Melissa, principal behind Design Box, is a fellow entrepreneur like me, and recently got married to her sweetheart Sonny in a super charming backyard wedding.

The stunning couple hosted a wedding inspired by French flea markets and the beauty of handmade and vintage. The little details had Melissa written all over them, and they were perfect to a T. The fabric + button bouquets and boutonnieres were made by Megan Hunt of Princess Lasertron – read about them on her blog here. They’re incredible! The flowers got held up at the border for a bit, but luckily they were released by customs before the wedding.

Apparently it rained all day and all night, but that didn’t stop the newlyweds and their loved ones from partying into the evening. Photography is by Darren Rigo.

N2C5Q4ECB2SW

I simply could not resist posting this engagement photo shoot. The subjects are Sandeep and Joe, a darling couple who were my high school classmates once upon a time. They’re getting married this fall, and this e-session is such a delicious prelude to their big day. The colours, the outfits, the poses…it’s all so hot! There’s a hookah on the table for crying out loud! This is my kind of shoot.

Hats off to Sangeeta & Monty from Kumari who are the brilliance behind this shoot – find more images on their blog.

J and I went to pick up our marriage license today and it was a breeze! We hopped down to the North York Civic Centre (by Mel Lastman Square) and contrary to prior warning, there was no line and the whole process took no longer than 15 minutes.

A marriage license is required in Ontario if you want to get married, so you don’t want to forget to do this little thing before your big day. It’s the thing you sign during your ceremony, along with 2 witnesses (usually best man and maid of honour) and the person who performed the ceremony. It’s pretty easy, download this form and fill it out with your fiancé. One thing to note is that you must bring ID to the office that shows the full name that you put on your application. For example, if your name is John Michael Smith, but all your ID says “John M Smith”, then you can only apply as John M Smith on your marriage license.

Only one of you needs to go (but you both can if you want); just make sure to bring the other’s ID with you.

The cost in Toronto is $130 flat, in Markham $129.50 and in Richmond Hill $125. Best place to go? Pickering, where it’s only $100. Don’t ask me why the prices are different, but I wish I knew this before we went. We could have saved on lots of time and a bit of money (including parking). Grrrr! At least Toronto is better than Mississauga, where it’s a whopping $140.

City of Toronto marriage licenses
Town of Markham marriage licenses
Town of Richmond Hill marriage licenses
City of Pickering marriage licenses

I’m so excited… they’re here!!! No, not aliens from Krypton by the name of Clark Kent (yum), but our engagement photos! They are so awesome even though J and I both hate our faces. One of our favourite shots:

And I love this little series of J and I having a… dance off? Pose off?:

High ressies are coming soon… that’s all for now folks!!

Time is really flying by and J and I haven’t thought about who will be officiating our wedding. Last time I checked our to-do list (5 minutes ago), we were about 30 check marks behind. Yikes – quite a few things overdue, with a few catching my eye: “Start looking for an officiant who suits your style and spirit”, “Start interviewing officiants who suits your style and spirit” and “Book your officiant who suits your style and spirit”.

Officiants aren’t usually the people brides dream of when they start their wedding plans, and if you’re of a particular religious persuasion, it’s pretty much determined for you already anyway. But for non-denominational folk like us – we get the challenge of picking and choosing a person who probably knows nothing about us but are to play one of the most important roles in our life.

My brother and sister-in-law had (who I assumed was) a random perform their civil ceremony when they got married, and I must say it was something that I don’t want repeated at our wedding. She was robotic/scary (“everybody sit!”, “no pictures!”, “everybody stand up and clap!”, “everybody leave!”) and sped through the ceremony so fast I was barely able to catch their vows. But, for someone who’s only met you once or twice for a brief get-to-know you, and to go through logistics… is it realistic to expect much more?

Let this post be a cry out to my friends who I may not have known to be ordained ministers or Justice of the Peaces (is that how you write that in plural?), or even priests/rabbis – show your faces and help us on this sort of special super important day!

–

By the way, here is the dreamiest wedding ceremony I have ever been to (and it took place right in my living room):

J and I spent Sunday morning at Evergreen Brick Works, where we met with Tara for our e-session. The night before we were busy celebrating J’s birthday and roaming the downtown streets for Nuit Blanche, so to be camera-ready and beautiful at 9:30 was a bit of a stretch. But when I saw our first set up in the woodsy pathways of the forest, I was very, very excited and full awake!

I can’t wait to see our photos posted on Tara’s blog… I’ll be sure to share them with you!

Hello all!!! Welcome to my new home!! It’s prim, it’s proper, and it’s all my own. Thank you very much to Silverpoint Media for hooking me up with the hosting… off I go!

Summer is almost ending (big bawl), and J and I need to get our e-session sorted before it gets too dark too fast. If you haven’t already met her (through my Twitter), here is our darling photographer – Miss Tara McMullen. J and I clicked right away with her during our initial encounter at Starbucks, and it didn’t take much time for us to realize she was the one. She will be with us on the big day, and also our engagement shoot that’s to happen soon.

We’ve yet to start scouting locations, but I already told Tara that we don’t want anything to do with the distillery, or any walls that have graffiti on it. We’ve already been there and done it. Does anyone have any suggestions on some great e-session locales?

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??

Ok, so I may be biased, but I have to show some love for my friends Vicky and Darryl. In a time where there is an abundance of wedding photographers to choose from, Darryl & Vicky Photography shine like a star brighter than everyone else. If you live in the Greater Toronto Area (or even if you don’t), be sure to check out their work at darrylandvicky.com. They capture wonderful moments, with a perfect blend of photojournalism and beautiful portraiture. They’re lovely to work with, and if you are as crazy as they are, you could find yourself photographed in a waterfall 60 minutes away from the city.

Here are some of my favourite shots by Darryl & Vicky:

Ok, I had a bit of a meltdown yesterday. J and I haven’t booked our venue yet, and the popular places in Toronto are all getting snapped up. So last night, I put a list together for J to go through, with all our current potentials, including details, website links and images.

This morning, I made 3 phone calls. One of them was to Liuna Station. We are not going to have our wedding here, but it is seriously so gorgeous that I can’t not talk about it. This is saying a lot, considering the fact that I’ve never been there, and it’s in Hamilton.

Yes, within that dirty Hamilton smog, there’s stands a place that shines so bright, it even caught MY eye (the pickiest eye of all). This venue used to be a rail station, part of the Canadian National Railway. It was built in 1929, and closed back in 1993. Then in 1996, it was used in the movie The Long Kiss Goodnight, with lots of money spent in renovations (apparently X-Men has been filmed there, too). Anyway, it was bought by the Labourer’s International Union of North America, which is how it came to be known as LIUNA Station.

Enough with the talk, let’s move on to the photos (all photos belong to liunastation.com).

I believe these drapes are by Versace (no joke, it says so on their site).

So if you are looking for a venue in Hamilton, look no further! Packages are reasonably priced, and as I’ve been told, the photos don’t do the space justice.

Ok, now that I’ve stopped pimping out LIUNA Station, I can chat a little bit about my state of mind. Up until 15:45 this afternoon, I was having a crisis. What happened at exactly that time? J and I went to scout our latest venue… and for the first time, we were wowed. YES! We had not felt that way about any of the places we’d seen, but today, we were very pleasantly surprised, and now I’m super excited.  I won’t tell you where it is yet (how else can I get you readers to come back?), but hopefully by next week – before June 1st, our deadline, to be exact -  we have a space for our wedding!