Dreamy Wedding Venue; Perfect Place for "I Do's"
I've been in the wedding industry as a photographer since 2013; I've both attended and shot dozens of weddings over the years. When it came to my turn to plan our own wedding, you would think that it would be easy to know which venue would be the one we would pick for our own special day. It wasn't until I saw this new wedding venue called "Starlit Point" on an instagram ad (*thank you to the targeted marketing Gods*) that we knew instantly we had to check this place out. The day I went for a tour is the day we signed our contract - we couldn't imagine getting married anywhere else.
From the beginning, Lance and Emily were amazing to work with. I had a million questions along the way - they were always quick to answer and never made me feel like I was inconveniencing them with my (literally) dozens and dozens of questions as we planned our wedding. As it turned our, our wedding was the third wedding the venue had ever hosted and you would have thought they had been doing this for years.
Here were the huge selling points for us on this wedding venue:
1) The Bridal Cottage: This provided us a place to get ready and to sleep the night of our wedding. There wasn't an event the evening before, so we were also able to book the bridal cottage the evening before. This made for a nice slow start to our wedding day - and gave us the ability to set up the evening before. Don't be fooled by the words "Bridal Cottage" this is a HOUSE - fully furnished! It provided a massive space for us all to get ready in. Inside the Bridal Cottage is a bathroom on the main floor, a "getting ready room" with lots of mirrors, space, and a little changing room - our hair stylist set up shop in here. There's a big kitchen with an island that made it easy to layout snacks for the morning and afternoon while everyone was getting ready, a kitchen table that provided the perfect light for our make up artist to set up at, a huge (gorgeously decorated) living room that is perfect for relaxing in and for photos (incredibly well lit). The master bedroom (with it's own ensuite) is huge and made for a nice quiet, private place to finish getting ready in. My husband and I didn't have a traditional wedding party, it was just the two of us. The moments leading up to our big day - and some of my favourite photos - happened in this room when he did up the back of my dress for me. The basement has a huge living space, another bathroom, and two additional bedrooms with queen beds in them - this allowed us to have additional space for our parents and sibling with young kids to stay with us - which was both a huge help for us to have them with us, and for them to have a place to stay.
2) Pet Friendly: We were able to have our two little pups join us the day of our wedding on the grounds as we said our vows and took our photos. This was incredibly special to us - and would be to any dog owner who sees their dogs as part of their family.
3) Ceremony Area: Even before our engagement, my husband and I imagined getting married inside a circle ceremony. This meant setting up the ceremony chairs in rows of circles, with a few aisles for guests to seat themselves, and for us to walk down the centre of. One of the ceremony site options was to get married on the grass with the river in the background - and it was perfect. We were literally surrounded by our family and friends as we said our vows. The venue had white ceremony chairs, different from those inside the tent. The best part about this - that you won't find if you are throwing your own tent wedding - is that no one had to move chairs from the ceremony site back to the reception area. When planning our wedding, my goal was to minimize the amount of work our family and friends needed to help out with so that they could be present and enjoy the day with us. Starlit Point helped provide this for us.
4) Clear Tent Structure: The main feature! This is the part that captured our hearts. Incredibly well-lit, elegant, accompanied with the wooden tables, the wooden cross-back chairs, a beautiful bar, chandeliers, twinkling lights - it was breathtaking! The cement base provided a solid foundation for everyone to dance on, the sound/audio equipment provided by the venue made it easy for our DJ, for our family who needed to use the projector, and for our MC's. The wedding venue was so beautiful that we brought minimal decorations to set up. We had table runners, table numbers, greenery, and a few flowers for our tables as we didn't want to hide the beauty that the wooden tables brought - we saved an incredible amount on linens and flowers because of this. Outside of the tent offered an additional gathering place for our guests to mingle - on stone, on pathways, on grass, on a deck with patio lights just outside of the bathroom facility. Our guests raved about how beautiful the venue was both on the day of our wedding and after. HUGE kudos to Lance, Emily, and their team as they worked tirelessly landscaping the days leading up to our wedding after a huge downpour of rain created huge puddles and compromised some of the hard work they had done. We would have been none the wiser had they not said anything to us, but the fact that they did, and took our day so seriously to ensure that everything was perfect speaks volumes of how much they valued us as guests.
The wedding venue is located 25 minutes straight South of Winnipeg. For those wondering about transportation for guests::
1) Tony's Transport in Winnipeg provides bus options (which are helpful if a majority of your guests are from Winnipeg)
2) We had a ton of family and friends carpool in and figure out their own DD's
3) We live an hour and a half away, and some of our guests ended up renting a bus driver from Portage la Prairie to drop them off and pick them up
For those wondering about lodging options for guests:
1) Morris is 11km's south of Starlit Point and has a big hotel for guests to stay in
2) There are a few campgrounds close by for guests with campers
3) Winnipeg is 25 minutes North of this venue - we created a guest code with Four Points by Sheraton so our guests who booked to stay there also received a discount
4) We used a wedding website to be able to provide all these details to our guests to assist them in figuring out their lodging and transportation.
Questions about catering services?
The venue has a place for caterers to set up and plate in a shelter just outside of the tent. Our Caterer brought their own truck and worked out of it. We offered buffet style as we felt it was the easiest option for our guests. Being able to select our own caterer, at our own price point, made this wedding venue even more attractive.
Questions about rentals?
We rented out plates and cutlery from C&T Event Rentals in Winnipeg, and our linens, coffee perk, wine glasses, and water glasses came from Touch of Glass in Niverville (South of our wedding venue 25 minutes).
Questions about bar services?
We hired On Tap Bartending to take care of both bartending our wedding and serving at it. The servers went around offering wine and cleared our guests dishes from the tables. Again, we wanted to minimize the amount of work our family needed to do - and we also didn't want to use disposable dishes. The bar area we set up close to the caterer's area so we could utilize the fridge and freezer without our bartenders having to go far to restock up on their supplies. Additionally, being able to supply our own own bar made for a huge cost in savings. At the end of the night, all our family had to help us with was putting away our decorations (which were minimal), the rest of our bar supplies, and ensuring the garbage was cleaned out as we had the rest of this taken care of by our serving staff.
All in all, Starlit Point provided the perfect wedding venue for us to plan out our special day exactly the way we had imagined. I've provided a variety of photos from our day (captured by Xandra Photography).
Thank you to Lance and Emily for providing such a beautiful place for us!