For many, the Zilker Botanical Garden is a place of quiet beauty—an oasis nestled in the heart of Austin where nature invites reflection, learning, and connection. For Spencer and Adrian Zamora, it’s all that and more: it’s also where their relationship took root, where they said their vows, and where their community continues to flourish through the Austin Cactus and Succulent Society.
What began as a visit to a plant show in 2015 grew into something much deeper. From volunteering together, to becoming club officers, to holding their wedding under our Koi Pond gazebo during the height of the pandemic, Spencer and Adrian’s story is a powerful reminder of how public green spaces can foster not just gardens—but friendships, purpose, and love.
In this conversation with Marketing and Communications Specialist Julia Bennett from the Zilker Botanical Garden Conservancy, the couple reflects on their journey from Victoria to Austin, their deep ties to the Garden Clubs, and why Zilker will always be more than just a park—it’s home.
JB: I’ve been really, really looking forward to hearing about what brought y’all to the Garden in the first place.
SZ: Well, I probably was the start of coming to the park because they would always advertise the cactus show and sale twice a year. And I came in spring of ’15 to the show and sale on a Saturday and picked up a pamphlet to join the club. So I did that for about a year, coming to the monthly meetings. And then we started dating May of ’16. And he started coming with me at that point. And then I think by 2018 is when we became officers. Well, I became an officer, and he recently became an officer, like, a year ago. That was like how we started. But then when we got married in June of 2020, all the reschedules for the wedding were really frustrating.
JB: Oh my gosh, I can only imagine.
SZ: Yeah. And we originally had planned to get married at the Zilker Clubhouse across the highway. And once that shut down, the city, you know, canceled everything. And so…we decided to just elope because we wanted to be married. So we were just trying to finagle a location just to do the ceremony. And it was his parents, my dad, his aunt and uncle, the photographer, and the officiant, who I found on Yelp. But then Adrian was like, well, why don’t we do it at Zilker? Because it’s so symbolic and representative of our relationship really starting at the garden.
AZ: And we joked that we snuck in.
SZ: (laughs) We did. We did sneak in.
AZ: We didn’t sneak in! The garden was open.
SZ: It was. It was, like, a random week in June that it happened to open. And nobody was answering our emails. We were going to pay all, whatever we had to do. So we tried to pay the permitting. Nobody got back to us.
AZ: We did pay the $50 photography fee.
SZ: And then we got married underneath the Koi Pond gazebo. And every year, we come and recreate the pictures. So we have five years of pictures here.
JB: I really love this story. There’s just something so nice about – obviously you had a ceremony and there’s a sense of symbolism there, but it’s also keeping it simple and keeping it really rooted in where y’all came from. I do have a question about where y’all met. How y’all met.
AZ: How we met, yeah. We’re actually both from the same hometown. I’m from Victoria. We did not date in high school, but we knew each other. We ran in the same circles, so to speak, I guess.
JB: Friends?
AZ: More acquaintances.
SZ: He was the president of the band and his bandmate played the saxophone with him and I dated him and met him through my ex. But I remember when he would tear my tickets some 20-odd years ago at Cinemark. And then we met up on OkCupid in 2016.
AZ: Over a decade later, so.
SZ: We found each other and it’s really nice having somebody from your hometown, because you know all the same people and all the same sentimental attachments. But we love Austin so much and the park and what Austin gives.
AZ: And it’s a place that will always be here, right? So you can always go back every year. It’s not like it’s a restaurant that’s fleeting, or another venue that gets torn down.
SZ: Our first date restaurant closed.
JB: What was it?
AZ: Ophelia’s. I don’t think its lifespan was all that long.
JB: It must be just so much change that y’all have seen since being here. And I totally see that too, not wanting to live in your hometown but having this tether y’all have with each other. That being really familiar and comforting and sentimental. I love that. Take me through the details of the ceremony in the garden. You mentioned you had like a small group of people here. Whose idea was that?
SZ: We just kind of just started walking and saw the gazebo with the koi. This looks like a perfect spot.
AZ: It was hot, of course. I mean, it was over 100 degrees that day.
JB: That summer was like record temps, right?
SZ: Yeah. I don’t think we really had a plan. I think we were just like, let’s just start walking until we find a spot. And that spot was just perfect. Yeah.
AZ: But yeah, it’s just a serene place in the park as well. It’s very peaceful there.
SZ: And I like how it would always be here to come back to and to take the picture. We started last year holding a picture from the previous year to keep going, and this year I forgot.
JB: It’s okay!
SZ: But, I don’t know. We just love Zilker. It’s so great.
AZ: It’s one of the most peaceful areas in Austin that you can kind of escape.
SZ: And it’ll never go away.
AZ: It’s like, if you’re downtown and you’re working, you can literally come here.
JB: I like that it’s really a place for everybody. They coordinate school groups here, so I like seeing kids enjoying the garden and learning about things. Families here and older folks…so, you saw your brick installed for the first time today. What did that feel like to be out there?
AZ: Yeah, that’s very cool. It’s just another permanence thing. This garden is always going to be here, right? It may expand, but it’s always going to be here. And just to have that encrusted, I guess, is a good word.
SZ: I think I try to always stick to, like, the annual wedding gift theme and I think porcelain is the closest one and that’s not until 10 years. I was like, no, I’m not waiting that long. And technically next year, we’ve been together for 10 years but we’ve been married for five. And I also like the idea that it gives back to the Garden, because it’s given us so many memories.
JB: I think that’s another wonderful thing about it, too, is y’all have given so much to the Garden, right? Lots of time and dedication. I mean, simply even beyond the time, people that are in the Garden Clubs, their dedication and faith and belief and interest and wanting to tell other people about it, like, that, that is so invaluable. And the Conservancy really values that and values folks that are here and want to stick around.
AZ: And it makes it easy with our club too. I think we have, I mean, I don’t know, but we probably have the most diverse club as far as age range and every kind of demographic. It’s cool to see Austin and the community come together. There’s so many facets in there and it’s amazing. There’s novice, there’s expert-level people like Jeff [Pavlat, ZBGC Curator] in the group that are just, they can tell you anything about any plant, especially cactus and succulents.
SZ: It kind of skews to the older generation too. We’re trying to really up the younger demographic.
AZ: But we’ve done a good job doing that too. I mean, through social media efforts. Our leadership is pretty young.
JB: OK, I’ve got one more question. Do you have any parting words you’d like to share about Zilker Botanical Garden and its place in your story?
AZ: I think it’s just lovely that there’s a sense of permanence here. That we can always come back to and relive that moment every year, or whenever we want to come by, and we can see the brick and we can see the Koi Pond and we take all the pictures every year so and recreate those. It’s just it’s great to have a tangible memory. What do you think?
SZ: It’s just really symbolic. I would say our relationship – we do a lot of cacti stuff.
AZ: Yeah, it really is.
SZ: Our relationship was born out of coming to the meetings – and our friendships. We have so many friendships through the club. Not half the club, but a chunk of the club came to the wedding. We never would have met those people if it wasn’t for Zilker and the club and the initiative and all the variety that the park offers. The fact that it’s hard to get up and go to a meeting every month, but once we get here, it’s just like a big party where we get to learn about the cacti and do that together. Beautiful place to cultivate community. I like being a part of clubs that actually make a difference and an impact and give back to a community. Adrian loves when I volunteer us for things. I’m serious. He calls me a serial signer-upper because I sign up for anything and everything and I usually drag him along. I’m like, oh, by the way, we’re going to get up at 7 in the morning and go volunteer at this for four hours in the heat. Get ready. And he’s like…and then we’ll get there and we have a great time. But I really love how the Zilker has these opportunities. And we always have our monthly volunteer days. Those are always a really fun, get down and dirty and sweaty together. And, you know, we made a difference in the little plot that we have for the club. Hopefully when we have kids soon, we’ll bring them and instill that in them as well. And always have something to come back to.
AZ: Even you working here, right? No matter how long you might be here, it’s like, you’re gonna make a dent on this place, right?
JB: I feel a part of it. I think maybe that is why I feel like gardeners are such good lovers and partners because you’re patient. You’re used to taking care of things and paying attention to the details and seeing what people need. It’s always interesting to get to talk to people whose love stories are really bound up in that, I think. I think that’s really magic.
SZ: Anytime we go on a vacation, we always seek out in the city we visit, botanical gardens. We’ve visited so many botanical gardens. I think our favorite is the one in California, the library…the Huntington Library, which we learned through a presentation! The Cactus Society shipped Karen Zimmerman in and she’s the curator of the Huntington Cactus Garden. And so after that presentation, it took a couple years, but we flew out to the Huntington Library. It took us two hours and we didn’t even get to see the rest of the garden because we spent so much time in the cactus area.
JB: That is incredible.
AZ: You can spend a whole day just in a section.
SZ: And we never would have learned about that if it wasn’t for the club. And we’ve had meetings on medicinal purposes, how to propagate, how to build a greenhouse, how to, you know, all the different gardens, and about how the black market of cacti. And it’s just like, it’s just a fun, like, we never would have learned that without the club.
JB: That’s a really good point; especially with like reciprocal membership, that is such a cool thing too, because it means that like, okay, so y’all were talking about building community here. And that’s wonderful too. Local community is really strong and forged by fire, but also that broader interest and network – like I’m talking about the clubs bringing in people from all over to participate….
SZ: Whenever people ask about the club, the first and foremost is always about the education and what we give back to the club. Like, we’ll donate to the Chihuahua Desert Resources or, another gardener’s greenhouse burned down. We’ll always donate to all these organizations. It’s not for profit. It’s for education and preservation. And I really admire that about the club. Because people are like, how do y’all have so much money? And it’s like, well, we don’t. We’re not sitting on it because we want to give back to people.
JB: Yeah, as the treasurer knows.
AZ: That’s right. And hey, this isn’t just a standalone club, it’s a part of the Texas Association of Cactus and Succulent Society, which is also a part of the Cactus and Succulent Society of America, CSSA. It’s a national organization.
SZ: We do a couple of cactus rescues across town.
JB: That must be wild. Oh, and going to conferences across the nation…
AZ: We send some of our members there, so.
SZ: And we’ve had people win Best Succulent.
JB: I just feel like y’all are the ideal garden members and visitors and participants. Y’all are both Conservancy members. You are in the clubs and you volunteer for other clubs and you like visiting here and you have this wonderful story. That’s what’s so exciting to me; getting to see the ways that the Garden Clubs and the City of Austin and Zilker Botanical Garden Conservancy, how they all feed into each other and are all interested in that same mission of education.
To learn more about how you can dedicate a brick on our Walk of Friends path, click here.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.