The things that stand out for us are the things that made us laugh. My brother in law handing my husband a ring pop instead of my wedding ring; the speeches from our families and friends; saying silly things into eachothers’ ears during photos to make for great laughing pictures; the entertainment; the dance floor.

So emotional. It’s a feeling difficult to describe. I remember Nicole saying to me “You feel this way because it’s a big life moment, you’ll only do it once – enjoy every second.” Her advice to slow down and take a moment was the best advice anyone could give me – and I still had my moments of stress and anxiety. Do your best to soak it all in, it goes by so fast. It was the happiest day of my life.

Our table numbers were little books I made that said: “for the couple to read on their 1ST (…2ND, 3RD, ECT) wedding anniversary.” We get to read new messages from our guests every year on our anniversary.

MAKE IT ABOUT YOU. There are no rules. We had fun planning because we did the things we wanted, and didn’t do the things we didn’t care about. We didn’t have a cake, we didn’t do a receiving line, I wore sneakers, my mom did all our bouquets and boutonnieres, we didn’t do a flower toss. We chose colours we loved, I did a wax seal on our invitations I designed and had printed at Staples. We just did the things we thought were cool and didn’t do the stuff we weren’t interested in. No one said anything about a missed cake.

Colourful, romantic, sentimental. That’s how I would describe us too.

We followed Nicole’s lead. She is an exceptional wedding planner. We had no idea where to start, we asked her a million questions, she suggested Pinterest to start looking for a vibe and it all just fell into place. We decided everything together, it was an easy process because we have very similar styles. We wanted to have fun, we wanted our guests to have fun, and so we did!

I scraped the real flowers to get the dress I wanted. We learned to compromise when we could, to make room for the things that were non negotiable – like a videographer.

We were married in St. John’s Newfoundland, we met there and all of our friends were there. In Newfoundland they do something called a “Screech In” where you become an honourary Newfoundlander by taking a shot of screech and kissing a cod fish. We hired a comedian to come perform this right before the dancing started. It was a great way to loosen everyone up, have some laughs, and give something special to our guests coming from away to celebrate our special day.

Stop and smell the roses. Big life moments go by so fast, take time to reflect in the moment whenever you can. And most importantly – hire a videographer. You’ll miss and forget so much because of the adrenaline. We watch our video all the time! It’s such a different experience from pictures. I think of these lessons a lot in my regular life. There was a moment as we waited to go into the reception where we were held up by technical issues (no more than 5 minutes) and I remember being so stressed about everyone in there waiting around. In hindsight, that probably would have been a great second to just chill out and be with my husband. He was the one in that moment who reminded me – stop, take a mental picture. I often remember that moment. About how many times people told me that and I still got stressed. It makes me slow down during the life moments more often.