My Favourite Wedding Day Details

As we're approaching our 2nd wedding anniversary, I was going through our album and thinking about the small details of the day that I loved the most. Um, hello perfect blog post. I get to share some of our gorgeous photos from Anna Michalska, talk about one of the best day of my life, and hopefully inspire another bride to include some of these elements into her special day. 

1. First Date Details

Fun fact: my husband and I met through an online dating site, while I was teaching on a reserve in northern Alberta and he was living in a city approximately 700km away. I sent him a message, we talked non-stop for 2 weeks, and at Easter of 2014, we met for the first time in a Starbucks in Red Deer. 

Since meeting me, Boneto has probably had Starbucks more times than the rest of his life combined. It's one of my favourite places and we even had engagement pictures taken in a Starbucks. 

So, I had to work those elements of our first date into our wedding day. I ordered customized Starbucks cups from an amazing Etsy shop and we all got (a much-needed) coffee before heading to the ceremony. 

2. For Those Who Couldn't Be Here

My husband lost his older brother when he was in high school. A month and a half before our wedding, we lost his grandfather. My grandparents all passed away at various times through my childhood and early adulthood. There were people we would have loved to share this incredible day with but life just doesn't work this way. 

We were able to honour these loved ones with a reserved seat, a special bouquet (which has been dried and sits on our fireplace now), and a special section of our photo slideshow set to the song You Should Be Here. (I'd say 97% of people were crying, not going to lie.) 

I'm thankful we were able to honour the people we've loved and lost on our wedding day. I made this super quick print-up on Picmonkey, my favourite editing website.

3. The First Kiss/Last Kiss 

We wanted to honour our mothers during our wedding day and we were able to include this small first kiss/last kiss ceremony within our actually wedding ceremony. Here is what our marriage commissioner said:

The mothers of the bride and groom will now come forward as we honour them as mothers and to help us with the next part of the ceremony. And now, everyone, it is time for Boneto and Sarra's last kiss as singles before they become husband and wife. Sarra and her mother, Helen, and Boneto and his mother, Jennifer, will now offer this kiss.

These mothers' lips were the first to kiss Sarra and Boneto and bring them into this world and today their mothers' love - together with their blessings - will be the first to send them on their way to their new life together as wife and husband. Mothers... please kiss the Bride and Groom! 

4. Children's Activity Books

We had a lot of kids (and kids at heart) attending our wedding day and the teacher in me wanted to make sure they weren't bored during the reception. I put together a simple wedding activity book and ordered a bunch of packs of crayons from Crayola. 

This little book included: 

• People Bingo 
• a LOVE maze 
  
• Tic-Tac-Toe grids
  
• 2 colouring pages (The Little Mermaid + The Lion King - our favourite Disney movies)
  
• a wedding wordsearch 
• a crossword puzzle
  
• Dots + Boxes Game grid 

5. No Bouquet Toss

The bouquet toss is one of my least-favourite wedding traditions so I wanted to do something a little bit different. We had our MCs invite all couples to the dance floor to dance. As the song went on, they started telling couples to sit down...

If you've been together for less than a year, sit down.
If you've been together for less than 5 years, sit down.
If you've been together for less than 10 years, sit down.

This continued until there were 2 couples left on the floor and - completely unplanned - it was my parents and Boneto's parents. How perfect is that? In the end, Boneto's parents have been together for longer and we gave them the bouquet. 

What details of your big day did you absolutely love?