What would you do with a mantle that was left in the garage of your new house? If you're Lindsay and Arlen, you'd make it into a backdrop for your wedding ceremony! Clearly, this is one crafty couple and their creativity is carried throughout every adorable detail of their Ancaster, Ontario wedding. From handmade tea-dyed silk flowers to the incredible Mod Podge seating "globe," the pair put a ton of thought and DIY elbow-grease into their special day. Their hilltop ceremony was followed by cocktails and bocce ball on the lawn and an intimate reception at the Tamahaac Club. Scroll down to read more from the bride and to see stunning images of the day, captured by the pros at Jenn & Dave Stark Photographers.
Real Wedding: Ridiculously Cute Handmade Ontario Wedding
From the Bride... "When we started planning our wedding, we really didn’t have a clear picture of what it would look like and certainly did not have a theme of any kind. Rather than inspiring creativity, our Internet searches just seemed to regurgitate the same ideas over and over again.
One thing we were certain of was that we didn’t want to recreate someone else’s wedding. So, instead, we simply started collecting things; the old mantle found in our garage when we bought our first house, white peonies from our garden (stored in the fridge for over a month), and corks from many bottles of celebratory wine. With the help of our family and friends we hand-made tea-dyed silk flowers, created table runners from wallpaper and lace, and modge-podge’d the seating chart onto a revolving globe (we love love love to travel!). Eventually, our wedding started to take shape and when the day finally came, everything came together in a way we could never have imagined or intentionally planned!
It certainly helped that we had one of the most gorgeous (yet little-known) venues in the area – a 19th century hunting club, complete with a lovely Tudor mansion and set on the edge of a cliff overlooking the valley where we work and live! The dining set-up was romantic and intimate, the food was amazing, the weather was perfect, and we would not have done a single thing differently.
In the end, however, there were two things about the day that really took me by surprise. The first, was how much of an effect our photographers had on us throughout the day. Not only are Jenn and Dave superbly talented, but they also are seriously skilled in keeping things calm, cool, and collected.
And lastly, we never could have possibly imagined how emotional the wedding ceremony was going to be. Our officiant had asked each of us to send her a private email explaining “why we love the other,” which she then read word-for-word during our ceremony. Without knowing what the other had written, we had both expressed nearly identical emotions – how stable, strong, and reliable our almost decade long relationship was, how much we deeply respected and admired each other, and how we could never imagine a life without the other."
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