A Weekend Cottage Wedding with Family-Style Meals and Music

Their decision to have a smaller wedding stemmed from Karen’s desire for a relaxed, intimate celebration – a cottage weekend wedding felt perfect. They had a private ceremony a month prior, and hosted this celebration with a waterfront ceremony, personalized vows, family-style meals and live music with their loved ones to celebrate.

Tell Us About The Proposal.

One typical weekday in March 2018, Kat walked me to the bus, as usual, and then continued walking to her workplace, or so I thought (I found out later that she turned around and went home and spent the day setting up!).

When I came home from work that day, I opened the door to find music playing and candles and flowers everywhere. Kat got down on one knee and asked me to marry her.

Afterward, we drank wine and cooked a delicious dinner, and then she suggested we go out for a drink to celebrate. When we walked into the bar, our closest friends and family members were all there to surprise me and celebrate with us!

It was the perfect mix of a private and intimate proposal mixed with the fun of a celebration with the people we love most.

Talk Us Through The Decision To Elope.

Having been involved in weddings for many years, I wasn’t really interested in doing the same thing I had planned so many times before. I always knew I wanted something that would allow us time to relax, celebrate with our favorite people, and not feel rushed. We knew we wanted to keep it relatively small and intimate, and a cottage weekend with our closest loved ones seemed like the perfect fit.

We also felt like we wanted one part of our ceremony to be private and just the two of us, so we actually snuck off to Toronto a month before our wedding, where we spent Saturday at Wonderland and then Sunday getting married in Tade (the Marrying Lady’s) apartment, with just two witnesses we had never met, and Tara, our photographer. Afterward, we drank champagne, played darts, and ate chicken wings before going for a fancy dinner.

At our small wedding, we had a friend conduct a beautiful symbolic ceremony for us in front of 30 of our loved ones.

Talk Us Through The Actual Elopement.

Karen – We found a location with several cottages on one property – one cozy one called the “little house” for just the two of us and four more that slept about 30 people, which we rented out for the weekend. We had our best buds join us a couple of days in advance so we could all relax and set up the place without rushing. Despite being a planner myself, after the setup, I managed to let go of the reins entirely and just enjoy the weekend, thanks to my fantastic friend Karina, who took over the coordination of everything!

On Friday, our guests arrived, and we had a small ceremony near the water conducted by our good friend Carly. We included a smudging (Kat’s family is Indigenous), a reading by my friend Lauren and a ring-warming ceremony.

We wrote our own vows and did rock, paper, scissors to decide who had to go first – I won!

After the ceremony, we mingled with family and friends, ate oysters, drank cocktails, and then, after some quick photos, we sat down to an incredible family-style dinner by Whalesbone and pies baked by some of our family members for dessert.

The following day, we had brunch and caesars in the am, and we all just relaxed, played lawn games, etc, throughout the day. In the evening, we invited another 20 or so people to join us for the “party” (we could rent some additional cabins down the street). We had a big buffet meal followed by a live band, dancing, and a bonfire with smores.

It was perfect.