Magpie Wedding Fair in Victoria Baths Manchester. Photo Kate McCarthy.

An architectural gem in Manchester, the grade II listed Edwardian Victoria Baths gleaming with history, is offering you the chance to go back in time with a vintage wedding fair.

The Magpie Wedding show returns on Sunday 18 March 2018 with a fake wedding, live music, a DIY brides’ workshop, fashion parades, wedding dresses, flowers, venue tours, tea, cake – or go VIP to enjoy a glass of Prosecco.

Magpie Wedding Show at Victoria Baths Manchester in 2018.

Organiser Kate Beavis said: “It was important for us to have an old building, and a building with character. We wanted a building that is interesting. We could just host it in a hall, but it wouldn’t be as nice – this is just stunning.

“I love the fact that it’s got this space, the men’s bath to do the fashion show and there’s just so many things to look at. What’s great for a wedding show in a place like this is people come to look at the venue too and we get lots looking round and they stay longer. It’s just beautiful.”

When Victoria Baths opened in 1906 on Hathersage Road, Chorlton-on-Medlock, men and women swam separately. Males were separated by their social class and all women being placed in the same swimming facility.

For more details on the Magpie Wedding Fair on Sunday 18 March click here.

Our #Manchester fashion parade featuring #vintage #wedding dresses https://t.co/w9TLf0F6V1 with @a_marie_barker pic.twitter.com/Jz12lXYkFD

— Magpie Wedding (@magpiewedding) 5 November 2017

The Magpie Wedding Fair uses the first class male pool – the largest and most stylish of the three pools at Victoria Baths. It is no longer used for swimming as the refurbishments have not yet been completed, however on extremely rare occasions it can be filled and heated.

Victoria Baths was converted to a sports hall in the 1980s, by stripping out the changing cubicles and covering over the pool, and it retains the original hardwood balcony rail and dance floor.

Tiled from floor to ceiling, the Turkish Rest Room is one of the most elegant and memorable spaces at Victoria Baths. The room contains four unique stained-glass windows including the astonishing Angel of Purity window.

Victoria Baths served the people of Manchester for 87 years but closed in 1993, despite a campaign by residents to keep it open.

But since 2002, £5million has been raised to reopen Victoria Baths – including winning a public phone-vote on the first series of the BBC’s Restoration programme to be awarded £3.4 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

With over 30,000 visitors a year since it reopened, the baths have become a visitor attraction, events venue and filming location for TV shows Life on Mars, Peaky Blinders, Cold Feet and the Asda Christmas advert.

Flashback to when Peaky Blinders filmed at Victoria Baths – see more photos on their Facebook page (se link below)

Kate, who has been organising wedding fairs since 2010 around the UK, said: “We’re offering something a little bit different. The idea is that we are aiming at the creative bride, who just wants something a bit more trend driven, so it could be Boho, festivals, something hip and cool or a DIY wedding where people are making their own things.

“They can come here and be inspired, we have 30 exhibitors situated in the sports hall showcasing all different things from photography to wedding dresses to flowers to cake…

”I run lots of different businesses and I’m a real hoarder of collectors stuff and magpies are attracted to shiny things and they collect things and it’s a bit like a bride collecting all their stuff for their wedding.”

Victoria Baths has five spaces licensed for wedding ceremonies and the sports hall makes for a great space for receptions. Wedding ceremonies start at £400 and receptions start from £2,200.

For more information about hiring Victoria Baths for a wedding or an event, then contact 0161 224 2020 or visit victoriabaths.org.uk.

Follow Victoria Baths on Facebook and Twitter.

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