minnekhada lodge + decor, decor, decor!

i think the gvrd is an untapped resource for heritage houses and other similar wedding venues but i find it hard to navigate, or at least to easily weed out picnic areas and dog parks from my search. check out cammidge house in boundary bay for an affordable tent wedding with a wonderfully huge grassy field (i'm anti-golf course but i'd love a natural field).

enter yet another legitimate contender - we're at hycroft, swaneset (my interest gets piqued and then often wanes at this option), and now: Minnekhada Lodge in coquitlam.


one bonus is that it's not waaay out in pitt meadows (seriously, who thought there could possibly be a place that was equidistance from vancouver, whiterock, and abbotsford, the drive approximating over 60 minutes!). other exciting features:
a)$950 for the rental and liquor fee
b) 13 hours of use
c) a much nicer bridal room than hycroft (why couldn't the green room, blue room, black and white room, or any other gorgeous room there have been the bridal room?!)
d) bridal room is pink
e) "japanese gardens"
f) if you look at the japanese garden closely there's some sort of chuppah in there - i could have the ceremony IN THE FOREST!
g) the flower girl can wear feathery wings!!!
h) i can wear feathery wings!!!
h) i can incorporate peacock feathers simply because i used the word feathers in the last sentence, this whim has nothing to do with the site and shouldn't count as a pro
i) there's a pool area that i could decorate really nicely with couches?
j) i bet no one has been to a wedding here

con: banquet hall is kind of dark
con: umm...it's not hycroft?

but - if i save $2000 from hycroft ($3500 vs $950, not to mention i could find more affordable caterers than $140-$200/head) - i could put that extra money toward actually making use of a fancy schmance decorating company!! or at least renting everything they have to offer and making best use of the 13 hour rental.

i mean look at their before and after photos of swaneset - not that these are even their best photos, and not that i really care for chair covers:



it sounds like this coquitlam secret has a lot of pluses, but i still love hycroft in a sick way. and if i can get the member rate of $1400 something, which comes with the liberty to choose my own (more affordable?) caterer....then the wedding doesn't have to top out at thirty-five grand..........

oops it looked so promising until i just read it can only hold 60 people - seriously: these are the only tables it can hold click

colors...

i've never thought of myself as a "blue" kinda gal, but i've always loved aquas. and of course, the notion complimentary colors - blue/orange being more favorable in real life, organic settings than red/green and yellow/purple. here's a cake from pailloncakes back east. i the flow to the lines a lot better than a 1 inch strip of grosgrain ribbon encircling the layers so mechanically.

here's a really neat color picker at brides.com:
i'm drawn to these mod combos, perhaps because they're mod shapes to begin with. however neither swaneset nor hycroft are going to match boldly contrasting colors....

there's a huge clothing shop in gastown that is two levels, kind of like....umm....one store on robson, but with considerably less clothing....there's a downstairs, and an upstairs and it's all big and open. and i thought it'd be a cool place to have a chic party there, although i think i need to yaletown condo and the paris hilton dog to pull it off.

swaneset, pitt meadows

here are the two money photos that i like which showcase that it's "upstairs" and that it's well lit




okay so what is this about?! "Swan-e-set reserves the right to offer a cash bar at any evening function." so if i say i only want beer and wine, if someone approaches the bar and asks for cognac they'll be asked to pay??

the outside looks dated to me:

but that notion somewhat dissolves away in the evening when it transforms into something out of "the bachelor" or, at least that one show where the construction worker was pretending to be some multimillionaire


here are outdoor ceremony option(s?):



and it looks pretty blank canvas to decorate so i could almost go for something clean and bold:

it is a golf course after all, so i guess the view outside the window would be a lot of greeeeen


and so flickr has been my resource for a lot of actual wedding photos, especially when the resorts' websites have been pretty sparse. so here i am looking at some random couple and look who they turn out to be, laila! i've seen their wedding photos before but it was funny how they popped up in my venue search.

At the capilano suspension bridge:

"The Canyon Lookout is unmatched in spectacular beauty. Located at the north end of Capilano Suspension Bridge, this private area features a deck cantilevered 300 feet above the rushing waters of Capilano River (click here for a virtual tour). Heated tents allow this area to be used during any season and it is unsurpassed in its uniquely West Coast appeal."

well. it's definitely got that real "westcoast" feel....i'm from vancouver, hear me roar. we could even do a salmon barbeque. and another upside is we have the roaring water below us rather than the roaring traffic at granville and 16th...too bad i can't find more pictures of the damn place


Seating capacity: 150 guests
so, here's a pdf breakdown, sans the food
$1500 + $5/guest as a park service fee ($5 x 100 = $500) which includes tent rentals to a max of one 20'x30' and four 20'x20' tents....does this mean i have five tents? one can be for dinner/dancing, one can be for lounging perhaps with couches like the fancy pants wedding books suggest?? big downside: we run into a 6:30-10pm limitation, which ends earliier than brock house if we do the ceremony there. also, the lookout is a non-exclusive venue, which means i'll have german tourists parading through my wedding? "additional charges" for "equipment rentals" run 30-40 per person (whatever that means??) and then it goes into more pricing that seems like what they've already discussed, but somehow it's in addition it! ...an additoinal $2500 for outside catering, and a park service fee of $15.95/per person - it does come with a cd player with background music, a podium and a mic (ipod-friendly it seems), easels (artwork to display?), a stage and "mirror centerpieces and vases." cake cutting is $1.50 per person, and printed menus are $4 per menu! 1 per table i guess it will be.....unless i'm allowed to make my own which i bet they won't allow. four course dinners run $40-50 a piece which is decent. i have to use their alcohol.
and since it's at the canyon lookout, there's an adiditon surcharge of $6/person (in addition to the $5 and the $15.95 mentioned earlier? this is going to kill me with the kid guests - maybe i can get cheaper meals for them, but they're still running an additional $27 each just exisiting on the property)

semiahmoo resort, blaine, wa

okay, well i had left this well enough alone, content to live vicariously through jenn if she had her wedding here. but here we go - semiahmoo resort in blaine, wa. just minutes from the border, just minutes from whiterock - which is where i would have loved to have a wedding if they had anything halfway decent! they have about ten different venues available for weddings (which also means that there could be many different weddings going on at the same time).

we could get married on the beach on their seaview terrace:


it looks gorgeous, right? the only downside is this is what my view would be:


i believe the guy on the phone recommended this tudor-style venue - "the pierside room" - for my 100-120 person guestlist. it runs $5000 minimum for food/drink/tables/linens etc and $1500 to rent the place. which worked out to about $50 per person! what a steal.


i'm not crazy about the adjoining "pierside dock" for the ceremony (the plastic chairs need to go):

but the rest of the dock doesn't look so bad:



here is the loomis trail garden. trade up for my white wooden folding chairs and i actually really like this.

and i love the way the wedding party would approach the alter! this is so much more palatable than what brock house has to offer.

and the "loomis trail" - i guess there had to be the obligatory golf course photo setting. too bad there's no photos of the inside of this place.....


or are these the inside photos? they must be; "loomis mansion:"



their tent looks so much more gorgeous than the one at brock house somehow...at first i was worried it was much too big - it can hold up to 250 people....whereas brock house's tent accommodates up to 180. but we could have a larger dance floor? and a grand piano perhaps??? this is only $8000 minimum for food/drinks/linens/tables + $1500. any venue at this resort could potentially save me fifteen thousand dollars.


here is one more wedding spot i'm not as crazed about, and there's a few more that aren't elegant enough to be posted here:
the palmer room:


okay. so the major downside is that everyone needs a passport. and the worst downside is that the border lineups are going to probably be between 2 and 3 hours long. my parents practically live in the states to begin with, my aunt ditas and uncle ron have a timeshare in birch bay they don't have nexus fast lane pass so they sit in the 2 hour line up week after week, and the rest of my family wouldn't have any qualms about it in the least. sounds picture perfect, doesn't it, jenn? however that's just half the guestlist.

the upside? i can hit up a US costco for gorgeous $8.99 bouquets!

hycroft manor

stephanie from culinary capers was kind enough to give us a tour of hycroft on very short notice. below are a mix of my own photos and a few i found on flickr. the whole reason i fell in love with this place is because of its unique little rooms (which of course will have very little to do with the wedding) and unfortunately they can't even function as the bride/groom dressing areas















the major downside:
the ballroom/eating area looks to be dim, hot and stuffy as it's the basement of the place and does not have sufficient windows. needless to say andrew is not impressed. we could have the dinner outside and the dancing down here after, but it's going to be hard to get everyone to go down here sans tables and chairs, unless we could bring in some vintage couches and create seating areas for dessert/dancing....i do love that there's a piano that we could do our first dance to....


here's the backside:



it features a nice patio that we could possibly squeeze 100 people on to for dinner, with larger tables than these i hope...and even possibly dance on. although there's no outdoor music allowed because it's in a residential neighborhood, i read that one couple had an ipod play list...and this couple is dancing:






the ceremony can be here on the grass with those lovely white wooden chairs:


in comparison to brock house, we don't have to start at 6:30 pm - if we get the house for 8 hours, and ending time is 11 - that means we can have the ceremony at 3 or 4 and make better use of the daylight for photos and dinner. the only thing is that it's out in potentially blazing heat, and, more importantly, you can hear the traffic at granville and 16th. now is the time to consider using my ubc alumni powers to ask to join the ubc women's club that runs hycroft for a potential discount or at least booking priority....

brock house

here are some glamor shots of brock house in kitsilano:


thanks to the wonder of flickr, i get to see real live wedding photos that highlight the downsides:
all photos will be taken with the sunlight from behind, and everyone's digital photos are going to turn out underexposed....


people won't be expectantly waiting for me to emerge from behind chapel doors - instead i have a long walk across the grass from the house where everyone will see me coming from 60 feet back, and as i get closer, the cars will appear in the backgrounds of their aforementioned digital photos. not to mention the hideous plastic on the outdoor tent which has been the biggest deterrant for me. what function does it serve? to keep in heat? to keep out bugs? a chilly breeze? now that i'm looking over their website again though, it actually costs $200 for the stupid plastic!


no music after 10pm, and i believe the pay parking lot closes at 11pm. a saturday summer night tent rental runs $2000 + $500 for the ceremony, plus their dj and their alcohol, and two weddings can happen at the same time - one indoors and one in the tent. potentially four in one day since rentals are from 11am-4pm, which is out of the question, or 6:30 till 1 am. the ceremony could wrap at 7 if everything's on schedule.....perhaps there'd be time to get photos in, 7:30 dinner, the lighting here, below, will last 30 minutes tops.....

and by 8pm it will be getting dark. it's june 11th today, 10 days or so away from the longest day of the year and it wasn't the most picture perfect lighting outside at 8pm tonight.....not to mention that everyone has their wedding here so it doesn't feel as unique as hycroft