Wedding Archives - Alicia Fashionista

One

August 15, 2016

The other night, I asked Adam what I should write about in honour of one year wedding anniversary. He stared back at me and kind of shrugged. I revealed that I was thinking of writing about the highs and lows of marriage thus far and he seemed a bit surprised by the sentiment. “Think about it,” I urged him, “We honestly couldn’t have squeezed in any more life changes in the last 365 days if we’d tried!”

There was all the notable moments for our friends. Tons of our close friends and family got married. Two of my besties had babies and more of my close pals announced they have little babes on the way. We experienced a big loss when my Uncle Daryl passed away. There was a perfect amount of travel involved the last 365 days. Together, we spent 3 weeks in Italy for our honeymoon, went to Palm Springs for Melissa’s wedding, enjoyed a week in Playa del Carmen with Adam’s company, had a delightful Easter weekend in the Dominican Republic with Adam’s family, explored Toronto for a few days en route back, made our way to Austin, Texas for the first time, and then to Cancun for Kate and Andy’s wedding. I also spent a week with my friend in Hamilton, Ontario, a few weeks in London and Ireland with Alex, and a lovely trip to San Francisco with a Saschie and Kate. In terms of travel, we certainly went for it this year! There was the fact that for the second time in a year, our apartment was flooded and we were forced to move out for over a month and go through a renovation…again. Personally, we went through some things as a couple. I changed career paths and opted to blog full time. Perhaps inspired, Adam actually recently just gave notice at the company he’s been with for 8 years and is now in the midst of a big career change as well. There’s a few other big things, but some events for us and close friends aren’t really to be shared online, as I’m sure you can understand. Even without the other points, it’s obvious that this year has been a heck of a lot.

It seems that we just happened to wed within that time in life where everyone is going through massive change. Marriage and babies and death and new jobs and being lost and finding yourself again. It’s a bit crazy, but it definitely made us realize the ‘work’ portion of marriage that everyone advertises actually exists. When we’re shaken out of familiarity and the comfort of our mundane everyday and thrown these curve balls. That’s when you’re put to the test.

Amongst the stressful chaos of the wedding, our go-to music was Beck’s latest album, Morning Phase. It was relatively calming and helped us keep our sanity the night before the wedding. We’ve listened to it since and are transported right back to our Pemberton suite the night before the wedding, frantically writing out seating charts and cards. This morning, on our impromptu anniversary trip to the Naramata Bench, we drove into town for breakfast. Sitting out on the patio, sipping our coffees, I suddenly heard the faint sound of Blue Moon playing in the background. Of all the songs to hear on the morning or our anniversary, it just happened to be one from the album that we so heavily associate with the wedding. Just felt like a bit of a sign, ya know?

In honour of our one year anniversary, here’s a little stroll down memory lane:

Our Rehearsal
Our Wedding Day
Our Wedding Highlight Video
WedLuxe Bride Spotlight
15 Favourite Wedding Moments
Hitched
My Wedding Decor Secrets
That Time We Had A Second Wedding

Wedding

That Time We Had A Second Wedding

August 11, 2016

We had quite a tough time narrowing down our wedding guest list. It’s an impossibly frustrating process, because if we had an unlimited budget, then I’m sure we could have invited everyone we’ve ever met! We both have big families, Adam and I are very social, AND all our parents are all very social, so the invite possibilities were almost endless in the worst kind of way! For our farm ceremony and reception, we had to stay under 150 people. Once you went above that, the logistics became complicated, costs went up, and the look of panic on Adam’s face when he thought of a big wedding was much like Big’s in the SATC movie – eek! After immediate family and our wedding party, we were already at 100 people, which is crazy! The thing was, we really wanted to also include the extended family on my dad’s side, which also meant the world to him. Our compromise? We suggested doing a second dinner reception a few days after the wedding!

It was a BLAST! My parents planned the lovelies dinner at The Pink Pearl with great little details like custom made fortune cookies. It was so nice celebrating with more of my family and my parent’s friends. Unexpectedly, it was really fun giving Adam’s family and our close friends a glimpse of my Chinese heritage. Traditions like a drink and cheers with each table was really entertaining and if there’s one thing the Chinese can do, it’s eat! We had a real feast and since I’m a vegetarian, my dad even arranged for a separate table of veggie options. Yay for spicy tofu!

We feel so lucky to have so many people in our lives that wanted to be a part of our wedding and I’m just happy we were able to include as many as we did. The second dinner reception ended up being just as memorable and our wedding truly wouldn’t have been the same without it! A big thanks to my friend Bethany for capturing the evening, be sure to take a look at some of our favourite snaps below.

The best part? I LOVED my JS Collection dress from Champagne and Lace. It was a dream come true getting to execute two different bridal looks without breaking the bank! Shop my dress below, along with similar options. Thanks to the wonderful stretch in their design, the sizing is quite generous. There’s only a size 2 left (on SALE too!) in this exact style, but that could fit a size 4 or 6 as well:

Wedding

My Wedding Decor Secrets

July 7, 2016

I like nice things and I don’t have any money. What can I say? It’s kind of the story of my life. This all meant that the #WinnettWedding had to be somewhat of a compromise between what I actually wanted and what was realistic. Once we’d landed the venue, photographers, caterer, day of coordinators, videographer, music, dress, suit, hair, makeup, transportation, and accommodation, there wasn’t as much left for my decor as I would have liked. Thankfully, my friends had some really great pieces of wedding decorating advice that I’d like to pass on to you.

When all is said and done, weddings are freaking SO expensive. I feel ya on that one. Below you’ll find a few ways I was able to get that high end look I wanted, but for less! We all can get a bit weird about money and I know everyone is working with different budgets/priorities, which is why I’m quite transparent about pricing where I could be. Hope this helps – happy planning!

If you’re new around here, be sure to catch up on my posts about the rehearsal dinner, our full wedding day recap, and my 15 favourite wedding moments!

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Wedding

Hitched

March 9, 2016

In honour of Adam and I being on the COVER of Hitched magazine (how surreal is that?!), I wanted to pass on some major vendor love. Making the day come together was such a group effort, I cannot stress enough how wonderful everyone was to work with! I also sorted through the footage and put together this super lengthy but very awesome video of our entire wedding weekend. From the set up, to rehearsal, the big storm, and of course, the big day. Hope you enjoy and be sure to scroll down for all our #WinnettWedding team details!

Relationships Wedding

15 Favourite Wedding Moments

January 26, 2016

Two days after the wedding, we sat out on the deck of our Whistler mini-moon accommodation. I opened up my Rifle Paper Co. notebook and removed the cap from my black Faber Castell Pitt pen. Nothing motivates me to write like a new pen and a fresh notebook. I’m a total stationary junkie. Adam poured us some glasses of wine and picked an Indie Spotify playlist. Despite our lingering fatigue, I insisted that we sit down together and take the time to jot down our very favourite memories from the wedding day. It’s so funny when these little moments are happening, because you feel like your mind could never possibly let go of these distinctly lovely scenes. It’s those little details though, that soon get muddled. And so, being me, I wanted to make sure we wrote it all down.

Now, I know that Shari and Mike are the best of the best, but I sure was over the moon when we got our photos back and they literally captured exactly what we loved about the weekend. And so, I must credit them for this post, because without Shari and Mike, these 15 points would simply be written down in a notebook that I probably wouldn’t look at for 10 years.

You should first check out our rehearsal dinner and, of course, our wedding day. If you’ve already completed your required reading, then without further ado (yeah, I don’t think I say that irl…), here are our 15 favourite wedding memories:

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Style Wedding

WedLuxe Bride Spotlight

January 21, 2016

Photos by Shari and Mike / Make up by Denise Elliott

This is, quite possibly, the closest I’ll ever come to being Miss. January! The wonderful team at WedLuxe turned the spotlight over to little ol’ me for their latest Trend Report. Flip to page 20 and then pinch me. I share some of my favourite Vancouver spots, fun tidbits like how Adam and I met, and a TON of wedding planning secrets. Now, grab a cup of coffee and get your WedLuxe Trend Report fix right here!

For more pics from the big day, be sure to check out my recent wedding post!

Relationships Wedding

Our Wedding Day

January 18, 2016

All Photography is by Shari and Mike. For a complete list of vendors/credits, scroll to the bottom of this post. This is a continuation of my post about our rehearsal dinner.

I truly thought it’d feel like Christmas morning on August 15th, but I woke up to a text that the beautifying team had arrived and everything felt rather ordinary (not that I normally have a hair stylist and makeup artist greet me in the morning). Adam stirred a little and we smiled at each other and declared that we were getting married that day, as if neither of us had realized. I made my way to the main house, a steady stream of light raindrops creating a serene soundtrack for those rolling green valley views. There was a perfect sense of calm in the house that remained there for the entire morning. It felt like we had forever to get ready, so I tried to savour every moment. We drank coffee and laughed in our matching floral robes. We listened to 90’s pop/rock and everyone else in the house made cameo appearances to check in on our progress. We had all the time in the world until, of course, we didn’t. Suddenly the photographer and videographer were there and it was time to get into the dress, and then it was game on.

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Wedding

The Rehearsal

November 26, 2015

I had so many ideas for our rehearsal dinner. Up until even a month before our wedding, I thought I’d be whipping up some Pinterest-worthy dinner for 30 people. HA! When I was knee deep in last minute planning and waaaay over budget, I realized that was a completely ridiculous and basically impossible idea. So, I did what anyone does when they have no other options. I googled ‘rehearsal dinner ideas’ and the answer I needed was right there on the screen in front of me. I read a couple blog posts from wedding planners about how the BEST rehearsal dinners they’d ever planned/attended were the completely casual ones. They recommended ordering pizza and having drinks, and guess what? That is EXACTLY what we did!

Featured Wedding

How To Make The Perfect Wedding Website

November 10, 2015

Much like everything wedding related, I had a very specific vision in mind for our website. I wanted something simple but professional looking that was useful for our guests. This site was going to set the tone for the big day, so let’s just say that my expectations were high. What I wanted actually ended up being impossible to find (don’t worry, this story has a happy ending, read on). In the end, it turns out that our silly little wedding website is one of my favourite things that I created for the big day, so I thought I’d pass on a couple tips. Be sure to check out the final product below, I know you’ll love it!

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