In a few days I will be married for two months! Can you believe it?

A lot of work went into our wedding when it came to the small things. We wanted the event to be spectacular in the grand scheme of things, but also down to the little details. It’s strange to plan something for so long, yet you have no idea of what it will all look like until the big day. By that time, you’ll be so busy you can hardly take it all in. I really did try, to enjoy every single moment, but thank goodness for photos!

Photography: Tara McMullen Photography

Venue: The Westin Prince in Toronto

Stationery: Papertalk Press

Fresh flowers: Kay & Young

Floral arrangement & centerpieces: bride’s mother

Décor: Special Event Draping

Music: True Jazz & DJ Triple J

Wedding cake: Kuppycakes

Bride’s dress / birdcage veil: bride’s mother

Tuxedos: Tuxedo Royale

Hair & make-up: Esthetically Yours

Co-ordinator: Jason Chow

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My MOH recently asked me about our colours, and for some reason I couldn’t commit to the Emerald, chartreuse, aquamarine + whites scheme. So, surprise surprise, I came up with one last inspiration board. Here it is. The final, final colour scheme for my big ol’ wedding:

shades of jadeite, bark and white

YESS! I love this board. The ballroom has a brown walls, so I thought this could be a great way to use the walls as a backdrop to our colours. MOH can now start looking for bridesmaid dresses (see girls in upper left corner – love, love, LOVE the look).

August was a busy month for this Miss here, because I had 3 weddings to attend to! Today’s Real Wedding belongs to my good friend Evan, who I survived my four years of fashion university with. Her and her now-husband Danny started dating while we were in second year, and after a very long engagement, they finally tied the knot.

The Italia-inspired wedding took place at Brassaii, a trendy downtown restaurant on King West. The ceremony was outdoors in the courtyard in front of the restaurant, which led into the cocktail hour. The reception then moved inside to the main restaurant, where an intimate group of 140 enjoyed the most delicious wedding dinner I had ever had.

Signage directing guests to the location

Acoustic musician entertaining the cocktail hour

Bringing the greenery inside the industrial style restaurant

The scrumptious menu

Escort tags indicating our seats by Italian provinces

Our table card, in the decorative "stamp" found throughout the wedding

The wedding cake, with the adorable birdie cake topper by our friend Curtis

The cozy ambiance

If it were up to me, and if we could cut our guest list down to double digits, I would totally have our wedding at a restaurant. The food was amazing, the atmosphere was intimate and warm, and did I mention the food was so very delicious??

This past weekend I attended, what is now in my book, the funnest wedding ever. How fun was it? Everyone got up and danced. People stayed until the entire venue was cleared. Comments included, “they should have charged admission to get in”, “I wanted to scalp tickets outside” and “they had to stop serving shots at the bar because they ran out of vodka”.

Besides the explosive factor of fun, the wedding had some gorgeous details as well. The bride tackled most things herself (with the help of some friends), and if you don’t have a Cricut yet, you should run out and get one as soon as you’ve finished reading this post. Please excuse the unprofessional point-and-shoot shots – but you get the idea. Enjoys it!

The beautiful sign that Ken's sister handmade

Silk fans were bombonieres as well as decor

The bridesmaids' bouquets

Floral arrangements at the church/head table

The head table

The wedding cake, made by an aunt of the bride's

The incredible centerpieces that I somehow managed to score one of

Steelpan performer who stole the show during the cocktail hour

The bride and groom enjoying their first dance. Check out that gown!!!!!

It was an honour to be part of such a special day, and I must admit – it will be a tough one to beat!!!

Now that our venue is in place, we have to rehash the colour scheme. Sadly, the original colours I had put together (see here) will get too washed out in our venue. And I was totally in love with this palette! Sigh. Anyway, after being on planning hiatus for a good month and a bit, I’ve rolled up my sleeves and created two new inspiration boards.

You guys are actually the first ones to see it – I haven’t even shown J the new boards. The first board is an emerald + aquamarine scheme. I love it because it’s fresh, which makes it perfect for a spring wedding, and the colours are neither overly feminine or masculine.

Emerald, chartreuse, aquamarine + whites

The second board is my dove grey, coral, blush + ivory palette. A very pretty colour combination and modern, too. It’s definitely softer, but still makes a big impact.

dove grey, coral, blush + ivory

I know, two very strong competitors. I won’ t tell you what my preference is, but it would be great to get some feedback on which palette you like better! The sooner I decide, the sooner I can get cracking on other things! I’m wondering what J will choose – the obvious pick is the first board since there is no remote signs of pink in it, but I’m actually not convinced that he will be that predictable.

J and I were at Markville Mall the other day, having a casual stroll, when I saw something really gorgeous at Melanie Lyne. Melanie Lyne, you say? Ok, so I have never shopped there, but it’s about time I did:

Window display at Melanie Lyne

This was exactly what I had talked to J about a few weeks ago! I saw in a photo somewhere, centerpieces that were made of vases, topped with lampshades to look like lamps. We asked the manager at the store where the window displays were from, but she didn’t know. She did, however, say that they sometimes sell their window displays after the season is over, so “check back in August”. Meh.

I didn’t take a photo of it, but they also had a Ghost chair in the window display, which I have been pining for forever (J said we can get some for the flat! WOOO!). Whoever the visual merchandiser is for Melanie Lyne, he/she’s got taste!

We went to Homesense too, and came across some other centerpiece ideas that I thought were interesting but J absolutely did not:

Cool swirly candle holder

One of many different trees and stumps that J hated

At last! A post about the actual wedding event. When I first thought about the wedding, the ceremony and reception, I immediately had an idea of what I wanted – chic, New York glamour. The colour that came to mind immediately was black. I spent the first few weeks convincing J about a black colour scheme, and showed him some really nice pictures of weddings that had black decor, and I sold him on it.

Black is tough, because a lot of people freak when they hear black for a wedding theme (since, apparently, black is only allowed for funerals and all other life events besides weddings).

One of the main reasons I liked black was because I loved the idea of the  bridal party wearing black. It’s sexy and elegant, a bit different from your typical bridesmaid dresses, and they could wear the dresses many times over after the big day. And imagine stepping into this:

photos belong to jessicaclaire.net

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I had mentioned to my mom that I wanted to do blacks/whites, and she gave me the typical “BLACK?? Are you kidding me?” response, but left it at that. The FMIL, however, was  a different story. Last night we got to talking about the wedding, and when black came up – she did NOT like the idea. Even mixed in with greys, whites and yellow – she wasn’t having it. So this morning, I mentioned black to my mom again, and she hated it too. Sigh. I have the entire Chinoise community against me on this one. To make a long story short, black is kaboshed.

So my brain had to scramble for another colour scheme. And I came up with a variation of the black by keeping the greys,whites and yellows – and out came this very gorgeous, refreshing palette:

Greys, whites + yellow.

This palette is now much softer, which creates a totally different feeling from the original chic. It’s now fresh, contemporary, yet charming. The important thing for us is to keep the look gender neutral (sorry pinks), and have it wedding-appropriate without it looking like a typical wedding.

Keep in mind the colours and look will be affected by the venue – and we are visiting a handfull starting this weekend! I’ll update on the colours again when I have a better idea of the space.