Toronto Wedding at The Berkeley Church from Blynda DaCosta Photography
This Toronto couple is awesome. Like design your own invites, serve gourmet donuts, throw a casual yet totally elegant industrial chic affair awesome. They are sooo amazing. Which makes loving them (and their fab Big Day) seriously easy peasy - from the burlap table runners to the gorgeous blooms from Designs by JP to the gallery of love-filled images captured by Blynda DaCosta Photography. Get your pretty on in the full gallery.
From the Bride... When we started our wedding prep, we were pretty focused on keeping things simple. That is, we knew we wanted to include thoughtful, personal and homemade details, but neither of us wanted to get so bogged down in those details that the big point of our big day escaped us. If you’ve planned or are planning a wedding, you know it’s an easy trap to fall into. So, we were careful to pick and choose which elements we took on ourselves and which we left to the professionals.
I’m a bit of a graphic design enthusiast (read: I have Photoshop + Illustrator + zero actual training), so we bought an Epic Letterpress Kit and tackled all the paper stuff ourselves. We designed and produced our invitations, programs, and menus - which was easier and faster than we’d expected. I’d recommend it to anyone with an interest and a bit of time! Whenever we talked about how we hoped the day would feel, words like comfort, warmth, natural and fun (ridiculously fun) kept coming up; we wanted it to have a relaxed, informal tone. When it came to colors, we picked a palette and just tried to keep generally in that range.
For decor, we opted for simple, natural stuff like burlap table runners (rented) and vintage mason jars (collected) as vases and candle holders. We found and painted a couple of old metal milk cans for ceremony pieces and amassed a little army of antique crates and boxes to hold things like programs, tissues and favours. We enlisted the help of friends and family for some other key elements, too. John’s cousin is a talented baker with her own company, so she provided gourmet donuts, cupcakes and macaroons. One of our very close friends is a jewelry designer, and she was kind enough to create our wedding bands (having custom made my engagement ring a year earlier).
Though we opted not to have a traditional wedding, it was important to us to reflect both of our backgrounds in the events of the day. Mine’s British, my husband’s is Chinese. So we held a tea ceremony as well as exchanging vows. We served Pimm’s Cup and fish and chips during cocktail hour. I got to wear two dresses. Which was obviously awesome. And, we had a signing cloth instead of a guestbook but adapted this Chinese custom a little by embroidering the traditional characters on a linen tablecloth (rather than the usual red satin) and asking friends and family to leave us messages in marker. We’re going to make a project out of embroidering over all those messages.
The only other big undertaking was the creation of our escort cards. We had the idea early on - I’m sure we read about it somewhere - to write each one of our guests a personal note, just in case we didn’t have a chance to hug them and properly chat to them on the big day. We printed these notes on the flip side of each escort card so that as people got ready to head up to dinner, they got a little message from the two of us that hopefully made them smile.
I’m a bit of a graphic design enthusiast (read: I have Photoshop + Illustrator + zero actual training), so we bought an Epic Letterpress Kit and tackled all the paper stuff ourselves. We designed and produced our invitations, programs, and menus - which was easier and faster than we’d expected. I’d recommend it to anyone with an interest and a bit of time! Whenever we talked about how we hoped the day would feel, words like comfort, warmth, natural and fun (ridiculously fun) kept coming up; we wanted it to have a relaxed, informal tone. When it came to colors, we picked a palette and just tried to keep generally in that range.
For decor, we opted for simple, natural stuff like burlap table runners (rented) and vintage mason jars (collected) as vases and candle holders. We found and painted a couple of old metal milk cans for ceremony pieces and amassed a little army of antique crates and boxes to hold things like programs, tissues and favours. We enlisted the help of friends and family for some other key elements, too. John’s cousin is a talented baker with her own company, so she provided gourmet donuts, cupcakes and macaroons. One of our very close friends is a jewelry designer, and she was kind enough to create our wedding bands (having custom made my engagement ring a year earlier).
Though we opted not to have a traditional wedding, it was important to us to reflect both of our backgrounds in the events of the day. Mine’s British, my husband’s is Chinese. So we held a tea ceremony as well as exchanging vows. We served Pimm’s Cup and fish and chips during cocktail hour. I got to wear two dresses. Which was obviously awesome. And, we had a signing cloth instead of a guestbook but adapted this Chinese custom a little by embroidering the traditional characters on a linen tablecloth (rather than the usual red satin) and asking friends and family to leave us messages in marker. We’re going to make a project out of embroidering over all those messages.
The only other big undertaking was the creation of our escort cards. We had the idea early on - I’m sure we read about it somewhere - to write each one of our guests a personal note, just in case we didn’t have a chance to hug them and properly chat to them on the big day. We printed these notes on the flip side of each escort card so that as people got ready to head up to dinner, they got a little message from the two of us that hopefully made them smile.
Wedding Photography: Blynda DaCosta Photography / Wedding Venue + Catering: The Berkeley Church in Toronto, Canada / Floral Design: Designs by JP / Sweet Table: Awesome in a Box / Entertainment: The Laura Lynn Band / Rings: Jewellery by Roxanne / Wedding Dress: Lowon Pope / Bride's Shoes: Stuart Weitzman / Groom's Attire: Hugo Boss / Groomsmen Attire: IM_Label / Hair: Max Pereira / Makeup: Marcia Garnes