Weddings II.

I love weddings. Which is a good thing, considering how many I have been going to lately! I recently had two in two weeks... And they could not have been more different!

The first was a stylish wedding for a friend who has been planning her wedding for, literally, years. (When she was four, she wanted to be a bride when she grew up).

All the details were accounted for... since the two of them love to play board games, the reception had a bit of a board game theme (in a classy way of course).

Instead of being at numbered tables, they had names like "Scrabble" and "Monopoly". (I was at the "Murder Mystery" table). There were other small touches to carry the theme... Scrabble boards as decoration (loved those!) and if you wanted the couple to kiss you had to correctly answer a trivia question about them.

The couple had also taken ballroom dancing lessons, which resulted in a stunning first dance! Full of intricate steps and spins, at one point, the bride was spun around by the groom on his hip... I can't do it justice with a mere wordy-description... Think Dancing With The Stars. It was glorious.

The most recent wedding couldn't have been more different in style, but it was just as gorgeous. The bride's family has a horse farm near Innisfail, and a beautiful big red barn was built on it expressly for the purpose of holding the wedding there.

If the weather had been poor, the entire event could have been held in the barn. As it was, the day was gorgeous - rim to rim, blue Alberta skies for most of the day, not a breath of wind, and it was hot. The ceremony was held outside, and included a Celtic "Loving Cup" ceremony, where the bride and groom share a wine glass and drink to their past, present and future with their "anam cara" or "soul friend" in Gaelic. 

The groom wore his father's wedding suit from 30 years ago, as well as the bride's late grandfather's genuine deerskin cowboy boots. Both touches of "something borrowed" worked very well with the country theme!

There was a grand opening of the barn before the reception, and the inside looked phenomenal; you would hardly know you were partying in a barn! The decorating scheme was almost a contradiction of burlap and lace that created a lovely country chic feel. 

A friend of the groom's is a singer-songwriter, and he played us a couple songs to get the mood going for the reception. (You can check Ethan out here.) What followed was a fantastic dance... I don't think I've ever been to a wedding where such a large percentage of the guests spent so much time on the dance floor... Two-stepping to country, twisting to oldies, rocking out to classics and grooving flailing to club music.

While my wedding attending for this year has come to an end, there are already several weddings on the table for next year. I am looking forward to seeing how each couple personalizes their day!