REAL MONTREAL WEDDING – RACHEL & IAN

Our heritages are also very important to us and we wanted the ceremony to incorporate them.  Ian’s family is Scottish and I am Jewish so we went for a traditional Jewish ceremony with Scottish flair.  The grooms and the groomsmen wore kilts – what a hit!  They looked amazing and it was a ton of fun for the guests.  The groomsmen were initially going to change into suits for the reception, but they were having so much fun they stayed in the kilts all night.  One of my favourite elements of the ceremony were the kippot, which were made from Ian’s family tartan.  The florists, Alain Simon, took our Scottish theme a step further.  The thistle is the flower of Scotland and, fortunately for us, the thistle is purple – one of our wedding colours.  The florists made fantastic thistle boutonnieres for the men and an absolutely beautiful thistle bouquet for me.  My bouquet was a total surprise and it was more perfect than I could have imagined.  I did not want to throw it at the end of the night!

There was so much we wanted to incorporate into our wedding and I was nervous how to do it all without it looking like a muddled mess.  With the food, venue and ceremony out of the way, all that was left was a fun reception.  We could not decide on a band so we asked our photographers, Davina and Daniel, a young hip couple about our age, for a recommendation.  Without hesitation they suggested the Rusty Band.  We were a little nervous as we never heard them live – and they had never done the Hora before, but all I can say is wow.  They were amazing.  Every one of our guests, young and old, loved them.  They learned a number of special songs for us and had the crowd partying on the dance floor all night long.  Particularly touching was our first dance, a version of Blue Moon that they created for us incorporating some alternative lyrics.  The only time the guests left the dance floor was to grab a quick bite or watch our few surprise moments.

The most fun elements of the wedding for me were the little touches and surprises.  To incorporate our love of friends, family and photography we had a photo booth filled with Canadian props.  We also created a guestbook that included childhood pictures of us and our guests.  To thank my parents for all they did to make the night special, we honoured them with a special dance – a repeat of their own wedding’s first dance.  During the planning my mother kept reiterating how much she loved her first dance, so we had the DJ play it and invite them to the dance floor for their own special moment.  Later in the evening Ian’s brother, a poi dancer, wowed guests with a techno light show.  Then, the biggest surprise for me, was an absolutely amazing video put together by my wonderful husband.  The video started off as a slide show with childhood photos and pictures of us together, then morphed into a video featuring our entire wedding party lypsincing a song for me.  I do not know how he pulled off the surprise, but it was a touching moment and the only time I cried all night.  A perfect end to our perfect event.’