VENUES: New for Weddings

Marriage licences in Toronto are currently obtained from the City Clerk's office in New City Hall. Moving that registry office and a chapel area back to a redesigned "Weddings" office at Old City Hall (OCH) would certainly add historic atmosphere to the occasion!

The City of Toronto currently rents out 12 historic sites for weddings, receptions, conferences and birthday parties: Assembly Hall, Cedar Ridge Creative Centre, Clark Centre for the Arts, Colborne Lodge, Fort York National Historic Site, Gibson House Museum, Mackenzie House, Montgomery's Inn, Scarborough Museum, Spadina Museum, Todmorden Mills and Zion Schoolhouse.

At risk of drawing rental business from these sites, there is great potential for creating seamless party or meeting experiences in OCH. Weddings and receptions especially could be a great revenue-generator. Right now , OCH has these advantages:

• Its convenient location is steps from the Queen subway station and on the Queen Street streetcar line.

• Parking is available at the Eaton Centre and under New City Hall.

• The large central courtyard can provide parking for tour buses, limousines and delivery vans.

• The building is accessible up to the third floor.

• Spiral and angled staircases provide for excellent group photo opportunities regardless of the weather or season.

• Some of Old City Hall's many rooms are useable now. The original mayor's handsome office with murals and room for a large meeting table was in good enough shape to be used by the Chief Regional Justice until 2023. (However, the office space to reach it and a nearby room with a rounded window onto Queen Street need repairs.)

  
  

  One weekend when only ground floor courts were in session to hear bails, long tables were set up along the mezzanine overlooking the entry hall (see above). Everything for a fancy dinner must have had to have been trucked in.

Two investments could get Old City Hall's wedding business off the ground:

• A restoration/redesign of the Weddings registry office (plus a non-denominational wedding chapel?) and:

  
  

• Commercial kitchen facilties to encourage restaurant/catering, cafe and/or bar businesses to set up in the building. While wedding photos are being taken, how convenient it would be for wedding guests to be able to chill out with beverages if they don't care to explore Old City Hall's growing number of shops, galleries, museum exhibitions and restored rooms! Then guests can go to receptions with catering provided by an in-house restaurant.

Gradually, rooms of many different sizes can be restored to original, historic character. Pictured is the smallest courtroom with original fireplace and the hideous modern addition of a drop ceiling hiding rounded windows.

Maybe one day OCH will have a florist's shop to provide in-house wedding and reception bouquets, buttonholes and centrepieces plus cut flowers and plants for locals dropping in to go to the library, meet friends or show around visitors to Toronto.

Maybe one day OCH will attract a chocolate shop(s) which can provide gifts for wedding guests in signature boxes featuring an illustration of Old City Hall -- as well as boxes of chocalates for honeymooners.