NYE Wedding at Steam Whistle - Hayley + Dave

Steam Whistle Wedding shot by Jennifer See Studios

Hayley + Dave celebrated New Years Eve in the best way possible, with their wedding!

What better way to ring in a New Year than with your wedding, surrounded by all your loved ones at legendary downtown venue, Steam Whistle Brewing?!

Hayley and Dave. Where to begin with these love birds? These two started planning their wedding right at the beginning of the pandemic, hopeful for a celebration in 2021.

A downtown wedding wasn’t their original plan but because of COVID, their wedding venue was changed multiple times. In addition to venue changes and all the other details of planning a wedding, Hayley and Dave were thrown for a loop when Provincial rules changed around the holiday season and the couple had to completely scale back their guest list and change rules for their gathering. It was a stressful few days leading up, but all you could see on their faces the day of the wedding was pure joy!

It was a gorgeous winter day, 10 degrees and sunny in December to be exact, and if you’re not a local, you should know that’s a warm winter day for Toronto. We had so much fun dancing around the Steam Whistle property, even utilizing the steam coming from the brewery as a wicked backdrop to some of their photos.

The day was filled with lots of laughs and smiles and the couple didn’t hesitate to bring the party vibe with them. They danced in their seats, hosted an epic meal catered by Food Dudes and even popped bottles around a champagne tower!

Everything was so unbelievably classy. The planning and décor were executed by the team at Love by Lynzie and they made the space look absolutely brilliant. And in addition to the décor, Hayley and Dave’s guests were dressed to the nines. I asked around and found out a lot of people were renting their dresses from The Fitzroy, check them out if you haven’t before!

Hayley and Dave are a prime example of going with the flow and taking lemons and making the best damn lemonade you’ve ever had!

What was your favourite part of the day?

Hayley - "This is so hard! I think the best part of the day was during dinner, looking out and everyone was having so much fun. After so many repeated planning nightmares and all of the stress of not having the NYE wedding we had imagined, to see that everyone was still really enjoying themselves was such a relief. There are a million other perfect moments I could list but this was really my biggest takeaway"

Dave - "It was all so much fun but two moments come to mind right away. First was seeing Hayley getting her picture taken in the steam and I remember thinking, 'I'm really lucky!' The other time was during dinner when a handful of family picked up their chairs and sat around our table. Everyone was laughing and having a great time!"

Was there a special reason for choosing to celebrate on New Years Eve?

Honestly - we both really hated NYE. There is so much pressure, you can never find a cab, everything is so expensive and it just always feels like a chore. We talked a long time ago about how we always wanted there to be a party to go to where we could dress up, have really good food, and be with all of our favourite people. The wedding seemed like the best way to do that. We also want to continue the tradition with black tie dinner parties on NYE each year for our closest friends and family!

How did you navigate so many changes throughout the planning? Including major city and venue changes?!

This really cannot be sugar coated - it was awful. It felt like every month or two we would get excited just to have that plan be decimated by some disaster or another - and not all of them were COVID related! Ultimately a big part of our survival was that both of our families were extremely understanding and supportive. They never complained about guest list changes or itinerary changes, and they always were right there with us when we decided to forge ahead. The other thing that really made it bearable was having the most extraordinary team of vendors (especially Jenn!) who were always able to stay positive but also provide quick and amazing ideas for how we could make the wedding happen in a different way. We could not have done it without any of them!

Our biggest fear was that we would feel like the wedding was a let down - that we should have waited until we could have our complete guest list, or a dance floor, or the other "normal" wedding things. Now we know that that is not something that anyone should fear. Of course, if those things are non-negotiables for you then everyone should do what is best for them but really it is going to be perfectly "you" no matter what. We had a New Years Eve wedding where we had to stop serving alcohol at 10pm, everyone had to leave at 11pm, and no dancing was allowed and we still had the best time ever and all of our guests are still raving about it! The most important thing is to assemble a team that you trust and can lean on, and then just try and focus on it being your day whatever that might look like.