Melissa and Mark travelled to the beautiful island of the Dominican Republic for their spring-time nuptials. Having Dominican blood and a lot of family there, it is a place Melissa has always held close to her heart. The couple also saw it as a good opportunity to have a small wedding with their guests being close friends and family. The planning of a wedding abroad is never the easiest task, but luckily for the couple, Melissa’s cousin Juan Carlos  is the events manager at the resort and helped to ensure everything ran smoothly and allowed all of their ideas and wishes to come to form for the big day. Almost everything was their idea, from flowers to colour scheme, location to music, the only thing they did not plan were the surprises that day. The planning began as soon as they were engaged on June 13th 2009. Almost a year in the making, they finally wed on the Beach Gazebo at Melia Caribe Tropical, Punta Cana.

Melissa arrived in a horse and carriage (a little surprise from her cousin), and after the ceremony itself they had a three piece meringue band play during the post-ceremony cocktail hour right on the beach front. Following this, they took to the beach for photographs and then headed to the outdoor amphitheatre for the evening reception. The amphitheatre itself was lined with tiki torches and candles from the walkway to the entrance, and all along the inside. A few more surprises came from Melissa’s cousin, including a very touching speech about the families coming together, a contemporary dance piece performance (for Melissa’s love of dance), a three piece vocal group for the arrival and during the meal, as well as some pyrotechnics during the first dance. The couple expressed that entire day was beyond perfect and more than they could have ever wished for. Mark concluded: “Having a destination wedding so close to our hearts made everything much more special and being able to do everything as traditional as we wanted it and also as original as we wanted, made for a day that neither of us will ever forget”.

{photos taken by Kara for Arrecife Studio; dress by Maggie Sottero; headdress: the Acacia 2 by Jenny Packham; text provided by Mark Hayton, edited by Samantha Dubeau}

This carnival/beach engagement session by Erin Leppo is so much fun! Unfortunately for me… this past long weekend I stayed in by myself watching the fireworks from my apartment window. I really wish I could have been on the sand watching them from a closer distance, and eating sugary cotton candy like this happy couple. A perfect date night for me always includes sweets and exploding lights in the sky.

So job well done, Erin. This set certainly made me swoon. What a perfect summer date night.

{photos from Erin Leppo’s Flickr stream}

Not too long ago, Evan and Rachel finally moved in to their new home that they had built from scratch. How cool is that? I’m pretty sure they picked out everything from the flooring, to the trimmings, to the ceiling fixtures. What an exciting journey! But of course, all that hard work led to this…

Great work guys, and good luck! So glad to have been a part of it by helping you design your moving announcements.

This lake themed shoot by Seattle photographer James Moes has captured my heart. The photos are simple, tender and serene. James works under the name Holy, Holy Matrimony and carries both Canadian and U.S. passports, shooting from the beautiful British Columbia to California.

This shoot has me set on a picnic boat date this summer. Now I just have to get someone talented with a camera to capture it. ;)

Be sure to view the rest of the shoot here, and follow other current works on his blog.

{images from the blog of James Moes}

A friend of mine, Jaman, was just married to Cherrie in Hong Kong last week. As a pre-wedding trip, the couple went to Hokkaido, Japan in January with a photography company, Muse Muse to take their wedding photos.

Jaman and Cherrie traveled with two other engaged couples, and a photography team of 4 people to Japan for 15 days. Since Hong Kong doesn’t get snow, it was a special opportunity to capture their pre-wedding photos in a winter scene. From the behind the scenes video, you can tell it wasn’t easy capturing these shots in the cold! However, I’m sure it left each couple with beautiful photos and a great memory. Congratulations!

{images by Muse Muse}

A while back, we posted some engagement photos from our friend, Jessica and her fiance, Eric. The couple recently launched their wedding website, which captures their personalities perfectly. This is such a lovely collaboration between a designer bride and engineer groom :)

My favourite part of the site is the story of the proposal, that has little annotations from the unknowing bride :P Sadly, I will be missing out on this wedding next month but I’m sure it will be well documented with photos on this website!

I wanted to let these photos explain what I’ve been up to for the past week or so. One of the couples we featured under Real Weddings, Rachel and Evan, are moving into their first home together.  I’m very excited for them, especially since they have gone through the whole building process from start to… well, soon enough, finish. Can’t wait for the final reveal. And how am I a part of this? I’m making custom moving announcements for them. Yay! Can’t wait to reveal those as well.

This was the best of them all…

I actually cried when I flipped to the word ‘live’. Looking forward to next September. :)

I love hearing stories about how brides-to-be were proposed to and how their fiancés planned out the perfect proposals. So when I found this on bridepop, I knew I had to share it. Casey brought his girlfriend Amy to the place they had their first date. There, 11 of their friends delivered tiny boxes to Amy, each containing a small token of their time together. The last box was delivered to Casey, and in it was the ring.  The couple was interviewed about the big moment. Watch the surprise unfold in the video below as Amy laughs, cries, talks and gets quite the surprise at the end. Amy – you are one lucky gal, and Casey – well done Sir !

Casey proposes to Amy from One Small Instrument Pictures on Vimeo.

So most people don’t know, but I spent over fifteen years of my life figure skating. Some I even dedicated to coaching (mostly little ones ages 4-10). Those were important years to me. I still have my skates… well, not the ones I started out in, but the ones I used for the last few years of my skating. I miss it so. My favourite area was always ice dancing. I wanted so badly to achieve what is called the ‘gold’ in ice dancing, but never went on to complete all the testing. This is something different from an Olympic gold, but regardless it was a huge accomplishment to me. I still think about going back and completing it.

So when I heard just a few days ago that Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue had won the gold medal for Canada in ice dancing, I was thrilled. And then I watched the routine. I couldn’t have been more excited, proud, and moved by a performance. I am still so amazed by the technique and feeling that was put into that routine. It was the perfect display of a classic romance: timeless, elegant, and tender.

Even if you aren’t as excited about skating as I am, it’s a must see. It’s like watching an old Hollywood romance movie, except on ice. See for youself: this is the routine done at the Grand Prix Final in 2009, and here is the gold medal moment they shared this year at the Olympics. The video makes my heart delighted, especially since these two have been ice skating together since they were kids. You can really sense the chemistry and care they have for each other when they skate.

Note: Pretty certain Scott whispers “I love you SO much” after the completion of their routine. *cue heart melting

{image from CTVOlympics.ca; screen capture from CTVOlympics on YouTube}