The Church Events Venue (St Andrew's Presbyterian Church)

Review: The Church EventsWe recently hired this venue for our daughter’s wedding for both the ceremony and the reception. I had a lot of reservations about hiring this venue. It was not what I envisioned for my daughter’s wedding. I grew up in Ireland surrounded by lots of old stone churches and thought the building looked a bit dark and somber. However our daughter wanted an indoor wedding ceremony and dreamed of getting married in a church. Upon inspection we were all struck with the magnificence of the grand old organ and other structural features of The Church. My daughter particularly loved the stained glasses windows. We proceeded with the booking and were free to style the venue (with some limitations) to our taste.On the day the venue was prefect. We choose to style it in light blue (my daughter’s favourite colour which happened to match the wall colour) and white pieces. This gave the venue a fresh, soft, light feel that really complimented the beautiful vintage features of The Church. All of our guests from younger adults to old commented on how beautiful the venue was. One of our guests was the last serving minister in that church and was absolutely delighted to see the building used in this manner.Following the ceremony our guests enjoyed canapes served to them in the side courtyard of the church. The courtyard was a fantastic place for our guests to relax and mingle with ample shade, seating and accessible toilets (even for those with walking frames).While canapes were being served, the venue staff and our stylist set up the main building for the reception dinner. They were able to reposition the flower arrangements that were on display during the wedding ceremony onto the reception tables, giving them a second purpose and saving costs. Upon reentering the main building for dinner, our guests were awed by the transformation of the room now decorated with long tables dressed in white linen, fairy lights, lanterns and candles.With many hotels within walking distance of the venue, our out of town guests enjoyed the convenience of not having to drive. Most stayed at The Coffee House Apartments, an easy 3 minutes walk away.We pre-purchased our drinks for the wedding from Woolworths and Dan Murphy’s. At a small additional cost the venue supplied us with bar staff. This saved us considerable amount of money and we were able to provide a variety of drinks according to our guests’ requests. Tea and coffee was also available. This was served in beautiful vintage cups and saucers supplied by the venue.We had just over 50 guests at our wedding. This amount filled the courtyard area nicely but any less would have looked too empty in the main building. There was plenty of dance room space.Our only disappointment was the sound system. It was difficult at times to hear the speeches as the noise echoed in this very large room. The floor boards also looked dusty.We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to Georgina and Karl who were wonderful hosts, always happy, friendly and approachable.