our own wedding

On June 28th, 2014, I married the love of my friggin life.

A bit of a look into our day... As written for Once Wed. We are so humbled to have been asked to tell our story!

"Eric and I had anticipated our wedding for a very long time, after a long stretch of long-distance and living in different cities.

Being that I'm a photographer and Eric is an actor & videographer, we've always had two very different schedules and have been dramatically pulled apart, geographically. For the past 7 years, we lived in two different cities and seen each other fly off on many, many separate international trips. We've loved watching each other's careers blossom and supporting each others dreams - but when Eric proposed, life started to make a lot more sense for us – we were finally planning our life together. We collectively made huge decisions, chose our strengths and tackled so many projects throughout the exciting year of planning our day and ‘next steps’ of our future.

Tuscany, family, wine, white lights, timelessness; these were a few of the words spilled on our first wedding notes. After seeing so (so) many weddings ourselves due to our line of work, we wanted to somehow try and create something we’d never photographed – something simplified and classic. E and I have both traveled through Europe separately, and have many big plans for the future there. It became a natural platform for our inspiration; after we chose that, we worried less about things matching, the size of the peonies, or the regular formalities. Europe does relaxed beauty like no where else!

We hoped we could create the ambiance of a grand dinner and dance party - a grand party that we just happened to be getting married at! With the unpredictable weather of Southwestern Ontario, we knew we were taking a bit of a risk having a roof-less meal under the stars… this doesn’t happen in Canada! Man oh man, am I ever glad we chanced it – it allowed for an incredible and unique atmosphere as it painted a true European backyard.

Eric is a huge foodie, so he tackled the exciting venture of our on-site barbecue and menu. I love diving into DIY projects, so my sister Lori and I collected silverplate vintage antiques to plant succulents and vines in over a period of two months pre-wedding. It was a total labour of love, thank goodness for sisters with green thumbs!

The most sentimental touch was the fact that my dad sketched a rendering of the villa that was printed on every invitation – I mean, that was a dream come true for me. We even a had the chance to use slate from Eric’s parent’s 100 year old house for the table numbers; I feel crazylucky that we were able to incorporate little pieces of our favourite people!

It was the truest, warmest, and most emotional day of our lives. I got to walk down the aisle to the love of my life down a natural row of 150 year old trees, and be embraced by the best people I know - followed by an epic dancefest. It simply doesn’t get better than that."