Manitoba Museum

A wedding at the Manitoba Museum can begin in a beautiful event hall and, somewhere along the way, end up beside a 17th-century ship.

That alone tells you this is not going to feel like an ordinary Winnipeg wedding venue.

In the heart of the city, the Museum opens its doors after hours to weddings both intimate and grand, allowing couples to build a celebration around spaces filled with history, architecture and a little bit of wonder.

For the biggest dinners, Alloway Hall can seat up to 500 guests.

The contemporary 9,750-square-foot room rises to 26 feet in places, with tall windows looking toward the Steinkopf Gardens and built-in lighting that can completely change the feeling of the walls as afternoon turns into evening.

Festival Hall offers something smaller, seating up to 100 for dinner beneath floor-to-ceiling windows with views toward Main Street and the Planetarium dome.

But then there are the galleries.

And this is where a museum wedding becomes something completely different.

Guests can wander through immersive spaces telling Manitoba's story, moving between landscapes and eras while the celebration unfolds around them.

For an intimate dinner, as few as 32 guests can gather in the Nonsuch Gallery beside the full-size replica ship.

It is difficult to imagine many other Winnipeg wedding dinners where a 17th-century sailing vessel casually becomes part of the décor.

Larger cocktail celebrations can spread through the galleries, turning the museum itself into an experience for the people who came to celebrate.

The Museum also works with preferred catering and audiovisual partners, allowing couples to bring food, lighting and sound into spaces that already have plenty of character of their own.

Eventually, though, guests stop looking at the exhibits.

Glasses are raised.

Speeches begin.

Someone laughs too loudly.

And this building devoted to remembering Manitoba's stories gets one more for the collection.

Not something behind glass.

Just one extraordinary night when two people brought everyone they loved into a museum and made a little history of their own.