Summerhill Pyramid Winery

Well that was an unexpectedly long blogging break, even taking into account my planned hiatus due to our Wedding & Honeymoon. Just goes to show that life doesn’t think much of your plans – well thought out or otherwise. Last week, I unexpectedly had to fly to Toronto & despite my best intentions, that didn’t lead to much writing. Luckily, it did lead to a little bit of photo-editing & a little bit of tumblr creation. So while I get back into the swing of writing & updating this blog on a regular basis again, you can check out my new photo-blog (I’ve decided that’s a word – roll with it), WHOA lansi. It will consist primarily of photos, so if my writing was never your jam, maybe my photography will be. I took almost 2000 photos on our honeymoon so you’re bound to stumble across one you enjoy, right? (Bear with me though while I figure out this whole tumblr thing. It’s a different world, guys!)

N & I have been married over a month now, which makes me an expert on planning a wedding & marriage. Ha! I actually can’t take all the credit for my wedding. While it was exactly what I wanted, the perfect execution was thanks to my mother. She took our personal styles & organized the logistics – something I’m certain she was born to do.

Now, that’s not to say I had no role in the planning or execution. I’m not one to sit back & let anyone make decisions of any kind for me. I’m just a little bit opinionated when it comes to what I do & do not like & am usually happy to share my views. What I did do was decide what was most important to me & focused on those things. For the rest, I gave my mom a lot of free reign. She knows my tastes better than anyone else so I wasn’t too worried & only spoke up here & there about details. It helps that she’s a talented Interior Designer.

I said I’d post a little bit about planning a wedding once ours was over so I figured I’d start with the very first things we decided: what mattered most (besides actually marrying N, since that piece is the most important). I picked three things that were important to me, personally. I obviously wound up weighing in on other aspects of our wedding, but these were my top three. (They may not be the most important things for everyone, but they were my priorities.)

1. People
2. Venue
3. Photography

People were the most important piece for both N & I. We each easily chose four of our best friends to stand beside us on August 24. The hard part for us was the guest list. We obviously wanted to celebrate with everyone in our lives, but we quickly realized that wasn’t realistic. (We’re far too popular & N has a large extended family.) I can’t recommend starting the guest list early enough. We put a lot of thought into ours & made some decisions pretty quickly in order to include as many important people as we could. At the end of the day, we decided what was important to us & compromised in other ways to make our vision a possibility. There are a million suggestions on how to create your own guest list & we didn’t do anything groundbreaking there. My best advice is to decide who absolutely has to be there & be prepared to laugh off the last minute changes that will inevitably pop up.

For me, the venue was so important. I’ve been called a foodie many times so I needed a beautiful venue with incredible food. From the moment we got engaged, I started scoping out wineries in Kelowna. Having dined at & visited a few, I knew they would have a fantastic menu in a breathtaking setting. I quickly discovered that not only did neither of my favourite wineries host weddings, but there actually aren’t many in the Okanagan that do. While I was hunting for our winery, I was given suggestion after suggestion for beautiful golf courses. Although I’ve been to many stunning weddings in such a venue, I knew it wouldn’t be my wedding. I can’t help picturing those awful patterned carpets that seem to be synonymous with golf course banquet rooms. I also don’t particularly enjoy golf, whereas I consider myself a bit of an oenophile.

We found everything we were looking for at Summerhill Pyramid Winery. They created an organic & locally grown meal for our guests for which we’ve received many compliments. If there’s one thing I love more than enjoying a delicious meal, it’s sharing it with friends & family. It was the perfect fit.

My final major decision was the photography. As someone who loves photos & takes more than her fair share, I knew I wasn’t willing to settle. For me, it’s the one thing you have left after the last macaron has been eaten & your guests have stumbled off into the darkness. It’s all over so fast that I knew I’d want to be able to look back on the day & remember it forever.

Lucky for me, I know a wonderful husband & wife team who were willing to travel from Edmonton to shoot our wedding. I’d been following their wedding photography for a few years & knew they were who I would ideally want for my own wedding. I thought since we were getting married in Kelowna, it wouldn’t be possible. I talked to them about doing an engagement shoot & mentioned how I’d love to have them do our wedding & was surprised (& elated) when they told me they could make it work for us. Carly & Boe from 3haus Photographics are the lovely couple who photographed our Wedding. Their beautiful images have been featured on this blog over the past year, & we are so excited to see how they captured our day. I can’t recommend them enough.

So there you go, the biggest three pieces of our Wedding & a little bit about how (& why) we came to those decisions. (I know it’s probably odd that I haven’t listed my dress as one of my priorities. I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted, & since it wasn’t strapless, I didn’t have to look through thousands of dresses to find it.)

If you found this useful, let me know in the comments. Now that we’re all done with the wedding (& subsequently, with the planning), I have substantially more time to discuss what was involved with our day.