University Club of Toronto

The University Club of Toronto is an amazing wedding venue. The food is delicious! All the staff is very helpful and is willing to go above and beyond to make sure your event runs smoothly! They are also very accommodating and friendly. I couldn't think of a better venue to host my wedding.

Our wedding was in October 2018.

After seeing a photo of the beautiful library room of University Club of Toronto, I knew right away I wanted to get married there. The venue was elegant, beautiful and classy while being conveniently located right downtown Toronto within walking distance to Osgood Hall, City Hall and Nathan Phillips Square. There are also lots of parking options close by. The rental fees were surprisingly affordable considering you have access to the entire space (two floors with multiple rooms, all pleasantly decorated). On top of that, the event coordinator was so lovely and responsive to all our questions and inquiries. Another selling point for me, being an art lover, I could only dream to have my wedding surrounded with paintings by the famous Group of Seven painters.

Being foodies, food was an important part of our decision making process. A little nervous because I’ve heard horror story of beautiful venues with mediocre food offerings, we were blown away on our tasting night. To make sure we sampled as many options of appetizers, entrees and desserts, we brought our parents and siblings to the tasting. Everyone loved the food! So beautifully presented and tasty. I’m still thinking about the scallop “en croute” soup to this day. The guests loved their dinner on the day of our wedding. The drinks were also very reasonably priced.

The wedding day turned out smooth and easy. I thank the staffs and the space at the club for that. Our family and friends really enjoyed themselves. My husband and I also spent our first night as a married couple in the room upstairs at the club.

We were so happy we went with University Club of Toronto, it was definitely one of the best decisions we made for our wedding. I highly recommend and would like to again thank Jill and all the staffs from the Club to make this special day one of our most beautiful memories.

Our situation may or may not be unique as a fall out of the pandemic, but we are very upset by the lack of care and compassion from the University Club of Toronto.

We originally signed a contract and paid the deposit in 2019 for our wedding to be held in September 2020. We selected their mid-tier menu package and were also assured that the venue would come with a day of coordinator, which was why the wedding package was priced higher than their private function menu, even though the food options were exactly the same. The event coordinator at the time seemed a little clueless at times, but she had another more experienced person helping to answer questions and we chalked it up to her being new on the job.

Fast forward to 2020, we reached out to the venue once it was clear that we would not be able to have our wedding due to covid restrictions. They told us that their policy is that we can change our date, but they cannot refund our deposit or let us transfer our deposit to someone else. We agreed as it did seem to be a fair trade off and pushed our wedding to August 2021.

At the start of 2021, we felt nervous about the state of the world, so we requested to move our date again to August 2022. We also decided to have a small legal ceremony ourselves in 2021. We reached out again in September 2021 to ask them to prepare some quotes for us for different options (private function vs wedding, at half and full capacity). During this time, the event coordinator was not in the office and the interim GM/COO said the 2019 menu is not available and that we need to sign a contract to lock in new pricing for either the private function or the wedding packages. We were very confused and asked them to clarify as we did sign a contract in 2019, and based on her email this would mean we had locked in 2019 pricing. We also asked that if they cannot honour the 2019 pricing, to please refund our deposit so we can look for other options. The event coordinator came back from vacation and confirmed to us in email that they would honour 2019 pricing and 2019 food&beverage minimums.

Fast forward to May this year, with 3 months to go, we reached out to the venue to finalize our wedding plans and to schedule a tasting. There is a new event coordinator and he told us that he didn't have our deposit which was paid in 2019. This was resolved eventually but the new menu they sent us no longer had pre-set packages and they also told us that they strongly recommended us getting our own day-of coordinator. We asked to clarify which menu items would correspond to our previous "mid tier" package and that we were told the pricing had included a day of coordinator already. They skirted around the question and told us that they would discuss pricing with us at the tasting.

At the tasting, they told us verbally that they would honour $105 for our menu choice, and help with set up and take down, but still no day of coordinator. We told them that we did not accept the proposal, as they did not reach out to us when the change was made, did not offer to refund the deposit at the time, and did not reach out to us until we had asked. Plus, their team had previously confirmed those items for us through email, so we were very blindsided by these changes they are putting on us last minute.

The event coordinator then said he was not the one making these decisions, and he was also new but he would follow up and get back to us. The next day, he came back and said they were "willing to honour the $105 package". We told them that it was unacceptable as we have not been treated as equal parties to the contract and that they need to demonstrate good faith before we can negotiate.

They came back again and offered us the $105 package, but only with Ceasar salad, chicken, and creme brulee, and also no labour, or else we can take back our deposit. All this with less than 2 months to go in our wedding. This behaviour is petty, vindictive, and we cannot tolerate this behaviour and go forward with this venue with their bullying practices.

We understand things have been tough for the wedding industry, but all our other vendors have so far been accommodating, responsive and professional. We have also heard from our friends that their venues are honouring their original contracts.

Had a wedding with around 90 guests at the University Club of Toronto and had an amazing night.

-The venue is beautiful so minimal decor is needed (we opted for no decorations)
-Everything ran on time and flawlessly
-Food was served quickly and it was absolutely amazing, many guests said it was the best food they've ever had at a wedding
-Staff and bartenders extremely good and professional
-Prices are excellent for what you get

I think this is Toronto's best kept secret. The location is perfect; right across from the court house and on the subway line. The staff are attentive and the decore is just historic. It's a great space if you're having an intimate wedding of less than 100 people. Received the invoice and was pleasantly surprised that it was half of what we would have had to pay had we gone to The Liberty Grand. And the Day of Event Coordinator was there for us when we needed here -- couldn't have done it without her.

This truly is the best kept secret in Toronto in terms of wedding venues. The value for what you get is amazing. All of my guests raved about the food and the space. Also because I had guests coming from out of town and the Club has a few rooms upstairs, it was perfect to be able for them to stay right at the venue which is right in the heart of the city. And the rooms are reasonably priced for Toronto. The club was very accommodating for all of my needs. I have to complement them on handing out all of my welcome bags to guests staying at the club.
I will say a few things though. I won't elaborate as I don't want to ruin the overall reviews of the space because it really is a great venue and I would highly recommend it to anyone thinking of somewhere in Toronto. We had a bit of an issue with music and the quality of sound for dancing and we ended up having to switch rooms to dance. For anyone in the future, apparently there is a wooden dance floor that they can put out in the main dining room. I would recommend doing that as music quality is better in that room. We worked it out with the venue fairly quickly and our guests were not upset. Also there was some confusion with cutting our cake, however the venue was extremely professional about the matter and reimbursed us for the price of a new cake. As well there was some confusion at our head table about a vegan meal but it was resolved fairly quickly as well. I would like to say that Danielle, the events coordinator who had only been on the job for a few weeks was fantastic. A few of my family members came up to me to say how organized she was. She and other staff also moved candles around after the ceremony was over to some of the hallways to light the areas at night. The effect was amazing and I hadn't even thought of moving them there. So a few bumps but nothing to dampen the day. An overall great experience at the Club and would highly recommend to those looking for a hidden gem in the heart of the city.

We loved our wedding ceremony, cocktail hour and the dinner reception at the University Club of Toronto. The building and all rooms have an authentic vintage feel and added greatly to the event's atmosphere. We received a lot of compliments on the venue from our guests. Our party size was relatively small (50 guests) and there were plenty of space for everyone. Throughout all stages of planing we found it easy to work with venue's management and event coordinator - they were responsive and accommodating to our requests. The food and services during the reception (as well as hours d'oeuvres during he cocktail hour) were as promised - good quality and attentive service. We would highly recommend this venue for wedding events.

The University Club of Toronto is a gem. We had 100 guests and this venue was perfect. The entire house was reserved for our ceremony, cocktail, dinner and dance. The decor of the house is tasteful and warm, so all we needed to supply were a garland for the mantel, and centrepieces for the dining tables. We were initially concerned about the dance floor being in a separate room, but it actually worked out very well. The different rooms provided a beautiful backdrop for pictures. We received many compliments about the venue. The entire team at the Club was extremely pleasant to work well.