An outdoor country Wedding

I thought I'd share a few photos that show what we were up to last weekend! My baby brother married his sweetheart last Saturday. We flew down to Southern Ontario where I grew up and where the rest of my family still lives, to help prepare for and attend the Wedding.

My brother and his Bride are both horse lovers (wonder where he got that from, MOM!) and have a team of work horses that they use to do wagon and carriage rides for Weddings, special occasions etc. Millie was a gift to the Bride several years ago. The Bride rode in (through a beautiful covered bridge) on Millie bareback then jumped down where her Dad met her and walked her down the aisle.

The Bride's hand-tied bouquet. The bridesmaid's bouquets were similar, hand-tie style but without the purple Calla lilies. I got to help Mom make these, hand-tied bouquets are so much fun to make!

This was just a fun shot, going for overall effect rather than details of each of our family groupings, starting with our parents on the left, then each family unit from eldest to youngest siblings.

It was an outdoor Wedding at a beautiful property just up the highway from the elementary school we attended and the hockey rink where we all spent countless hours skating, playing hockey, ringette, curling and spectating. My Wedding reception was actually on the ice surface of same hockey rink (sans ice!) The Groom built the backdrop by the pond with cedar rails and Mom added the flowers, lanterns etc to decorate. I loved how the buckets filled with flowers looked hanging at the end of each aisle.

Me with my "dancing partner". That is a story for another day.

Being part of my family means "all hands on deck" when a Wedding rolls around - this is because my Mom is a florist and a decorator. For the last two family weddings, my other brother's girlfriend has also been the baker - she makes beautiful cakes and desserts!!! Oh yes, and she is also an accomplished musician and artist. Erin played three different violin pieces as the Wedding party and then the Bride walked down the aisle. I was her assistant - it was so windy that I had to help hold the music so that it didn't fly off into the pond!


My brother (the Groom) made the sign hanging up above. The Bride and Groom and posing with my boys. He also built the bar (no photo here) and the matching sign that hung above "The Drinkin' Hole". It was very appropriate for a country Wedding. Do any of you know the song "I'm from the country, and I like it that way!".........

Dad - aka Father of the Groom tasting Erin's delicious cake!

This is the inside of the barn where the reception was held. Want to know how I got all those paper lanterns WAY up there??? A had a partner hold one end of the string while I threw the whole spool of ribbon up and over the rafters, over and over, then climbed the ladder to tie the paper lanterns on . You can't see it here, but we had battery operated lights that we rigged to the top to make them light up when it got dark. They looked fantastic when night fell.

These were the centrepieces - the Bride wanted them very natural and country looking, so we used: hostas, cedar, buttercaps and daisies mostly. They were very fun to make - we arranged them in tin buckets. This is what I was up to until about 12:45 the day of the Wedding. The ceremony being at 3 pm, we decided we had better wrap it up and head back home (15 min. drive) to make ourselves decent for the ceremony! My Mom and other brother (who was in the Wedding party were also with us).

In discussion with the Groom on the way home, we discovered we had a music crisis. So, we headed to a friends house to try to solve that and made a few SOS calls to friends& family to see who could help . Meantime, my brother the Groomsman calls to say his shower at home is busy and can he use the one at home? - we say sure even though two of us still need to get cleaned up. What a busy few days - I managed to get into the shower at 2:15 pm and we made it to the ceremony just after 3 pm with wet hair and two boys in tow! :)

Thankfully, it did not rain until late the night of the Wedding even though they had been calling for some - instead we got wind and lots of it! My wet hair didn't last long! Once the ceremony was over, my sister and brother's girlfriend and I scooted out to her house with a mission to safely deliver the Three tiered Wedding cake as well as five huge slab cakes to the reception before anyone had noticed we were gone. Thankfully it was a short highway drive since the safest way we could figure to transport the 3-tiered cake was for Erin to hold it on her lap!!! It arrived safe and sound and the cake was super tasty!

All in all a very busy weekend, but a beautiful Country Wedding and lots of fun memories. My youngest fell asleep with his head resting on a table while sitting in the chair while my eldest danced until the music stopped playing!

If you made it this far with me, hope you have a fantastic Friday and 'll be back on Sunday with the next challenge for Paper Sundaes!

Cheers,

Shanna :)

Edit - there are several photos that I left out as this turned into a very long post. I will share more soon!