Our Vancouver Club Wedding – Photos

We finally got out wedding 2.0 photos back! I am so excited to share these with you and tell you about our day. As much as having to do two weddings was a challenge, looking back I actually am really grateful that we had this opportunity. As the queen of indecision, being able to do two totally different style weddings was amazing. It really let me embrace two different sides of my personality and it let Alex and I celebrate in both ways we wanted to; in a small relaxed ceremony and in a big glamorous celebration with friends and family. Don’t miss our summer micro-wedding recap!

As far as today’s post: I’ll share photos and a little recap below covering each part of the day. Stay tuned to the end of the post for a list of all of our vendors and links if you’re interested.

Getting Ready:

The night before the wedding I stayed at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver and Maddie (MoH) and Sarah (Bridesmaids) stayed over with me. It was really special to have a girls night sleepover before the wedding. We got up early and did a short yoga session in the hotel room (Sarah is a trained yoga instructor!) before heading to The Vancouver Club to start getting ready.

One thing I loved about getting married at The Vancouver Club is that you have the venue starting at 8am and with so many different spaces and rooms it’s perfect for the whole day. The ladies all got ready one half of the Georgian Room (our ceremony was later held in the other half!) and the men got ready in one half of the University (our cocktail hour was later held in the full University room). I loved this space for getting ready because it was huge, had tons of natural lighting and had a fireplace that we could cozy up by! We drank mimosas, ate delicious fruit and muffins and honestly just had fun for hours while getting ready.

As part of the bridemaids gifts I got them matching monogrammed pajamas and I thought they looked SO cute! I wore my feather trim satin pajamas because you all know how extra  I am haha.

Alex and his groomsman seemed to have a great time getting ready as well, they had whiskey and lunch together and just hung out. If you missed the video of Alex’s groomsman guessing my wedding dress, go give that a watch for a laugh! Lol

Our color scheme for this wedding was wine, sage green and gold – with accents of mauve/blush and cream. You’ll see that reflected in a lot of the photos below.

matching monogrammed pajamas // feather trim satin pajamas

my wedding heels

monogrammed travel jewelry cases

First Look & Wedding Party Portraits:

Alex and I had our first look on the steps of the Vancouver Club before heading out down to the sea wall and beach to take some photos with the wedding party.

We didn’t bringing the kids part of our wedding party to the beach so we also snapped some photos with them on the steps before heading out to the beach. I also got a photo with my mom – doesn’t she look stunning!! 😭

I had my oldest niece Gracie and goddaughter Adelaide as junior bridesmaids, we had Alex’s two nieces and my two nieces as flower girls, and then my nephew Caleb and my niece Sally as ring bearers. Sally as a ring bearer is the CUTEST thing I have ever seen. 10/10 recommend having a little girl in a tux as your ring bearer!!

We were SO lucky to have had such an incredible October day. The 4 days before this poured rain so we were definitely worried. I think we have luck on our side though because the same was true of our summer wedding – we had summer storms and then the morning of our wedding it cleared up! October 8th was the most perfect fall day – the sun was shining and the skies were clear, as you’ll see in the photos below!

Ceremony:

As I mentioned earlier, we got married in the one half of the University Room and it was perfect. My amazing wedding planner Katie and I did a ton of work to turn the room into the ceremony spot of my dreams and I could not have been happier with how it turned it out. The first photo below is Alex seeing the room for the first time (we took a peek before the ceremony). It was the first time during the day that Alex was brought to tears and it meant so much to me that he loved the space so much. He said what really ‘got him’ was our custom monogram floor runner that I had made, which was my favorite decor touch as well.

We snuck into the ceremony space before the guests arrived to snap some quick photos there as well and I love them so much and definitely recommend any brides to be do this!

The ceremony itself was lighthearted and fun – because this was wedding 2.0 and we were already married we just filled the ceremony with laughter and fun and it was so special. One of the cute/funny moments was that Maddie’s youngest daughter Presley who is 2 decided she didn’t want to let go of Caleb and Sally’s hands so she ended up coming down the aisle with them as our third ring bearer lol.

Cocktail Hour:

One thing we knew we wanted for this wedding 2.0 was to keep things light hearted and fun – and really focus on the celebration of marriage. We decided to really lean in to the fact that we were already married and the cocktail hour reflected that. We created a “time machine” area where we cornered off a section of the room with gold streamers and inside had photos of the summer wedding, my summer wedding dress hung up, and – the best part – a life size cardboard cut out of Alex and I from our summer wedding so that guests could take selfies with “us” at the wedding 1.0. This was such a hit and honestly one of my favorite things we did for this wedding.

Dinner & Reception:

We had our dinner in the grand ballroom of the Vancouver Club (first photo below shows Alex and I in the space getting a sneek peek before). Our bridesmaids, groomsman and wedding party kiddos all did hilarious entrances into the ballroom – the bridesmaids did a full on cheerleading dance entry complete with gold pompoms, the groomsman played musical instruments and the kiddos were just their adorable selves. Alex and I did our grand entrance to “Oops I did it again” by Britney Spears (… get it?? Because we got married… again. 🤣)

For the decor in the reception we wanted to focus on candles for the head table (I didn’t want flowers to block the view) and then tons of flowers and candles on the guest tables. We focused on really high flowers to allow people to still talk without being blocked. We also got custom place cards with every guests name which was a touch that I loved.

Each table was given a number (obviously) but also a place. The places were all ones Alex and I have travelled to and we shared a story about each on a frame at the table. This was a great conversation starter to get people going over to other tables and chatting!

For our wedding favors at the table my we gave everyone a jar of honey from my parents farm. My amazing parents flew across the country with a suitcase full of SEVENTY POUNDS of honey so that we could do this LOL! They are saints. We also had bonbonniere (coated almonds) which is an Italian tradition!

You’ll notice in the photos my slight outfit change for the  dinner/reception! The stunning long veil I wore for the ceremony was my something borrowed from Maddie (the same veil I wore in the summer). For the reception, I changed into a short veil that – get this – was my mom’s from the 70’s!! I thought it was so cool and different – I haven’t really seen a veil with that cut in stores right now and it was so fun and perfect for dancing. I also traded my gorgeous high heels for my classic Nike’s which I decorated myself – I used white fabric paint to write “bride” on the heels and then I wrote our wedding date – 10.08.21 – in the Nike swoosh.

For our first dance we danced to Vance Joy’s “I’m With You”. I’ll have to share a video of it to instagram because I loved it SO much! We worked with Wedding Dance School who created a custom dance for us to the song and it was really fun to learn a dance with Alex and perform it for our friends and family. (You may have seen on my instagram – I shared a video of us practicing our first dance at an Italian Villa while on our honeymoon!)

Due to the Covid restrictions we weren’t able to have a dance party in the ballroom (just the first dance, father-daughter dance, and mother-son dance) but the Vancouver Club was so accommodating and we turned the rooftop patio into a night time dance floor! It was so chilly but it was an absolute blast. Our DJ Stacey was amazing and took the time to get to know our music tastes in advance and had the best playlist full of 2000’s pop punk songs, party anthems and a few of our favorite slow songs. We also ended the night with both a late night poutine bar and a late night ice cream bar!

All in all I could not have asked for a more perfect wedding day (aside from one thing which I’ll share at the end with a TMI trigger warning!) We had the exact celebration of love with family and friends that I had been dreaming of and as much as planning this wedding 2.0 while STILL in a pandemic was stressful, looking back I would do it again in a heartbeat for the experience of having all these people I love together in one room.

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed!
XO, Lee #LegalLeeBuonassisi

Vendors:
‘Morning Of’ Feather Trim Pajamas: ASOS
Bridesmaids Monogram Pajamas: Etsy
Bridesmaids Monogram Travel Jewelry Cases: Etsy
Makeup: Beauty en Route
Hair: Maddie from Salon Nine*
Wedding Dress: Martina Liana – here’s the link to my exact Martina Liana Strapless Ballgown dress
Wedding Shoes: Bella Belle Shoes – these specific bridal heels*
Alex’s Tux: Custom from Surmesur
Groomsmen Suits: Rented from The Tux Store*
Bridesmaids Dresses: David’s Bridal*
Flower Girl Dresses: David’s Bridal*
Flower Girl Sashes: David’s Bridal*
Ceremony Decor: Debut Event Design
Flowers: Flower Factory
Custom Monogram Runner: InStyle Floor Wraps
Lifesize Cardboard Cutout: FastSigns
Custom Acrylic Seating Chart: MinuteMan Press
Reception Decor/Rentals: Debut Event Design
Wooden Place Names (Placed on each guests dinner plate): Etsy
Wedding Cake: Edible Flours
First Dance: Wedding Dance School (choreographers)*
Photographer: Laura Olson Photography
Videographer: Hello Tomorrow Films
DJ: Stacey from PopJukeBox
Wedding Planner: Katie & Co (literally the BEST WEDDING PLANNER ALIVE). Vancouver brides-to-be, do yourself a favor and hire her, she is worth every penny and then some.

*Gifted to me. Thank you to the amazing brands who work with me!

Alright… TMI Trigger Warning:

The one thing that was horrible about our wedding day? I got my period that morning!! I had brutal cramps all day and was super swollen (thank goodness for the ballgown style dress!) And of course because I was so busy and dehydrated I wasn’t peeing enough so didn’t know how bad things were. Towards the end of the night we noticed that I had BLED THROUGH MY WEDDING DRESS. Yep, you read that right. It was awful. Thankfully, we had to bustle it anyway for the dancing and the bustling hid the stain perfectly. The next morning my mom was able to work her magic and got the stain 99% out.  It was such incredibly bad timing it was laughable!