I feel so fortunate to have been brought up with a D.I.Y. mindset. It's such a powerful feeling to be able to customize your own life and therefore personalize your wedding as well. Not only can you make a wedding so original with this ethos but you may even have the ability to save a few bucks, as we all know, weddings are expensive. Now, my wedding was not inexpensive but it wasn't that bad, actually, since we asked for a few specific things from people and I made a lot of stuff during my preparations it made the day more magical and fun, I think. Here are some of the things I did:
1. First of all, I decided on a theme: Originally I wanted to do a Princess Bride themed wedding, as that movie was so fun, quirky, and had gorgeous gowns in it I would have loved to have worn. Plus, that movie was meaningful as when I first went over to Matt's place when we began dating I saw that he had it in his movie collection, and it impressed me. The theme seemed great for a wedding until my friend Mike mentioned one day that he thought I would have done a Time Travel wedding and said he would get a DeLorean if we did it. I told him if I changed my theme to that I would hold him to that promise. I actually thought this idea was a great one, because Time Travel movies/books, though they can be fun, can also be very complex and thoughtful and that's also how I wanted my wedding to be. Fun, complex, thoughtful, memorable, all of those things seemed to be a great recipe for a fantastic wedding! Not only that but looking back at photos from a wedding can be like Time Travel in itself, when you look back at your parent's weddings you see the fashions, the hair, the decor of that time period captured. Pictures in itself are like a time machine of our memories. Music of different eras captured political movements and the way society thought during that time, and what's a wedding without music? Plus style, the style of this wedding was very eclectic, because I wanted us all to look like different time travelers coming out of different times that intrigued us or we have been curious to explore. Some people asked what time period I was going for, and I said, "No specific time, just whatever you want" and I think that was what was so charming. This theme was very anything goes, which was delightful in itself, no rules or restrictions may have made it difficult to decide what to wear perhaps, but it also showed everyone at the wedding what time period interests you, or if you prefer a classic style above all. You could easily grab an old piece from your closet or get a new piece, or dress as your favorite time traveler. It all worked and everyone looked very dapper and comfy in what they chose.
Our date was on "Future Day" October 21, 2017. For anyone who doesn't get that, one of my favorite trilogies is Back to the Future and the second movie is when they travel to the future to stop an event from happening. That day was October 21st, 2015 (yes, I'm a nerd) but it was on a Wednesday and on that actual date I ended up going to a movie theater that was playing Back to the Future 1 & 2 to celebrate it. So, when I got engaged a little while after that day I thought October 21st, 2017 was perfect for a few reasons: It still represented the day, just a few years later, it was on a Saturday which is perfect for a wedding day, also this was a week before Halloween (my fave time of year) which was pretty much when Matt and I had our first date, at the Zombie Walk. Plus, fall is not only a gorgeous time, the weather is lovely, not too hot, not too cool, and wedding season isn't at it's peak so things are a little less expensive then.
2. The bride and groom outfits: So of course, what is a wedding without a tux and gown. Matt, wanted to go as dapper but as inexpensive as possible so we decided to check out some of the cool costumes you could rent at a place in Toronto called, Malabars. It was perfect. He had one major request, he did not want to be in a period costume where he had to wear tights. So he gravitated towards the classy, 1920's ensemble that ended up having a top hat and tails. I was actually shocked that he went towards a hat, I love hats, but he shies away from such things as he feels he has a rather large head and they're hard to purchase. They had hats of all sizes there and luckily fitted him with a hat that he got compliments on all night long. His whole outfit looked like something out of a high society painting of that era. I loved it on him and he felt comfortable, and the fact that the rental included a cleaning and hem plus the rental for about a week for $120 and he didn't have to keep it hanging in his wardrobe afterward appealed to both of us. He looked like he spent a fortune on it and that's not what happened, so if anyone is in the Toronto region and wants to do something similar to us, I highly recommend that place.
My Mom always told me it was bad luck for a bride to make her own dress. I'm not one to care about superstitions but I already had enough stuff on my plate in the D.I.Y. department so I didn't want to take on making a dress as well. For my dress I was incredibly indecisive as I'm so fascinated with all kinds of time periods so we ended up going to a few different places to find my dress. I feel I didn't miss out on anything when trying on dresses. Not only did I try on all kinds of shapes and styles but I went to different kinds of shops. Ones that seemed pretty standard, one that was extremely extravagant and had everything under the sun and my dress was decided on at a vintage wedding place that I was eyeing mainly because it seemed appropriate for my theme. I found it at Vintage Bride in Toronto and honestly, at first I wasn't sure if I would find it there or if I would find a vintage replica dress somewhere else. I was falling hard for 1920's style dresses (not because of what Matt picked out, but because the style looked so elegant with silk, lace and bead work all together in one dress) but my body shape had changed drastically from when I was in my 20's. I am in my mid 30's so the narrow silhouettes of the 1920's didn't quite flatter my curvier figure. So, I slipped on a few dresses at Vintage Bride and when I first put on my dress, myself or the friends (that I took with me to help me decide) were not convinced when I first tried it on. When the lady that helped us started styling it and told us about all the alterations she could do then suddenly the dress looked stunning. I loved the Basque waistline, sweetheart neckline, the tiered, authentic Chantilly lace, it was gorgeous! The dress I chose was older than me. It was made in the late 1960's but it was inspired by Victorian times, which to me was a pivotal time in weddings anyway (I did lots of research for my time travel wedding) since Queen Victoria was the first to start the "brides must wear white" trend, as before that wedding dresses were quite colourful, and I know it still is in some cultures today. I did want to wear white on my wedding day, despite the fact that I had been living with Matt for about 7 years prior to our wedding (and I'm an artist that loves colour)...I'm allowed to have that. I bucked a lot of traditions, we're not really religious people and we figured even with following a lot of those old traditions in some people's marriage there is still a high chance of divorce so if we got divorced because we didn't have a traditional wedding and didn't follow traditions to the letter I figured we had bigger problems. So to me, the wedding dress, because of it's time period it was made in and it's fantastic historical inspiration, made me feel like it was the perfect addition to our themed wedding. We tailored it to suit my body-shape, style, and I bought a few accessories to give it some sparkle and personality. I wanted a little bit of bedazzle. I wore some old, comfy shoes that were mint oxfords bought from Modcloth forever ago. I believe they were the B.A.I.T. shoe brand so they were quirky, colourful, fun, had a 50's vibe and had a uniqueness to them. Plus I'm tall (about 5'9") and have difficulty in heels so I need flats. I wanted comfort on my wedding day, but also wanted cute shoes and I feel like oxfords really embody all those things. The nice thing about B.A.I.T. footwear is they are also vegan, and being a vegetarian, it was important to me to bring that aspect into my wedding too. I'm sure if I actually time traveled I wouldn't survive...unless there are a lot of vegetarians in the future...that may be the place to explore.
3. The bridal party outfits: So we chose our family for our bridal party, it was a tough decision, we almost went with not having a bridal party at all, but I thought it would be nice to have our family with us for support on the big day. I'm glad we had decided to do that, I think it was fun, and really was beautiful getting them involved. So I designed the pattern that went on the bridal party's dresses and ties. I chose to do a toile de jouy pattern, mainly because that pattern is so traditional, you can see it in some older folk's dresses, or home decor items. I love the fact that the pattern is interesting and can tell a story within it. It's an old fabric printing technique too that used to be used with intricate wood block carvings. I always loved that type of pattern, it's just so beautiful and interesting, with a lot of work and thought in each print and sometimes you can see lovely foliage mixed with figurative work. Often times toile de jouy displays elegant old dresses and fashion and I loved that it sort of captures history within the textile print. So I didn't make it the old-fashioned way (though I have a background in doing printmaking and lino cuts were something I have done) but instead I drew out and inked some trees and plants, along with different period outfits, historical figures and a few time travel characters from some fun movies. I even drew the Star Ship Enterprise in there because of Matt's love of Star Trek and because Star Trek has some stories that had time travel as a plot thread. I then scanned and cleaned up my drawings in Photoshop and changed the colour of the line work to blue, which is a classic colour choice for toile and also went with my blue colour scheme for most of the wedding. I called the modern and highly personal pattern "Tear in the Space Time Continuum Toile", and people seemed to really love it.
I put the textile pattern on a bunch of different dresses and outfits on the cowcow website, asking the bridesmaids to pick a style they would like to wear but would also feel comfy in. I wanted everyone to showcase their own style, but the only similar thing going on among them would have been the textile pattern. My nieces at the time unfortunately didn't have a lot of choices in the dress styles (but now there is a larger collection of kids clothing on cowcow) though the dresses chosen for them were cute ones they are still wearing a year later and seem to love. The men chose their own suits with blue in them that they either already had or decided to buy and I only pretty much gave them ties ( which I altered the pattern to showcase different parts of the pattern chosen by the men so they all seemed unique and individual still) and pocket squares to choose from at the time of the wedding (but now cowcow offers button up shirts that I think would have been fantastic if they were available as an option) and the pocket squares doubled as a cleaning cloth for glasses so they were very useful. The ties were bought from zazzle and the pocket squares were another purchase from cowcow. I also presented the bridal party with gifts during the day of. I had purchased pocket watches for the groomsmen (unfortunately I can't recall where I got them from, I found them on a whim when looking around one day with my cousin in Toronto's Kensington Market) to keep with the theme and I think they thought they were fun. I also bought little cufflinks with clocks on them for the men also from cowcow. The bridal party were gifted with necklaces that went with the blue and purple colour scheme that I ended up finding at Michael's art supplies when looking around there for wedding stuff. Some of the necklaces were of raw stones, and some had a marble quality, I also picked out some with keys that had kind of a minimal steampunk vibe to it. I wanted to give the ladies choice so they felt they could go with their style. Some of them already bought some jewelry for themselves. One of my bridesmaids is very into vintage jewelry and brought her collection for herself and to share with us, and I also brought a hatbox of hair accessories (of course with colour theme choices) to root through so the girls could add to their style. The flower girl and ring bearer were my nieces and I got them a couple of different gifts of necklaces from Ardene. One was a friendship necklace that fit together that said sisters on it or something along those lines, but they ultimately chose the heart-shaped lockets I picked out for them, that looked so classically wedding but also gave me "The Secret Garden" vibes when I chose them. When changing I also gifted the girls with satin robes mainly so if they were changed and eating and drinking prior to the wedding they would feel like nothing happened to their dresses. Mine was of course white and the bridesmaids all got to pick out different shades of blue tones, and the young girls got some in shades of purple. When laid out for them to choose, the colours looked just gorgeous next to each other and that was a compliment given from my lovely make-up and hair artist team at the Real Beauty Experts who came to our hotel room to do our make-up and hair for us.
4. Our Venue: We went with The Arts and Letters Club. This was the most expensive thing during our wedding, but the place was unique, gorgeous, still wasn't as pricey as some other Toronto venues, had really intriguing decor that screamed history which was still on theme, and we didn't need to get separate catering and drinks, all that was included. We had a little bit of push back on some of the specifics I wanted and a few things I wished to have out were over-looked or I forgot to bring them, or they got lost in the shuffle, but other than that things went well and our guests raved about the atmosphere and how much character it had. Also, during the wedding an art show was happening so we had some really cool, unique pieces hung on the walls from local artists (some of which are actually friends of mine that I work with) so it gave this other, really cool, unique, personal touch to the wedding that, as an artist, I appreciated.
We also booked a wonderful Humanist Officiant Matthew Bin, like I said earlier, we are not really religious people but we did feel connected to the concept of Humanism. At first we had difficulty figuring out who would marry us, originally a friend of us told us they were going to try to get their licence to wed us, but that fell through, so we contacted an Officiant through the venue that sounded appealing but she was unable to do it that day, however, she was nice enough to recommend Matthew Bin for us, and upon research he seemed like a rather interesting fellow. Matt and I met with him and really liked him, he was very organized, had lots of examples of what he did and had lots of readings for us to choose from in case we opted to not write our own. We felt comfortable with him right away, so we booked him after that first initial meeting. He did not disappoint.
5. Our Photographer: One of our best purchases was our photographer Camilla Pucholt who was so worth tracking down. Not only did she capture the wedding I wanted (with normal wedding poses but mainly with a lot of candid shots), but she also has done so many weddings in the past, the moment something happened she was like, "Ok, here is what we're going to do to fix this..." I also almost had a nervous breakdown before I went down the aisle and she totally said some stuff that calmed me down. She went above and beyond her call of duty and made the wedding just so lovely! I wanted her originally because I saw the work she did at a friend's wedding and loved her photos so much I had to book her, but I also felt like she really wanted to get to know us as a couple and what we wanted and very much customized our day. I took photography in school but I obviously couldn't do the photos myself for the day and she was someone I fully trusted to capture the moments as they happened.
My good friend Meaghan, that I had known since public school, also did our engagement photos, two sets in fact, and she was just starting out but the photos she took were also just gorgeous and very special. I wanted Meaghan to originally do our wedding photos but she respectfully declined and just opted for the engagement photos. Fair enough, she wanted to enjoy the day, free from feeling she had to work, plus photography was mostly a hobby for her and a little new to her as well, she didn't want that burden. It was probably best, as she said she had a great time, and I just asked her to be my witness instead when signing papers so it was a lot more low-key a task but still important as I wanted her involved somehow.
6. The Flowers: So the flowers was a tough one. For a while I had difficulty picking a colour scheme. I originally thought blue and red would look lovely for a fall-themed wedding, but when I saw our venue had dark green walls, I thought the red flowers I originally wanted to do against the green wall would look too much like Christmas and that derailed that notion. So, I've always loved light blue and definitely didn't want to waver on that, so eventually I thought splashes of purple would just look so lovely. I was going to work with someone I went to school with for the flowers, but there was a lot happening in her life and I was being such a control freak that I figured I could do the flowers myself. Fresh flowers sounded lovely, but I also loved the notion of fake flowers, but done right. It would be a long-lasting keepsake if people wanted to bring that home, and if anyone had any allergies to flowers that wouldn't be a problem. Also I could arrange them in advance if they were fake and I wouldn't have to worry about them dying. Less stressful in the end so I didn't have to rush around and worry about that at the last minute. So I researched flowers online (which admittedly was a gamble) and ultimately bought them from afloral.com I tried to look at many many photos and reviews on certain flowers for my ultimate decision. I also tried to look at what were the most realistic-looking ones even with the awful quality of the customer photos, what looked natural and lovely together, also what flowers really meant something to me. For my bouquet I had quite a few flowers that I chose. I loved the texture and realistic look of the hydrangeas so I bought some light blue ones and mixed a few purple ones in there for some natural-looking colour, that was the bushy base of my bouquet that really padded things out. Then I bought some blue and purple orchids as I feel that flower is just so exotic and futuristic, it meant a lot for me to have those in there. Lavender sprigs also looked realistic, had the purple colour I was going for and also represented a prop in Back to the Future III, which was this lovely lavender brooch given to Doc Brown by his beloved Clara that he eventually leaves on her windowsill in a dramatic scene. I made sure to give the groomsmen and the groom some lavender in their lapel pins to represent that too. I also had to have the traditional roses to represent our love, but chose them in blue to go with our colour scheme. The bridal party mainly had hydrangeas and lavender in their bouquets to also match the table flowers. Like I said earlier, the groomsmen had lavender as a key flower but also a blue rose bud on their pins and to differentiate Matt's pin, he had all those flowers but also one lovely orchid flower to represent our adventurous future together. I was not trained in flower arranging, so the flowers may have looked a fright to some people, and I tried to watch a few videos on the topic, but most people loved the colours of them and we also had a few people thinking they were real from afar. I wrapped the bouquets in a blue satin ribbon I bought at zazzle (to match the colour of the bridal party blue) for the table vases I got some empty containers for free from my work (so that was amazing since vases are expensive) and I bought some white and silver paint to make them look fancier. Silver was painted around the top for a little bit of elegance. The containers were quite light in weight and I feared the vases may tip once the flowers were in them so I bought some pretty stones from the dollar store for the bottoms of the containers to weigh things down. So, the flowers ended up looking more like spring colours instead of appropriate for a fall wedding, but I love both Spring and Fall seasons, plus the spring colours mixed with the Fall wedding seemed fine when you tell people it's a time travel theme. The theme had everything! I could break all the rules and do things my way while still being on topic!
7. Other Details: I had bought a few things and altered stuff or completely made things from scratch that were not already a thing. We also had asked a lot of our friends who also came to the wedding if they could give us a hand creatively in lieu of a wedding gift. So we had a few of our friends offer to do some really special things. My good friend from college Kelly, had offered to make a couple of the table centerpieces I was not able to locate or alter from Amazon as they were too unique and historical, and not well known. She made me a water clock and a candle clock out of clay (she is a much better sculptor than I) that I sent picture references of from the Egyptian time period. Like I said I did a lot of research for this wedding and I wanted to have the tables set up in a sort of circular fashion, but each table had a different time keeping device on it from different time periods and the history of that time keeping device was on the back of the table numbers for that table so if the guests wished to they could check out each time device and pretend to time travel if they wished to visit the different tables. Among those pieces Kelly made I also bought and sometimes altered (often with white and silver paint to match the decor) an obelisk, a sand timer, a sundial (which I somehow forgot at home), a mechanical clock with pendulum qualities (it was from a Leonardo DaVinci kit that we sprayed white and silver then put together), a mantel clock (which was a great size and perfect as a centerpiece to represent the classic evolution of the clock), a pocket watch that hung off of a transparent jewelry hanging tree, and to represent the future I took a hand (also a jewelry hanging device) spray-painted it white to match the rest of the decor and took a silver Sharpie marker to draw on some palm reading symbols, plus I paired that with a little crystal ball, since it is hard for me to predict what the future of time keeping is. I had considered putting a watch in the mix somehow but I felt the pocket watch was an elegant way to represent the evolution of compact time devices.
I also made some really cute conversation starter cards that had clocks on the back and that I turned into coasters by laminating them with a plastic transparent vinyl. I made the round custom cards a while ago on artscow and bought a few packs, so there was at least a couple of duplicates of the cards floating around but most people had a unique question to ask themselves and others at their table. The little gift for everyone didn't look tremendously on theme, but I picked out a cute key gift that looked sort of steampunk and old-fashioned, that did double duty. Not only did it help the place cards stand upright but it also was a bottle cap opener. So it was extra useful!
So the kids didn't seem to get bored later on, I decided to set up a fun little kids table that I think totally kept them busy when they weren't dancing. We printed up a ton of colouring pages and activity sheets that were all time travel related or asked them to draw out their future in a crystal ball and I got some washable crayons, pencil crayons and markers, plus we put down a white sheet of paper on that table so they could scribble whatever they wanted. Not only that but I bought some toy dinosaurs, sprayed them with a white primer so the white matched the rest of the decor but the kids could also take the markers and stickers I also provided and decorate their own dinosaur. Plus, for even more creative fun I bought them a Klutz book of Cootie Catchers (that my nieces asked to keep) so they could make little fortune tellers. My one niece even wrote us a poem while at the kids table and the MC even read it aloud to everyone. So I don't think the kids were bored once the party got going.
We also had help from my friend Mark who asked to lend a hand and he did some video work for us that day. He captured some really special moments. Our friend Gabe volunteered to do the M.C. work and everyone loved the work he did with that. My good friend and co-worker Lynn offered to help me with music as I felt over-whelmed with that. She made an incredible wedding songs list and arranged it by decades plus we had some people request music, and I had a say in a few songs, mainly songs I wanted to dance to and ceremony songs. I mainly had a few soundtrack pieces from time travel movies (or close enough to time travel movies) peppered throughout our playlist. My friend Zuzu helped overlook the setup I requested. My bridal party did a slew of other helpful things as the wedding went on. And of course my friend Mike, who pretty much gave me the initial idea in the first place for this awesome wedding had kept his promise and did indeed come through with finding a DeLorean, one that was actually made as a replica from the first Back to the Future movie. Needless to say, all of those helping hands made the wedding truly unique and special. A lot of people were happy to see the DeLorean there, including my nieces.
Also, what is a wedding without cake? Number one, the food provided by the venue was so good and also raved about, but our good friend Rebekah who owns Second Nature Cafe in Toronto did a superb job with our clock cake (strawberry shortcake and marble cake) and time themed dessert table. Not only did everything taste amazing but we kept things creative by making the desserts on theme. So she made the lovely cake with our blue and purple colour scheme, and also put little cogs all over the sides. Matching the macarons colour scheme with the cake looked lovely as well, but the clock cookies were such a hit I didn't get a chance to taste them let alone see them they were gone so fast...luckily there were photos of them to prove they were there. Also, she made her patented sea salt, gluten-free brownies but cut into hourglass shapes and her cinnamon buns looked pretty normal but my idea behind that was to have them look like special-effect time swirls. On top of that she also made little chocolate-dipped strawberries that looked like groom tuxes. Rebekah specializes in doing Gluten-free, Vegan, and sugar free options too for events if anyone is in Toronto/ Ontario and is interested in her delicious desserts.
Overall I think the wedding went well. It was fun, memories were had, people appreciated all the thought and detail that went into arranging it and it looked beautiful in the end. I know a lot of work was done, but I feel like customizing was definitely the way to go with it. I have little regrets, and the most important thing was showing the world how much we love each other and after about 8 years of being together, I think it was about time. ;)
