Chester Golf Club

Chester Golf Club has the sort of view that makes it immediately obvious you are getting married in Nova Scotia.

The course rolls toward the coast above Chester's front harbour, bringing together green fairways, blue water and the unmistakable feeling of a seaside town below.

For a wedding reception, that landscape becomes part of the evening before anyone reaches the dining room.

Guests can gather on the patio overlooking the harbour, drinks in hand, while the couple disappears across the property for photographs.

It is an easy place for cocktail hour to linger.

The boats and water below give everyone something to look toward, while the course itself adds the broad, green backdrop expected from one of Chester's best-known properties.

Then the celebration moves inside.

Dinner gathers everyone around the tables and the view that dominated the afternoon gradually gives way to speeches, stories and the people sitting across from one another.

That is when the club changes character.

The place that felt quiet and coastal earlier becomes warm and noisy.

Dinner finishes.

Music begins.

And the people who were politely sipping drinks on the patio a few hours earlier become considerably less interested in behaving politely on the dance floor.

Outside, Chester Harbour settles into evening.

Inside, nobody is ready to settle at all.

For couples who want their reception to feel unmistakably connected to the South Shore, Chester Golf Club does not need to manufacture a maritime atmosphere.

The sea is already there.

• On a golf course