Jan-chan’s Tidbits

Earlier in last month, after the silly proposal (Al won’t let me tell anyone so I can’t say anything here), Al and I were looking at possible places to hold the wedding ceremony. It might seem odd to some people that we’re already booking vendors so early when our wedding date is July 25, 2009. The thing is, if you want a wedding in the summer season, that is on a weekend and a Saturday, chances are a lot of places are already booked, usually a year in advance. We’re just a little bit a head of the game. I want to make sure we can secure the date to the ceremony and reception locations asap so then the date is pretty much set in stone and I’ll never have to worry about this part again (I hope).

After checking out places such as the Burnaby Village Museum, the Queen Elizabeth Park’s Celebration Pavilion, and the Hycroft Mansion, we’ve decided to go with Minoru Chapel for a few reasons: a) it’s a chapel so we get the “wedding at a church” feel, b) there’s a lot of parking, c) it’s very inclusive in the services included in the package – 2 hour rental + officiant + musician. The pricing were really reasonable consider that it can house 120 people. Pricing structure depends on the type of musical instrument you pick: a) piano – $900, b) harp – $1,000, or c) trio – $1,200.

So I called Minoru Chapel to book an appointment to view the place one Saturday along with Al and his parents. We got there a little early and went to walk around a bit. Since it’s winter the garden is pretty empty but the building is well kept (see picture above). In the surrounding bushes, we found about 5-6 rabbits running around. When Allan (the sales person who’s going to show us the place) arrived, I asked if the rabbits belongs to them. He said they were pets that got abandoned here. A lot of people come by to feed them (we saw a family with little kids feeding baby carrots to the rabbits earlier and they eat the bulbs in the spring time) so they end up hanging out in this area. Another bonus about this place is the pond area about 2 mins away from the chapel. It’s very gorgeous with lots of willow trees so it’d make an excellent photo area for the guests.

Here are some photos of the rabbits. I liked the dark haired rabbit. Here’s a closer look!

The chapel is pretty small and I’m amazed that it can house 120 people. There is a little reception area and the bride’s room is really pretty. There’s this antique mirror, desk and chair. It’s pretty spacious. They also provide silk flowers (ivory or magenta red) as decorations which I think I’ll use since then I can save some $$$ on decorations (hehehe). Allan also let us listen to sound tracks of the trio and the harp (since we didn’t have actual musicians to play for us) and he played the piano so we can get a comparison on how the acoustic is like. We ended up picking the harp. Even thought it’s $100 more, it sounds really soothing and since it’d be an actual person playing the harp, I think it’d be more special than a piano (I don’t see harps everyday @.@).

Now that the ceremony location is booked, next up: reception location. This is going to be tougher as we’d need to have a rough estimate on the number of guests.

Posted in special occasions, wedding

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