Picking the Venue

Confession: Mr. Gazelle and I started scoping out wedding venues before we got engaged.  We knew we wanted a summer wedding and that we didn’t want to be engaged for too long.  We had to decide on what was important to us for our wedding:

• A small, intimate venue that would fit close family and friends – about 60 people
• A place where we could have both the ceremony and the reception in the same place
• A beautiful view
• Amazing food

We never talked about getting married in our home city of Calgary as we both preferred the idea of a destination wedding.  Since most of our family would have to travel for the wedding regardless of where it was held this made sense to us.  We decided to search around Vancouver – a beautiful city with amazing views of the water and the mountains.  It also happened to be the city that I went to university and a place that we both love to visit together.

One place that kept coming up as a great venue for weddings was the Brock House Restaurant.  The Brock House is a beautiful heritage house built in 1912.  It is located between Jericho Beach and the Vancouver Yacht Club, right on the water.

The front of the Brock HouseThe stairs that I will come down to walk down the aisle.

The Brock House has a gorgeous lawn where your ceremony will take place, and for smaller groups your reception is held on the second level of the house.

The lawn where our ceremony will take place.Imagine this room with tables and chairs.  It will be where our reception will be held.Are those chiavari chairs I spy?The room where we’ll have dancing and boogying.The Library – the room where I’ll get ready before the ceremony.

Add in the fact that in-house catering takes care of your entire menu and that all of the tables, chairs and everything else you might need it are provided.  It seemed like a great option since we would be planning everything from a different city.  Seeing the venue on the blogs of so many Vancouver wedding photographers sealed the deal.  The place was exquisite.  Having a chance to explore the house in person in August reaffirmed our decision.  As we strolled along Jericho Beach in front of the house we kept smiling and saying, “That’s us!  That’s where we are getting married!”Did you get that “a-ha!” moment too?

*All personal photos.