Calling all book lovers and flower fanatics, this wedding is for you! I love the unique twists that Carrie and Scott included in their rustic wedding at Saskatoon Farm in Calgary, especially the wedding arch formed by colorful vintage books strung from the rafters. Rowan Jane Photography was the perfect choice to capture the day with soft light and colors that pop, and if all of that doesn’t sound lovely enough, the men wore the best red velvet bow-ties too! Need I say more?
The Inspiration: We teetered between two themes; Classic simple elegance or Rustic eclectic vintage. After many weeks of inspiration boards we decided we were more inclined to a rustic wedding. Both of us are very dynamic and we could have made either work for us but we are both from Saskachwan and couldn’t hide our love for the farm!
The Design: I don’t think there are many truly unique ideas anymore, but if I had to say what I thought was different compared to others was our use of vintage books in our ceremony. We hung books and flowers from the rafters to create a wedding arch, it turned out beautiful.
The Location: We held our wedding at Saskatoon Farm in De Winton, 20mins outside of Calgary. The venue was so perfect that very little decorations were required.
The Moments: Our dance, we took dance lessons in advance and obviously we never practiced in my wedding dress. It was certainly a laugh because my dress just kept getting caught up!
The Advice: I enjoyed all the projects of the wedding, what I didn’t enjoy was the crunch right before the wedding. We ended up hiring a wedding planner just weeks before the wedding. She was worth her weight in GOLD!
Bride Kristy’s wedding day look is the perfect combination of timeless elegance with a modern, glamorous flair. A bright lip and a sleek high bun paired beautifully with her classically tailored Victor Harper Couture wedding dress. And if Kristy’s graceful bridal style isn’t enough, Jonathan Scott of JSPStudio managed to capture plenty of downright adorable moments with the flower girl dressed up like Audrey Hepburn from Breakfast at Tiffany’s! Needless to say, she practically stole the show!
The Vision: We wanted to throw a party! A very fun and exciting party, that looked less like a wedding. And of course squeeze a marriage ceremony in there somewhere… We just wanted our guests to have fun and a big part of that was making everything seamless with no downtime between events to stand around. Something we both dislike about most weddings.
Actually, my wedding dress was 100% our wedding style inspiration. After purchasing the dress we new it had to be black tie. We knew it had to be glamorous. We knew it had to be black and white. Our vision for everything else came AFTER the dress!
The Style:My style inspiration was my dress. It was such a glam gown, the wedding needed to follow suit. “Barn” and “vintage” were out and “glitz and glam” were in. We wanted a classic old Hollywood, red carpet, glamorous look. We even went as far as to dress up the flower girl like Audrey Hepburn in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” as well as walking down a red carpet during our ceremony. I wanted the bridesmaids in long black satin with big diamond statement piece necklaces and black satin gloves. It ended up being a bit too hot for the gloves, but we definitely pulled off the look I was going for! My dress and shoes were SO glam to me that I went with simple hair, simple earrings, and classic makeup to balance it out. The groom and his men wore handmade, Italian wool, plaid bow ties and pocket squares. All designed a little bit differently by our friend Evrice, who just so happens to be an amazing bow tie designer.
The Dress:I found my dress in my first wedding magazine purchased after our engagement. First few pages in fact! I had to drive all the way to Orlando to try on this Victor Harper Couture beauty – and I bought the first dress I tried on. It was the most beautiful, glamorous dress I had ever seen… and it had pockets!!!
The selection process was so easy for me. I knew what I didn’t want, strapless, mermaid, lace, etc. So I think that really narrowed down my options quite a bit. One year later I am seeing so many more dresses in the style I chose.
The Accessories: My dress had a lot of bling so the most important accessory I had to choose were my shoes! They needed to be classy and yet sparkly. I didn’t really need many other accessories. My cousin Michelle, also my Matron of Honor, happened to have my late great grandmother’s light blue garter from 1930… I cried when she showed up with it. I wore it through the whole day.
The Advice: My advice would be, even if you don’t know what you want, know what you don’t want. Not just with my dress, but with most of the wedding planning, we knew SO much about what we didn’t want that I think it made it much easier navigating through options – because there are so many, overwhelmingly wonderful options to choose from.
From the moment Hung and Mark’s destination wedding in Sienna appeared in my inbox, I knew it was going to be a favorite. There is just something magical about a wedding in Italy, where the light simply oozes with romance. Ireland photographer Tim Tooth of This Modern Love captured this stylish London couple as they were wed in the beautiful countryside, in a ceremony that included both Buddhist and Vietnamese traditions. With no detail left forgotten, I’m certain that special touches like the custom engraved silver spoons, personally made by the bride and groom, will forever remind the guests of this beautiful weekend of love.
The Goals: Our main priority was to ensure that our guests were well looked after and that they were going to enjoy themselves at our wedding. We also wanted to create a laid-back, holiday vibe. Hence, we decided to have a destination wedding in one of our favourite holiday destinations – Tuscany, Italy. We found the perfect villa with a romantic garden overlooking the Tuscan Hills towards Siena. Best of all, we could have the ceremony and reception take place on site, and it was able to accommodate 95 of our guests. We ended up having a weekend long celebration. By doing it this way, all our guests could attend the wedding and combine it with a holiday. Living in London, the weather is really hit and miss, and even in summer you are never guaranteed sunshine. So we decided to have our wedding in a country we love and knew we would be guaranteed great weather.
The Moments: The most memorable part of the day was the ceremony, which was incredibly emotional and moving for both us and our guests. There was an incredible amount of love felt that day and a lot of joyful tears. The groom and I both come from very different backgrounds – I am Australian/Vietnamese and the groom is Irish. We wanted a ceremony that would highlight the traditions of both our cultures. The ceremony was broken up into 3 elements – a tea ceremony, unity candle, wisdom water blessing with exchange of vows. It was important to us that we acknowledged our cultures and where we came from. We wouldn’t be where we are and be the persons we are today if not for the paths we and our families have taken. A big shout out to Ian Kilroy, our officiant who did a wonderful job in orchestrating the ceremony.
Another memorable moment of the day, but of a different nature was when the groom lost his wedding vows 2 hours before the wedding! Last minute panic set in but after an emergency call out and searching high and low, they were eventually found in the nick of time.
The Look: I have a long standing love affair with all things vintage and my dress and look was inspired by this. I spent weeks shopping around and trying on lots of different styles of dresses. I knew I wanted something that was simple, elegant, had touches of lace, suited my petite frame and had a vintage feel. In the end, I had my dress tailor-made by a local dress-maker because I couldn’t find the “perfect dress” and I also wanted something original and unique.
I have a strong aversion to bridesmaids dressing the same. Every person is individual and I believe we should all dress according to our personal tastes and body shapes. I gave my bridesmaids a colour palette of nude and said they could buy their own dresses. I thought they all looked beautiful and their dresses reflected their personalities. Although their dress styles were significantly different they complemented each other really well.
The Design: We wanted to create a vintage feel for the wedding with personal hand-made touches. The wedding venue itself was just stunning and was filled with so much character and rustic charm. The groom designed the wedding invitations and we tried to carry this style throughout the decor of the wedding including the menus and programs, which the groom designed as well.
We were lucky enough to have a friend who is a florist and did a beautiful job with the bouquets. My bouquet was made of white calla lilies and intertwined with eucalyptus leaves adding a sentimental touch to my Australian roots. My mum and brother’s girlfriend made doily bunting to decorate the wedding reception hall. We created photo booth props and had an instant camera for our guests to have fun with. The groom and I spent months making personalised metal stamped vintage spoons with all our guests names on it as wedding favours and name tags. I also made the “Find Your Table” board using vintage wallpaper and vintage picture frames sourced from charity shops.
The Advice: Plan and organise as much as you can leading up to the day and delegate jobs to family and friends. That’s what they are there for and they would be more than thrilled to help out. We were so grateful we had so many friends and family who helped put the wedding together on the day.
On the day of the wedding, try to take a step back and take it all in because the day will fly by so quickly. I would also recommend couples to take time out on your own as bride and groom after the ceremony to reflect and soak up the moment, even for 5 or 10 minutes.
Our biggest planning success was getting 95 guests from all over the world come together in a villa in Tuscany to celebrate our special day. We felt so blessed and honoured to have those people who meant so much to us, be there to witness our union.
The Wedding Team:
Photographer: This Modern Love
Event Planner: Villa Catignano, Siena, Italy
Ceremony & Reception Venue: Villa Catignano, Siena, Italy
Officiant: Groom’s brother, Ian
Invitation Designer: Groom
Catering: Villa Catignano, Siena, Italy
Florist: Dean Lincoln of Paul Thomas Flowers
Cake: Home made, cake topper painted by groom.
Wedding Dress: Tailor made by a local London dress maker
Bridal Accessories: Vintage clips – Etsy, Shoes – Hobbs, handkerchief – vintage, Earrings – Sestras Boutique
Bridesmaids’ Apparel & Accessories: Bridesmaids wore different dresses and chose their own dress and accessories.
Groom’s Apparel & Accessories: Suit/shoes/tie – Reiss, handkerchief – vintage, Tie clip with Groom’s initial – Hardwear Designs
Groomsmen’s Apparel & Accessories: Groomsmens wore their own suit and accessories, with personalized tie clip from Hardwear Designs
Hair & Makeup: Villa Catignano, Siena, Italy
DJ: DJ Betty
Favors: Spoon wedding favours were personalised with each guest’s names and doubled as name tags. Vintage spoons were sourced from charity shops and they were hand stamped by the bride & groom. Little bags of goodies were also made by mother of bride, bride’s brother and bride’s brother’s girlfriend.
Rings: Bride’s ring – Joy Everley, Groom’s ring – 21 Diamonds, Ring dish – Unconventional J
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