red, blue, and teal paper wedding bouquet
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Real Hindsight Advice | Grouse Mountain Wedding {In BC Baby!}

I am so excited to feature this amazing DIY mountain wedding submitted by the ever-so-talented Jana of Wink Photography. It's got everything I absolutely love: a seriously amazing DIY paper bouquet, a beautiful mountain vista for the ceremony, chairlift and helicopter transportation, and both parents walking the bride down the aisle. The best part, of course, is Angela, the bride, has some wonderful, down-to-earth hindsight advice. OK, I just have to say again that I really do love the paper bouquet. Not just because it's GORGEOUS! but also because it's meaningful. You see, Angela is the comic artist behind wastedtalent.ca. As an artist, she has a special relationship to paper, so it made sense that her bouquet would be hand-crafted from paper. I also love the techie DIY projects like the hand-coded website, the hand-drawn seating chart, and the global mash-up of their wedding song. I just love that kind of thoughtfulness!

red wedding details with paper flower bouquet

red white and teal paper boutonniere

Purple Wedding Sneakers

red, blue, and teal paper wedding bouquet

Helicopter Wedding

BC Bridal Portraits in the Woods

Grouse Mountain Wedding

British Columbia Chairlift Wedding

British Columbia Wedding Ceremony

British Columbia Wedding DIY Details

 

Tell us a bit about your wedding

Planning took about a year and a half. I wanted a wedding that we would be comfortable at (fun, laid back, not too big), he wanted an outdoor wedding. We settled on Red and White for the colors, my designer friend Jocelyn later added Teal to the palette. I prioritized the three main things I cared about most for the wedding: Venue, Food and Photographer, and got those taken care of first. The rest was "well, we'll do what we can." Trevor's obsession with Coca-Cola and my obsession with drawing comics were also used as design elements throughout the wedding. (My autobio comic is http://www.wastedtalent.ca) I was working full time (I only took 3 days off for the wedding), finishing my first book (which went to press the week before the wedding), and finishing off a major kitchen reno (which finished the DAY before the wedding. Mostly.) at the same time as trying to pull this wedding off. I think we did pretty well in spite of this!

DIY/Handmade Elements – I could easily have gotten carried away with craft projects, so I tried very hard to limit myself.

My one pet project was the Paper Flower Bouquet. I don't like cut flowers. I love paper. And I got it in my head one day that to have a few flowers made of comic books would be the coolest thing ever ever ever. That was the biggest DIY project.

Other DIY/Handmade elements:

  • Made the postcard "save the date"
  • Made and the invitation and invitation "minicomic"
  • I made the table cards out of panels from my webcomic
  • My mother hand silk-screened welcome bags (for out of town guests)
  • My mother-in-law made the collaged gift-card-box at the last minute (She is also the miracle worker that managed to source almost 100 8oz glass bottles of Coke in lieu of champagne which we somehow managed to get up the mountain….. I then had to source like 20 vintagey-looking bottle openers….. Weddings are kind of silly in the things they make you do.)
  • I crowd-sourced my first dance. I asked readers from my webcomic to create a mashup of our song. I'm still very proud of it and my amazing readers from around the world. http://www.youtube.com/user/spikecomix#p/a/u/2/t4dDPnJfJSM
  • Trevor made the wedsite http://www.trevormay.ca/wedding/ (coded from scratch)

What are three things you're glad you did

  • Glad I delegated to experts. Aside from my top priorities, I focused on choosing people I trusted and let them run with their ideas. I'm terrible with design and décor, Jocelyn saved the day big time there. I let the photographer, accordionist and DJ mostly do what they wanted with some simple instruction, the results on all counts were fantastic. My EmCee was nervous when I first assigned him the job but was fantastic!
  • Glad I decided early on what I would let go. Every time I started to freak out over something, I asked myself "Is this really going to derail the wedding? Who cares." I focused on the type of BRIDE I wanted to be – happy and chill. My bridal posse's only task was to keep me calm and fix problems and they did an awesome job, especially my little sister. I gave her a book of everyone's phone number, an itinerary and my cell phone and she took care of everything. It was the right choice, and my sis was fantastic.
  • Glad I pulled my bridezilla card (the only time I did so… I think… I hope!!) and forced everyone to cross a canyon and hike over rocks in formalwear. I love BC's trees, and very early on I had a vision of photos in a lush forest. At the last minute, after a hike up the Grouse Grind, I realized that the trees and dirt at the peak weren't the type I had hoped for. So, I added a second photoshoot venue – Lynn Canyon. A bit out of the way, and it meant that everyone had to hike over suspension bridges, clamber over rocks and down muddy trails in heels and dress shoes. I had the trickiest heels and dress of all, and aside from jokes nobody complained (much.)  It was the best decision ever, those are still my favourite photos that I know I will treasure forever.

Three things you wish you had done

  • We're so happy with the way the wedding turned out, most of our regrets are about being unable to serve the people we love. There were two levels to the ceremony deck, and we wish we had crammed more people on the deck that was closer to us. I wish I'd had the courage to invite more people. Trevor wishes he'd had more time to mingle with the guests – especially the out of town visitors.
  • The venue was gorgeous, but I wish I'd had a chance to visit it in the summer. Like many Vancouver venues, it doesn't have air conditioning! We only found this out the day-of… when we were dying of heat exhaustion inside. I staked all my plans on a beautiful sunny day (which I got), but it was TOO bright and too hot! Can't please everyone. Had I known that, I might have planned a bit differently, but it worked out.

What is your very best hindsight advice?

  • Prioritize and let go. Decide early on what you do and do not care about. Weddings make you crazy, and you can easily be convinced that something minor is of the utmost importance. For us, it was all about celebrating our love and making sure that everyone who came had an amazing time.

☛ On a final note, I started drawing comics about my wedding experiences. I'm hoping to get more into it later this year, might come out with a book about it!

Wedding Comic

Team Wedding

Photographer:  Wink Photography
Hair Stylist:  Is Salon
Musicians:  Francois Laberge
Reception Venue:  Grouse Mountain
Dress Store:  Alfred Angelo
Photo Booth Equipment:  Photobooth Vancouver
Officiant:  Gail Delaney

Submitted through Two Bright Lights {LOVE!}