Wedding Venues
I'm putting together a list of general stuff this week, and thought to share with who ever is reading. First up is Toronto Venues.
1) Restaurants - built in reception hall, quite lovely. Monsoon and Canoe for high class and numbers, Oro for high class and small, Armadillo for private rooms and excellent Tequila.
2) Boats - lovely. Fav is the Obsession 3, with all others being good. Microphones are required as sound is eaten by surrounding water and engine noise. Most serve food on board, most have covers for rain, dance floors, bars. Not so good for the infirm or elderly as multiple levels may make some things inaccessible if stairs are a problem.
3) Heritage buildings - Enoch Turner Schoolhouse rocks my world. Seriously. Put a cello in the great hall and you'll never want to leave, the acoustics are marvelous. The humbling benches of the school room are a great place to start a marriage too, seats up to 100. Hart House chapel, with it's stained glass windows made from 1000 yr old shards mailed home from England by Canadian kids fighting in WW2, is sacred and small, like standing in a beating heart that offers up unconditional support and surrender. Also, at Hart House - any room - you are unlikely to be screwed by musicians because someone is always practicing somewhere and they like to rescue couples being stood up. The impromptu string quartet in hello kitty and raver gear has a beauty all it's own. St Lawrence Hall is gorgeous with a super convenient location and trees out back that shade the main windows, churchyard/garden across the way for photos - but also very, very pink.
4) B&B's - perfect for 60 people and under weddings, number in TO are great. LOVE TDBB. They are beautiful and make a great lemon drop martini. The home like environment is good as well, since marriage is a home you make in someone else's heart. All good and groovy.
5) Parks - everyone has a permit for Edward Gardens, and there's cops there to check. Sometimes stressful when two brides want the same spot at the same time and they're not marrying each other, but still really, really pretty (the gardens, not battling brides - that it ugly). Allen Gardens is a hidden gem at, reportedly, $40/hr after hours. Serena Gundy has picnickers all the time and mosquito's by the mitfull, but a lovely river running through it and horse trails, ample parking. Rosetta McLean park overlooks the lake and is lovely, high up and livid with flowers and features like gazebo's and fountains.
6)Venue halls - The Great Hall is just that, structured and magnificent. Option of putting guests up in balcony seating, old theatre, grand wooden bar. Arts and letters club is like a down town dirt cheap Casa Loma, heavy wood and fire place, onsite kitchen, bar and sound system. Casa Loma is otherwise in a league of it's own, tad expensive, but conservatory space cannot be beat for style and history and the pretty; that one report has portions of the building having been designed for the love of a spouse makes it meaningful as well as mediagenic. The Berkley Church is like if the Great Hall went on a bender in Vegas, got loose and rumbled and loved every minute of it, layout just as good but also looks resplendent and relaxed with a bit of an afterglow. The one, the only Steamwhistle is part art gallery, part great hall and all heart and beer, has patio, 50 foot stainless steel bar and huge capacity. Glass and concrete make sound a challenge so hire pros, this is not your amateur DJ cousins venue. Pretty brick and steel, ample bathroom space, near city parking. On site planners make it easy.
7) Home - you'll always have the points of your house and/or garden where you can walk around and thing "we signed stuff here" or "this was where we had cake". Also, great excuse to de junk and clean.
8) Community halls - Estonia House is like a rich Viking hall, Toronto Astraulian and New Zealand club comes with a full bar and sound system right in the annex but beware the parking terminators, they will tow you and feel no remorse. Legion halls are options as well, normally needed a bit more by way of flower and froof to look their best but cheaper and hey, give the money to vets.
9) Galleries - from small ones where you can have a cocktail reception after to the AGO where on site event planners walk you through everything, drawing the metaphor of love and marriage as an art form is cool. Blue Spot in the Distillery district is nice AND located staggering distance from Soma chocolate: I will skip about and dance in exchange for their south American hot chocolate beverage, all spicey sexy goodness. The chocolate, not me skipping and dancing - for be warned, I am substantial.
10) Elopements - Anywhere. Tango Palace was a lovely place to marry (10 years this year, cannot believe that..), and I long to officiate one day in speakers corner. Could totally be done.