The Keltic Resort

There are places where the wedding overlooks the ocean.

Then there is The Keltic Resort, where Cape Breton seems to fall away into the Atlantic around you.

Set high in the Cape Breton Highlands at Ingonish Beach, the historic resort gives couples the feeling of having travelled somewhere truly extraordinary for the beginning of their marriage.

The ocean is everywhere.

It stretches beyond the grounds.

It waits behind the photographs.

It changes with the weather and the light, giving the wedding a backdrop that could never be recreated inside a ballroom.

Ceremonies can unfold among the resort's gardens and seaside scenery, with flowers, green landscape and Atlantic views surrounding the vows.

And the celebration can be whatever size the love story requires.

An elopement.

A close gathering of the people who know you best.

Or a grand destination wedding that brings everyone to Cape Breton together.

The resort's event coordinators help carry the planning from those first decisions through to the farewell brunch, while its culinary team brings Nova Scotia into the wedding through the food.

Then there is the reason destination weddings become so memorable.

Everyone stays.

Guests wake up in Cape Breton rather than simply driving to a reception.

They explore.

They find one another around the resort.

They gather the evening before and somehow end up together again the morning after.

The wedding stretches beyond one carefully scheduled block of hours.

Eventually the ceremony begins.

The Atlantic waits beyond the aisle.

Two people make promises while one of Canada's wildest coastlines stretches out behind them.

And for the rest of their lives, whenever they picture the place where they got married, there will be an ocean in it.