DIY Canadian-American Wedding

We love so much of this wedding shot by the ever-wonderful Mango Studios — the simple red and blue palette, the flower wreath handbands, the birch wood chuppah — but nothing more than the privilege of seeing how honestly in love this beautiful couple is. We absolutely adore the idea of using show ribbons as escort cards for your guests to wear, and love that the couple used ribbons of all different bright and cheery hues!

From the bride, Gwendolyn: It was a perfect summer day that surprisingly emerged from a horribly rainy summer. Almost everyone I love in the world was there and it was simply so very very happy. Our support system was amazing – from friends who had traveled around the world to be with us to our wonderful wonderful parents and siblings (and very importantly my best friend/adopted brother/wedding designer), we had so much help and love and support throughout the entire process that when the day arrived it felt like an expression of so love and creativity and commitment and joy.

The theme of the wedding was family, nature, and fun. We designed the ceremony so it would include all of our siblings, parents, my grandpa, and many family and friends to ceremonially knit us all together in a bigger and better version of ourselves. We were both surprised by how powerful and perfect it was and our communities who were there to be with us just emanated hope and goodwill and celebration. It was important that the wedding would be a playful celebratory day, and I think we achieved that. It was incredibly special.

Some favorite memories of the day were putting our cameos on, the transformation and magic of the ceremony and everyone that participated in it, reading our vows to each other, the breeze blowing through my family under the chuppah my father-in-law made, hulahooping with a pork chop in my hand in my wedding dress, seeing my husband’s smile through the crowd of the most incredibly special people of the planet as I walked down the aisle holding hands with my parents, having our parents encircle us during the ceremony, my grandfathers smiles as we did the hora around him, the moving personal readings our loved ones gave during the ceremony, how silly and open and playful everyone was, laughing and smiling through the whole first dance with my Dad, everyone bashing the pinatas with glee, the smiles on our parents faces as everyone did the mezinke around them (special dance when the last children finally marry), my amazing brothers and sisters on the dance floor…

It was important to us that the wedding really be an expression of our love for each other but for everyone that joined us as well, so we put a lot of effort into designing and handcrafting personal touches, like the personal fair ribbons for everyone and welcome boxes at everyone’s seats that had a personalized letter we had written every guest inside. Writing those was an amazing way to prepare for the wedding because we really contemplated our relationship and memories with and thanks for every person that would be with us on that day. We remembered so many moments and memories and came to such special realizations about everyone’s roles in our lives and relationship through the process of writing. The letters ended up being such a huge gift for us because they helped us be so conscious about how lucky we were not just to have each other but every single person that was there with us.

A Bold Berry-Colored Vallejo Wedding

We got married nestled in between Canada Day and 4th of July, so the aesthetics and mood were meant to be a coming together of nations and celebrations in the marriage of the southern US me to my Canadian guy. For the recessional my brother made a mashup of the Canadian and American national anthems, the boutonnieres and corsages were either red and white or red white and blue depending on nationalities, the groomsmen wore checkered red and white bow ties (Canada) and red, white and blue socks (USA) and the table runners were all red and white or blue and white stripes. It was fun to be able to play with a lighthearted fusion of nationalities and cultures and families throughout the celebration. As we had many guests from around the world, it made it especially fun to introduce them to the summer fair type of rituals that we grew up with (the ribbons for the escort cards, the little flags that we personalized with our names and a rope heart, the graphics of our invitation, the pennant flags, mason jars, whiskey sours, etc!