Featured in Canadian Bride Guide: Night at the Museum

We are featured today in Canadian Bride Guide! Link: https://www.canadianbrideguide.com/wedspo/night-at-the-museum

"Leslie and Shane originally had planned a larger celebration with all of their closest friends and family in early August 2020. Covid threw a little dent in their plans which had them them to move their date later in the year to October 31st, hoping the guest count restriction of 50 would lift. At this time the number of infected cases had increased but they decided to plan a wedding regardless! A wedding planner herself, Leslie is used to working around all changes no matter how last minute they are. Her vision changed from one of eclectic simplicity and washed colours to a moody, modern and sexy one. Unable to invite performers and extra vendors into the space, they were able to spend a little more on dance classes, elevating the menu, selecting specific flowers that transformed the venue, and added more drinks on the menu to please the guests!"

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Pre-Wedding

What a journey it has been planning this spectacular day! Nonetheless, it was the best time and a fun challenge working through all the ups and downs of planning a wedding amidst a global pandemic. Since our original wedding date was August 8th, the majority of our plans at this time were worked around the idea of a summer wedding. The summer vision board consisted of a neutral palette with little pops of colours and whimsical details, so think less bright, but definitely not dark either. To be entirely honest, a fall wedding was always what I wanted but our families pushed for a summer one since the cultural wedding we had the year previously was held in the Fall. I was so happy to be able to have the wedding on a beautiful fall day and quite frankly, who doesn't enjoy warm moody colours and cozy feeling of being inside with others?

Selecting the dresses for my bridesmaids was a lot of fun. I wanted them to look sexy. I love slits so that was one of the main elements I looked for in their outfits when doing my research online. I ended up picking these beautiful studded off-shoulder dresses from ASOS and ...you guessed it. SLITS! My sister was pregnant at the time and looked adorable in the dress but had to pin up the sexy part of the dress. As for the guys' suits, they kept it modern and simple which I was completely okay with since our venue was clean and contemporary. I wish we had more time for both sides of the wedding party to get to know each other but with covid it was just too hard.

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The biggest challenge was not being able to have all our friends and family join us but we were lucky to have them attend virtually which was just as important to us. Read below to hear more about our day!

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Wedding Day:

No 6:00am wake up calls. No drowsy, grumpy bridesmaids or groomsmen. Beautiful photography studio for hair and make-up. No running behind schedules. Food and music. Getting ready for the ladies was a relaxing and smooth morning and from what I heard from the guys, their morning was just as easy with a few dashes of whisky here and there. In between getting ready and the start of the ceremony, our photographer Kaoverri and her assistant Ronnie whisked us away to snap some beautiful portrait photos in unique areas around the venue and oh my god, she made us look like models! I forgot to mention that we got married on Halloween Day so there were people in costumes walking up and down the streets who were more than happy to be included in our photos like man on stilts below.

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The ceremony set up looked stunning. We had hit golden hour so the warm rays of the sun created the most picture perfect arena. Guests were relaxed and enjoyed the view of the water and the reflection of the buildings while waiting for the event to start. I'm really glad we agreed on this colour palette because it worked out so well with the space! The chiavari chairs were set up by Celebration Rentals and the floral arrangements that Kelly created just blew my mind! The main attraction was definitely my dog though. When he made his way down the aisle with my dad, tears were streaming down many cheeks. He really is the star and love of my life so it was important to have him join us on our wedding day and I wanted it to happen no matter what. Get ready for a handful of Ranger photos!

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At 7:00pm, it was time for food! David from Sugar Mountain Catering created a specific Farro salad for the menu (something I requested a year earlier) and also customized a few protein dishes so accommodate all the different diets and preferences in our group. Juuuuuust so you all know, Sugar Mountain really does hit it out of the park with their menu. Guests haven't stopped raving about the taste and presentation of the food even to this day! Our tables came alive with Bespoke rentals such as the matte black chargers, midnight black velvet linens, rose gold cutlery, vintage drinking goblets, and velvet forest green napkins. The mirror chrome table numbers and personalized acrylic name cards were customized by Printed by Ray and the seating chart, menu cards and invitations were created by Violet Grey Creative. The table numbers were something I was really excited to use as I had gone online to look for something unique and modern and could be reused for my rental business. They were definitely not cheap but so worth it! At this point the sun had already pulled out of the sky so we had beautiful city lights glimmering in the skies and reflecting off the surface of the water. It was phenomenal.

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We ended the night with a surprise dance performance. Shane and I took dance classes with Kyle at First Dance Vancouver for about a month and a half and practicing as much as possible at home on our own time. Kyle is amazing and we highly recommend him! He's so patient and so funny and really created a routine that spoke about of our love story. We should have a video ready soon but in the meantime here are some photos! And seriously..that view is just something. Here are a few of my favourite photos from the night. Have a great day!

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