American Wedding|The Huntington, San Marino — The Garden That Married Jim and Michelle

The wedding itself happens at the Huntington in San Marino: a hundred and thirty acres of botanical garden wrapped around a library and an art collection, with the glasshouse known as the Rose Hills Foundation Conservatory standing in for the reception. This is the payoff location of the film and the only one on the list that was a destination long before a crew arrived. The gardens are ticketed and busy. Camellias under oaks, a desert garden of cacti tall enough to throw shade, a Japanese garden with a moon bridge, lawns wide enough that a marquee disappears into them. The Huntington runs a filming programme and publishes the locations it makes available, which is why this address is easy to confirm and why the shots match so exactly. Go in the morning, before the tour groups. Stand on the lawn below the conservatory with the San Gabriels behind you and the thing the film was reaching for — a wedding staged as pure Californian abundance — is simply there, unstaged, on an ordinary Tuesday.