Michelle & John's Intimate Concrete Jungle Sunset Wedding
Posted by Offbeat Intern · Real offbeat weddings

The offbeat bride: Michelle, Engineer (not the kind that drives trains)

Her offbeat partner: John, Doctor (not the kind that helps people)

Location & date of wedding: 54th floor of TD Bank Tower (Canoe Restaurant) in Toronto, ON, Canada on September 2nd, 2008

What made our wedding offbeat: There was never any question as to our wedding date – even before it was discussed, we both knew it would be September 2, the day we met 9 years ago. It just so happened that September 2 fell on a Tuesday this year! Having a weekday wedding made the planning so much easier – we had no trouble finding a venue or vendors, and everyone was flexible when it came to cost.

We got a lot of flack for having a wedding on a weeknight, but by the end we had convinced our 27 guests that mid-week weddings can be awesome!

Little did we know, as we sent out Save the Date cards, our date was actually *saving us*. Our budget was $5500, a nearly impossible budget for a wedding that was to occur at sunset at a chic restaurant on the 54th floor of a downtown office tower, overlooking Lake Ontario.

We knew we wanted a place that would showcase the beauty of the city and that would provide a vantage point for the sunset that would happen as we were being married. We were very lucky to find Canoe and our weekday date made it affordable!

Also, we wanted this wedding to be 100% about us, by us. We proclaimed "we're only going to do this once!" and solicited as little input as possible. We had a ton of fun making our own Save the Date cards, invitations, decorations and programs. John wrote our ceremony which included a "ring warming" where our rings were passed from guest to guest, given everyone an opportunity to participate in the ceremony and (silently) wish us well. We decided that we didn't need vows as we've said all that needed to be said at one point or another over the last 9 years.

The ceremony was perfect for our introverted personalities – we said as little as possible and lasted about 10 minutes. We had no wedding party, no sit down dinner, no scrambling to get from the ceremony site to the reception site and no fuss. So what did we have? We had excellent food, cupcakes made from all natural, organic ingredients, and an open bar. We put our budget to work in the right places and ended up with a low stress, elegant evening that our guests really appreciated.

Participating in the evening commute in full wedding garb was an experience that we will always remember!

To keep within our budget, we opted to have a professional photographer on hand for only four hours. We set aside two hours prior to the ceremony, mostly to capture us in the city.

We took some interesting pictures at the Distillery District (an old distillery site turned into trendy shops and cafes), followed by a frenzy through the financial district that ended on a subway platform. Participating in the evening commute in full wedding garb was an experience that we will always remember!

And, of course, where would we be without cupcakes? And a bouquet of black calla lilies with peacock feathers?

Our biggest challenge: It's hard to come up with a challenge aside from the usual convincing-mom-that-red-shoes-and-scarf-are-okay type stuff, so I'd have to say that our biggest challenge was wardrobe related. The groom had to stakeout the tux store only hours before the wedding to intercept a polka dotted pocket square that hadn't been shipped with his suit. We could have let it be, but it's the principle and, plus, we paid for it…Bottom line: make sure you get what you paid for *before* you leave the store!

Other than that, the planning process and our day couldn't have unfolded any better.

My favorite moment: Hands down, our favourite moment had to be the photography session held prior to the ceremony. We have never had professional photos take for any occasion before and it was definitely a lot of fun and money well spent! We loved running around downtown Toronto; it was entertaining to see the looks of ‘wtf’ on people's faces and hear congratulatory shouts from total strangers.

My offbeat advice: I have a couple of tidbits to share here, the main one being to hold your photography session prior to the ceremony.

We found it reassuring to see each other before the ceremony and it allowed us to relax and be completely present in the moment. As well, a smaller wedding is the way to go – at the end of the evening, we didn't feel that we'd missed out on anything or that the day was a complete whirlwind, and we were able to interact for more than just a moment with each of our guests.

Enough talk — show me the wedding porn: Click the photo below for more flirty and fun pics from Michelle & John's intimate urban wedding!