire process.”

For more information on holding your wedding here at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, please call the Special Events Information Line at 213-763-3221, email us at specialevents@nhm.org or visit http://www.nhm.org/site/about-our-museums/event-rentals-filming/event-types/weddings.

For about a year now we have been teased with their visions of twinkling lights and hay bales and we finally got a chance to see it! No detail was left to chance from the second-hand antique dishes to the mason jar glasses and vases, these two went all out to turn our North American Mammal Hall into a country chic wedding!

A fantastic BBQ dinner with all the trimmings was provided by Lucille’s (http://lucillesbbq.com/) and their cake was made by Phoenix Bakery(http://phoenixbakeryinc.com/). Flowers were by My Secret Garden (http://www.mysecretgardenla.com/#/home) and Bill Cowan from Host Pros (http://www.hostprosla.com/) supplied the bartenders. And of course, the day would not have been complete without the amazing photography of Mark Brooke Photographers and the event planner that pulled everything together, Lauren Hovey!

To see more photos from Jed and Jillian’s wedding, head over to:

http://www.blog.markbrooke.com/jed-and-jillian-married-wow/

For more information on holding an event here at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County please call the Special Events Information Line at 213-763-3221 or email us at specialevents@nhm.org.

The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County now offers online booking for children’s birthday parties!

Our easy online booking system at www.nhm.org/birthdays will guide you through the process step-by-step, checking available dates and times, providing options for add-on adventures and more.  Want to reserve seating at the Dinosaur Encounters! show? How about gift bags from the Museum Store? No problem!

Our parties are on Saturdays and Sundays and run for 90 minutes. We have three time slots available: 10am, 12:30pm or 3pm. You are welcome to arrive up to a half hour before the party time to prepare and you can stay up to a half hour afterwards to clean.

When your child’s friends arrive they will sign the jumbo birthday card provided by the museum and our party host will get them started on a craft or activity right away! 

Each birthday party includes:

Your party reservations can go as high as 30 children and 30 adults. Just follow the link from our website at www.nhm.org/birthdays to get started! Once you complete your booking, you will receive an email confirming your event.

Of course, if you need to call us you can reach us at (213) 763-3221 or by email at birthdays@nhm.org!