The Met Wedding Guide (2027): Cost, Capacity & Everything to Know

A Met wedding is one evening inside the museum. Guests arrive at 6:30 for cocktails under the domes of the Great Hall, sit down to dinner beside the Temple of Dendur at 7:30 and dance until 11:30, then return to the Great Hall for a last hour. The vows happen somewhere else earlier in the day. The museum hosts receptions only.

That is what you are buying here: the building after hours, with the art as the décor. In Dendur, the temple, the reflecting pool and the glass wall set the room before a single table is dressed.

The price matches the setting. For 2027, the museum’s own charges start at $750,000: a $500,000 contribution and a $250,000 operational fee, plus $115 a guest for drinks. The caterer, the planner and the production are on top, and a complete 120-guest wedding lands between $1.15 million and $1.75 million. The tradeoff is easy to state. You get a room nobody can replicate, and you plan the ceremony, the hotels and the transfers around it.

*RoamRecs planning estimate. Museum charges are 2027 pricing. Budgets and travel times throughout this guide are ours.

The Met is for couples who want the room to be the event, and nothing in New York competes with it on that. A ballroom has to be decorated into something. Dendur already is something: a 2,000-year-old temple, water in front of it and a wall of glass onto Central Park. In the Petrie Court, guests eat among European sculpture under a skylight. The art is the point of the evening.

Start with Standard. It is the classic Met night: cocktails in the Great Hall, dinner and dancing at Dendur, back to the Great Hall to finish. Most couples who come here want Dendur, and Standard gives it to them at half the museum fee.

Here is the thing nobody expects. The smaller rooms cost more. Petrie seats 200 and Engelhard 220, and both sit in the Custom tier at $1.5 million. Dendur, which seats 550, is the $750,000 room. Trimming the guest list will not shrink the museum’s bill, so pick the room you love and invite accordingly.

The sweet spot is 120 to 200 guests. At that size Dendur feels generous instead of packed, and the two sculpture courts stay on the table if you want them. Above 220, Dendur is your dinner room.

Two things come with the territory. First, the wedding has several addresses: where you dress, where you marry, the museum and the hotels. A good transfer plan makes that feel effortless, and it is the planner’s main job here. Second, the night ends at 11:30, or 12:30 with the Great Hall after-party. If your crowd expects to dance until 3, plan a late-night spot nearby and treat the museum as the main act.

Best for: a museum dinner in a room guests will talk about for years, a weather-proof evening, and couples who like the idea of a ceremony and a reception with different characters.

Think twice if: you want the whole day at one address, a free choice of planner and caterer, or a budget where the venue leaves more room for everything else.

The museum charges three things: a contribution, an operational fee and drinks by the head. It offers two tiers, and the difference between them is which rooms you can dine in.

This is the museum’s 2027 pricing. The museum quotes every wedding individually, so expect your own proposal to start here.

What the museum’s fees cover

The contribution is what it sounds like: a gift to the museum for the privilege of the evening. Earlier donations do not count toward it. The operational fee pays for the building to run after hours. Neither is a credit toward food or décor.

Think of the museum’s fees as the rent on an extraordinary room. Everything that makes it a wedding (the planner, the caterer, the flowers, the lighting, the band) you contract yourselves, from the museum’s approved lists.

Is Custom worth another $750,000?

Only if you would be disappointed not to dine in Petrie or Engelhard, or your design needs the second setup day. Custom buys a choice of rooms, up to three entertaining spaces and twice the installation time. It does not buy the installation itself.

If Dendur is the room you pictured, stay on Standard and spend the difference on lighting, music and dinner. Guests will feel that money far more.

Two notes for the budget

Tax. New York City sales tax is 8.875% and applies to catering and most supplier bills. Ask for the museum’s final schedule with tax shown line by line.

The contribution as a gift. Keep the full amount in the budget as cash out. Any deduction is a conversation for your accountant once the museum sends its acknowledgment.

A well-produced Met wedding in 2027 lands in these ranges. They are RoamRecs planning estimates for the museum evening plus an off-site ceremony, with guests’ hotels and any welcome events left out.

Here is where the money goes at 120 guests on Standard:

Add a 10% cushion on everything except the museum’s fees and you arrive at the range above.

Two things move the total. The tier: Custom adds $750,000 before you have changed a single flower. Ambition: Dendur needs very little to look extraordinary, so a restrained design sits at the bottom of the range. A full floral build, a 12-piece band and a second look for the after-party take you to the top.

Guest count matters least. Roughly half to two thirds of a Standard budget is the museum’s fee, and it is the same at 120 as at 300.

The Met seats up to 550 for dinner in the Temple of Dendur and is at its most comfortable with 120 to 200.

Dinner figures are for tables alone. A band, a stage and a dance floor take space, which is why we keep Petrie and Engelhard to around 150 to 180 with dancing.

Great Hall

Three domes, eight arches and the museum’s famous flower urns. Guests come up the Fifth Avenue steps and straight into it, which is as good an arrival as New York offers. It works twice: cocktails at 6:30, then the late party at 11:30. Have your planner show you what stays in place between the two, so the return feels like a new room and not the same bar an hour later.

Temple of Dendur

The room people come for. The temple stands on a stone platform with a reflecting pool in front and a slanted glass wall onto the park behind. Arrive for dinner at 7:30 in May or June and you sit down in daylight and watch the room go dark around the lit temple.

Design around the temple, not against it. Long tables running toward it, low flowers, warm light on the stone. At 120 guests, keep everything on the temple side of the pool and let the far end go dark. Do not fill the room for the sake of it.

Petrie and Engelhard

Petrie puts dinner among European sculpture under a skylight, with its own glass wall onto Central Park. Engelhard is the American Wing’s courtyard, with the marble bank façade at one end and Tiffany glass around it. Petrie is the more romantic of the two. Engelhard is grander and takes 20 more guests.

Both feel like a dinner party in a private collection, which is exactly why they sit in the Custom tier.

There is no rain plan because you do not need one. Every room is indoors, and the dinner you designed is the dinner you get whatever the weather does. For a venue at this price, that certainty is worth a great deal.

The Great Hall after-party is the hour to negotiate for. Have it written into the agreement, and plan a change of pace for it: a DJ after the band, late food, a different bar.

On Custom you choose the rooms, so think about the turn. Cocktails and dinner in the same court means guests waiting somewhere while it is reset. Two rooms is the smoother night.

Weather still touches the edges: the ceremony, portraits and the walk from the car to the door. Line up an indoor portrait spot, skip the outdoor receiving line and add 15 minutes to the arrival on a wet evening. If you want a canopy at the Fifth Avenue entrance, raise it early. Anything outside the building needs the museum’s sign-off.

Nobody sleeps at the museum, so the hotel is where the weekend lives. Base the couple and both families on the Upper East Side, within a few blocks of each other, and give guests one more hotel at a gentler price.

The first three are within a block of each other and a 10 to 15 minute walk from the museum. That cluster is the insider move: getting ready, family breakfasts and the after-after-party all happen within one block of Madison Avenue.

The Courtyard is a 10 to 20 minute drive, so put it on the shuttle route.

Nobody should walk to the museum in black tie in July or in the rain. Book cars for the family hotels and a shuttle for the block, even though the map says it is close.

Ask the museum for a private room where the couple can catch their breath and touch up during the evening. There is no bridal suite in the package.

The museum picks the team

Every Met wedding is planned by In Any Event, Leslie Price’s firm and the museum’s exclusive planner. The caterer, the décor company and the lighting and sound company come from the museum’s approved lists, and you contract each one directly.

This is a feature. These are the people who know which floor can take a stage, where power comes from and how to load in around a public museum. You are hiring experience that an outside team would spend your money acquiring.

If you have your heart set on a particular photographer, band or florist, send the name to the planner before you pay a deposit.

Choosing the caterer

The list gives you a choice of caterers, so run a proper tasting. Give each one the same brief: guest count, cocktail hour, courses, late-night food and service level. Then you are comparing menus and not assumptions.

The $115 drinks charge is the museum’s. Have the planner confirm how it fits with the caterer’s bar so you pay for the bar once.

Working inside a museum

The Met is open to the public until 9 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. Your guests arrive at 6:30, so on those nights the museum is still alive around you while your rooms are closed off. Some couples love that. If you want the building to yourselves, look at a Sunday to Thursday date, when the museum closes at 5.

The art sets the rules on production. Expect limits on open flame, on anything hung or projected and on confetti, and expect the planner to know them by heart. Candlelight at the Met usually means very good LED candles.

11:30 at Dendur, 12:30 in the Great Hall

Dinner and dancing end at 11:30. With the Great Hall after-party, the night ends at 12:30. That is earlier than a hotel ballroom, and the couples who enjoy it most plan for it.

Start the dancing between courses so the floor is full by 9:30. Use the move to the Great Hall as the second act. Then send the diehards somewhere close: Bemelmans Bar at The Carlyle is ten minutes away and exactly the right mood.

The ceremony happens somewhere else, and that can be the best part of the plan. The museum does not host ceremonies of any kind, civil, religious or symbolic, so the day has two settings. Choose the first one to contrast with the second.

• A hotel ceremony. The simplest version. Marry where you got ready, at The Carlyle or another Upper East Side hotel, and everyone is ten minutes from the museum.
• A church or synagogue. The Upper East Side and Fifth Avenue have some of the city’s grandest. The congregation’s own rules and calendar apply, so start there early.
• City Hall beforehand. Marry legally in the week before with close family, then make the Met night the celebration. It takes all pressure off the timeline.

Whichever you choose, leave a real gap. A ceremony ending at 5:00 with the Great Hall opening at 6:30 gives guests time to travel and you time for portraits.

The paperwork is light. A New York City marriage license costs $35, comes with a 24-hour wait and is valid for 60 days. A City Clerk ceremony is another $25.

Tell guests to fly into LaGuardia if they have the choice. It is the closest airport to the Upper East Side by a wide margin.

From JFK and Newark, a prebooked car is worth it after a long flight. Guests arriving by train from Boston or Washington come into Penn Station and take a taxi uptown. The nearest subway is 86th Street on the 4, 5 and 6 lines, a ten-minute walk from the museum.

Do wedding guests need a car?

No. This is Manhattan, and nobody should rent one. For the wedding itself, run shuttles from the ceremony to the museum and from the museum back to the hotels, with one early departure around 10:30 as well as the last one. Grandparents will thank you.

Three things your transport company needs to know:

• Buses cannot wait on Fifth Avenue. They may drop off and pick up at the steps but not park or idle. Agree a holding spot and a dispatcher.
• The museum garage closes at midnight on weekdays. It runs 24 hours at weekends. For a weeknight wedding with an after-party, steer drivers elsewhere.
• The step-free entrance is at Fifth Avenue and 81st Street. There is a second one through the garage at 80th. Have one of them staffed for your guests.

Late May, June, September and October are our picks, and the reason is everything outside the museum. Dinner is indoors in any month. The season decides how the ceremony, the portraits and your guests’ weekend in New York feel.

Central Park climate normals, 1991 to 2020.

May and June give you Central Park in full leaf for portraits and daylight through Dendur’s glass wall for the first hour of dinner. That last point is the insider reason to choose them.

September and October are New York at its best: warm days, cool evenings and the park turning gold by late October. Guests will want a wrap for the walk out.

July and August are hot and humid. The museum is cool, the sidewalk is not. Keep everything between the ceremony and the Great Hall air-conditioned.

Winter is underrated here. The room is the same, hotel rates drop after New Year and Dendur by night with snow in the park is something else. Just hold the ceremony indoors and close by.

Rain is evenly spread across the year, so no month dodges it. At the Met, that matters less than anywhere else in the city.

The museum gives you one evening. Build the rest of the weekend within a few blocks of it.

Friday. Welcome drinks or dinner at one of the family hotels. Keep it loose and early. Out-of-town guests have just landed.

Saturday. A slow morning. Getting ready at The Mark or The Carlyle, portraits in Central Park at Bethesda Terrace or the Conservatory Water, both a short walk away. Ceremony in the late afternoon, the Great Hall at 6:30.

Sunday. Brunch at the hotel, people drifting in when they wake up. Then send guests back to the museum as visitors. Seeing Dendur in daylight the morning after is a very good souvenir.

For guests with an extra day

Put these on the wedding website:

• Museum Mile. The Guggenheim, the Neue Galerie and the Frick are all within a 15-minute walk along Fifth Avenue.
• Central Park. The Reservoir loop for runners, rowing boats at the Loeb Boathouse, the Conservatory Garden at 105th Street for anyone who wants quiet.
• Madison Avenue. Shopping and coffee from 60th to 86th Street.
• Bemelmans Bar. A martini under the Madeline murals at The Carlyle. Go early or expect a line.

Best for

• Couples who want the Temple of Dendur, specifically
• Weddings of 120 to 200 guests, with room to go much larger
• A dinner that needs very little decoration
• Anyone who never wants to check a weather forecast
• Couples happy to hand the logistics to an expert team
• A ceremony and a reception with two different moods

Things to consider

• The museum’s fees start at $750,000 before a single plate is served
• The intimate rooms are in the $1.5 million tier
• The ceremony is always somewhere else
• The planner is chosen for you, and the caterer comes from a list
• The night ends at 11:30, or 12:30 with the after-party
• On Fridays and Saturdays the museum is open to the public until 9 p.m.
• The roof garden is closed until 2030

These are the questions a good planner would put to the museum before you sign. Start with the Office of Special Events: specialevents@metmuseum.org or 212-570-3773.

1. What are the contribution and operational fee for our date and guest count?
2. What does the operational fee cover: security, coat check, cleaning, engineering, power?
3. Is there a minimum guest count or catering spend?
4. What does the $115 drinks charge include, and what do upgrades cost?
5. Is the Great Hall after-party to 12:30 a.m. included in our agreement?
6. How many can Dendur, Petrie or Engelhard seat with our band, stage and dance floor?
7. Which rooms and routes are closed to the public from 6:30, and when is the museum fully ours?
8. What are the exact setup, rehearsal and breakdown hours?
9. May we bring our own photographer, band and florist?
10. Where in the museum can we take portraits, and when?
11. What are the rules on candles, hanging installations, projection and confetti?
12. Is there a private room for the couple during the evening?
13. Which entrance will be staffed for guests who need a step-free route?
14. Will the Tang Wing construction affect the approach, the views or deliveries on our date?
15. What are the payment schedule and the cancellation and postponement terms?

New York Public Library. Choose it if the off-site ceremony is your hesitation. You can marry in Astor Hall, which takes 275 for a ceremony and cocktails, and dine under the glass dome of the Bartos Forum. It is a landmark at a fraction of the Met’s fee, with marble instead of art.

American Museum of Natural History. The other great museum wedding: cocktails in the Roosevelt Rotunda and dinner under the blue whale in the Milstein Hall of Ocean Life, for up to 400 with a dance floor and stage. Choose it for a bigger party and a more playful mood.

The Plaza. Choose it if you want everything at one address. Ceremony, reception and guest rooms all sit within the hotel, facing the same park from the other end. You trade the museum for convenience.

Cipriani 42nd Street. A 1920s banking hall across from Grand Central, with catering in house. Choose it if you want monumental architecture, a later night and one team running the whole evening.

The St. Regis New York. A Fifth Avenue hotel wedding for up to 220, moving through three rooms. Choose it if the Met’s sculpture courts appeal for their intimacy and the $1.5 million tier does not.

The RoamRecs New York City wedding venue collection maps museums, libraries, hotels and landmark halls across the city, with cost, capacity, ceremony options and guest logistics for each. Save The Met, add two or three alternatives and compare them side by side.

The question to carry through your shortlist: how much does dinner beside the Temple of Dendur matter to you? If it is the wedding you have been picturing, the separate ceremony and the 11:30 finish are a fair price for it.