Pro photos sneak peek

I have a confession to make. I've been holding back on you. I've had these photos for a while now and I've selfishly kept them to myself. I'm sorry. I thought I was helping everyone by going through the events of the wedding, the days after, and the honeymoon chronologically. Now I see it is never right to hold back professional photos. Ever. You know why? BECAUSE THEY'RE AMAZING!!!! No one should be deprived of these puppies! LOL! Many thanks to Justin and the whole Stillmotion team (yet again) for their brilliant vision and insane talent. We couldn't be happier with what we've seen so far and we know the best is yet to come! Here it goes folks! Enjoy!

This is our friend Pat in our Winnebago. A lot of our story is told via the Winnebago which I think is adorable. It was such a focal point in the wedding, I love that our photographers and cinematographers used it as the vehicle to tell our story (har har). 

Dan putting hooks in to attach my signs to.

The tent FINALLY goes up. Jeez. 

Our good friend Luke vacuums to make the Colonel "white dress ready". I'm not sure it's possible for the Colonel to ever be that clean. 

My suite at the Millcroft Inn. 

Isn't my husband so handsome?! He's on the way to pick me up for our "first look"! So exciting!

My mom found this booklet of "Things you must do to make me happy" lists for me to check off each day for Dan. I did one up for him and put it in his groom's gift :)

I love this photo. Swoon. 

My nephews were escorts for our moms and my stepson was our ringbearer. While explaining to the kids that the wedding is essentially a big party and that they would have very important jobs, they each asked "Will there be cake and balloons???". How can  you say no to that much cuteness?! So each of the boys got a big white balloon with their initial hanging off it because I'm an awesome auntie/stepmom. 

Dan writing out his vows. Apparently his phone died and no one had a charger so it was mayhem because he thought he wouldn't have his vows for the ceremony. I kept these cue cards, I hope our kids will enjoy looking at them some day!

The order of the day for our caterer, the incredible Ezra Title of Chezvous Dining. Our wedding meal was oh so delicious. He put so much thought and love into our day, we couldn't have chosen a better team.

My vintage cake topper from Value Village that cost $0.69. The bride used to have a lovely long veil, but my cat Smee decided it tasted delicious, so she's very chic in her birdcage veil now!

Holla! Pop Shoppe pop!!! Do you hear the 80's calling?!

Our first dance. Awwww. 

My beautiful aunt and her husband. I love this shot. 

As an added bonus, a few days ago Justin posted this photo for me. I love all the layers and I think it feels a bit Halloween-y although it could just be the season getting to me ;)  The pin-up girls are 70's Penthouse swizzle sticks, part of Dan's grooms gift along with a bottle of scotch, my boudoir photos, and some snacks. Apparently when you put them in liquid their clothes disappear. Shocking! The text that's running down the centre of the photo is from the vintage wooden box I put Dan's gift in. And of course, on the bottom we have our old school cake topper. Hawt stuff huh?! I love the creativity at Stillmotion, it just blows me away!

The Reception

Well hello again! Let's pick up from the receiving line shall we? After we had hugged and kissed all our guests, they grabbed their escort cards out of the wheatgrass on the barnboard table Dan and his friend Luke built. It was gorgeous! The button on each escort card was covered in fabric that matched the jam (caramel) jar skirts on each table. Each table had its own fabric pattern that my sister and I picked out on a trip down to Buffalo where we discovered the amazingness that is JoAnn Fabrics.

Once our guests were settled in and the wedding party had been announced we had our first dance to Joshua Radin's Today. 

 

And from there, we sat down at our sweetheart table for our first meal together as husband and wife. I'm so happy we decided not to do a head table. We chose our wedding venue based on having our favourite chef/caterer Ezra Title with us. It's nearly impossible to find a venue who will allow you to bring in your own caterer as we discovered, but it was worth all the hard work. Ezra's meals are such special and important nights to Dan and I, we wanted to make sure our wedding meal was equally as private and special as when we have him in our home. Our guests loved that we had our own table and I appreciated being able to eat without 150 people staring at us! 

 

 

I'll step back a moment and show you the whole tent. My wonderful husband and a literal team of helpers worked for two solid days to set up and decorate the tent. It was a huge schmozzle to say the least, but it got done and it was gorgeous. Some of the little details that were supposed to happen had to be missed but only myself and Dan knew about them and overall, I think it still turned out beautifully. 

(The chairs are over at the ceremony in this photo)

This tree was a total show stopper for me. The Alton Mill built a huge firepit in the middle of the event space after we booked with them, and while we loved the look of it, we weren't really sure what in the world we were going to do with it to make it "wedding pretty". Enter our friend Luke again. He somehow found this corkscrew hazel bush while traipsing out in the woods one day and dragged it home for us. The thing was literally about 18' long and we had to cut it down to size (about 10'). I purchased stems of orchids and some different types of moss from a wholesale florist shop (one of the perks of being an interior designer is access to cool stores not open to the public!). Two of my very good friends spent hours decorating the tree wiring on the orchids, placing the moss and votives around the base to make it perfect for me. It was breathtaking. I couldn't stop staring at it. Seriously, whatever it was I had in my head that it would look like, they totally surpassed. And as beautiful as it was in the daylight, at night with all the votives lit and the uplighting.... oh gosh.... it was like a fairytale. Simply stunning. It was the perfect backdrop for our sweetheart table.

The whole look of the wedding I called rustic elegance and were inspired by our silver teapot centrepieces sitting on barnboard at each table.

At each place setting, each guest got a little jar of homemade caramel, a packet of Forget-Me-Not seeds from the Alzheimer's Society of Toronto, a menu and their place card. I cut the menus and the little birds on the place cards using my Cricut and then punched the corners using a cut and emboss corner punch.

 

 

And then we feasted! Unfortunately as of yet, I only have two photos of the meal because it was so tasty everyone was too busy eating to take photos! Trust me when I say it was a m a z i n g. Simply the best food I've ever had at a wedding if I do say so myself! 

During dinner it started raining pretty heavily and the heaters we rented weren't really very effective, so we moved inside early to start dancing. We'll pick up next at the late night buffet!