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So, we got married! And that’s worth celebrating for many, many reasons.
First off – its 2020. Yeeeep, our big wedding got cancelled. But we got married anyways!
And this post is about our beautiful wedding day!
Back in 2018 when we got engaged, we had no idea that taking a two year engagement would mean a whirlwind change of plans come 2020.
After making the call to cancel at the end of June 2020, we kicked our butts into high gear because we were determined to still get married on our original wedding date (September 12th), some way or another. We put together a cute, quaint, “backyard” wedding that was everything we needed.
None of this could have happened without the help of every single person who attended that day.
With cutting back so drastically on our wedding, we really wanted to keep costs low to really save the money, and everyone pitched in so graciously to make that happen. From decor to photography to cooking and more, we are so grateful for everyone involved.
We also had already bought some wedding things (the dress, decor, etc.) so we wanted to use as much of it as we could since we already had it.
With just sixteen guests in total – meaning our immediate family, my grandparents and our very best friend who was our best man – we decided to make a whole day of it, cause, why not!
Unfortunately, the day before the wedding we had to make the call to move most of it indoors due to the rainy weather (I had planned to have our meals out on the deck, play lawn games, etc.) It all worked out just great, the rain stopped in time to have our ceremony & photos outdoors still, and all was fine. And don’t they say it’s good luck to rain on your big day!?
But anywho, onto the nitty gritty details of the day!
Our Wedding Day
The Timeline
I decided on a whole day shindig because I really wanted the day to feel special and was afraid it wouldn’t with such a small amount of people, being at my in-laws house, etc. And I think it really did! People got to have meaningful conversations throughout the day and the pace felt very relaxing but not boring.
11:00 AM – Brunch
1:00 PM – Getting Ready
4:00 PM – Ceremony
4:30 PM – Champagne Toast & Photos & Appies
7:00 PM – Dinner
8:00 PM – Toasts & Dessert
The Food
We bought all of the food and drinks ourselves, 80% of it being from Costco.
My grandma baked up a storm and brought all of our dessert goodies. I ordered some soft pretzels from a local bakery for our appy hour.
And everyone pitched in a helping hand to cook, prep and serve everything. We did what we could to prep some foods before hand, and the dads got some cute black aprons to wear over their suits to barbecue up the steaks.
We did end up with a ton of booze and pop leftover – but hey, we’re still enjoying it now!
Decor & Flowers
For decorations, I definitely wanted a little something to make the day feel special, but to keep it very minimal.
I had already bought a ton of eucalyptus garlands, so we put those to use everywhere.
My handy husband built our absolutely beautiful hexagon arch, stained a ton of crates and made some super cute signs and a guestbook that now hang in our home.
My aunt graciously let us borrow chairs, tables, linens and tableware.
I wanted to put use to the wooden table numbers I had already made, so I printed off a ton of photos of us and used some of the blocks to signify each year of our relationship.
We also put together a cute photo slideshow of photos of the two of us, that ran in the background on the TV for the duration of the day.
I added a few other pieces, like a lantern, some candles and a few succulents, that now have found homes in our house as mantle or shelf decor. I didn’t want to end up with a bunch of pieces that only work for wedding decor, so I tried to go with items I could repurpose.
Flowers! I can’t believe flowers are so dang expensive! Especially when they just end up dying lol. No offense to anyone who loves flowers, but I just could not justify the cost for real flowers.
I ended up finding a local lady who makes these silk flower bouquets. I got one bridal bouquet for me, one for my maid of honor, a boutonniere for my husband and our best man, and she threw in a toss bouquet for me that I used for decor!
They looked beautiful, and the plus side is that I can now reuse them and/or sell them! Win-win!
Photography
When we first got engaged, my dream was to get married in the mountains. After seeing how ridiculously expensive that was going to be, we scrapped that idea.
After planning on downsizing the wedding, I figured hey! Why not do a wedding photoshoot in the mountains instead of having a photographer just for sixteen people out on an acreage!?
So that’s what we did! It may be taboo to some for the groom to see the bride before the wedding day, but we did get to do a “first look” and that was more than fine with me.
About three weeks before our wedding day, we travelled down to the mountains, I got my hair and makeup done, donned the dress, my husband in his suit and we ended up with incredible wedding photos that I will forever cherish – one’s that never would have happened had we had our “normal” wedding.
Big shoutout to Brittany at Haven Beauty for glamming me up and making me feel like a bride for these special photos. She was absolutely hilarious and so much fun to get ready with, highly recommend if you’re in the Calgary area.
I’m so grateful to Lyndsay at Minted Photography for these photos. She was so fun to pal around with, shot beautiful photos (on film!!) and created memories we can hang in our home forever.
As for the actual wedding day, I had my sister help me with my hair and makeup, as well as she took photos for us that day – some capturing incredible moments during the ceremony, and getting some wonderful family photos afterwards.
I 1000% do not regret my decision on getting a photo session and opting out of a photographer for the whole day. It was way way more affordable that way, and now we have incredible wedding photos to hang in our home.
Music
My husband convinced me a few years back to buy this massive bluetooth speaker (with microphone) “because we could use it for our wedding!” And well, we did lol.
This speaker is seriously the best, worked fantastic to play our ceremony music and allow all ten people who were sitting to hear the ceremony loud and clear.
We brought it up to the deck and played some background music for the day while we drank and mingled and the battery lasts literally days which is so fantastic.
We’ve used it for every camping trip we’ve taken, volunteered it up for some small events and it’s truly been totally worth it. And it really wasn’t that expensive compared to many bluetooth speakers!
Mini Moon
We decided on a local hotel for our wedding night, & splurged on a fancy suite.
Something hilarious from that night is that a cab wouldn’t come get us from my in-laws acreage, so I ended up borrowing my mother-in-law’s jeep and driving us back to the hotel, in my dress and all LOL.
The next morning we drove down to one of our most favorite places – Banff, AB and spent a couple days relaxing there. It was such a nice, quiet little getaway that was so so needed after the hustle and bustle of the wedding season.
As beautiful and longed for that our wedding day was, I do have to say I’m so glad it’s now all over lol. That season of life felt like it lasted so long, and with the change of plans a few months out, it really was so stressful feeling like I had to try so hard to make it “the best day of our lives”.
At the end of the day, I got married to the love of my life and that made it all worth it!