This Calgary business is making (modified) wedding dreams come true
The COVID lockdown has sucked for pretty much everyone (aside from dogs), but there’s one category of Calgarians a local business has quietly been going above and beyond for.
Imagine you’ve found the love of your life, gotten engaged, planned your dream wedding and then…. COVID hits. What’s a quarantined couple to do?
Enter Venue 308.
VENUE 308
Launched by a mother-daughter duo in October 2019, the chic, open-concept event space located in the Beltline’s historic Louise Block building (est. 1910) has flown into rescue mode, opening its doors to Calgary couples attempting to salvage their decimated wedding plans.
“With this extremely unprecedented time, we are all a little unsure of what to do, and our couples are no different,” said Bretton Grassie, co-founder of Venue 308, “They are grieving this loss of celebration and we have stumbled upon a need to assist those who had bigger, perhaps destination, plans in their near future that had to be cancelled.”
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Since opening last fall, the venue has hosted non-profit events, community gatherings, corporate workshops, and has served as a beautiful, neutral canvas for local creatives to produce their work.
The venue itself looks more like an upscale, trendy loft than a traditional event space, with floor to ceiling exposed brick, hardwood flooring, and modern chandeliers, providing a sophisticated palette to modify for any sort of event.
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Since the COVID crisis hit Calgary, the venue has been offering couples 3-hour bookings to host their wedding ceremonies and photography sessions, ensuring health, safety, and compliance with government restrictions are always the first priority.
Aside from enhanced professional cleaning services and hand sanitizers, all staff members are gloved and uphold a strict minimum 2-meter distance rule, a maximum headcount of 14, and one event can only be scheduled once every 7 days at minimum just as an added precaution.
Such restrictive processes may not sound very romantic, but with the COVID crisis, Venue 308 has provided an opportunity for Calgary couples to readjust their vision for one of the happiest days of their lives and at least have some kind of an alternate plan.
What message does Venue 308 hope Calgarians will take away from this COVID-19 experience?
“It’s important to support local where you can, both now and after this crisis,” Bretton said, “Not just us, but our city’s florists, artists, service industry professionals, and more, who are suffering right now and need us all to work together to keep the community strong. Let’s all find reasons to celebrate in the future when this is over.”
In the meantime, Venue 308 is also working hard to help connect engaged couples who have lost their destination wedding plans with alternative options right here in Calgary, looking into late 2020 and beyond.
It’s a great opportunity for local vendors to get connected with potential new business opportunities, so if you’re a vendor be sure to give the wonderful ladies at Venue 308 a shout!
There you have it, Calgary! A little bit of city love to ride on into the weekend!
