How is a wedding designer supposed to feel when her cousin/lifelong best friend starts to plan her wedding? Excited, inspired, super happy…and in my case, also stressed lol!

Roberta and Fernando were originally going to have about 150 people at the Winnipeg Art Gallery with a ceremony at her parents’ farm. Since Fer is from Mexico, and his family lives there, obviously that meant major changes to the wedding plans. They still wanted to get married, but they pivoted: everything would now be on the farm just outside of Stonewall, and since his family couldn’t be there, the guest list would be massively reduced to the bare minimum: the bride’s parents and siblings, my sister and myself, and the groom’s best man and his wife.

It may have been small, but dang it was mighty.

You can read some of Roberta’s reflections on what it was like to plan her wedding during Covid in an earlier blog post, here!

Here’s what you need to know about Roberta and Fer: They love colour. So much colour. Roberta has always been a jewel tones girl and I’ve been planning her bouquet for years already. Fernando is a neon guy, and orange is his favourite colour.

I won’t lie, orange can make me nervous…but this wedding converted me. In the right dosage and shade, I now will happily proclaim that orange can be awesome.

Like, did I ever think that a burnt orange suit would be the most amazing? And yet, it totally was.

One of my VERY favourite parts of the wedding: the custom-made bumblebees made by Toronto artist Golden Age Botanicals. Roberta and Fernando met on Bumble (hence “we swiped right” on the hankie above!) and I wanted to reference that in a unique, fun way. They were incredibly realistic (the bride’s brother got quite the fright) and are now keepsakes in the couple’s home!

I just love making colourful bouquets! Roberta told me she trusted me fully and I knew she did, but being that she’s my cousin, making her bouquet was a strangely detached process for me. I was a little stressed about it! She likes an organic look but is a classic girl to her core, so I wanted to blend those styles together while not going too far in either direction. And of course, jewel tones were the primary request!

Bridal Bouquet Ingredients: locally grown dahlias, zinnias, sweet pea, cosmos, scabiosa and gomphrena with imported ranunculus, garden roses, waxflower and foliages.

I absolutely HAVE to mention that many of the flowers that I used were locally grown, right here in Manitoba. I feel like I talk about locally grown flowers all the time, but in case you’ve missed the memo, these are my favourite flowers to design with. The colour, the texture, the hardiness…it is all unmatched by the vast majority of imported flowers. More plusses: fewer chemicals, far less travel-related environmental impact, the opportunity to support a local business that pays living wages to its employees, and the list goes on and on. For this wedding, I also got to use some blooms from the mother of the bride’s garden, which I loved!

Roberta came to me with 2 inspiration pictures: one of a ceremony with mismatched chairs, and the other with a serpentine dinner table.

Her dad mowed a clearing into the pasture, a short walk through the oaks from the house. I can’t communicate how magical this space was! Because her dad was also officiating the wedding, Roberta walked most of the aisle alone, and the look on her face was so joyful and expectant. Fer was standing up at the altar, already crying when he turned to see her, with his family Facetiming to join in.

We debated between an arch or freestanding floral pieces for the altar, but I always knew that I wanted to have the aisle “planted.” Roberta’s mom loves to garden so this would be a perfect project for her to take charge on. The aisle planters and some of the wood pedestals were made by the woods teacher at Roberta’s school, and I just loved the opportunity to bring so much colour to the already stunning wooded scene.

One of the great things about these very intimate weddings is the atmosphere. There’s no stress, there’s no feeling like you have to put on a “show.” Case in point, Roberta’s brother played her down the aisle on acoustic guitar. Their other sister was to cue him…but something happened and he started playing too early. She hissed his name and made that “cut it” hand signal across her neck…and it was just plain funny! We all sat there and grinned but didn’t feel any worry about people seeing or things not going perfectly. He then came in at the right time, and it was, indeed, perfect.

After the ceremony, we celebrated with a group toast at the end of the aisle. The servers from CHEW so kindly set this all up for us in complete silence while the ceremony was going on, so it was all ready as soon as the vows were said!

Post-ceremony, Esther Funk led the way with a few group and family portraits in the ceremony site, and then the wedding party drove down the road to an old stone barn (you might recognize the scene from this wedding and featured on Once Wed here!). This site used to belong to our ancestors, and is right across the road from where I grew up (in a stone house, obviously!). The stone walls were the foundation of a barn that was demolished many years ago, but the ruins are so stunning, and make an incredible backdrop for photos. I had my own wedding photos taken here 10 years ago!

Alright, here we are at the reception! We set up under the oak trees on the front lawn of Roberta’s parents’ house. With cafe lights strung from the trees and music softly playing, once again the atmosphere was so incredible. There were 15 of us and with the exception of the best man and his wife, we’re all family so dining under the stars together really just felt like the best, most celebratory family dinner we’ve ever had. It felt so comfortable, so content — it was the best evening I’ve spent in a long time.

Here’s a look at those serpentine tables Roberta envisioned! One unexpected bonus about using serpentine tables is that the curve forces you to sit farther apart than you usually would set a table. Not exactly the 6 feet of social distancing, but definitely less close. They are a little tricky to cover with linen, so we had to play around with pleating and layering the blush linen we selected as a more neutral base.

The centrepieces were basically the only part of the decor plan we never had to change! We were always going to use my copper bowl as the vessel, and fill them with a riot of colourful flowers. I also had Roberta’s mom plant small terracotta planters with flowers and herbs to fill in the tablescape with. I wish more people did this!

Because of the reduced guest count, it was within their reach to splurge on rentals that they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to afford for 150+ people. We chose cross-back chairs from Planned Perfectly for the guests and fun dark blue velvet chairs from Trend Decor for the couple. China from the bride’s mom and grandmother’s collections was layered for the place settings, and then we selected gold flatware, gold-rimmed wine glasses, and light pink glass water goblets from C&T Rentals. We finished the place settings with white linen napkins that we added our own navy fringe trim to, adding in some whimsy and reinforcing the dark blue in the palette. And when I say “we”, I mean that I ordered the fringe on Etsy and my mom sewed them onto the napkins 😂

You know I’m a huge fan of coloured candles, and for good reason! Can you imagine how boring white candles would have been here? The mix of harvest gold and navy pillar candles, with tropical pink votive candles, layer in depth to the table without feeling out of place. I always buy my coloured candles from Yummi.

This wedding was so much more meaningful to me to be a guest and bridesmaid at. I didn’t experience the amount of emotion experienced by all of you who have had to decide between going ahead with vastly different weddings than you imagined, or postponing. None of 2020 was easy. I know that it’s not over yet, either.

But if I learned anything from this wedding, it’s this:

You and your love absolutely deserve to be celebrated.

Whether you want that to be in small or huge ways, whether you want to go ahead with it or postpone until later, this day deserves to be celebrated. And I hope that when your wedding day does arrive, you can put aside the stress and anxiety that planning a wedding during covid has caused you, and let go to celebrate.

I want to say a huge thank you to all of the vendors who took part in making this wedding so amazing. 2020 was a really hard one to be in the wedding and events industry, so anytime we got to make magic happen was really special.

Esther Funk Photography ~ Stone House Creative ~ Bliss Bridal Boutique ~ Essense of australia ~ BHLDN ~ RW & Co ~ Planned Perfectly ~ C&T Rentals ~ Trend Rentals & Decor ~ Chew ~ The Blushing Blonde ~ Justine Barry Artistry

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