Heritage Park 12100 Mora Drive • Santa Fe Springs • California 90670

At Heritage Park, the City of Santa Fe Springs has created a thoroughly delightful refuge that not only lets you bask among beautifully landscaped greenery, but also encourages you to time travel a bit with a glimpse back at the various historic influences in the area. This six-acre Victorian wonderland in the middle of town pays homage to its past, while providing respite for visitors…and a glorious setting for weddings.

Santa Fe Springs owes its development to many different settlers and enterprises, such as the Gabrieleño Indians, Spanish missionaries and subsequent influx of cattle ranchers and citrus farmers, and the oil industry. Like a living, breathing museum, most of them are represented at Heritage Park.

Much of the park is a reconstruction of the elaborate Hawkins Ranch that prospered here in the 1880s, and through the use of old photographs the city has been able to recreate several important features. The Hawkins’ were very wealthy and they liked to impress their guests with elegant rarities like the Victorian glass conservatory where they raised delicate plants.

An exact replica of the original makes a most romantic backdrop for your wedding ceremony, with your guests seated on the lawn facing the conservatory while the park’s iconic water tower can be seen in the distance. If you’d like a change of scene, you and your guests can take a short walk past the aviary with its exotic birds to celebrate in another part of the estate.

The original Gothic-styled carriage barn housed the Hawkins’ fancy rigs, and this faithful re-creation is now a museum and one of the park’s most dramatic buildings. With your tables set up under the graceful trees in front and the vintage streetlamps illuminating the gable-roofed structure and its curlicue trim, you really do feel transported back to a different era (albeit one where you can have a DJ and dancing).

Since the Santa Fe Railroad gave Santa Fe Springs its name and put it on the map both figuratively and as a transportation hub, it’s only fitting that Heritage Park includes a Railroad Exhibit. For anyone who’s ever felt the lure of trains, the restored depot with its lines of track and prized steam locomotive is an irresistible site for photos that you won’t see in other wedding albums.

There are so many charming and photogenic spots at Heritage Park. A particular favorite for taking pictures is the bridge in the Native American exhibit. However, the most popular area may be the original formal garden with its lattice arch, ancient yew tree and cherub statuary. It’s a stellar location not only for smaller ceremonies, but for lovely wedding photos that weave Heritage Park’s history into your own.