A Winter's Tale

Another oldie but goodie... this is the beautiful winter wedding we did in Lake Louise, Alberta, almost 2 years ago. I wrote about the skating party we threw on the frozen lake in a previous blog post, but realized I never posted photos of the actual dining room...

The dinner reception was held in the storied Victoria Room at the Chateau Lake Louise, complete with its oddly charming 'Ode to the Swiss Alps' decor. Yes, those are pastoral scenes with milk maids and men in lederhosen hand-painted on the ceiling arches... It's a big room, with fabulous, big stone fireplaces at either end.

As event planners, we are hardly ever allowed to used 'open flame' -- i.e.: candles whose flames are not contained within a glass container/votive. I couldn't believe it when the Chateau Lake Louise said we could use tapered candles --  that became the starting point for the whole design. My bride had a vision of silver candelabras running down the long tables and I must say, it was so cool to be able to do that. I don't think the rental company had ever rented (or had to assemble) so many of them at a small wedding before. There were three different sized candelabras on each of the four long tables, and boy, it took a long time to light all those candles.

I had the actual candles shipped from Toronto and was so worried about breakage that I ordered about 6 dozen extra; I could think of nothing worse than being trapped in a potential snowstorm on the top of a mountain  with no way to get more candles if needed. It turned out my worries were for naught: not even one candle arrived broken. I was so impressed!

Heather Simms from The Nosegay in Calgary did a lovely job with the all-white flower vision: each glass vase held a single kind of white flower: tulips, ranunculus, amarylis, anemones, hydrangea, roses and, honestly, it was so long ago now, I can't remember what else!! But, as you can see, there were a lot of them... Heather and her team were real troopers -- they drove up to us in a ferocious storm with all the precious cargo on a drive that should've taken 2.5 hours and instead took 5. Ahhh... the joys of destination AND winter weddings...

I love this photo... it shows a close up of the table setting AND the million-dollar view in the background.

This is a close up of the menu that carried on our winter-wedding-themed stationery, created by Julie and Christian of Pantry Press. Everything we did represented 'tracks' pressed into fresh snow: The invites themselves had ski and dog tracks (taken from a real photo my bride and groom took after they skied down a run, accompanied by their black lab, Fernie). The weekend activites card showed footprints going to and from snow angels and the travel detail insert showed skate tracks in the ice. So very, very Canadian of us!

These photos are kind of fun... showing the room once all the guests sat down for dinner. "Sat down" was a relative term, as there was a whole lot of shakin' going on that night.

Finally a couple of shots of my wonderful couple. Baby, it might have been cold outside, but inside it was cozy and warm and everyone felt the love radiating from them, all weekend long.

Thank you to our friend Michael Greenberg for coming along on our Rocky Mountain Adventure and preserving the memories so beautifully. It was magic, pure and simple, and you captured every moment of it.

Winter Wonderland, Part 1

Well, winter has finally come to Southern Ontario, so I thought it only fitting to have the last post of 2011 be a look back at a gorgeous 3-day winter wedding weekend we planned last April at the Chateau Lake Louise in the middle of Banff National Park. However, this post isn't about the wedding itself at all, but about the skating party we threw on the Friday afternoon -- a quintessentially Canadian event, if ever there was one...

Every guest received a Wedding Scarf that we asked them to wear throughout the weekend. We thought this was a good idea to a) keep people warm and b) to help them identify themselves to one another in a very large hotel... And it worked! Strangers met strangers and new friendships were formed, just because of the reversible houndstooth/plaid scarves! I was thrilled to see everyone turn up to skate on the frozen lake, proudly sporting their new wedding attire...

When planning for this skating party, one of the things I really struggled with was what kind of music to play, mostly because of the magnitude and majesty of the setting. Whatever we played had to have some kind of presence and drama. So I decided that it could only be opera... however, not snobby, elitist opera, but easily recognizable arias. Not being any kind of expert, I snooped around on iTunes and found "The 66 Most Beautiful Opera Arias." It couldn't have been easier -- the selection was perfection. Yes, with the click of one button, iTunes made me look like a GENIUS (not to mention a true aficionado).

We set up 4 massive speakers, turned them towards the lake and pressed 'play' on the trusty iPod...

Holy Crap.

I tell you, I have seen a lot of cool things over the course of my career, but listening to that big, bold, beautiful music booming out of those speakers while watching the little specks (relative to the size of the mountains, of course) glide around on the ice was one of the most amazing things I've ever witnessed. And so simple, really. Dramatic Music + Stunning Setting = Overwhelmingly Profound Experience.

I love this photo, taken by the man who so expertly captured the mood out there, Michael Greenberg of Phototerra Studio. This guest, wearing a vintage Toronto Maple Leafs sweater (and wedding scarf, of course!), lost in the music and the moment...

We served lots of yummy things out there, including hot cocoa, coffee and tea. We stuck custom labels on the cups with the tag line "To Warm Your Tummy." (FYI, in case you're wondering, the sticker on the bag with the scarves for each guest read: "To Keep You Warm and Cosy.")

We had our own little wedding crasher! He was everywhere! Michael even managed to catch him mid-flight, overseeing the guests twirling around the lake below him; take a look at the next shot and the dire warning on the signpost:

Winter Wonderland, Part 2

Another classic Michael Greenberg shot: this is Ian, our bartender, essentially wedged into a snow drift with some snowmen to keep him company. And to think I was worried there might not be any snow left at the beginning of April. Ha!

But back to this photo. At first, our guests only were drinking the hot stuff, shown in the post above, but once the skating ended, Ian got a whole lot busier and a whole new party started at the base of the Victoria Glacier...

A cutthroat game of hockey took place a little ways away from the recreational skaters. Oh yeah, baby: Canada vs. USA.

Am proud to report the trophy did not go to the visiting team...

My bride and groom... showing everyone how it's done.

And what would a party in the Canadian Rockies be without a little homegrown brew? Molson Canadian and a local beers Big Rock from Calgary and Kokanee from B.C. were on offer.

Finally, this last photo is one of my favourites from the whole weekend. We had everyone drop their skates outside the Poppy Brasserie before going inside for a yummy dinner of fondues, sauerkraut, strudel and any other stereotypical alpine/mountain-y dish we could think of! And, in case you're wondering, the soundtrack for the first 45 minutes of the dinner was none other than... Swiss yodeling! Yodel-leh-hee-hoo.

The Talented Mr. Greenberg

I thought it was high time to devote a post to my friend the photographer Michael Greenberg of Phototerra Studios. When the family for this particular wedding and I were in Montreal interviewing photographers, I came out of the meeting with Michael and said to my clients, "We would and should be honoured to work with that man." Sure enough, the photographic results that came from that very special September weekend in Mont Tremblant, Quebec are a testament to the beauty of the surroundings, the love within an incredible family and, most of all, Michael's rare talent.

Since that wedding, I've had the pleasure to get to know him a little more. A former doctor and classical pianist (with a brief stint in the Israeli army thrown in for good measure), he brings a pretty interesting life experience to every photo he takes. Above all, he is one of the most humble and unassuming talents I've ever met. In fact, he's probably blushing right now, if he's reading this for the first time...

It's been really interesting to watch the world catch on to his gift too; you can read some of the accolades and articles being written about him on the Phototerra blog. He travels regularly between Montreal and Toronto, where they also have a studio, as well as jetting off to far parts of the globe to capture weddings and 'stuff' that he documents on his own personal journey.

Some long-time readers of this blog will recognize this setting from a previous post I did. I still get the shivers when I think back to this time. You can click here for a shortcut to the story.

I'll end this post with one of my favourite photos Michael took from the entire weekend. On the Friday night, we held a cocktail reception at the top of the mountain. We served pink champagne at the base, then guests climbed on the gondola and were whisked to the top, where a smorgasbord of Quebec cheeses and charcuterie awaited. This picture is of the emergency stop for the gondola -- I, of course, love what is implied in this photo... the truth is that the gondola operators were not responsible for the glassware left on top!