Victoria Wedding Photographers

Below is another guest post by Monique, one of our 2011 brides. Today she’ll talk about finding the perfect venue! She made a list of what she wanted in a wedding venue and with each venue they were interested in she made a pro-con list. Check back for more posts about her wedding planning process.

Finding the Perfect Venue

Finding the venue for our wedding was not as easy as I thought as it was going to be. Being a wedding musician I have been pretty lucky to have had a chance to see a lot of venues in and around Victoria area. In this blog post I am going to tell you about some of the venues I researched and how I came to a conclusion on our wedding venue. (Venue listings are in no particular order).

Here is a short list of my wishes/needs:
· Outdoors/garden setting
· Archway
· Grass walkway
· White chairs
· Secluded
· Mid sized wedding (60 people)
· Reception site on same grounds as ceremony or very close by
· Reception venue big enough for barn dance with hardwood floors
· Place to get ready before the ceremony

Firstly, when I started searching I was not really thinking about the cost of venues rather I was thinking more about “the look” or “vision” of my wedding. My first love and venue choice has always been Hatley Castle. Hatley Castle is a dream venue for a lot of brides because it’s like a fairytale wedding location. It has a beautiful garden and having a castle as a backdrop is really quite beautiful. Here are some of the pros and cons I came up with this venue :

Pros:
· Beautiful fairytale like atmosphere
· Garden setting
· Grass walkway
· Tons of photo opportunities
· Very secluded
· Offered a reception location on site

Cons:
· No reception site suitable for dancing on site or relatively near by
· No free parking for guests
· Out of our budget

Don’t discount this venue at all for a possible wedding location, because it really is worth looking at! Just wasn’t what we were looking for in a venue.

Minter Gardens is another great venue choice for a wedding. Similar to Butchart Gardens, Minter Gardens offers a beautiful wedding location. Surrounded by flowers and even a lake, this seemed to be a perfect place except for a few things.

Pros:
· Beautiful surroundings
· Garden setting
· Reception site available on the same site
· Lots of photo opportunities
· Had a place for the bride and groom to get ready

Cons:
· Not Private
· Reception site not suitable for dancing

Minter Gardens did check off a lot on my checklist but still, didn’t have my dance floor. So, I continued to look around.

Starling Lane Winery is a venue I have come across a lot during the wedding season. It’s a great location for a small private wedding. It has a heritage park right next to the winery which has lots of photo opportunities.

Pros:
· Very private
· Garden
· Rustic look
· Offered reception site
· White chairs
· Place to get ready for both bride and groom

Cons:
· No dancing site
· Price for renting tents was not in our budget
· Couldn’t find a reception site close enough for my dance that was suitable.
· We had already booked our venue

Short story here: When I saw this venue again during a wedding where I played, I fell in love with it again. One problem: I had already booked a venue! Yes, you read that right, I had a venue (which I’ll get to shortly) so that was part of the reason why we couldn’t get Starling Lane. It would have been too much work to switch everything over. Not only that, I couldn’t let my awesome reception site go as it’s perfect for my dance!

After looking at several venues in Victoria I thought of taking a peek over in the Vancouver area to see if anything struck my interest. We looked at a few venues (including Stanley Park and Deer Lake) but then we came to Queens Park in New Westminster where they had a beautiful rose garden! It was hard to visualize what it could look like in summer time since it was the middle of winter when we found this venue, however, there were a lot of things we liked about this place:

Pros:
· Outdoors with a beautiful garden
· Close to my Mom’s place
· A to die for reception site IN the park! Less than a 5 minute walk away from the garden!
· An awesome walkway for me to walk down
· Very in-expensive for what you get!
· It has a gazebo!

Cons:
· Not as private as we wanted it to be but good enough
· No place to get ready in (but we solved that by booking a beautiful bed and breakfast (http://www.haddonhouse.ca) for my bridesmaids and I to get ready in. The guys will get ready at my mom’s place)

As you can see there aren’t very many cons to the venue we picked! It’s perfect and I can’t wait to get married there!

Here is a little collage I made up for a sneak peek at my wedding in 4 months!

Below is the second post of Monique, one of our lovely 2011 brides. She will be writing a couple of guest blog posts for us about her wedding planning process. Today she’ll talk about finding THE dress!

THE DRESS

It’s almost been a year since I found my dress and I still love it! It actually only came in a couple of weeks ago and just, this past weekend, I had a chance to try it on for the first time. It is perfect in every way and I couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful dress. But finding it was a long journey!

It was a year ago when I started my dress hunt here in Victoria with my mom. She came over for a weekend and we went dress shopping. I had done some dress shopping before actually going out and had an idea of what I wanted my dress to be like. I cut out a few pictures from magazines and printed some off the internet and brought them on my journey. When I showed the picture of the one dress I really liked to the consultant of the first store I was really surprised that they had it in! I was both excited and nervous that they had it. Before I tried it on I picked out a few other dresses to try on, as well, so I had something to compare.

Trying on your first dress… this is when you learn how HEAVY wedding dresses are! My first thought: take it off the hanger and just try it on… Reality: I dropped the dress instead! Whoops! Next time I’ll know!

When I put the first wedding dress on I was sure it was going to be like trying on any other piece of clothing. This was true until I came out of the dressing room in my dress and saw myself in the mirror. The consultant then asked me what I thought of the dress. I wasn’t too sure. My response was, “I don’t know, I’m still getting passed that fact that here I am, in a bridal shop, with a wedding dress on, picking out MY gown for MY wedding!” Of course, I liked it but once I tried on other dresses to compare, I wasn’t too sure. After trying on a few dresses I went to a couple of other shops to compare. But nothing really jumped out at me. There were dresses I liked, but if you’re a huge fan of the TLC show, “Say Yes to the Dress”, then you’re probably like me and waiting for “that” moment. The moment of which you put on your dress, see yourself and cry! This was the moment which I was waiting for in finding my dress. And, after trying on many dresses (yes, I will admit I am a bit of a bridezilla!) I finally found the perfect dress! I found it last April in Vancouver and the funny thing is, it was the last dress I tried on! You know how I knew? I cried! Yes, I actually cried when I came out and knew it was the one! I am extremely happy with my dress and I can’t wait to wear it on my special day in 6 months! You’ll have to wait a couple more months to see it

Here are some tips for finding your dress:

1. Don’t bring a huge entourage of people with you otherwise it will make your dress choosing even more difficult than it already is! Remember, it’s your wedding day and you can wear what you want!
2. Once you’ve found a dress, stop shopping! Start shopping for other stuff for your wedding like a veil, shoes, accessories. Those are just as fun!
3. Have a budget set. Don’t try on dresses that are out of your price range or you’ll be sorry because you can’t have that dress.
4. Have a particular style to start with but be open to other styles. For example, a-line, straps, strapless, ball-gown, etc. A dress you think you don’t like may be the one if you try it on!
5. For budget brides: try searching for designer sales/trunk shows at your local bridal shop or bridal fair for deals! There’s nothing wrong with buying off the rack! Another option is shopping online! You can find great deals on used wedding dresses (or sometimes unused, yes believe me!) from sites like usedvictoria, craigslist or victoriabudgetbridal.

This photo is not of Monique’s dress, but it’s a detail shot of the beautiful dress that the very talented Mariko Aramaki designed for Zoe who was married on August 28th.