Summer wedding in Niagara-on-the-lake - Andrea + Steven
As a wedding photographer, it’s always a blast and such a special honour when someone you know asks you to document their big day, but it's extra special when that someone is a fellow wedding photographer as well! Before I dive into this summery Niagara-on-the-Lake wedding, I should share just how I know this awesome couple!
Andrea and I met while we were at OCAD University in downtown Toronto, completing our degrees in the Fine Arts program. We went through our four years of university life together, learning the ins and outs of the photography world, me starting my business, and Andrea starting up hers as well. Fast forward a few years later, I received a call from Andrea’s boyfriend who wanted to plan a special couple’s session. Steven had advised me that he was planning on asking Andrea to marry him at the start of the shoot and following the excitement, we’d capture their engagement photos.
Like many couples over the last two years, Andrea and Steven were planning a wedding during a global pandemic. From capacity limits and provincial closures, these two battled many challenges – including not just one, but three date changes! Originally, they had planned an urban downtown wedding at The Burroughes (which I also love!) but ended up going with a beautiful, bohemian-style wedding at Kurtz Orchards in Niagara-on-the-Lake.
The day was perfection, and the weather in Niagara- on-the-Lake was totally in their favour – a warm and sunny, summer day, filled with love and laughter. Andrea and Steven’s bohemian vibe came through beautifully with celestial undertones. In fact, Andrea’s dress from Ferra Sposa was gorgeous with cosmic details and the florals from Kenilworth Floral were out of this world (*wink* get it?). The couple’s personal touches were a bonus. They included signage they designed themselves, personalized cocktails named after their dogs who couldn’t be there and Andrea even added personal detailing to her dress to make it her own.
The couple and their 50 guests sat under a canopy of trees, filled with chandeliers at a long harvest table, perfect for a family style meal. As the night wrapped up with dancing and laughter, I captured Andrea, Steven and their guests twirl around the dance floor with sparklers – which in my opinion is a fantastic way to end a perfect wedding day! <3
What was your favourite part of the day?!
Andrea - "Oh boy, how to choose! Honestly the whole day was amazing, I was so surprised at how calm I was from the moment I woke up (I thought I would be an anxious wreck!) The weather was SO perfect, being surrounded by close friends and family felt comforting, and truthfully - finally seeing “the vision” just come together in real life was the cherry on top. Between all the uncertainty of the pandemic we had so many changes that leading up I just felt so scrambled on what we were doing and what the day would look like, so stepping onto the property and seeing the spaces put together even better than I ever could have imagined honestly made me want to cry LOL!"
Steven - "my fav part was finally getting together with our friends & family and spending time with them given that a lot of them we hadn’t seen in a while due to the pandemic”
Obviously you guys got hit with planning right in the middle of covid and were forced to make a lot of changes and quick adjustments, including your venue!
How did you navigate this?
"With deep breaths LOL! Honestly it was tough, but ultimately we knew we wanted to get married before the year was over no matter what. Knowing that we didn’t want to put our lives on hold for the ‘big wedding’ we had initially planned helped us stay focused. Anyone who knows me knows I’m the most indecisive person ever, but dealing with lockdowns and restriction changes helped me be decisive because we didn’t have time to overthink. We knew what aspects were important to us and we needed to find a new space that could accommodate those things while also being realistic that we were still mid pandemic. When we came across Gracewood Estates we knew we had to jump on it! Funny enough, the new venue ended up being a thousand times more perfect than what we had initially planned for and fit our vision so much better than our original downtown Toronto wedding. Another cherry on top - actually getting that “Pinterest” wedding due to it being so much smaller because we could splurge on some things we couldn't have initially."
What were the most important aspects of the day? The ones that you really wanted to focus on while planning?
"I’ll admit, being in the wedding industry myself and following so many wedding socials I found it so much more difficult to plan my own wedding because I knew the visuals would play a big part (colours, textures, florals, decor). I was that girl with all the different mood boards and big champagne tastes but with a beer budget aha. However as mentioned above the pandemic helped me just pick something and go with it because I had to make decisions on the fly. I remember the weeks and days leading up I would joke to people that I actually had no clue how the day was going to turn out like because all the decisions I made seemed like such a blur, so when I stepped onto the property and actually saw everything come together it was like holy sh*t *insert the tears* lol. Proved to me that you just gotta trust your gut!"
