Venue guide · Approved vendor

The Tower Boston Wedding Guide (2027)

Updated September 2026 · Photos by Dan Aguirre Photography

The Tower is an 1887 armory on Arlington Street at the edge of the Public Garden, a Romanesque castle in the middle of Boston run by Longwood Venues. It is one of the most dramatic rooms in the city. We have done more than 25 events here and are on the venue's vendor list. Here's everything you need to know before you book.

Where can you get married at The Tower?

The Tower is a castle. An 1887 Romanesque armory on Arlington Street, built for the First Corps of Cadets, with a stone tower on the corner, wood panelling and original bookcases inside, chandeliers hanging from the beams and a balcony that runs around the main hall. Most venues give you one room. The Tower gives you four, stacked on four floors. A wedding here uses most of them.

The ceremony floor. The venue lists four ceremony spaces, the Parlor, the Gallery, the Reading Room and the Library, plus the Great Room with the skyline view. The ceremony is usually on the fourth floor, with the guests in rows under the chandeliers and the balcony above them. It is always indoors, so there is no rain plan to make.

The first floor. Cocktail hour is usually down here. So is the dance set later on. One sound system serves both.

The dinner floor. Dinner, speeches, introductions and the formalities are usually on the second floor, round tables under the chandeliers and the uplights on the walls. It needs a sound system of its own.

The dance floor. Back on the first floor, with the beams overhead and the balcony around it. This is the room in the picture everybody remembers.

Every floor you use needs its own sound system

This is the one thing we tell every Tower couple. Nothing about the sound here is hard, but the night moves between floors. Each floor that hosts a part of the day needs its own sound system. Ceremony on the fourth floor means microphones and music up there. Dinner on the second means a complete second system, speakers, mixing board and microphones for the toasts. Cocktails and dancing on the first means a third. Even when the ceremony has live strings, which most do, the DJ still runs the microphones.

So the first conversation to have is which part of the day goes where. Once that is settled, the number of systems is settled. So is the entertainment quote. We have done it with no ceremony and cocktails on the first floor and dinner and dancing on the fourth. That is a different night from the usual plan.

Plan for a tight downtown load-in

You are in the middle of Boston. Vendors pull up to the edge of the building, where there is a ramp. It is always tight because every vendor is trying to get in at once. Cars get ticketed while double-parked and unloading. Ask your planner to stagger vendor arrival times so the caterer, the florist and the entertainment are not all at the one door at once. Expect each of them to need a few extra minutes.

Budget for uplighting

The Tower is an old building full of wood, stone and bookcases. Uplighting is what shows it off once the sun is down. We run something neutral through dinner and change color for the dance set, on the first floor where the dancing is and, when the budget allows, on the dinner floor too.

How guests flow through the event

Up to the fourth floor for the ceremony, down to the first for cocktails, up to the second for dinner, back down to the first for dancing. Every one of those moves comes out of the couple's night. The dance set is what everybody came for. Build at least fifteen minutes of travel into the timeline. If the day is tight, shorten the ceremony or end cocktail hour fifteen minutes early. The target is a dance set of two hours, ideally two and a half.

Music follows the guests. The ceremony has the DJ on microphones, most often with strings. Cocktail hour is a satellite speaker from the DJ, a small jazz combo or a sax player with backing tracks. Dinner and the dance set are the DJ.

What a wedding at The Tower costs

The Tower quotes on request, so treat this as a planning range and confirm it with Longwood Venues. What the wedding marketplaces list:

• Reception site fee: from $12,000. It covers tables, chairs, linens, china, glassware, flatware, set-up, clean-up and an event planner.
• Ceremony: from $3,500.
• Bar service: from $50 a head, house beer, wine and liquor.
• Catering: in house, with the cake and cake cutting included.
• Guests: 50 minimum, 300 maximum.
• Season: the same site fee April through December. January through March is off-peak.

For the 150 to 200 guests most couples bring, plan on $55,000 to $85,000 for the site, the food and the bar, with entertainment, flowers, photography and attire on top.

Avoid these two mistakes

Scheduling as if the rooms were next to each other, when they are four floors apart. And assuming one sound system covers the night, when the night needs three. Both come out of the same place: map the day to the floors first.

How the night ends

The last song is on the first floor, under the beams, with the balcony full of people who came down to watch. Then everyone walks out onto Arlington Street with the Public Garden across the road and the tower lit above them.