St Vladimir’s Ukrainian Orthodox Church & Cultural Centre

I never thought I’d see the day I’d be reviewing a Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Did you? As it turns out, this particular church (like many others in the city) makes for a decent sized event space. I was here on Friday night for a few lessons in merengue and salsa.
The event space is quite spacious, there were a few tables and chairs along the front windows set up, and the rest of the room got to be a dance floor. There’s also a stage at the front of the room. And acoustics? Loud, but decent.
The room was dark, so hard to say exactly what colour the walls were, I’d go with white. It’d be easy enough to turn decorate the space for whatever occasion you’re using it for without having to deal with ugly coloured carpets or weird drape shades.
I couldn’t tell you much about the kitchen space, but it looked like there was one. Parking could potentially be an issue. With a full house, street parking is incredibly limited!

Hall renter BEWARE! I rented the hall for my wedding in the summer of 2011 and dealt with the hall administrator. At first we were ecstatic, everything was perfect: location, size of the hall, reasonable rates — how much better could it get! We could bring our own alcohol and our own caterer. I booked a year in advance to make sure I was able to secure the venue, the hall administrator shared with me that they are very flexible and would even let us leave our decorations up as long as it didn’t interfere with any other major events at the hall. She mentioned that weddings are charged slightly more than regular events so they can afford to provide smaller organizations cheaper rates — I thought that seemed fair. Then things turned for the worse.
Issue one: the hall administrator explained with corkage included was glassware — so when renting my table settings I spoke to the hall administrator and confirmed we could use the wine glasses from the hall (she said «why not… you’ve already paid for them with corkage!»). On THE DAY OF MY WEDDING my parents get to the hall to find no glassware and the bartenders advised that no, we could not use the glassware it was for people buying wine only from the twoonie bar. My decorator had to order glasses last minute from the rental company due to the hall administrator’s error.
Issue two: every hall we interviewed we advised we were planning to have a large, fabric, dropped ceiling and that this would require a few days to put up, the hall administrator committed that this shouldn’t be a problem — «I mean it wouldn’t interfere with anything and of course we could get into the hall early to set things up… it’s a wedding» she said. On the week of my wedding she told my decorator she could only get in Thursday — then on Wednesday night said no it would be Friday night only (my decorator had already hired the people to set up so could not book them Friday night). My decorator said Friday night wouldn’t work and she would come in Saturday — the hall administrator said you cannot come in any earlier than 9am (again my decorator is trying to set up for a 130 person wedding at 9am on THE DAY OF THE WEDDING). the hall administrator’s last minute changes, restrictions and lies at the initial consultation resulted in my wedding missing critical decorations and the ceiling was not the degree of detail we paid for because my decorator didn’t have access to the building to finish.
Issue three: the hall administrator told us we could do clean up the day after the wedding numerous times as she said on Sundays they just have coffee and juice service in the hall so the decorations wouldn’t be in the way. However she then expected my decorator to have everything cleaned up by 1am (Note the wedding wasn’t even finished until 1am…) so my decorator had to come in at 1am and clean up until 5am — the hall administrator complained that my decorator didn’t clean up fast enough and we were lucky she didn’t charge us for the extra time.
Although the hall location, price, and amenities seem appealing don’t be fooled — my wedding was beautiful but NOT what I expected because pieces were missing due to the hall administrator’s misinformation. I thought I should talk to the hall administrator first before I wrote a review, perhaps there was a valid reason or something went wrong… when I spoke to her two weeks after the wedding she told me my decorator was the problem, was a pain and told me she never wrote down that I was putting the wine glasses on the table and cut me off at every point while I tried to explain how I was feeling. She then cut me off to ask if I wanted a credit, that most people who call and have a problem want a credit (wow… I wonder how often this happens?)… I said — I really just wanted to talk to you about the circumstances and share my experience from a learning standpoint for your hall — she was not interested.
Bad management can have a significant impact on your wedding — if you want a fantastic hall that is easy to work with… keep looking.