Aga Khan Museum

The Aga Khan Museum feels like the kind of wedding where the building, the gardens and even the light seem to become part of the love story.

Set among 17 acres in Toronto, the Museum brings together extraordinary contemporary architecture, art, formal gardens and reflecting pools in a setting that feels wonderfully removed from the city around it. Clean white stone rises beside water and greenery, geometric patterns appear throughout the architecture and almost every direction seems to offer another beautiful frame for the day.

And then you arrive in wedding clothes.

Suddenly, a museum devoted to art and culture becomes somewhere deeply personal.

Ceremonies can take place indoors or outside, and couples dreaming even bigger can create a tented celebration beneath the stars. For larger weddings, the full Museum can welcome more than 350 guests, while a collection of very different spaces lets the day unfold almost like chapters of the same story.

The glass-enclosed Courtyard may be one of the most magical.

Sky-high walls surround an open-air space beneath the Toronto sky, while intricate geometric patterns continue across a floor of lapis stone, Brazilian granite and limestone. It can hold up to 130 guests seated or 200 standing and, later in the evening, can even become the dance floor.

Then there is the Atrium, where as many as 200 guests can gather for a seated celebration beneath the striking architecture of the Museum.

For something smaller and wonderfully intimate, the Bellerive Room surrounds up to 40 seated guests with historic ceramics in a recreation of the Persian Salon once found in Château de Bellerive in Geneva.

Even the auditorium has its own kind of romance. Above its 336 seats is a dome inspired by the ceilings of 10th-century Islamic buildings, while nearby the Lapis Lounge brings a dramatic spiral staircase and lapis lazuli bar into the celebration.

And outside, an entirely different world is waiting.

The Aga Khan Park is a peaceful oasis of formal gardens, manicured lawns, trees and five reflecting pools, designed as a contemporary interpretation of the traditional Islamic garden. Imagine slipping away after the ceremony while your guests begin cocktails, walking together beside the water as the Museum's architecture reflects behind you.

For a few minutes, it could feel as though Toronto had disappeared.

Then the light begins to change.

The reflecting pools catch the evening sky. The Museum's pale exterior starts to glow against the darkness and guests move inside for dinner.

Flowers soften the clean architectural lines. Glassware catches the light. Speeches echo through rooms normally filled with art and, eventually, music replaces the quiet of the galleries.

A dedicated event planner works with each wedding, with choices around spaces, menus, décor and photography helping couples shape the Museum around the celebration they have imagined.

But perhaps the most romantic thing about marrying here is something much simpler.

You spend the day surrounded by objects, architecture and gardens created because somebody believed beauty was worth preserving.

And then, among all of it, you begin something of your own that you hope will last even longer.

• Gardens and grounds
• A historic setting