Sweet + Intimate Canadian Wedding...

I love cakes with ruffle icing. Especially when that ruffle icing is pink, so the second I saw Yvonne and Tim's amazing wedding cake, I was sold! The rest of their intimate Canadian wedding was just as sweet.The awesome Wei of Photobolic was there to capture every moment, and as always, did an incredible job!

More from Yvonne:

Tim proposed on New Year’s Eve of this year, while we were back east for the Christmas holidays. Almost immediately, we decided to get married in Calgary, Alberta, where we first met and fell in love. Most of our wedding decisions followed pretty easily from there. We chose to get married in July, as that is the only month of the year we weren’t hit with an unexpected snow storm in the years we lived there. Because we had only 6 months to plan, we kept our wedding day vision flexible, and made decisions quickly, which helped minimize stress throughout the planning process.

We wanted our wedding to be small, personal and intimate - about friends, family, and good food. The Ranche Restaurant, located in Fish Creek Provincial Park, was an obvious choice, because of the gorgeous setting and the delicious, local cuisine, and fortunately they had a Friday evening opening. Our choice of venue ultimately inspired the feeling of rustic elegance that informed the rest of our choices, with a subtle nod to Calgary’s cowboy culture thrown in for good measure.

I’m not sure how common this is, but Tim and I didn’t buy into the not seeing each other before the wedding tradition, and I’m very happy we didn’t. Waking up together on the day we would be married, and sharing breakfast together away from everyone else at our favorite diner, kept the day feeling relaxed, and still special. After arriving at the restaurant, our photographer insisted we not see each other again until we were dressed. The “reveal”, amazingly, felt as momentous and touching as if we had been apart for days. The best of both worlds.

When we returned home after New Year’s, my J. Crew catalog was waiting for me. I flipped to the pages of wedding dresses, and immediately found the dress I would buy. That was the end of my dress hunting. I’d say most of our decision making was like that. Everything just seemed to fall into place.

We got married on the lawn outside the restaurant, in a simple and lovely ceremony. We wrote our vows together, possibly the best part of the wedding planning, and we incorporated three of our favorite songs into the ceremony.

Because we don’t live in Calgary anymore, and the town we live in now is quite small, the internet was an invaluable resource for the remainder of the wedding planning. We found a company that designed wood veneer invitations for us, featuring a motif of two birds sitting in a tree. The bird motif was carried onto the letterpress menu cards and the personalized wood veneer nametags on the favors, which also served as place cards. Happily, I found an amazing crafter on etsy who makes adorable fabric lovebird cake toppers, so we could continue the motif. Etsy was also our source for the ring bowl, and Tim’s custom cufflinks, made from vintage maps highlighting Calgary, and Toronto, where we were engaged.

Keeping the wedding small was probably the most important thing we did. Doing so not only made the little details possible, like great food, gorgeous flowers, and customized stationary, but it meant we could spend lots of time with each of our guests, most of whom had traveled across the country to be with us. Because there were just 24 guests divided between 3 tables, we were able to spend at least one course at each of the tables, which I’m so glad we did.

Wedding Vendors:

Photographer: Photobolic
Venue: The Ranche Restaurant
Officiant: Blair Collins
Florist: Tracey at Occasional Bloom
Cake: Crave Cookies and Cupcakes
Hairstylist: Hedkandi Salon
Bride's Dress: J.Crew
Groom's Suit: Giorgio Armani from Nordstrom
Stationery: Oslo Press
Caketopper: Ashley Anna Brown
Ring Bowl: Paloma’s Nest
Hair Accessories: Jennifer Behr
Cufflinks: Tomato-Made
Favors: Chocolate Cowboy Hat
Cake Stand + Wood Frames: Pottery Barn
Wire Basket: Restoration Hardware
Ribbon: The Ribbon Retreat
Boxes: Treecycle Recycled Paper