National Gallery Weddings.

We are starting to get super busy this summer, but I squeezed in some time to talk about one of the most talked about venues, The National Gallery.

The good.................

Gorgeous locale. The space as well as the views are #1 in Ottawa
Great reasonably priced parking.
Super acoustics.

The bad, well perhaps it starts with the fact that its really a gallery and not a wedding venue.

First off, your venue will have gallery goers either ogling or wandering through your party, and perhaps even your ceremony unless you have lots of security. This of course adds to the cost. To boot, the place is pricey, probably the most expensive per setting in town. While the food was great, it was still not at the top of the list for myself and my date. Its a long way down from the Cordon Blue and 18.

I think that the worst part though is the list of strange rules that only a Government run facility
could come up with. First, the galleries all close down at 5PM meaning no pix in those cool locales or even a small tour for the out of town guests (hint hint, how bout it NAG.) I have no idea why the Gallery would not leave the place open for an extra hour for the guests given the profit they make on these events.

Finally, it seemed that all the staff, from security, to the servers to the wedding planner were really not very relaxed. Better them than me working for the Feds. Yikes.

If I was rating it by stars, I would call it a 3.5 on 5.