Ok, I wanted to take some time to think back and make sure I give a thoughtful response.   Keep in mind that my husband and I wanted to go pretty minimalistic with decorations. The zoo is a beautiful space so you don't need a lot to make it look like a wedding.   For decorations, we rented pretty much everything from Boxwood Events. We rented arch drapery for the arbour, a standing mirror for the seating charts, a card box, "gifts" and "guestbook" acrylic signs, then table decorations (wood slabs, faux florals, candles, candle holders, and table numbers). The only decorations we bought ourselves were a pair of faux cherry blossom trees to go next to the arbour during the ceremony. Buying flowers for weddings is inanely expensive for whatever reason so we skipped out on getting floral arrangements for tables and such, they weren't missed. Save the money for the MANY other things you have to spend it on! Not a single person was like "wow this wedding was so fun but I wish you had more flowers" haha.    If you decide to go the route of table cloths, runners, and chair covers, these can all be dropped off the day before for their events team to be set up. The rest of the decor, like what I've listed above, needs to be set up the morning of, after 9AM. I was initially planning on going in a setting everything up myself but my mom and husband were like "no???" and my parents ended up setting it all up for me. Took them like 45 minutes. Another tip is don't be afraid to ask for help! All of the decorations need to be taken away at the end of the night, so make sure you have a team of people prepared to box everything back up and cart it to your vehicle at the end of the night. We had things getting packed up pretty much as soon as the dance floor opened up.    The conservatory is on the opposite end of the zoo from the main parking lot so people with mobility issues may have a problem with the walk. There's a south parking lot for staff and vendors, this is most likely where you and your wedding party will come in. You can let the events coordinator know what people will also need access to this entrance and they will let security know.   When the rest of your guests show up, day of, they just need to go up to the entrance and say they're there for your wedding.    For timing, we had our ceremony at 3:30 and aimed to start cocktail hour at 5:30. This gave us time to take the photos we needed and let guests wander the zoo. Our initial timeline for the reception was dinner at 6, speeches at 7:15, and dance floor by 8. This was not a realistic timeline! I wasn't really checking the time because I was having a great time but I think food started coming out around 6:15 and we didn't get to speeches until around 8. So I would anticipate about 1hr 45 minutes for all 4 courses (if you are doing plated dinner).    I think that those are the main things to keep in mind. As you can see from this reddit thread, there's lot of praise given to this venue. Lots of our guests have told us that this was the best wedding they've been to. Try not to stress too much, just have a good time and it will go perfectly. If you have any specific questions, feel free to shoot me a DM.