A Cozy Christmas Wedding: A Few Ceremony Details

I absolutely love reading about other people's wedding details so I'm going to try to be as thorough as possible about mine, starting with a few details related to our ceremony.

Our Programs


Personal Photo

I absolutely loved our Western Union Telegram programs. I was originally inspired by this post on Ruffled, and I'm so glad I followed through on this one. I loved the way they looked and I think they really suited the vintage feel of our wedding.

I also had a lot of fun writing the text of the programs. Our wedding was a pretty casual affair and I wanted the text to reflect that. The paragraphs at the bottom of the programs explain the "wackier" elements of our wedding including Mr. Knitting wedding watch (entitled "What's with the Watch?"), his tie (entitled "What's Going on with Mr. Knitting's Tie?"), and our flower girls (entitled "Why are the Flower Girls Old?"). See I told you I used casual language! If you want to read the program just click on the picture to enlarge.

If you want to make your own telegram programs the template I used can be found here.

Reserved Seating Signs





I really loved these signs and they were very easy to make. I downloaded the frame from The Graphics Fairy and used my favourite Jane Austen font. The signs were then tied to the chairs using bakers twine. We made them for our parents and grandparents and I'd like to think they appreciated the VIP touch, but it may have only been me!

Mr. Knitting's Ties

Mr. Knitting wore 2 (actually 3!) different ties on our wedding day. This is because he is a clotheshorse. Just kidding, he's not, but he did wear 3 ties. The first one was a gift from my MOH:





I know you're all blown away by the fanciness of it, but it actually gets better. The tie plays music. I don't know why he didn't ditch the other ties and wear this one all day. I could have walked down the aisle to his tie music. Opportunity missed!

For our outdoor photos Mr. Knitting wore this tie:



This is one of my (deceased) grandfather's ties and my favourite that Mr. Knitting wore that day. This is the Anderson clan's tartan which is my grandfather's mother's clan.

For the rest of the evening Mr. Knitting wore this one:



This tie features the Anderson clan crest (an oak tree) and motto ("Stand Sure"), which is pretty fitting for a wedding accessory! I love the picture above because my grandmother has been out with my grandfather many times while he was wearing this tie and it's sweet to see her next to Mr. Knitting while he is wearing it.

My Bouquet

I was pretty indecisive about what to do about my bouquet, but in the end a very simple solution found me. While shopping at Pier 1 Imports I found this bouquet for $12:



I was really happy with this find. I thought it was pretty, it was very inexpensive, I loved the colours, and I didn't think it looked completely obvious that it was fake. Done.

My Something Borrowed

My lovely former boss Jennifer provided my something borrowed in the form of this beautiful brooch, which I (meaning my friend Emily!) attached to my bouquet with floral wire.



After the wedding, Jennifer let me keep the brooch so I'm not sure if it really counts as a something borrowed. It's more like a something owned...

Vintage Hankies

I love the trend of incorporating vintage hankies into weddings, so I made sure to include them in mine. I found a great selection in the fabulous vintage stores of Kensington Market and chose a few for myself and my ladies.

Here's a close up of the one I carried with my bouquet:


Personal Photo

My BMs and MOH were supposed to use the others to carry their lanterns, but looking at photos now it appears that they didn't. Fail:


Personal Photo

Oh well, the lanterns are still pretty:



Lace Wrapped Votives

Like many of you I was completely in love with Wedding Bee Hostess Bakerella's wedding recaps, particularly her details post. Seriously, if you haven't read it yet, do it now! I particularly loved the lace wrapped votives she used and ended up buying half of hers to be used in my wedding.

Here's a shot of the candles in action at her wedding:



Photo by Justin Demers of StillMotion Photo and Cinema

And here they are at ours:



We basically lined every surface possible with these candles. The lights were actually a lot dimmer than they appear in this photo so the candles really stood out and looked really nice (in my opinion!).

Ring/Watch Dish

I had a bit of trouble deciding which ring dish to use, but ultimately went with this one:


Personal Photo

It just had more of a cozy, Christmas-y feel and a better size for our wedding jewels.

So those are a few of our ceremony details. People will tell you that details don't matter, but that's not really my experience. Yes, in the larger sense I can recognize that the most important thing is that Mr. Knitting and I got married surrounded by all our favourite people, and maybe in 50 years the details won't be all that important to me, but I really drew a lot of pleasure in collecting these details, seeing them in action, and enjoying them now in pictures and as home decor (that's a different post). As a guest, and as a blog reader, I also really enjoy seeing other people's details. It's fun to see how people have used their creativity to personalize their event. Details are not essential to getting married, but if they're something you care about, then go all out (and then share them on WB so we can all drool over them!).

Unless otherwise noted. all photos by the amazing Josh Levinson

Missed a Knitting Recap?:
First we yoga-ed
I spent the morning being anti-social
Mama Knitting figured out how to dress herself and I turned into a bride
We had our first look and snuggled in the snow
We played in the snow with our friends and then spent an hour doing some unexpected set up
Our guests arrived

A Cozy Christmas Wedding: The Guests Arrive

As we put the finishing touches on all of the wedding details, the guests began to arrive.

My Flower Girls added some last minute desserts to our beautiful table:



My beautiful grandmother hung out with my dad:



The guests began to sign our guest poster:







Then they mingled and enjoyed some apple cider:









A few guests were not familiar with the idea of displaying a dessert table as one would a wedding cake (What do you mean everyone doesn't obsessively read wedding blogs?) and began eating from our dessert table. This resulted in the staff covering most of the table in foil. This makes the wedding blogger in me cringe, but I guess it's better than all the dessert being gone before the ceremony! If you're displaying a dessert table make sure either your guests know not to eat from it beforehand, or have someone (subtly!) guard the table to avoid this problem.

Eventually, it was time for the guests to move upstairs for the ceremony.





Mr. Knitting, his groomspeople, and my aunt (our pianist) got into position:



Oh, and this would be my parents who apparently didn't connect the fact that if they're about to walk me down the aisle, they probably shouldn't be in their seats!



Haha oops! I sent my MOH to go get them and they scampered backstage to wait with us. Now we were ready to walk down the aisle.

All photos by the amazing Josh Levinson

Missed a Knitting Recap?:
First we yoga-ed
I spent the morning being anti-social
Mama Knitting figured out how to dress herself and I turned into a bride
We had our first look and snuggled in the snow
We played in the snow with our friends and then spent an hour doing some unexpected set up

A Cozy Christmas Wedding: The Lost Hour

I wrote about this briefly before in this post, but I wanted to go into a bit more detail as to what happened.

We had arranged with my venue that we would be arriving an hour early to take some more photos inside prior to the ceremony. However, upon arriving at the Faculty Club it turned out that almost nothing had been set up and what had been partially set up (the chairs for the ceremony) had been set up completely wrong.

I found this really frustrating because I had gone over the set up with my venue's coordinator and she assured me that her staff would set everything up. I had dropped off all the items the day before and I had even drawn elaborate diagrams so that everything would be as clear as possible. When we arrived I had been expecting everything to be in the process of being set up, if not actually fully set up. However, when we arrived at the club, all of these items were still in the office.

Even more frustrating was the fact that the ceremony room had been set up in a completely different orientation then I had discussed with the coordinator numerous times. We had discussed setting up the room to face the fireplace and I had gone on to people (and all of you!) about how we would be getting married in front of a fireplace. The event staff apparently had not been informed of this and had set the chairs up facing the windows. It seemed like nothing I had communicated to the coordinator had been communicated to her staff.

As a result instead of spending the hour prior to the ceremony relaxing and taking some more photos, I had to almost comically kick off my shoes and direct our entire wedding party and our families in how to set everything up.

To be fair the staff were extremely nice and really tried to help us as much as possible. When I saw the ceremony room and was like "What the...?" they immediately told me they could change it, no problem. However, I decided to just stick with what they had done. There were too many other things to be done to be wasting manpower on moving 100 chairs. The staff may have also planned to set up the dining room during our ceremony, but I was just so freaked out by the fact that the boxes and diagrams had not been even looked at by the time we arrived that I didn't really trust that to happen.

In the moment I didn't freak out, I just did what needed to be done, and our wedding party and families really came through for us tying signs to chairs, setting up jam, and lots of other random things. That being said I was really frustrated with the lack of communication that went on. I had expected to arrive and have a quick glance over things and then relax and take some photos, but instead got to sprint around the venue. This eventually ended with me sprinting through a back hallway and staircase to prevent my aunt, uncle, and grandfather from seeing me in my dress prior to the ceremony!

Anyway, despite this lack of communication, in the end everything got set up and we went on to have a lovely wedding, in a lovely venue, with a lovely staff. Now, I'm just sad there aren't any pictures of me racing about barefoot in a wedding dress!

Missed a Knitting Recap?:
First we yoga-ed
I spent the morning being anti-social
Mama Knitting figured out how to dress herself and I turned into a bride
We had our first look and snuggled in the snow
We played in the snow with our friends

A Cozy Christmas Wedding: Outdoor Fun with Friends

After we'd finished with photos of the two of us, it was time to take some photos with our wedding party and families.

First I went for a casual walk with my BMs and MOH:



These are the lanterns they will be holding instead of flowers during the ceremony:



Aren't they lovely? (and in perfect height order!):



Then I sent my lovely grown up Flower Girls for a frolic (No, neither of them thought boots were a necessity, and yes those are bare legs on my sister!):







I, of course, figured out how to include matryoshkas in these photos:





I took a quick photo with my parents:



and then ran inside because my feet were getting numb!

Mr. Knitting proceeded to take a few photos with his groomsmen and groomswoman:



Mr. Knitting wanted us to have a snowball fight but I vetoed this idea, as I suspected it would end with me having a soaking wet dress. I was happy to pass this request on to a groomsman:





Huddle (probably for warmth!):



Mr. Knitting the model:



These photos were so much fun to take! I had sort of been dreading this hour for a few weeks beforehand because of the cold, but when it came down to it, I had a really wonderful time. That being said, logistically these photos were a bit tricky to take because we were luckily able to have people wait inside, which meant the people we needed for a photo weren't always right there. It also means that we weren't able to get any shots of the wedding party all together because we ran out of time/body heat. Oh well, I think that's just something that comes with wanting to do an outdoor photo shoot in Toronto in December! All in all I'm so glad we did this.

After we were done at Spadina Museum we all piled back into unglamourous cars and headed to the Faculty Club where a rather unpleasant surprise awaited us...

All photos by the amazing Josh Levinson

Missed a Knitting Recap?:
First we yoga-ed
I spent the morning being anti-social
Mama Knitting figured out how to dress herself and I turned into a bride
We had our first look and spent some time in the snow

A Cozy Christmas Wedding: Then We Frolicked and Froze

Despite all my brainstorming of ways to keep warm during our outdoor shoot, ultimately I just told people to dress as warmly as they could and left it at that. Not going to lie, it was cold and painful, BUT it was also so much fun and I absolutely love the photos we have from it.

With a backless dress with cap sleeves, there wasn't much chance of me being able to keep warm, but I made an effort by wearing my trusty Lululemon Groove Pants under my dress. I also kept my feet dry and warm-ish by wearing my wellies.

Glamour shot of the wellies:



After our first look we started by taking some more pictures of Mr. Knitting and I around the gardens.

I love how you would never know we're in the middle of downtown Toronto in these photos:





The property has a few huge pine trees that we decided to take advantage of. Here we are peeking out:





We of course had to work the fact that we are patriotic Canadians into our photos:



My hand is on the left and Mr. Knitting's hand is on the right. I'm sure no explanation is needed for any Canadian readers, but for everyone else these are really popular mittens that are sold by the Hudson's Bay Company in support of Canadian Olympic athletes. Our original plan was to buy these for our whole wedding party for the photos, but we ended up scaling back to just include the two of us. I love how they look in our photos and we've had the bonus of wearing them for the rest of the winter! Yes, we're now one of those hilarious couples that have a matching clothing item. Maybe we should get matching yoga clothes next...

I found these blocks at Winners a few weeks before our wedding thought they would work well since they pretty accurately described what we were feeling and because I think red looks amazing in the snow:



You'll see that by this point functioning with out a coat was not an option. It was actually really hard to put on this coat because it has quite a few buttons and I'd lost pretty much all manual dexterity by this point!

We then headed over to the gorgeous house to use it as a back drop. We started off with some snuggles:





and then moved on to a back bend:



Finally, we went on a fake walk in the orchard:



and headed off to be married:



Just kidding. We then stuck around for another half hour to take more freezing outdoor photos!

All photos by the amazing Josh Levinson

Missed a Knitting Recap?:
First we yoga-ed
I spent the morning being anti-social
Mama Knitting figured out how to dress herself
I turned into a bride
We had our first look

I'd Rather Be a Guest

As I slowly am starting my recaps and am going through my pictures, I'm really struck with a lot of affection for our little wedding. I had an amazing time planning it, I really enjoyed the day, and I get a lot of joy thinking about it now. However, I've come to the conclusion that I much prefer being a guest at a wedding than being the bride.

I prefer this experience:




to this:


Photo by Josh Levinson

Although I definitely prefer the short hair on Mr. Knitting!

This realization seems really obvious to me now based on what I know about myself, but I was actually surprised to discover this. I attended 5 weddings in the year and a half before my wedding and each time, while I was really excited for the bride, I also couldn't wait for it to be my turn. Being a bride seemed like one of the most fun things ever.

However, now that I'm on the other side, I can definitely say I prefer being a guest.

Don't get me wrong, there are definitely benefits to being the bride. The room is filled with all your favourite people, everyone is incredibly nice to you, the food, music, and decor are all to your taste, you get to marry your most favourite person ever...etc.

Those parts of being a bride were lovely. However, there were some other parts that were not quite as lovely. I felt really rushed the whole day and I felt a lot of personal responsibility for my guests' happiness. Due to my introverted nature I also found it a bit tiring to be the centre of attention all day. My wedding also really stressed out one of my most favourite people and that also definitely affected my experience as a bride.

It also took me quite a while to recover after our wedding. I'm not entirely sure what it was I needed to recover from since our wedding was wonderful and really everything I wanted, but my mind and body were both really exhausted for a couple of months after our wedding. I suspect I just needed some time to process such a huge event, but this was not a quick process for me.

In contrast, as a guest I love just showing up at a wedding and feeling like my only goals are to make the bride and groom feel amazing about the super awesome wedding they planned and to chase down waiters to make sure I'm able to eat the maximum number of appetizers (no, I'm not kidding). Then, after the wedding I'm able to move on to real life immediately.

I think the huge difference for me is that at other people's weddings I don't feel responsible for the happiness of others.

So while I absolutely loved our wedding and am having such an amazing time writing about it for all of you, I have to say that I'm glad it's over and I can just go back to being a guest.

Where do you stand on this? Would you rather be a bride or a guest?

Did you need a significant amount of recovery time after your wedding?