reader wedding: in the fernie mountains

It is with my utmost excitement that I  present to you Christina and Spencer's UNBELIEVABLE Canadian mountain wedding.  Christina has been a follower of the site, and quite a lil email buddy of mine :-)   I LOVE when readers email me - and this is just SUCH a super treat to showcase a wedding from someone in our lil blog community.    So, enjoy the beauty of Fernie and their joyous wedding day!! 

When it came to deciding where to get married, there was never any question. We both love Fernie, BC, the little ski town where Spencer grew up.  We wanted a small wedding that shows off the mountains we love so much. Great food with a BC focuswas a must. 

Island Lake Lodge is a spot we hike out of all the time, famous for its cat skiing. It’s set high in the mountains, about 15 km out of town. Most of those 15 km are up a gravelly, bumpy skinny road, making it very hard to access. Our friends and family rented out the entire lodge for the weekend. That way, we got to spend time with all our guests and had two dinners, two breakfasts and a lunch together.

Our ceremony was actually held back down in the mountain, in town at the small church where Spencer attended as a kid. My childhood priest flew up from Texas for the ceremony. The priest was amazing and had the whole place in tears. He sat us down, knee-to-knee, holding hands and talked us through all the stages of our lives together. I get chills thinking about the moment when he said “and this is the person who will be there, with you, holding your hand as you take your very last breath.”  

We tried very hard to make the weekend personal and we started that process months before. All the guests received a gift bag when they checked in that had a Chris'n'Spencer crossword, beef jerky from the amazing meat market in town, homemade cookies, Cyprus sea salt (I'm from Cyprus) and a personalized note to everyone. People loved the notes and I enjoyed writing them; it was a great way for us to go through every one on the guest list and remember all the wonderful memories with these people.

My dress. I always knew I wanted lace, vintage-y and absolutely no rhinestones or sparkles. And the veil? I’ve always loved that look. It appeals to my Mediterranean side. The blue brooch on the dress was my great grandmother’s. My mom surprised me with it a few months before the wedding.

A couple of other things…a few weeks before the wedding, I went down to Fernie with my mom and we made jam with mother-in-law and sister-in-law for two days. And our moms did a midnight buffet for us. My mom baked all the breads, Spencer’s mom made her famous peanut butter balls and the amazing deli in town did up meat and cheese trays. For flowers, the florist at Bunches in Fernie was incredible. She dreamed up putting lights in the baby’s breath wreaths to hang in the windows at the lodge after we used them in the church. She was great at finding ways to make everything have multiple uses.

Bringing the rubber boots was one of the smartest things I did that weekend. It enabled us to get anywhere we wanted for photos. Plus, they’re comfy and look cute.

Their magical first dance!

All the photos are credit to Jenn Dykstra of Open Image, except for the hug in the church. That’s my brother-in-law Martin Zacharias.