reception - part 6

Before we knew it it was time for the bus to head back in to town and since the farm is a good 20 minute hike, all the town folk sadly had to leave. I wish we could have kept everyone there together longer! But the bus needed time to go to town and come back to pick up everyone going out to Mink Mountain (us included). The bus ride was an awesome way to end the night. It was eventful... oh Hector... and included a few pit stops along the way. B and I really enjoyed getting to snuggle grade-8-style on a rowdy bus of hooligans! No pro pics from this part of the night, but I'll end things with another of Shannon's gorgeous sparkler shots. Merry Christmas!

reception - part 5

After the cake cutting we did the bouquet/garter stuff. The garter was caught by our incredibly tall friend Stefan and my awesome former roommate (who is the catch of the century!) caught my bouquet.

[Photo by Shannon LePere]

reception - part 4

Following dinner the speeches began. Our wonderful friends and family said some very beautiful words and everyone's smiles were big and happy tears were flowing. Then on to the dancing! It was still light out when we got the music going (love the long summer days here in July) but everyone quickly joined in the fun on the dance floor. After about an hour we took a break to cut the cake. Thanks to my hubby for not smearing it all over my face!

[Photo by Shannon LePere]

reception - part 3

While everyone ate dinner we had a fun little game to get us to kiss, as per wedding tradition: guests were asked to "graphically design" something with the paper and crayons provided and bring their masterpiece up to us. It was a riot! Our friends are so funny and talented!

The very first one (top left) was given to us within seconds of the MC explaining what to do. While everyone else was being visually creative Alex cut right to the chase. So funny. It's probably still my fav.

reception - part 2

I know I've said this a million times, but the food at our wedding was amazing. On a side note: my work Christmas party was recently held at Good News Café and I finally got to try one of the yummy apps that was served at our wedding!

[Images courtesy of Good News Cafe]

reception - part 1

When we started the reception at 6pm the light was absolutely perfect. I can't believe how amazing everyone's photos looked in there. Lots of folks still had sunglasses on because the sun was nice and bright. And despite being in a greenhouse the temperature was just right (well for us Ontario people anyway - one of my bridesmaids had just returned from Australia and spent the weekend in a sweater, haha).

[Photo by Shannon LePere]

photos/cocktail hour

For an hour and a bit following the ceremony we had some time to take photos. Standard family shots, fun wedding party shots and romantic bride & groom shots. While we did this our guests made their way back down to the area beside the greenhouse and enjoyed delicious cocktails and champagne. Shannon and Mel took some absolutely amazing shots and my MOH was a big help in getting everyone organized.

[Photos by Shannon LePere]

ceremony

Our ceremony was short, sweet and incredibly windy! Our JP, John Guthrie, tied the power of the wind to the power of our love and it was very nice. At one point the wind actually whipped my veil out, which was fantastic! Throughout the ceremony the smiles on our faces were beaming and we kept squeezing each others hands. And then, poof, we were husband and wife!

[Photos by Shannon LePere]

getting ready

Saturday, July the 11th was absolutely beautiful weather in Thunder Bay. The girls and I started off our day by doing some last-minute stuff out at Belluz that we ran out of time to do the night before. Once we were back in town we grabbed a quick lunch from Timmies then were off to our hair & makeup appointments at Michaels. All 6 of us (my mom included) were out of there in less than 2 hours and everyone looked gorgeous! We drove out to Belluz, got ready in the Belluz family home, then were quickly out the door and up the hill for our 4:30pm ceremony. My Dad drove us up there and I was jumping out of my skin with excitement!

[Photos by Shannon LePere]

horray!

How exciting is this?! Our wedding is featured today on a super-stylish blog that I absolutely adore - 100 Layer Cake. Take a look!

paper details

As a designer I get pretty excited about paper. Creating our wedding invites was an awesome experience because I had the excuse to order paper from Mr.French and play with my Gocco. Here's the breakdown of the papers I used to create the whole package.

Invitation Booklet, inside pages: ModTone - Taupe
A6 Envelopes: Construction - Factory Green
Invitation Booklet, cover: Speckletone - Natural Cordtone
Rehearsal Dinner Card and Thank You Card: Speckletone - Kraft

To see the whole suite check out the lovely feature on one of my fav blogs,
Oh So Beautiful Paper.

[Photo by Shannon LePere]

love these

(From West Elm)

delicious food

The best food we've ever eaten has been prepared by our friend Fern at Good News Café so we had 100% faith that our wedding menu would be to die for. We knew whatever she came up with would be amazingly delicious and beautifully arranged so we left it all up to her. Our only request was to try and make it local as a treat to our out-of-town guests and the environment.
It was absolute perfection and we've received many, many, many wonderful comments from guests about the meal.

(Image by Melanie Godecki)

thank you details

Our thank you cards have now been delivered (pending a couple) and I'll share more on them very soon. In the meantime, I have to rave over how absolutely perfect the stamps were. They commemorated the Canadian Horse & Newfoundland Pony. My handsome horse is actually a chestnut Thoroughbred hunter but close enough. In university we completed our own set of stamps and mine (of course!) expressed the excitement of the Hunter/Jumper world and it was one of my fav design projects... so, perhaps that explains my enthusiasm for stamps.

honeymooning - mediterranean cruise

It was a bit of a whirlwind, seeing 4 countries in only a week, and we got to see SO many places and cool things at each port. We decided to book excursions for each place because we didn't want to miss a thing. Our family motto actually is "Live Life to the Fullest" and that we did. The excursions were pretty expensive and made us feel like complete tourists but the amazing experiences were completely worth it. While its hard to chose a fav spot B and I both agree on the French Riviera - if we were insanely rich we would live there for sure. The weather there was a perfect 26 degrees C, which felt especially perfect after melting in 30 to 38 degrees plus for the previous 12 days! And now its apparent that we're Canadian with all this weather talk and even more apparent that we live in one-month-of-summer Northern Ontario.

Day 1 - At Sea

Day 2 - Port: Valetta, Malta -- Excursion:"Scenic Views of Malta"

Day 3 - Port: Naples, Italy -- Excursion: "Taste of Sorrento & Pompeii"

Day 4 - Port: Civitevacchia, Italy -- Excursion: "Rome on Your Own"

Day 5 - Port: Liverno -- Excursion: "Pisa & the Beach"

Day 6 - Port: Cannes, France -- Excursion: "Monacco and a View from Eze"

Day 7 - Port: Barcelona, Spain -- fly home via France/Montreal/Toronto

honeymooning - norwegian gem

The Norwegian Gem is so huge we could see it for miles before we got to it. As we walked over a long bridge to get to it we got more and more excited that this fabulous playground is where we'd be living for the next week. We got a sweet room with our own balcony and spent hours exploring all there is to do on-board. Lots of time was spent at the pool, eating delicious food, watching entertainment, lounging in the sun, reading (check out "The Art of Racing in the Rain" by Garth Stein - a great one for dog owners) and eating more delicious food.

honeymooning - barcelona

The Monday following our wedding B and I took a very early morning flight to Toronto to catch our flight to Barcelona via Paris. All of our traveling went well and we slept lots, arriving in Barcelona at 11:00am the next day. Getting to our first hotel was insanely easy - just jumped on an AirBus and it dropped us right at the Plaza Espanya where the B Hotel is located. This was our home base for 3 days and we greatly enjoyed our suite upgrade and the rooftop pool.

The location was great and we spent a day exploring Monjuic, a cool park complex on a mountain overlooking the city. The next day we got on a Hop-on/Hop-off tour bus which took us to Gaudi's Parc Guell. I've always adored the genius of Antonio Gaudi, which is a large reason why our honeymoon brought us to his hometown. We were walking up a street and to my surprise happened upon 2 more of Gaudi's buildings, it was amazing! The next day we spent a huge chunk of time at Familia Sagrada then wandered down to Parc de la Cuitadella.

Our last 2 days were spent at Hotel Jazz and we again enjoyed our suite upgrade and roof-top pool! Our second location put us in the heart of the action, just steps from La Ramblas. This is the short version of all we experienced in Barcelona, it was so great. On Sunday morning made our way down to the Port and said goodbye to Barcelona for a week, more on that in my next post.

greenhouse love

We absolutely loved our venue. The greenhouse at Belluz Farms is very high-tech and cool. The sides and roof open and close and this allowed for an amazing breeze to keep the temperature just right. The light was phenomenal - the photos taken by guests at the reception were fantastic. It's also huge and easily accommodated out 130 guests with a huge dance floor (and we only used 2 of the 3 bays). And the cement floor was wonderful for dancing in my cute chartreuse heels!

(Image by Melanie Godecki)

they will see us waving from such great heights

Our first dance as husband and wife was "Such Great Heights" by Iron & Wine. Quite possibly the first movie we watched together was Garden State and its one of our all-time favs so the song was perfect for us. A couple other wonderful slow songs have special meaning to us so we included them later in the evening - "Nothing Like You and I" by the Perishers and "Transatlanticism" by Death Cab for Cutie.

(Image by Melanie Godecki)

our "ring bear"

Emery is the cutest little dude. He rocked his "ring bear" duties, carrying the ring pillow my Gram made. He is my new sister's little guy (a.k.a. our nephew) and he's growing up so fast! Two years ago he was born on my 25th birthday and I couldn't imagine sharing a birthday with anyone more awesome. I love this pic, just too funny!

(Image by Melanie Godecki)

they may say i'm a dreamer...

The song we chose as a father/daughter and mother/son dance was "Imagine" by John Lennon. It's such a beautiful and powerful song and it was nice for the 4 of us to be on the dance floor together. My Dad and I sang the words while we danced, it was fun.

(Image by Melanie Godecki)

a man and his guitar

Dave is another of our wonderful friends who played a huge part in our wedding. A week before the wedding Dave saved the day (we forgot about ceremony music) and agreed to play guitar during the ceremony. Songs included "Hey there Delilah" by Plain White Tee's and "Today" by the Smashing Pumpkins plus some other improvised tunes. You rock Dave.

(Image by Melanie Godecki)

more tid bits

Melanie is a wonderful friend of ours and amazing photographer. She took tons of fantastic shots and ever so kindly gave them to us a wedding gift which we received this weekend. Thank you so much Mel, they're beautiful! More of Mel's shots to come this week.

(Image by Melanie Godecki)

the ladies

My fabulous bridesmaids looked smokin' HOT at the wedding! Finding their dresses was a bit of a challenge with them all spread across the world (Southern Ontario, Northern Ontario, Calgary and Australia) but we managed to make it work. I was pretty set on finding dresses that wouldn't break the bank and weren't your typical never-to-be-worn-again bridesmaid dresses. That lead us to the Gap, where I ordered the dresses online and scored an such unfathomable deal that I was able to give them to the ladies as gifts.

These photos aren't of my girls, they're from a fashion shoot that was featured on a blog. I can't remember which blog they came from though, please let me know if you know.