Wedding limousine service across Canada

The wedding is a timetable, and the cars are part of it

A wedding day has a fixed order of events with no slack between them - hair and make-up, the ceremony, the photographs, the reception, the send-off - and every one of them depends on a vehicle arriving at a time that was decided months earlier. That is why wedding transport is booked as a timed package rather than as a series of transfers, and why it is the one service where the planning conversation matters as much as the car. We build the day with you: who travels, from where, to where, at what time, in which vehicle, with what waiting between, and the fare for the whole plan is agreed when it is confirmed.

The service runs in every city on this site, from the downtown Toronto hotel wedding to the vineyard in Kelowna, the Niagara-on-the-Lake estate, the lakeside lodge in Muskoka, the Old Port in Montreal, the Citadel in Halifax and the barn outside Winnipeg.

The vehicles, and who rides in which

The stretch limousine carries the couple, and before that the bride and her party. Eight seats, a bar console, fibre-optic ceiling, privacy partition, and enough length in the photographs to be noticed. White or black; white is the wedding default in most cities and black the choice for a formal evening ceremony.

The Premium Sedan carries the parents and grandparents - the people who should not be climbing into a stretch in formal dress - and the couple when the stretch is not their taste. A Mercedes S-Class or similar, quiet, dignified, easy to step into.

The Executive Sprinter carries the wedding party of up to fourteen - groomsmen and bridesmaids together from the hotel to the ceremony - and afterwards the guest shuttle between the reception and the hotel block. High roof, standing headroom, no one's dress crushed.

The mini coach carries up to thirty-two guests between the hotel and a venue with no parking, which describes most vineyard, estate and lakeside weddings.

The Luxury SUV is the practical car for the day: the photographer's kit, the flowers, the second trip for the late arrivals, and the getaway with the luggage the morning after.

A typical wedding day plan

Nine o'clock: the Sprinter collects the bridal party from the hotel for hair and make-up across town, and waits. One o'clock: the stretch takes the bride and her parents to the ceremony; a Premium Sedan brings the groom's parents; the Sprinter brings the groomsmen. Two-thirty: the couple leave the ceremony in the stretch for photographs at the waterfront, the park or the vineyard, with the Sprinter following with the party; the chauffeurs know where the photographer wants the cars. Four-thirty: everyone to the reception. From ten: the Sprinter or the coach runs the shuttle between the reception and the hotel until the last guest is home. Midnight: the couple's car to the hotel, the ribbons still on.

Every one of those moves is a line on the plan with a time and a vehicle, and the plan is what dispatch works from. Changes in the weeks before are made by email; on the day the chauffeurs work to the plan and to the wedding coordinator, and the couple do not think about cars at all.

What the wedding package includes

Decoration - ribbons, a 'Just Married' sign if wanted - is included; the chauffeurs do it before the pickup. A red carpet at the ceremony door on request. Champagne on ice in the stretch where provincial law allows alcohol in a partitioned limousine, which in most provinces it does for a licensed vehicle. Bottled water in every car. Chauffeurs in dark suits who stay for the photographs and know how to stand out of them. Waiting between the ceremony and the reception is inside the package; the whole day is priced as one fare, and the fare is agreed when the plan is confirmed, months before the day.

Guest shuttles

The part most couples underestimate. A venue an hour from the hotel, a hundred guests, no taxis at midnight in a vineyard: the shuttle is the difference between a reception that ends well and one that ends with the couple's parents driving people home. The Sprinter runs a loop every half hour from the reception's last hour until the venue is empty; the coach does the same for larger weddings; the plan states the loop and the last departure so the invitation can print it. Guests who booked their own airport transfers - the grandparents from Vancouver landing at Pearson on the Friday - get the same standard on the airport transfer service, and the travel desk books the hotel block.

Seasons, weather and the roads

June to September is wedding season in every province and Saturdays go first; a stretch limousine for a June Saturday in Toronto or Vancouver should be booked the winter before. October is the vineyard season in Niagara and the Okanagan. Winter weddings are beautiful and the SUV, not the stretch, is the car for the guests when the drive to the lodge is on a snow road; the chauffeurs run winter tyres and know the route. Every plan carries a weather note - the alternate photograph location, the earlier pickup if the forecast is bad - because a wedding cannot be moved and the roads sometimes must.

Cities where we do the most weddings

Toronto and Mississauga for the hotel and banquet-hall wedding, with the photograph run to the waterfront, Casa Loma or the Distillery. Niagara Falls and Niagara-on-the-Lake for the vineyard estate. Vancouver for the Stanley Park and waterfront ceremony and the Whistler weekend. Kelowna for the Okanagan vineyard. Montreal for the Old Port and the church wedding, Quebec City for the Old City. Halifax for the waterfront and the South Shore. Calgary for the Banff and Canmore mountain wedding, Edmonton for the river valley. Ottawa for the Château Laurier and the Museum of Nature.

Booking a wedding

Start with the date, the city and the rough shape of the day; the desk builds the plan with you and confirms the vehicles and the fare in writing. A deposit holds the date; the balance is due before the day. The plan can change up to the week before at no cost; on the day the chauffeurs work to it. The contact page is the place to begin, or the engine for a simple couple's car with no shuttle.

The photographs, and where the cars go in them

A wedding limousine spends more of the day in front of a camera than any other vehicle we run, and the chauffeurs plan for it. The stretch is positioned where the photographer wants it - nose to the church steps, or side-on at the vineyard gate - before the couple come out, and moved before the group shot if it is in the way. The chauffeur holds the door, steps out of frame and waits with the ribbons straight. At the photograph location, the car is the backdrop for the couple's portraits and the shelter if the weather turns; a June thunderstorm in Toronto or a coastal squall in Halifax has ended more than one outdoor session early, and the limousine is the dry room with a bar. Photographers know this; a good wedding plan gives the photographer the chauffeur's mobile.

Cultural and multi-day weddings

Many Canadian weddings run over several days and several venues - the mehndi, the sangeet, the ceremony and the reception of a South Asian wedding across a weekend in Brampton or Surrey; the tea ceremony and the banquet of a Chinese wedding in Markham or Richmond; the church and the hall of an Italian wedding in Woodbridge or Vaughan; the Friday-night dinner and the Sunday brunch either side of a Jewish wedding in Thornhill or Côte-Saint-Luc. Each day is a plan and the plans are priced together; the same chauffeurs work the whole weekend so the family sees familiar faces, and the vehicles are matched to each event - the stretch for the baraat's arrival, the Sprinters for the guests between the banquet halls, the SUVs for the elders. The desk has built these weekends across the country and knows the halls' loading rules.

Destination weddings inside Canada

A wedding in the Rockies, in Niagara wine country, on the Okanagan lake, on Vancouver Island, in Old Quebec or on the South Shore is a destination wedding for most of the guests, and the transport plan starts at the airport. The airport transfer for each arriving group is booked with its flight number; a Sprinter or a coach moves the guests from the hotel block to the venue and back; the couple's stretch or SUV does the ceremony and the photographs; and the travel desk books the hotel block and the guests' flights. Banff's national-park roads, Niagara-on-the-Lake's vineyard lanes and the Sea-to-Sky each have their own notes on the Alberta, Ontario and British Columbia pages.

Planning tools worth using

The provincial and territorial governments publish the marriage-licence rules and the waiting periods - the Government of Canada's guide links to each - and the venue will have a transport sheet with the loading zone and the ceremony-door rule. Wedding planners in every city work with us and are welcome to send the plan directly; a planner's timeline in a spreadsheet is exactly what dispatch needs. The Wedding Planners Directory lists planners by city if you have not chosen one.

The morning after

The last booking on most wedding plans is the quietest: the Luxury SUV at the hotel door at ten the next morning, the luggage and the gifts in the back, and the couple to the airport for the honeymoon flight at a fixed fare with the flight number on the reservation. It is the transfer the couple's parents most often book as a gift.

Insurance, licensing and the venue's requirements

Most venues now ask the couple's transport supplier for proof of commercial passenger insurance and the chauffeurs' licences before the day, and many banquet halls require it for any vehicle using their forecourt. We send it on request as a matter of course; every vehicle carries the provincial commercial policy and every chauffeur holds the commercial licence and a criminal record check. The standards are the Limousine Association International's, printed on every page of this site. A couple comparing us with a stretch found on a classifieds site should ask that supplier the same question, and read the answer.

After the wedding: anniversaries

The couples who booked the stretch for the day come back for the first anniversary dinner and the tenth, and the birthdays and anniversaries page is written for them. The chauffeur remembers the ribbons.

Plan the wedding cars