The City of Owen Sound has helped eight couples tie the knot this Valentine’s Day by offering an affordable and easy wedding at City Hall.
Community Development Coordinator Viveca Gravel says the Just Say Yes Wedding event on Feb. 14 welcomed couples from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. to get married.
“We could not be more thrilled about the turnout. We had eight couples come in starting about about 2 p.m. and running until 9 p.m. They came in, they had about a 45 minute slot, and with that they got 10 professional photos, a selection of different bouquets and they brought their family and friends in and up to 15 guests and it was really lovely,” says Gravel.
Gravel says people took up the city’s wedding event for a multitude of reasons.
“Some couples said that they chose to because they had been planning their wedding and Covid came along and put a dent in their plans and they just lost the momentum to plan a wedding or life gets in the way and this gave them an option to have a wedding and was a little bit more than your standard city hall wedding, but still just as simple to do,” says Gravel. “Other people just thought, ‘hey this is the time,’ and they jumped on it. We had a couple of secret weddings, they hadn’t told their kids yet.”
She adds this is the first year they held the event as the concept was brought across her desk only a couple of weeks ago.
“We ran around for a few days like chickens with our heads cut off to make it all happen, but we pulled it off and I think it might just become and annual event,” says Gravel.
