Let me back it up. In the summer, when D was still living here (oh, the memories!), we planned an impromptu day date to a newly renovated museum in Ottawa. This museum is one we both visited a number of times growing up, and is located right in the city in an old castle. The museum itself is stunning - high ceilings, marble floors, and really cool architectural details. Well, as we were waiting to pay our admission fee, I noticed a pamphlet about hosting events at the museum. I'm sure you can see where this is going.
The rooms that are available to rent for events were locked to museum patrons, but we peeked through the windows and liked what we saw. So we went home and contacted the museum event planner to schedule a visit. We went, we saw, and we loved! Out of the rooms available for rental, we chose an empty gallery that takes up an entire wing of the museum. It is very industrial - cement floors, exposed ceilings, and plain white walls. I love it! We both did. So we scheduled another visit so the parents could see it. And they loved it as well. Yes!
I don't really have any pictures of the space since they don't have any on their website, but here is one the event planner sent to me. What you can't see is that it's not just one room, it's an entire wing, so we get two rooms attached by a doorway (you can kind of make out the doorway in the middle of the wall in the picture). So I'm thinking one room can be for pre-dinner cocktails and after dinner dancing, like a chich lounge-y space, and the other room will be set for dinner. Oh, and one final thing (can you tell I'm excited!?). See those uplights? We get to use those as well. Oh, yes! I'm a happy girl!
The gallery
Castle-y goodness!
Renovated 'lantern' skylight
Hopefully, I can get some more pictures as we continue on in the planning process so you can all see how amazing this space truly is.
Going into this wedding, I thought it would be a low-key affair and our original venue would be perfect to achieve the feel we were going for. As the months went on, our guest list got bigger and bigger, I chose my dress, and things just seemed like they were getting a bit more 'grand scale' than I had anticipated. Not that we are having an elaborate, over-the-top wedding by any means, but the museum just seems like a better fit to what our wedding day has evolved into. And I couldn't be more excited!
Luckily, after pricing out the rental costs for the venue and meeting with some caterers, it looks like we will be able to pull this off for about the same price as the restaurant would have cost us. So now we are just waiting for the contract to come through, and we are good to go. I'm so excited!
Did you change up your venue halfway through the wedding planning process?
Good for you! We didn't change our venue, but it sounds like you guys made a sound decision.
ReplyDeleteWow! What an amazing venue! (and surprisingly affordable too)! I was looking at the museum route when I first started researching weddings, and my FI still teases me about having our reception in the "tank room" at the War Museum (He goes "tank go boom boom??! we get married and tank go boom boom??"). I think it goes without saying they're out of our budget lol.
ReplyDeleteOne question - did you lose any money by switching venues? Do you mind me asking how much? :)
We looked at the War Museum too (well, online) and it is definitely a cool venue! I like how you can have your reception in the huge room with all the planes and machinery... totally awesome, just not for us.
ReplyDeleteAbout the money... we were really lucky that the Empire Grill has such an amazing cancellation policy so we ended up switching without losing anything. Phew!