Five years ago, Libby and I got hitched in the Activities Building in Riverview Park. We rented it through the City of Pittsburgh Facilities Rental website.

There wasn't a lot of information out there about the Activities Building, so I wanted to share the dimensions and some photos for anyone considering using this space.

We had looked at other pavilions in city parks; we chose this one because it had:

• Indoor space that could be closed up in case of rain
• A full kitchen and dedicated bathrooms
• Plenty of room for our ~120 guests

We were able to get inside the building ahead of the wedding by contacting the Department of Public Works at 412-255-2370. We took careful measurements of all the major features of the room and marked down the locations of doors and outlets, which I am now gifting to you. This was super helpful for planning the decorations. Click the image below if you need the full-size version, and let me know if you can't read my chickenscratch.

The exterior of the space is mostly cinderblock with large rolling doors. Inside, the floor is sealed cement and the walls are white and pink. The doors and roller doors are all brown. There are 33 extra long picnic tables spread throughout the space, with 6 smaller tables floating around, all 27 1/2" wide. They're all the same pink as the walls.

Lighting comes from fluorescent tubes tucked in the ceiling. You're going to want to accent that with string lights or similar. The walls were punctuated by 11 foot long garage doors that we opened up for natural light. It's definitely a bit brutalist inside. Lucky for us, my mom is an incredible set designer and director¹ and my father-in-law is a carpenter; she transformed it into a magical summer pavilion and he built beautiful rustic centerpieces that really drew the whole room together².

Here are some photos showing a little bit more of the space and our decorations:

The rental fee was ~$350 per day plus an alcohol permit. We reserved it for the day before the wedding to allow us to load in the night before. The rental ended at 8:00 PM; the Parks employee who kicked us out was very gracious when we were a few minutes late getting things buttoned up.

In addition to the building, the rental included the generous lawn next door. We used that for the ceremony and set up some lawn games during cocktail hour.

Doing all the decorating was hard work - looking back, we wish we'd hired out that part instead of relying on our friends and family. Overall though we had a wonderful experience with the rental and the venue! If you want more photos or have a specific question, shoot me an email!