Dustin and Jamie's wedding in Calgary, Alberta

Colors came next. My husband's favorite color is red and I wanted to incorporate that somehow. I debated with red and black but didn't want a Valentine's day or Christmas feel. Then I thought light blue and red to have a carnival theme. I'm not sure how I ended up with my final color scheme, as it is quite unusual for a wedding, but I went with rose gold and white with red accents. I think I was partially inspired by my rose gold ring.

I had a fantastic florist who created beautiful pieces within my price range with my vision in mind. My bouquet had rose gold succulents and was tied with red ribbon. My bridal party wore rose gold dresses and had bouqets that complimented them beautifully. The groomsmen and groom had rose gold ties and wore rose gold painted succulents.

Our theme was a kind of modern geometric theme with subtle zoo elements tied in. Each table was assigned a zoo animal so guests were sitting at the zebra table or giraffe table. I had little ceramic zoo animals litterred in my decor, and for favors we had zoo animals embedded with seeds to plant and grow perrenials.

I'm not a fan of traditional cake, so instead we had a dessert table. We had mini donuts, cakepops, fudge, cookies and rice crispies. The amazing Whippt Catering in Calgary made me a cutting cake out of banana bread and it was amazing! They also made the cake pops and mini donuts to match my color scheme. At the end of the night we put out little baggies so people could bring home leftover treats.

Instead of a garter toss or the traditional shoe game we played an interactive game with guests. The MCs asked questions like, who is the better cook? Guests would have to stand on one side of the room if they thought it was the groom or the other side of the room if they thought it was the bride. It was really fun for us to see what side people took for what question.

My photographer- who as you can see- was absolutely fantastic. Three and a bit months later I still stare at my photos and re-live the day. My DJ- Klay, was the best and everyone talked about him and how great he was for weeks after. He made everything so personal and fun. He knew how to keep the party going and there was never a dull moment or awkward lull.

Somehow everything tied all together. It truly was the best day. I kept waiting for something to go wrong because I had heard so many wedding horror stories. Nothing ever happened. I got to marry my high school sweetheart surrounded by our closest family and friends. Even the hippos and giraffe got to celebrate with us on our big day!