A Cozy Christmas Wedding: A Turkey Feast

Now it was time to eat!

Our dinner began with some borscht and mushroom dumplings:



We picked borscht because we thought soup was a great way to start a dinner in December, we both love borscht, and it was a nod to Mr. Knitting's Polish roots.

Then most of our guests were served a traditional turkey dinner chosen for it's connection with Christmas:



Lots of our guests said nice things about the turkey dinner, but in my (admittedly biased!) opinion, I think the gluten-free vegan option was actually a lot better. I think this might be a first...

Ratatouille:



Those crackers on top were both delicious and fun!:



I had lots of fun pretending to have horns (too many amaretto sours?).

The view of the King's Table that Mr. Knitting and I had:


Guest Photo

This photo actually gives you a better idea of what the lighting was like in the dining room. It was definitely pretty dark and cozy.

While many couples choose to use dinner time to visit tables, we made a point to limit that as much as possible. We figured if we started moving around a lot, our guests would follow suit, thus making it difficult for the servers to do their job. The staff had also told us beforehand that we're the ones that set the pace for the dinner, so if we took a lot of time to eat our food, then dinner would be going on forever. Our wedding was also small enough so that even without table visiting we were definitely able to spend time with most of our guests.

That being said, despite our best intentions we definitely did a bit of table visiting:


Guest Photo

Doing one of our favourite poses:


Guest Photo

I'm not totally sure how this became a thing, but we do it a lot:


Personal Photo


Personal Photo

The meal ended with some ice cream for our guests to enjoy during the toasts before we set them loose on our dessert table. Once again, the vegan option seemed a lot more appealing.

Vanilla ice cream in a chocolate cup:



vs.

Raspberry sorbet:



Okay to be fair, the photo of the sorbet was worked on by our photographer and the vanilla one wasn't, but still. Raspberry sorbet is way more exciting!

Don't worry though, these weren't our real desserts! These were more of a pre-dessert to enjoy during the toasts before the real dessert from the dessert table (which had awesome vegan and non-vegan options!).

I really enjoyed the dinner. The food was really good and by this time all of the stressful parts of the wedding were over. I had a really nice time just sitting there chatting with those around me and just letting it soak in that I was married and that I was actually at my reception dinner.



However, the best part of dinner was definitely the toasts that came right at the end. Stay tuned for the awesomeness!

Unless otherwise noted, all photos by the amazing Josh Levinson.

A Cozy Christmas Wedding: Dinner Time!

After the cocktail hour ended our guests made their way into the dining room and found their tables. After a brief introduction by my little sis, Mr. Knitting and I joined everyone and it was time to eat!

Our MC:



Our grand entrance:



We chose to walk in by ourselves without our parents or wedding party because that felt a bit too formal to us. We almost chose to skip any kind of grand entrance ourselves, but then decided that was going to far in the other direction!

I was really happy with the way we seated everyone. Most people were sitting at tables of six, which made having conversations a lot easier. I really liked how this added to the intimate feeling of our wedding.

My gorgeous dance friends:



In contrast, Mr. Knitting, myself, our wedding party and their partners sat at a King's Table. For a review of what this is have a look at this post.

Here's a look of it in action:



I absolutely loved the King's Table. We sat at the end and then everyone else sat on each side of the table. This was a great option for us because it solved my problem of not wanting to split up our wedding party from their partners, but also not really wanting to sit at a sweetheart table or with our families. It also felt really fun and festive and enabled me to have lots of hilarious conversations with my older sis. I highly recommend this option!

As we waited for our yummy food to be served our guests could enjoy some of the details on their tables.

There was the jam my dad made:





Our centrepieces:





Our very Christmas-y menus:



Our equally Christmas-y table numbers:






Personal Photo


Personal Photo


Personal Photo

Each table number featured a different vintage Santa image that I found. It was occasionally really funny looking for these because while most of the images were awesome, some of them were really creepy.

For example:



Needless to say, none of those ones made it into our table numbers!

However, details could only occupy our guests for so long (30 seconds?) and soon it was time to eat!

Unless otherwise noted, all photos by the amazing Josh Levinson.

A Cozy Christmas Wedding: Cocktails

After Mr. Knitting and I were down eating some appetizers we headed downstairs to be with our guests and to have some drinks (amaretto sour for me!).

Mr. K spent some time with his high school friends:



Our guests enjoyed cocktails and appetizers:







My little sis and godmother enjoyed some sweet potato fries in adorable containers:







At one point during the hour we took some time out to take the picture below. This picture is of all the grandchildren on my father's side and our partners (except for Josh our photographer) with our grandmother.



Aside from having cocktails and appetizers, guests could also spend some of the cocktail hour looking at our family wedding photos. I decided I wanted to display as many family wedding photos as possible and in the end we displayed photos ranging from 1910 (my great-grandparents) to 2010 (my cousins).



I got my lovely friend Emily to help me with this project, because I'm better at thinking things up than at things like gluing and cutting in straight lines!



The photos were arranged by generations. The first was grandparents and beyond:



Then we had parents and aunts and uncles:



Finally, we had siblings and cousins:



With that, it was time for dinner!

All photos by the amazing Josh Levinson.

A Cozy Christmas Wedding: A Receiving Line and Some Quiet Time

It was really important to me to individually greet each of our guests so we chose to have a very small receiving line consisting of just myself and Mr. Knitting. We stood just outside the doors of our ceremony room and greeted everyone as they began to file downstairs. This had the added benefit of slowing the guests' arrival at the bar, thus making our bartenders lives a bit easier!

I realize that looking at pictures of us hugging people is a bit boring so I'll keep it brief.

Here's the basic set up:



And here's us with two of our awesome friends:





After we had greeted everyone we snuck away for a bit of private time to let the fact that we were married sink in.

Our photographer grabbed a quick shot of us in front of a Christmas tree in our ceremony room:



We had requested to have some appetizers and water waiting for us in a private room so we could eat them without getting distracted by all our favourite people. However, I pretty much burst out laughing when I saw the plate of appetizers that we'd chosen.


Personal photo

Yup, almost every single thing was fried (the salmon at the back that you can't really see was not). Now I love fired food. I don't eat it all that often because I'd like to avoid heart disease, but I fully admit that it is delicious. This, however, was just some bad menu planning. No one wants endless amount of fried stuff.

In my defense, we also provided a huge vegetable platter and a selection of hummus, baba ghanoush,olives and sundried tomatoes, and had options that suited omnivores, vegans, and gluten free vegans that eat salmon. However, even the perogies, which should not have been fried, were fried. I don't think this was a huge problem, but I think if I was to do it over I would definitely be a bit more judicious in picking menu items that had a wider variety of colour and cooking techniques.

Here's the rundown of our cocktail menu:

Sweet Potato Fries (fried, but at least these were orange)
Vegetarian Samosas (fried)
Perogies (inexplicably fried)
Crab and Brie in Phyllo Pastry (fried)
Mini Fish and Chips (definitely fried)
Asian Spiced Salmon Skewers (not fried!)
Grilled pita (and gluten free chips of some kind) with hummus, babaganoush, olives, and sundried tomatoes (not fried!)
Vegetable wreath (not fried!)

Mr. Knitting posing in front of my favourite tree with the sweet potato fries:


Personal photo

Seriously, isn't this the most bridal looking tree? I wish we'd taken some proshots in front of it:


Personal photo

Then once we were refreshed we headed downstairs for the cocktail hour! I highly recommend working in a small amount of private time for yourselves into the schedule. We were only for probably only about 10-15 minutes and it was really nice to just take a breather together and let the fact that we were married sink in.

Unless otherwise mentioned all photos by the incredible Josh Levinson.

A Cozy Christmas Wedding: The Ceremony Part 1

Finally it was time to get married. Mr. Knitting and I had worked on the ceremony for weeks and I was really happy with it. John Horvath, our Officiant from All Seasons Weddings provided us with a basic ceremony that we pretty thouroghly edited to reflect us and our relationship (i.e. we took out all the really sappy stuff because that makes us cringe a bit!).

*Below I've interspersed parts of our ceremony with some commentary.



Words of Welcome

Welcome. Please be seated. My name is John Horvath and I have the privilege of performing this marriage ceremony today.

On behalf of Kristin and Wojtek welcome and thank you for being here. They are delighted that you are here today to share in their joy during this wonderful moment in their lives. It is a privilege to share such a happy occasion. We are here, not only to witness the vows and promises Kristin and Wojtek are about to exchange, but also to wish them both the very best life has to offer, in your future together as husband and wife.

By your presence, you celebrate with them the love they have discovered in each other and you support their decision to commit themselves to one another for the rest of their lives.

Address to the Assembly

The words that will be spoken here today are significant, though they are not what join these two. Nor is it this ceremony. For we are not here to mark the start of a relationship but to recognise a bond that already exists.

(This was really important for me to include because I don't like the idea that a relationship starts completely new from marriage. We had been partners for a long time prior to this day and I wanted to acknowledge that).

Kristin and Wojtek would like to take a minute to acknowledge their parents and recognize how lucky they are to have such incredible people in their lives. Emilia and Stan, and Mary and Jim, thank you for being such extraordinary, supportive, and generous parents. Your children feel lucky to have you.

I really wanted to take a moment to acknowledge my parents and all that they had done for us. This moment also fit in well with my goal of trying to make other people feel special at our wedding.

This is me eying my parents:



My aunt/pianist and Mr. Knitting's parents:


Guest Photo

At some point in the ceremony John made a small mistake, and being a bit of a control freak I instantly corrected him. He had a good sense of humour about it and make a joke which caused the whole room to crack up including myself and my bridesmaids.



Apparently, the groomspeople were not so amused:



This picture cracks me up a lot. Mr. Knitting's groomspeople aren't the most smiley people and apparently our photographer had a really difficult time trying to get ceremony photos of them where they don't look really cranky!

Reading # 1: Miss Manners

As many of you know, Kristin is a big fan of etiquette books and loves reading them. It should come as no surprise that Kristin and Wojtek have chosen a excerpt from a Miss Manners book for their first reading. I’d like to invite Kristin’s uncle and godfather, Roman, to do this reading.

While exclusionary interest in one other human being, which is what we call courtship, is all very exciting in the stages of discovery, there is not enough substance in it for a lifetime, no matter how fascinating the people or passionate the romance. The world, on the other hand, is chock full of interesting and curious things. The point of the courtship — marriage — is to secure someone with whom you wish to go hand in hand through this source of entertainment, each making discoveries, and then sharing some and merely reporting others. Anyone who tries to compete with the entire world, demanding to be someone's sole source of interest and attention, is asking to be classified as a bore. "Why don't you ever want to talk to me?" will probably never start a satisfactory marital conversation. "Guess what?" will probably never fail."




Guest Photo

I've written about this reading before, but I really do love it. I love that it's from an etiquette book and I really love the message of it. It's so important to pursue your passions and interests in order to be a good partner and I'm glad that's something we highlighted at our wedding.



The Expression of Intent and Consent

Now just a few questions. First for you Wojtek. You have chosen Kristin to be your wife. Will you love and respect her? Will you be honest with her always? Will you continue to do the dishes, make morning smoothies, and be a minimum of 5 minutes early for everything? Will you stand by her through the challenges you may face? (Answer: 'I will')



Kristin, you have chosen Wojtek to be your husband. Will you love and respect him? Will you be honest with him always? Will you continue to make his life fun and exciting and attempt to be less lazy at doing chores around the house? Will you stand by him through the challenges you may face? (Answer: 'I will')



The guests also all cracked up at the fun and exciting part because it sounds a bit self centred. In my defense, while I dealt with most of the ceremony myself, we definitely wrote that part together. Plus, it's true. I do make his life fun and exciting!

The Affirmation of Family and Friends

Now, in the spirit of joy and affirmation, I want to ask your families and friends a question:

Do you, the families and friends of Wojtek and Kristin, give them your blessing and support, wishing them a wonderful life together full of laughter, fun, and new experiences? (All answer: 'We do')

And with that we were half married!

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 and we looked at some ceremony details
We walked down the aisle