Western Development Museum (WDM)

There are wedding venues with beautiful chandeliers.

There are venues surrounded by gardens.

And then there is the Western Development Museum in Moose Jaw, where Saskatchewan's transportation history becomes part of the wedding backdrop.

This is not a room trying to look vintage.

The history is real.

The Moose Jaw museum is devoted to the machines, inventions and stories that helped people move across Saskatchewan, creating a setting filled with the kind of artifacts couples simply cannot recreate with wedding décor.

And yes, you can actually celebrate a wedding here.

The Western Development Museum currently makes its spaces available for weddings and private events, giving couples the chance to bring dinner, speeches and celebration into one of Saskatchewan's most unusual cultural settings.

That makes the photographs immediately different.

Instead of disappearing into another ballroom hallway, couples can capture part of their wedding surrounded by pieces of provincial history and the enormous machines that tell the story of how Saskatchewan travelled.

For couples who love vintage details, transportation, local history or simply the idea of choosing somewhere their guests have probably never attended a wedding before, that is difficult to beat.

The museum allows decorating within its event guidelines, so the historic setting can still become personal.

Flowers arrive.

Tables are dressed.

Candles and carefully chosen details soften the room, creating a wonderful contrast between the machinery and history surrounding everyone and the unmistakable romance of a wedding happening among it.

Then the guests arrive.

Suddenly the museum is no longer somewhere everyone came simply to look at Saskatchewan's past.

It becomes the setting for something new.

Dinner begins.

Glasses are raised.

Someone tells a story about the couple that probably should have been edited before reaching the microphone.

And eventually the formal part of the evening gives way to celebration.

All around them remains the evidence of generations who built things, travelled enormous distances and found ways to connect communities across the Prairies.

There is something strangely fitting about beginning a marriage among all those stories of journeys.

The Western Development Museum spends every other day preserving where Saskatchewan has been.

For one wedding night, it gets to celebrate where the two of you are going next.

• Un cadre historique