Heinz Chapel offers simple 1-hour wedding and reception for $2,800
The price of happilyever-after is on the rise, leaving some couples to wonder: Is there a happy medium between a large, lavish wedding and a quick kiss at City Hall?
At Heinz Memorial Chapel on the University of Pittsburgh campus, there is — if you’re willing to get married Sept. 1 in a no-frills but still beautiful way.
For $2,800 — or $2,500 if couples book before June 28 — five lucky pairs can get married at Heinz Memorial Chapel on South Bellefield Avenue in Oakland. The Simply Styled Ceremony will include a wedding officiant, organist, flowers, photography, day-of-wedding coordinators, a champagne toast, cookie table and reserved parking for 20 cars. Music and flowers can be personalized, and couples can invite up to 30 guests.
Here’s how the five weddings will unfold from 1 to 5 p.m.:
Before the ceremony, guests can mingle in the chapel’s European garden, newly planted just last year, and chat on the stone benches that line the pathway to a three-tiered fountain.
Each ceremony will last 15 minutes. Afterward, guests will reconvene under a canopy on the chapel lawn to enjoy cookies while the wedding party is photographed. The next wedding will begin an hour after the last one.
Heinz Chapel hosts about 160 weddings each year and charges $1,500 for a one-hour rental of the chapel.
“We wanted to offer something that’s a little more informal that … still gives you that quintessential Pittsburgh wedding,” said Corinne Bechtel, the chapel’s docent and event coordinator.
Bechtel thought of the Simply Styled wedding concept after two men asked if they could have a self-uniting ceremony on Valentine’s Day during the chapel’s annual rose distribution event. In the spirit of the holiday, the staffers said “yes.” Then they decided to offer other couples the same opportunity.
“Things are done a certain way forever and you ask yourself ‘Why?’ It doesn’t have to be done that way,” said Pat Gibbons, the chapel’s longtime director.
Until 2017, the chapel was only available to Pitt students or alumni. In an effort to make the chapel more accessible to the community, Gibbons and her colleagues dropped that requirement.
“There’s probably not a more beautiful place to get married in Pittsburgh,” she said.
Since the neo-Gothicstyle chapel opened in 1938, more than 14,000 couples have been married there. Willed to the university by Henry J. Heinz in his mother’s honor, the 81year-old landmark is best known for its 73-foot tall stained-glass windows designed by Charles J. Connick. The windows feature 391 identifiable people including Sir Isaac Newton, Emily Dickinson, George Washington, John and Abigail Adams and Pocahontas.
To book a Sept. 1 wedding or for more information, go to www.heinzchapel.pitt.edu/weddings/ pop-up-ceremony or call 412-624-4157.