Blair and Paige's wedding in Penticton, British Columbia

The story of our wedding

We started planning our wedding in 2020 and hearing all the stories last year of couples having to postpone their wedding, we felt very relieved that we had a whole year before ours and it would be back to normal by then.. or so we thought. Covid still very much affected us. We wanted to send out invites but kept pushing off doing so because we didn't know how many people we would be allowed to have and if things would open by then. We had 4 different invite lists, our original one with everyone of our friends and family around 100 people, one reduced list of 50 as restrictions in 2020 were for 50 people, one list of 25-30 people as other provinces had restrictions similar to this, and finally our last minimal list with only 10 people including the photographer and officiant. We ended up sending invites to our immediate family and wedding party, in the hopes that they would at least be able to come and we would hold off on sending to extended family and friends until we knew for sure they would be allowed to come. Well we were waiting and waiting.. and waiting and didn't really know what to tell people, as we were now only a couple months away and numbers allowed were still at 10 people, so only both our parents and siblings would be allowed the day of and everyone else, our brother and sister in law's, our nieces and nephews, our wedding party, would have to watch via zoom, as we decided we didn't want to re-plan the whole thing or postpone so it was going to be June 12 and covid and the restrictions was going to decide who we could invite, and if we would even have time to invite anyone else. Well at the end of May, only a couple weeks before our wedding, the number allowed went up to 50!! We were so excited!!! But also now this meant we basically had 2 weeks to plan our entire wedding because we had only confirmed the flowers, photographer, ceremony venue and officiant, and were waiting very last minute for everything else as we didn't want to lose out on money booking anything and then cancelling last minute. Everybody came together and offered assistance and we couldn't have done it without the help of our family and friends. In 2 weeks time, we planned a backyard reception in our own backyard which meant a ton of time spent gardening, watering, weeding, and making our yard presentable along with all the other things we had to do and plan! We had a friend with a phone and a borrowed speaker that was our DJ for both the ceremony and the reception (and he did amazing), our parents and the few significant others of our wedding party all helped to setup the ceremony and the reception as well as helped take everything down because we didn't have a wedding coordinator or a decorator, and we rented a photobooth that we had to setup which worked out well because we actually were able to have the booth for the whole weekend for more photo fun, rather than just a few hours on the wedding day. Our other vendors were so flexible and amazing including our hair and makeup and transportation and were so easy to work with, which also made things easier.We had several people tell us that our wedding was the best one that they had been to. They liked being able to help with the planning and setup because it really made them feel like an even bigger part of the day. They also liked that they all got to get to know one another well. We had just under 30 people, including ourselves and the children (nieces and nephews) and it was the perfect size. We were able to spend a bit of time with each person and have a conversation which at times is hard on a wedding day if you have a very big guest list you sometimes don't get a chance to even say hello to everyone. It was intimate and beautiful and we couldn't have asked for a better day. The weather was rainy and windy the day before and the day after but our wedding day ended up being sunny and gorgeous and it seemed like everything was just meant to be as it was.It was a very very busy 2 weeks leading up to the wedding, but when the day came it was just a ton of fun and pretty relaxing. We didn't worry about if something went wrong because we were just happy to be able to have our closest friends and family celebrating with us in person, side by side. We certainly wouldn't recommend for anyone to plan their wedding in 2 weeks but we have the absolute best family and friends that were so helpful and everything came together perfectly for the best wedding day we could have imagined!!