Kaitlyn and Wayne had a wedding filled with so many fun elements! You could really see their personalities shine through in all the little details and the thought they put into ensuring a great guest experience. Personal touches are what we always encourage and this wedding was full of them!

Wedding Style

From our first meeting, we knew that the florals would be an important part of the wedding day. Kaitlyn has a great love for flowers and natural gardens and her favourite coffee shop is in Tokyo inside a flower market! Her wish was to have flowers and greenery seemingly sprout up from the ground. We incorporated this into the floral arch and along the aisle for the ceremony. Moss, ferns, greens were achieved beautifully by Alice of Floralista. The mixture of greenery and florals was stunning and echoed the natural beauty of this Vancouver garden wedding! We then reused the aisle florals inside for the reception for the guestbook table, cake table and in front of the long tables to carry out the wild and free garden theme throughout. We kept the reception ballroom clean with white linens and chair covers to compliment Stanley Park Pavilion’s space. Tables were adorned with a mixture of bud vases with flowers and greenery and larger centrepiece arrangements to create a more organic flow to the tablescapes.

The Reception

For the reception, Kaitlyn and Wayne wanted to sit with their wedding party but also didn’t want to exclude their closest friends’ significant others. With a wedding party of 8 groomsmen, bridesmaids and bride’s attendants, it was already quite large so we got creative! We achieved their wish of sitting all together by having a sweetheart table set up for the bride and groom in the middle and then a table angled on either side of them so that everyone could sit together but guests could have a direct view to see the couple. This worked perfectly and added a natural progression for the dance floor right in front with great view points for all.

This area we created in front of the head table was a focal point with the MC’s podium off to the side as well as the gorgeous wedding cake by A.Elizabeth Cakes. Personal touches included the many heartfelt speeches given by their friends, the speech that Kaitlyn and Wayne gave themselves, a choreographed ballroom first dance and a performance by the brother of the Groom, his friend and surprise singing by Wayne!

In true Vancouver Wedding Planner fashion, we faced the threat of rain all day and it did actually rain that morning. It was a tough call to make with the dark and gloomy clouds looming above, but we decided to go ahead with the outdoor garden ceremony. With some luck, the rain held off!

The Entertainment

It was a first incorporating karaoke AND dancing into the reception, but with great vendors, we made it happen. With two rooms utilized at night, we had karaoke going in Stanley Park Pavilion’s Tea Room along with a photobooth by White Dahlia Studios and then dancing in the ballroom. Guests loved every aspect of this wedding and it was fun to watch as they went from room to room, enjoying everything we planned.

Personal Touches

Kaitlyn and Wayne wanted to spend lots of time with their guests and toasted each by going down the long tables, taking time to have meaningful conversations with everyone. This is not always an easy feat with packed schedules and lots of moving pieces, but we take our couples’ priorities to heart and made sure enough time was carved out to achieve their wishes.

Choosing a MC to lead events is an important task and Kaitlyn and Wayne made a great choice in their Best Man, pulling double duty. He kept all the events of the night moving and we worked together on making sure the flow of the evening ran smoothly with adjustments made along the way!

Take a look at all the pictures and scroll to the end to see the list of all our vendors involved in pulling this gorgeous garden wedding together

xoxo Mel