Romantic Rustic Wedding in Winnipeg

I love a savvy bride that puts a long engagement to good use, and this talented Manitoba bride did just that.  Creating everything from the centerpieces to the aisle runners, all accented by the gorgeous Fache Floral Designs, this wedding makes me all giddy inside...and eager to pull out the hot glue gun. Let your creative juices run wild with every beautiful detail here, all captured by Sugar And Soul Photography.

From The Bride... Brock and I got engaged on Christmas Eve 2012, outside in the cold Manitoba winter. Although I would not change anything about that perfect, magical moment, I knew I wanted a little more warmth and a little less snow on our wedding day! As I was just finishing up medical school, I knew there was no way we could plan a wedding for the summer of 2013, so we opted for a long (19 month!) engagement and set a date of August 9, 2014. Fortunately for us, the long engagement gave me lots of time to plan and organize our perfect wedding day! Although I had always envisioned myself having a classic, romantic wedding, because Brock and I both grew up in small, rural areas of Northern Canada (him in rural Manitoba, and myself in rural Northern Ontario), we both wanted to incorporate some rustic elements in the day as well. We decided to mix the two ideas and set out to create a romantic rustic wedding with a bit of a vintage flair! I think I had our wedding colour palate picked out before Brock and I were even engaged. While doing some online shopping, I came across a J. Crew bridesmaid dress in the colour “Dusty Shale” and instantly fell in love! The colour is a light, toned-down seafoam green and is so pretty and unique! Although hard to match exactly, the colour was a major inspiration for the rest of the wedding. Since August is still “technically” summer, I decided to pair it with a mixture of bright corals and pretty peaches to really brighten things up! To incorporate some rustic charm into the wedding, we relied mostly on our DIY projects (and we had quite a few of them!). For our centerpieces, twine-wrapped mason jars (which held our flowers) were placed on wood discs that my groom and his grandpa cut and sanded themselves. To finish these off, I used cute vintage-looking coral and white photo frames (a lucky find at a local craft store) to display the table numbers. For aisle runners at our ceremony, I made candle holders out of blue wine bottles that we had painstakingly collected and cut over the previous year. Although this project was a lot of work (and resulted in a lot of broken glass!) I was so happy with how they turned out! I made our seating chart from a giant vintage-looking frame which I painted in a seafoam green colour and distressed. After printing out our seating chart, I strung twine across the back of the frame and used tiny white clothes pins to display the names of our guests. I also made a seafoam green “dancing shoes” box to hold flip-flops for our guests’ tired feet and a seafoam card-box made from a vintage-looking metal mailbox I found at a hardware store. I brought all three of these projects together by adding wooden letters that I painted peach and coral. For our favours, we used mini vintage-looking jars which we filled with white, peach, and seafoam chocolates and finished off with two coloured-paper hearts and a cute twine bow. Finally, since I’m in the medical field, I made “prescriptions for a happy marriage” for our guests to fill in with love advice! Although our venue was absolutely beautiful on its own with its high ceilings, big windows, and rustic wooden beams, I will admit that it was a little unnerving not knowing how everything would look as an overall package on the day of our wedding. Fortunately, I was so unbelievably happy with the way everything came together! Our linens, wedding cake, and florals integrated our wedding colours perfectly and my DIY projects really helped pull everything together. I chose gorgeous peach satin tablecloths with white lace overlays for the table linens, my florist put together amazing bouquets, boutonnieres, and centerpieces with coral garden roses and peach ranunculus, and our ombre, ruffled seafoam wedding cake turned out beautifully! I was even lucky enough to find hand-made ties for the groomsmen that matched the bridesmaid dresses perfectly! As a final word on our wedding day, I will say that although the attire, the decor, and the pretty details all meant a lot to us, the reason behind it all (the celebration of our marriage!) was even more important. We really wanted our wedding day to be special, fun, and memorable, both for ourselves and for our guests. Although we tried to incorporate many personal touches and special moments into the day, we did have a few favourites. After getting ready with our respective wedding party members, Brock and I each hopped in with one of our photographers and headed over to a beautiful, vintage photography studio where we had our first look. This was such an exciting, romantic moment and I loved that it was just the two of us! For our ceremony, we really wanted to do something special and different. After scouring the internet, we finally decided on a “Love Letter Ceremony” where we each wrote each other love letters (which were placed in a box along with a bottle of wine) to be opened on our 10th wedding anniversary. We also decided to incorporate our parents by asking them to write us letters with advice on marriage and wishes for our future. Finally, to add a bit of extra romance to our first dance, we got together with our DJ prior to the wedding and recorded personal messages for each other describing our emotions leading up to the wedding and things we loved about each other. Our DJ integrated pieces of these recording into our first dance song and during our dance was the first time we heard them! It was awesome! Overall, our beautiful, love-filled wedding day was better than we could have ever imagined!  PS: My one tip for future brides is to look on Etsy! Etsy, Etsy, Etsy!! I found so many lovely things for my wedding at really great prices!