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For a wedding venue in the middle of Center City, LOVE Park doesn’t offer much peace and quiet. Cars honk, pedestrians pass through and the occasional cyclist might shout a congratulations. But for the couples who choose to get married beneath the iconic LOVE statue, that’s part of the charm.
On Wednesday, Nov. 4, eight couples exchanged vows in LOVE Park with pleasant November weather, helping the city’s nondenominational Wedding Wednesday program reach a milestone: its 1,000th ceremony since launching eight years ago.
“Could we ask for a better day here? Absolutely not,” said Philadelphia Parks & Recreation Commissioner Susan Slawson, gesturing toward the park’s fountain and surrounding skyline. “It just does not get any better.”
Slawson hosted Wednesday’s news conference at LOVE Park before any vows were said, where she credited the staff for making it a place people feel good getting married.
Wedding Wednesdays began as a one-time celebration following LOVE Park’s renovation in 2018 and has grown into a weekly tradition, attracting couples from Philadelphia and beyond who want to say “I do” in the city’s most appropriately named public space.
The program, organized by Philadelphia Parks & Recreation in partnership with Journeys of the Heart and the Fairmount Park Conservancy, offers a relatively affordable alternative to traditional wedding venues. For $250, couples receive a 30-minute ceremony slot, a reserved area in front of the sculpture and an officiant, although they can bring their own. A marriage license costs an extra $90. Money from the marriages goes back into LOVE Park and pays for officiants.
While the numbers aren’t directly comparable, the median American wedding costs $24,000 in 2025, according to The Knot’s latest study of wedding costs, so LOVE Park’s $250 ceremonies offer couples a cheaper way to tie the knot. For Andrew Emma, LOVE Park’s manager, the program has become a way to connect Philadelphians with a public space that some might otherwise take for granted.
“A lot of it is folks that would probably be doing City Hall weddings, and I think the option to go outside and do it with such an iconic sculpture is a really amazing plus,” Emma said.
He said the program also helped create a new identity for the renovated park, which initially received criticism over its redesign.
Eight years later, Emma estimates that tens of thousands of guests have attended ceremonies there, watching friends and relatives exchange vows in the shadow of Robert Indiana’s famous sculpture.
For Susan Harte, an officiant with Journeys of the Heart, the public setting is precisely what makes the ceremonies special.
“I always say to our couples that they come here to publicly affirm their love, and I challenge them to find a more public place than right here in the middle of the city of love under the shadow of love itself,” Harte said.
Harte and fellow officiant Steve Workman have conducted many of the program’s recent ceremonies. Harte estimates she has personally officiated about a third of the 1,000 total, although she has helped coordinate nearly all of them.
Couples arrive for different reasons. Some need a legal ceremony before a larger celebration elsewhere, while others prefer something intimate with just a few friends and relatives. The park has also hosted couples renewing vows after decades together. Harte said she gets to know couples beforehand, sometimes through phone calls or Zoom meetings, learning how they met and why they chose LOVE Park.
“It’s a real privilege for me that they trust us,” she said. “They trust me to hold this moment for them and to celebrate with them.”
