Our Wedding: Ceremony & Reception

The ceremony was rather unconventional, starting at 5pm with instructions for guests to head to the party right afterwards! We decided to have a Children’s Parade during the ceremony rather than a single flower girl and ring bearer, because there were too many adorable children to choose from. They walked out to “Whack-bat Majorette” by Alexandre Desplat, from the Fantastic Mr. Fox soundtrack.

My beautiful bridesmaids walked in to the song “The Way I Am”, by Ingrid Michaelson. Unknowingly, a few of my family members had pulled the lyrics from this song to feature on the side of some custom Jones Soda bottles that they had ordered as a wedding gift for us, with our engagement pictures on the bottles also! We learned about this coincidence afterwards and had to smile about how many of these “moments” happened throughout the wedding. It was meant to be!

I walked down the aisle with my mom and dad to the most beautiful piano song I’ve ever heard – “Penelope’s Theme” by Nathan Johnson, from The Brother’s Bloom soundtrack. I love that movie and fell in love with the song.

I love Nathan’s face in these next few images – it’s the only time I’ve ever seen him cry, and I had to fight so hard not to break down right then and there and start crying too!

We wrote most of our ceremony with the help of our pastor, including very personalized vows and readings from both my mama and mother-in-law from some of our favorite bible verses and poems.

As we walked back down the aisle after being newly announced as husband and wife, we danced to a big band version of “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” by Robert Goulet, from the Toy Story 2 soundtrack. We love our Disney Pixar films and it seemed like the perfect way to start our married lives together!

The whole evening was very casual with a cocktail style eat-when-you-want dinner served out of a local food truck, and no set time for speeches, cutting the cake, tossing the bouquet/garter or our first dance, which all happened quite naturally throughout the evening.

 

The speeches made by my parents, my mother-in-law, my best friend and maid of honor, and Nathan’s best friend and best man were heartwarming, full of laughs, and touched my heart!

I refuse to watch the video of our speech because I remember being so nervous and wanting the speech to be over so that we could get back to the party! But it was so important to me to thank everyone for all their love, support, and help to make our day the most magical day ever. Nathan is actually quite hilarious under pressure and had the whole crowd laughing.

We asked Nathan’s cousin to make us our most favourite chocolate zucchini cake in mini form for our own special wedding cake. My mom gifted us the wedding smurfs as part of my bridal shower gift, so they made an appearance on the top of the cake!

Husbie’s cousin (the same one that made our delicious chocolate wedding cake) caught the bouquet! She met her love this past year and they’re getting married this October – it must have worked!

The pictures of the garter toss sequence are rather self-explanatory 😉

There were a variety of activities for guests such as a lawn-sized Jenga set handmade as a wedding gift by a dear friend, a volleyball net, a photo booth with trunks full of props and a kid’s table complete with face painting, coloring books and bubble blowing. We even had a late night bonfire with s’mores!

Our first dance was magic. I didn’t realize it until after the fact, but all the kids were circling us and blowing bubbles as we danced under the twinkle lights to Sondre Lerche’s Modern Nature.

Our guests were still under the stars dancing until we left at 2 in the morning. I’ve heard that some people didn’t leave until after 3! It really was the most spectacular day, and we feel so lucky that it was ours.