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Century Barn Wedding – Val + Stephen

September 9, 2021

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Val and Stephen’s second wedding at Century Barn

Yep, you heard that right. Val and Stephen invited their closest people to witness them get married for a second time in their summery Century Barn wedding this summer! When the pandemic hit just months before they were supposed to get married at this stunning barn in 2020, the couple were forced to make some decisions. Val and Steve decided to get married with just their family in their parent’s backyard, on their original 2020 date. Val was barefoot in a floral dress saying “I do” to her favourite person under a gorgeous cherry tree.Cut to 2021 and Val and Steve threw a stunning party on their ‘wediversary’ with 50+ people, complete with gorgeous wild greenery by Kith Events, an amazing group of friends in their wedding party, and their adorable pup Florence, and at last, at Century Barn.So what do you do for a ceremony when you’re actually already legally married? Well Val and Steve asked their wedding party to ‘officiant’ the ceremony. Each person had a different role; from welcoming guests, reading poems (abouts dogs!), giving advice, cueing for the rings or vows and annoucing them married, for the second time! This was such a special way for the wedding party to be included. And of course Florence was around, making her way from guest to guest for pats throughout the ceremony.Following the ceremony guests made their way out to the courtyard for signature cocktails and mingling before sitting down in the stunning white tent on the lawn. The wild greenery continued around the perimter of the tent and long garlands adorned the head table. Wine and charcuterie boards awaited guests at each table. The wine labels were customized with hilarious photos that Val and Steve took with the help of a family friend! This definitely kicked off conversation amongst guests while they enjoyed the delicious eats on the custom boards made by Val’s sister, which were given away to winners of rock, paper, scissors at each table!What an honour to hang with this crew for the day! Everything was light, love filled and fun. Congrats on getting married for the second time Val + Steve!

What was your favourite part of the day?!

Val – I thought I was going to be a nervous wreck during our ceremony, but I actually had a blast and thought it was such a fun experience! I also loved seeing all of our family & friends that we hadn’t seen in so long due to the pandemic.Steve – The whole day honestly! And to finally see all the planning Val talked my ear off about for past 2 years finally come to fruition.

What were your top 3 most important things while planning the wedding?

We cared the most about having our closest family and friends there with us to celebrate. Of course when dealing with COVID restrictions, it was figuring out how we could go about having everyone we wanted there while still following guidelines & making our guests feel safe. We were originally planning on having the ceremony outdoors and then the reception inside the barn, but when Sue from Century Barn suggested we tent the garden space to accommodate an outdoor reception & allow for more people we loved the idea. Up until a few days before the wedding I was contacting Kith our florist and Hawley Crescent to change up our greenery, rentals & set-up plans to accommodate our new plan!
We thought about the things we’d enjoy if we were guests at our own wedding – a cocktail to enjoy during the ceremony, a good margarita, shared charcuterie boards on the tables… not unique things by any means, but things we enjoyed & hoped our guests would appreciate too. I guess what we lacked in uniqueness in some areas we made up for through our wine labels!
The ceremony – we had already had our marriage officiated the year before in our small backyard wedding, so having the freedom this year to write our own ceremony & have each person in our wedding party take part in performing it was so special to us. We will always look back and remember that our closest friends and family all had a part in marrying us!