About 3 months ago, my then boyfriend Ryland proposed to me and I of course I said 'Yes'! We really didn't want to have a long drawn out engagement, and we knew we wanted to get married in the summer while the weather was nice! We were thinking about just heading down to city hall and getting a quickie wedding done there, but then we wouldn't get photos, we wouldn't get to play dress up or eat cake!
We decided to hold a small ceremony in the backyard of SKratched Studios! Our family is located all over North America and we knew the majority of them would not be able to make it at such short notice (1 month from the engagement) or if they could make it they would be spending every penny they had to make it. We didn't want to put anyone in a situation like that so we kept the wedding a secret. We had to tell a couple people so we could have our best man (TJ), maid of honor (Andree) and a place to hold the wedding (Sarah Kates/SKratched Studios). We decided to take a serious event and make it into a backyard BBQ/Night of drink and dance! We invited a couple people we knew in Toronto and told them it was a BBQ/or a Drinking wine depending who the person was! This was also during the same time that a couple of our friends showed up from Nova Scotia!
After a 23 hour drive our good friends Chris Murphy, Mike Henry and Samantha Marie were staying in our apartment! Samantha knew we were going to get married and had agreed to take photos, Mike and Chris were unaware that a wedding was going to take place. It was SO hard not to tell anyone especially when on the phone with family! We love our family and we wanted them there so bad! We are planning on holding a ceremony hopefully next summer on our one year anniversary in Nova Scotia so all our friends and family can be there!
We booked
Gordon Kushner as our officiant a couple weeks before the wedding. We found his name in Google along with a lot of others. He was in our price range (which was not much) and seemed like a great guy, and we were right. We had a meeting in his apartment before the wedding and he was an awesome person! He was incredibly down to earth and we spent the majority of our time there just chatting about the 60's. If you are planning on getting married in the Toronto area I would highly recommend
Gordon Kushner!
Ry and I both ended up losing our jobs leaving us with very little money and an apartment filled with Nova Scotians within two weeks of hiring Gordon and the cake. We wouldn't have been able to pull off the wedding the way we did if we didn't have a ton of help from our amazing friends! I was thinking about calling it off several times and just heading to City Hall, but got talked out of it!
Our wedding was set on a day that just happened to land after a week of nice weather, so of course it rained! Thankfully the rain stopped to a trickle before the wedding started and the ceremony took place under a large tree which helped in keeping the rain off once it started. One of Sarah Kates' neighbors were kind enough to lend us a large tent that we put the table under. People showed up expecting a BBQ, many brought food which was awesome. An hour after we told people to show we a bunch of us disappeared. At the same time Sarah and Samantha started to bring out balloons, streamers and lighting candles (though unfortunately the rain wrecked the streamers and by the time we were getting married they were torn and blown around)!
After a quick outfit change The Beatles - Real Love started to play and Ry and Gordon started to walk down the path towards the crowd. It was at about this time that people started to realize what was going on! TJ and Andree walked out and then I walked! The music stopped and we had a sweet quick ceremony!
After the signing of the papers we got to cutting the cake, which of course Ry and I put in each others faces! It also got all over the gloves Monique gave me for my dress so I had to take them off, which was sad! We took some photos in the falling sunlight. We were going to get the BBQ going then but then it started to rain heavier! We were in the middle of our second dance ( first was The Beatles - Real Love second was John Lennon - (Just Like) Starting Over) when the rain started to fall even heavier, we had to stop dancing and run the CD player under the tent! We all huddled under the tent eating cake, drinking, talking and waiting for the rain to stop, which it didn't! We ended up all heading into Sarah's studio for the rest of the night!
It was a fun night! Made me sad that our family couldn't be there but we're going to make sure as many as we can make it to the ceremony next August! Check out the photos below!
We were able to pull it off thanks to:
Andrée de Villers for putting endless nights into helping out with the majority of the planning, purchasing decorations and arranging the making of the cake and my bouquet! Along with helping me get dressed quickly before the wedding and being my maid of honor.
Monique Syrett and Andree de Villers (again) for making my amazing dress! Using some old pros from photoshoot or burlesque performances they threw together a rocking 80's dress!
Sarah Kates for giving us her backyard/studio to hold the ceremony, along with buying a lot of essentials for the decorations and BBQ! Helped us put glitter in and blow up the 80 balloons! Helping out the the quick transformation of the back yard into a wedding! Putting balloons out, lighting candles, hanging streamers and gathering the small group of poeple together. Although the streamers didn't work due to the rain. :(
Samantha Marie for agreeing to take photos at the wedding although she hasn't been taking photos lately due to her laptop being broken. Also with helping Sarah Kates with the decorations!
TJ and his fiance Rochelle for coming in from St. Thomas so TJ could be Ry's best man and Roch could be our DJ!
Ryan for making the cake and the bouquet in such a short time!
Gordon Kushner for being affordable and awesome!
Ryland Forsythe for being the most amazing husband ever!!! Love love love! =D
