Wedding DJ at Willowwood Arboretum in Far Hills, NJ

The Space

Willowwood Arboretum began in 1908 when brothers Henry and Robert Tubbs bought the 135-acre property, then known as Paradise Farm, and renamed it for the willow trees lining a brook on the land. The 1792 farmhouse they built onto twice, once in 1908 and again in 1912, still stands, and the Tubbs brothers spent the next fifty years turning the grounds into the plant collection that defines the property today.

The Stone Barn, built of local Roxbury Puddingstone around 1790 and now known as the Myers Center, is the one structure on the property set up for rentals, sitting apart from the seven distinct garden areas, Pan’s Garden, Cottage Garden, the Rosarie, the Lilac Collection, Bee Meadow, the Conservatory, and the Rockery with its Chive Walk, any of which can serve as a backdrop for a small ceremony.

Capacity & Layout

This is a small-scale venue by design: garden ceremony permits cap out at 30 people, and the arrangement is standing room only, with no chairs or other props allowed in the gardens themselves. That makes Willowwood a fit for an intimate ceremony rather than a full wedding reception, and couples planning here should build the rest of the day, the dinner and dancing, around a separate reception location elsewhere.

Reservations require at least four weeks of advance notice, and permits come with a hard stop, exceeding the reserved time carries a penalty of double the hourly rate, so a couple working with Willowwood needs a tightly planned ceremony schedule rather than open-ended flexibility. The Stone Barn is the one indoor rental option on the grounds for anything beyond the garden ceremony itself.

Amenities

The gardens hold over 3,500 species of plants, including 567 species of trees, among them a Dawn Redwood more than 98 feet tall, grown from seed collected in China in 1947 and planted in 1950. That kind of collection means a ceremony here happens inside a genuine botanical landmark rather than a garden planted for the occasion, with color and structure that shifts with the season and the month booked.

A graveled parking lot includes handicapped spaces, with field parking opened up for larger events, and a public restroom sits in the Shingle Barn near the Stone Barn. Wedding and engagement photography require a permit through the arboretum’s Event Request Form, which is worth building into the planning timeline early given the four-week minimum notice the venue already requires for garden rentals.

Location & Getting There

Willowwood sits in Far Hills, New Jersey, part of the Morris County Park system since the Commission acquired the property in 1980, twelve years after Rutgers University’s ownership of the arboretum ended. The grounds are open to the public daily, year-round, from 8am to sunset, and that access continues even on days a ceremony is scheduled in one of the seven garden areas.

A stone and macadam path connects the parking lot to the Stone Barn and the Tubbs House, with gravel paths through some garden sections, and outdoors is the only option here, there is no enclosed reception hall, so a ceremony held among the gardens or beneath mature trees means natural acoustics and open sound rather than a room a DJ can shape with walls and ceiling height.