Steampunk Style

Fall brides, you are going to LOVE this next wedding set in London, Ontario. Audrey & Jordan’s wedding is a personal blogger’s dream. With so many personal DIY details, it was pretty hard trying to squeeze it into a single post. I’m a HUGE fan of grey and absolutely love that it was paired with a vibrant orange. It’s so refreshing. After the photos, have a look at what Audrey has to say about the process and what her inspiration was for her rustic, yet modern wedding. Photography by Red Button Photography .

After over eight years together, Jordan and I got engaged in August 2009 during a holiday cottaging near Ottawa, Ontario. The idea of planning our wedding was very exciting for us, and we revelled in the thought of throwing a fun and unique wedding that reflected us as a couple. When planning our wedding, we figured the best way to get exactly what we wanted – and adhere to our budget – was to do everything we possibly could ourselves, which meant DIY projects galore! Because we took on many projects ourselves, we went into our wedding with the mindset that things didn’t have to be perfect – and turns out, we had the perfect wedding!

INSPIRATION BEHIND COLOR + DESIGN: Given autumn is our favourite time of the year, there was no doubt our wedding would be during this season. We decided on a fresh colour palate of tangerine and grey, and after gaining inspiration from a simple leaf image I came across, the vision of our wedding quickly transpired. When designing the visuals, I incorporated the leaf image across the elements for the wedding: from the save the dates, invitations, church program, favours, guest book, table numbers to the nametags.

FAMILY TREE: To my delight, Jordan wanted to be involved in many projects. One project we took on together was creating a “family tree” which stood in the reception entrance. We wanted to represent and honour where we both came from, and thought the tree would be a great way to do so. Over several months we collected wedding photos from our family members, and we made every wedding photo a leaf on the tree.

SEATING CHART: Another project we created was the reception seating signage. The idea of using vintage windows came to us when we uncovered some old green windows in the back of a friend’s shed. We saw the potential in the tired windows, and brought them back to life with some sanding and a fresh coat of grey paint, and included seating for each table within the glass panes.

OTHER DIY ITEMS: My favourite projects took place a couple days before the wedding. My dear friend Jill graciously offered to help make cupcakes, and with the help of my mom and now mother-in-law, we were up ’til the wee hours of the morning baking 120 cute chocolate and vanilla cupcakes from scratch. Many thought we were crazy for taking on such an ambitious task right before the wedding, but to be honest, I’ve never shared more laughs in my life! The next day, the fun continued while making the flower bouquets, boutonnieres, centrepieces and the hanging mason jars with the help of my sisters.

The wedding day was everything I hoped for and more. The church ceremony was perfect, the food was superb, we couldn’t have asked for better photographers, and we even got a round of bacci ball in the mix! And did I mention I married my very best friend?! But the best memory I’ll take away from the day was dancing the night away by candlelight with all our favourite people in one room. It would be an understatement to say this group loves to dance – and boy, did we dance! We had much to celebrate.

Location: London, Ontario, Canada
Church: St. Peter’s Cathedral Basilica
Reception Venue: Windermere Manor
Photographer: Red Button Photography
Favours: Eve Chocolatier
Invites & all wedding print pieces: The bride

Update: we received a lot of emails asking where to purchase the graphic for the programs. Please visit the artist’s website: Heather McGrath Design . Tell her we sent you! :)

Lisa and Edwin wanted a Victorian inspired wedding but still wanted the wedding to reflect their interests, so they incorporated some fun, geek details. Captured by Sandy Tam Photography , the wedding started off with a traditional Chinese tea ceremony, followed by a red and antique gold reception at the Chateau le Jardin in Woodbridge, Ontario.

When my husband, Edwin and I first got engaged, I immediately went into full planning mode (mainly because I got sick that same week and had more free time while I recuperated). Like all planning processes, adaptability is always important. We had always envisioned a themed wedding; whereas I had envisioned a Victorian themed wedding with dark reds and antique golds, Edwin had envisioned a Star Wars or some video game inspired wedding. Instead of bickering over which idea was better, we decided to incorporate both ideas somehow. Eventually we arrived on a mutual idea and we aptly named our wedding ‘Victorian elegance with a touch of nerd’.

When we found Chateau Le Jardin, with its high ceilings, beautiful chandeliers and detailed crown mouldings, I knew this was the place we had to have our reception. It was the perfect setting for my Victorian themed wedding! The ‘nerd’ aspect came through our processional song, the Mario Kart Love Song (originally by Sam Hart), which I had secretly requested for them to play. Edwin wore pig cufflinks inspired by Lisa Simpson’s wedding. The Best man had MegaMan cufflinks and a special “Hand of the King” brooch from Game of Thrones. Finally, the groomsmen wore camera and burger cufflinks, each representing their favourite things in life.

I really wanted to add as many personal touches as possible, so, many of the small details I had done myself (and with the help of our wonderful friends and family), including the invitations, menu cards, app card and seating chart. I love lace and I love the colour red, so I incorporated the red lace throughout all the details; from our invitations to the chair covers. I also gathered brooches I’ve been collecting since high school, along with ones gifted to me by my mother, mother-in-law, maid-of-honour and bridesmaids, to make a brooch bouquet. My bouquet became something very meaningful to me on the day of the wedding.
On our very first date, Edwin brought me to an ice cream parlour for ice cream. Since then, we’ve had ice cream as our favoured dessert after meals. We decided to hire an ice cream truck for our wedding and handed out ice cream tickets as our wedding favours. Each ice cream ticket was placed into a sundae glass, and decorated with a tag with our engagement photos imprinted. Leveraging off of this idea, our photographer Sandy Tam, decided to do an ice cream inspired photo shoot on our wedding day. We had colourful fake ice cream as props, and red and white banners symbolizing an ice cream parlour.

For our first dance as husband and wife, Edwin and I danced to “A Thousand Years PART 2” by Christina Perri. We had our first dance secretly choreographed and had been practicing for one month prior to the wedding. Everyone thought we were just going to do a typical ‘high-school’ dance. We sure surprised them!
Over 12 months of planning, everything went off successfully without any hiccups. We were lucky that we got all the major items out of the way early in the planning process and had time and patience to calmly approach the many little things that led up to the actual day. Now with all this time on our hands, we are able to breathe and look back on everything and smile…

Photographer: Sandy Tam Photography
Makeup & Hair: Peggy Lee
Venue: Chateau Le Jardin http://www.lejardin.com
Floral design: Weddingbuds
Decor rentals and linens: Wedding Wows
Cake and cupcakes: Kuppycakes
Wedding Dress: Sophia Tolli, from Superior Bridal
Bride’s Jewelry: Originals Toronto
Groom’s Tux: Tiger of Sweden, from Got Style the Menswear Store Toronto
Ice Cream truck: Olympic Softee
Wedding planners: Two Hearts Wedding Services
DJ: Dee Dee Jay
Officiant: Enduring Promises
Instrumental Entertainment: Alicia and Trent Trio

I’m absolutely in love with today’s wedding captured by White Photographie . As you know, we don’t often share vintage inspired weddings, but this one has so many beautiful details that have just thrown us on the vintage train! We love the floral headpiece, dress, bowties, boots, cake and snowcones…it could go on. Introducing: Karyn & Nic.

From the bride: As most would agree weddings are designed to represent the couple, this was definitely our goal as we set out to plan and design our wedding! Right from the night of the proposal we had been dreaming up our magical wedding and brainstorming ideas.

The very first venue we visited ended up being the only place we needed to see. From the moment we stepped onto Ruthven’s property – we were sold! From the open fields, to the cobblestone coach house and the surrounding old stone walls, this location had us grinning from ear to ear.

I had my own vision for the church from the very beginning. As a photographer myself, and someone who tries to do things a little differently, my vision was to hang hundreds of rose pedals from the ceiling of the church.

After the ceremony we were eager to get back inside the church and start taking pictures underneath the rose petals. Without being able to visit with our guests directly after the ceremony for a traditional receiving line, it was very important to us that we made time in our schedule for the day to enjoy a cocktail hour with our family and friends. My sister-in-law co-owns a snow cone company called Sweet Ice, so we were more than happy to have them there to serve fresh fruit snow cones to our guests and us!

I really love fashion and wanted to have a unique look for my bridesmaids. I had so many ideas and wasn’t sure if I could pull off this look, but with the help of Jean’s Flower Shop in Hamilton; my bridesmaids were able to have full crowns of flowers to wear along with their blush pink flowing dresses and cute little boots! As for my groom, he has been a bowtie guy since we met and could have none other for his groomsmen.

For the cocktail hour I wanted to have bit more of a fun look to my Vera Wang dress so I added one of Vera’s bows to bring a more fashion forward look to my dress. As well, I also switched from my traditional veil to a fresh – flower headpiece to match the rest of my bridesmaids.

Niche catering served our delicious dinner and our whimsical cake was made by the groom’s cousin Tiffany Melfi of “Miss Beauty Baker”. To cap things off we decided to have our first dance under a beautiful gazebo on the grounds of Ruthven Park.

The day felt like it was out of a movie and was truly magical for us. White Photographie captured it perfectly and represented our style through every photo. They allowed me to express my photo ideas as well and were so accommodating to our needs. We couldn’t have been happier!

Photography: White Photographie
Venue: Ruthven Park
Snow Cones: Sweet Ice Snow Cones
Flowers: Jean’s Flower Shop
Wedding Dress: Vera Wang
Catering: Niche Catering
Cake: Miss Beauty Baker

You’ll definitely love this next wedding. Toronto is full of so many unique wedding venues and today we’re sharing one that is totally up my alley and likely one that the men will love to. Held at the Fermenting Cellar in the Distillery District, BLoved Events transformed the space into a glamorous affair. The decor was inspired by Alison and Devin’s love of travel and was captured by Times & Paper .

Says the bride: Devin and I knew from the beginning that travel, and Toronto would be core to our wedding. We have had years of long distance dating, when I was doing my MBA in Boston, now he is at Queen’s for Medical School, and both of us we took separate trips to do development work in Africa. It was important to us our wedding took place in Toronto and grounded us in the city we call home. We had guests travelling in from around the world, and wanted to showcase the city. We also wanted it to be a celebration of diversity – Devin is from a West Indian background and I am Chinese. Toronto is the most diverse city in the world. The Ferementing Cellar in Distillery District was perfect for us.

Travel is a passion for both of us. We have each been to 50+ countries, and every continent of the world. Together we backpacked for over 4 months in South America, starting in Antarctica and finishing in the Galapagos Islands. It’s what bonds us, and experiencing the world together is our adventure.

Our theme was travel, and together with our wedding planner and our creative friends, came up with some great DIY ideas. Our invitations were designed by our friend Emily Stover, with a map of Toronto and icons of all of our favorite places from the University of Toronto where we both studied, to Kenginston / Little Italy where he lived, to the Skydome (which will always be the Skydome to us!) Our programs were designed by our groomsman Mike Wasilewski to look like Lonely Planet Travel books with advice on what to do in the Distillery District. Our appetizers covered a broad range of ethnicities, including steamed buns with duck and wasabi ice cream cones with salmon sashimi. Our name tags were luggage tags, which we strung up at the entrance to the venue. Each table was named after a city we had travelled to together – and the head table was of course, Toronto. Our table numbers were printed as postcards that showcased Devin’s photography. We wanted late night food that reflected Toronto – gourmet street meat it was!

More than anything, we wanted our family and friends to have fun at our wedding and for the day to be a reflection of us as a couple. We would like to think of ourselves as adventurous, fun loving and unique. Our ceremony was officiated by one of my best friends and we wrote our own vows. We served drinks before our ceremony, because why not. We had a West Indian tasa band play during cocktail hours, and the dancing started at 6pm! My tip for all brides is (a) get a wedding planner so you can enjoy your wedding day – it flies by so fast, and (b) break the rules, it’s far more fun that way!

Wedding Planner: BLoved Events
Photographer: Times & Paper
Ceremony & Reception Venue: Fermenting Cellar, Distillery District
Florist: Flowers by Emillie
DJ: DJ Illiment
Wedding Dress: Mikaella Bridal
Groom’s attire: Arthur
Bridesmaids’ dresses: Von Vonni
Groomsmen’s attire: Moores
Music: Indian Tassa Band –
Stationery – DIY by bride & groom’s friends