Bloedel Conservatory

At Bloedel Conservatory, the wedding aisle disappears into a tropical garden.

High above Vancouver in Queen Elizabeth Park, the glass-domed conservatory holds a world of more than 500 tropical plants, exotic birds and koi, kept warm and green throughout the year no matter what the weather is doing outside.

And before or after the doors open to the public, that entire little world can become yours.

Intimate wedding ceremonies can welcome up to 50 people in total, including the couple and everyone helping bring the ceremony to life.

The designated wedding setting sits near the Banyan Tree, surrounded by the extraordinary collection that makes Bloedel feel less like a city venue and more like somewhere everyone has briefly travelled much farther away.

There is no need to build a garden around the ceremony.

You are already inside one.

Leaves rise overhead. Tropical plants fill the space around the aisle. Birds move through the conservatory and the warm, humid air makes Vancouver outside feel strangely distant.

Then the music begins.

For two hours, the conservatory is exclusively yours.

The vows happen surrounded by green, photographs can capture the pathways and tropical landscape, and even a winter wedding can look as though everyone has escaped somewhere lush and warm.

Bloedel is a ceremony venue rather than a traditional reception space. Food and drinks are not permitted inside, so once the photographs are finished, the celebration continues somewhere else.

But perhaps that is part of its magic.

You do not spend the entire wedding day here.

You come for the moment everything changes.

The doors close behind your little group.

You walk into a tropical garden.

You get married beneath the glass dome.

And then you step back into Vancouver as newlyweds.