Search for the Church: Beginnings

I already told you about how I knew I would get married in a church long before I ever started seriously thinking about wedding planning.

 
Well, it must have been destined, because I found myself a nice catholic boy who was also convinced he wanted to get married in a church. And just like that, our first big wedding decision had been made years before we ever became engaged. 

 
A few short weeks after actually getting engaged, I was itching to officially get started on wedding planning, which could only mean one thing: finding an amazing church. 

 
This was a natural place to start for Mr. Waterfall and me for several reasons.

1. We knew we really wanted to focus on the ceremony aspect of the wedding. AND 
2. We knew whatever church we chose would set the tone for every other wedding-related decision.

While we both consider ourselves catholic (though we have slightly different ideas of what that means), neither of us was necessarily a practicing catholic, so we didn’t have a home parish that we absolutely HAD to get married in. While this meant we were at liberty to pick any church we wanted, it also meant we had to start from scratch. For those of you that don’t know, Montreal is known as « la ville aux cents clochers», or the city of one hundred churches (well, the city of one hundred bell towers if you really wanna get literal).

Let`s get literal, literal, I wanna get literal (sung of course to the tune of Physical by Olivia Newton-John).

Ahem, now that the musical interlude is over we can get back to our regular programming. Clearly, we weren't about to visit one hundred churches yo! That would only take like, for everrrrr. Ain't nobody got time for THAT!

So, I got to thinking… If I could get married anywhere, where would I go?

And the answer was so obvious! Only the BEST known church in Montreal, and probably all of Canada!

Need a hint? Celine Dion had her wedding there.

Still nothing? How about I just tell you then.

Notre-Dame Basilica

image via toddlerontour.com

How gorgeous it this church? Answer? Stop breathing for a second, goose bump worthy, amazingly drop-dead gorgeous. But there is a reason the likes of Celine Dion get married there...It only comes with a $ 3,600 price tag.

That, and my 150 guests would probably get lost in the immense basilica which can literally seat 3000. After briefly entertaining the thought of charging my guests cover or selling my kidneys on the black market (turns out Mr. W was strongly opposed to both ideas, who knew?), I gave up on the dream and settled into reality.

Did you ever fantasize about anything extravagant for your wedding? Did you end up splurging or deciding against it?