While we were busy having our photos taken and basking in newlyweddedness, our guests were chilling in the backyard, nibbling on appetizers and "drinking all the rosé." Part of me wishes we could've been there with them, but you just can't be all places at once, now can you?
I don't think I've mentioned yet that our venue was the historic Customs House, known these days as the Workers Arts and Heritage Centre. If you're ever looking for an event space, I highly recommend checking them out. The place is beautiful and the staff were wonderful to work with, even at my most stressed moments. That's saying something.
This was also happening while we were off canoodling. Thanks to our village of helpers (brother, sister-in-law, florist, bartenders, caterers, perhaps more), our ceremony area was transformed into this beautiful dinner space!
That's not all they did. As with any wedding, several issues inevitably popped up, but they were all dealt with well before we even heard about them. Everyone seemed to go above and beyond to make our day perfect for us and it blew us away. I'm getting teary right now just thinking about it! Hopefully you know who you are and know how much we appreciated it because we feel like we can never thank you enough.
Hello, peonies! All of the flowers, including our ceremony wreath and my bouquet, were by Beverly Zaruk from i fiori. It was such a great experience working with someone who has such excitement and passion for their work. And didn't they turn out absolutely stunning?
While we're here, check out the table runner for a sec. I knew that I could have gone DIY crazy for this wedding if I let myself, and I had a long list of things I could possibly make. But when it came down to the wire, I decided that the venue was the star of its own show and stuck to only a few handmade decor items: the table runners, the dessert and bar signs, the gift card box and the cake. If I'm honest, I did worry that people expected more from me, but I also knew that my friends and family would rather see a happy, rested, stress-free bride than strings of bunting. So there.
Good food is important to us. Some might even call us foodies. So, naturally, having good food at our wedding was a top priority. In fact, I believe we confirmed our date with the caterer before even the venue. Haha! You can imagine how elated we were when the owner of our favourite restaurant told us not only that they could cater our wedding, but that they could keep within our budget. We were over the moon!
I'm talking about Matt Kershaw from Rapscallion, by the way. Mmhmm.
They cooked everything on a single barbecue in the backyard (one barbecue broke down) and served it up buffet style. There was everything from pork tenderloin to oxtail. Oh man, our guests are still talking about it!
We had three long communal tables and no assigned seating. I think people were confused by that at first, but then everyone just grabbed a chair and dug in. It was so heartwarming to look around the room and see all the circles of people in our life talking and laughing together. I'll never forget that.
Cheers!
After the toasts, it was time for dessert and coffee. Our dessert table had 12 different kinds of dessert, all homemade with love by our friends and family. Cookies, squares, fudge, pie.. it was heaven! I made the cake, which was lemon yellow cake with vanilla buttercream frosting, but that's a story for another day.
We also had the adorable airstream trailer from Detour pull into the backyard to serve us all kinds of amazing coffee and looseleaf tea. I don't think it's a stretch at all to say it was magical back there.
Our first dance was to "Strangers" by the Kinks. The Darjeeling Limited is one of our favourite movies, one of the first we saw together, and that song has been ours ever since. Lucky for us, the lyrics were very wedding-appropriate: "We are not two, we are one."
Amy and Michelle, friends of ours from our local watering hole, The Ship, went beyond the call of alcohol that day. They helped in every way they could from set up to take down and all the time with those sweet, beautiful smiles! They killed it.
We chose not only a first dance, but a last dance as well, "Gospel" by The National, and when it came on, I nearly burst into tears. How could it be over so soon? We hadn't even danced with our parents yet. So that's exactly what we did: I grabbed my dad and Mike his mom. Then we convinced the DJ to play one more. As you do. Haha!
And just like that, our wedding was over. The lights came on, tables and chairs were packed up, centrepieces were given away, and cabs were called.
Even though I was completely exhausted, I still didn't want the night to end, so I let Mike and four of our friends convince me to head to The Ship for a night cap. I felt ridiculous getting out of a cab on Augusta Street in a wedding dress, but it was all worth it when we walked into the bar. The entire place erupted with cheers and stomping! It felt amazing. The perfect end to the perfect day.
We stayed until they locked the doors. Then we called it. We went back to the hotel, Mike pulled hundreds of bobby pins out of my hair and we tried our best to get a few hours sleep, still completely wired and buzzing from such an incredible, incredible day.
All photos by Hollie Pocsai.
