Entirely Emily: Missouri Botanical Garden

This is the 6th post in my Things I love about Saint Louis Series. Check them out!

( This is a very picture heavy post. I can't help myself. I took 120 pictures. Consider yourselves lucky)

We are lucky enough here in Saint Louis to have so many amazing things to do, see, visit and eat. One of those is the Missouri Botanical Garden. It is a beautiful acre Garden and research center that you can walk through.

When J and I got engaged we knew we wanted an outdoor wedding since we felt closer to God out in nature than any other place we could think of. But we weren't crazy, we needed a backup area in case it rained. We had been to the Botanical Garden before and heard there were a few areas to get married. So we checked it out and decided on the Japanese Garden by the Lake and backup area in the auditorium.

The Missouri Botanical Garden is 79 beautiful acres in Saint Louis City that once belonged to a man named Henry Shaw. There is a Chinese Garden, the Climatron(big dome thing that is pretty warm and mimickes the rain forest), the Japanese Garden., the Children's Garden...there is a lot to see. It is pretty much like walking into the prettiest park you have ever seen. It is $8 for adults and kids 12 and under are free. Of course you can become a member and get discounts and free tickets to things. And if you are a Saint Louis City or County Residents and go before noon Wednesdays and Saturdays, you get in free. Not too bad.

We normally can spend about 2 hours there walking around, letting the kids play, and taking pictures. This weekend we got to see the Lantern Festival. Of course we went during the day, not at night. I heard it was even better then (and it was pretty pricey) but I wanted to take pictures of the plants.

There were beautiful lanterns and sculpture all over the Garden. They were made from a satin material and flexible steel rods as the skeleton. So colorful and intricate even in the sun.

They had two dragons made out of china plates,cups, saucers and other plate ware.

See... plates, cups, saucers. Pretty amazing stuff.

The flowers, trees, and plants here were just beautiful. You can't even tell we've had a drought in this area.

There are two things that K looks forward to when we come here...the sheep sculpture to sit on...

And the Children's Garden. There is a slide, cave, play store, jail, rope bridge, and other fun outside kids things to explore.

They also have some awesome sculptures there. And I don't know about you but I'm a sucker for a a sculpture. They are beautiful works of art and from a photography stand point, they are great models because they don't move :)

And she's my favorite...isn't she beautiful. I want her in my backyard so bad.

When my hubby and I got married here 6 years ago(ahh, the wedded bliss of it all) There was an exhibit by Dale Chihuly. He makes gorgeous works of art out of glass in different forms. Here are two images from our wedding album to show what was there. Our photographer took these..not me.