Rainbow Summer Camp Wedding: Sara & Joe

Blushing Bride Studio

December 10, 2013

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As soon as I saw Sara’s incredible rainbow dress I just knew I had to feature this wedding. I mean, goodness, any bride that rocks a dress like that is guaranteed to have an amazing wedding. I wasn’t wrong! The day was held at Camp Kinkora in Montreal where the bride used to go to summer camp as a kid.

“Besides the general thought that our wedding should be a fantastical amalgamation of things we both love, things that inspire us and things that represent our relationship with each other, there was no theme per se”, began the bride. “Although the location dictated what was possible. We wanted to respect the simple natural beauty of the camp and not have too much to take down afterwards! So we put all kinds of important things in the wedding pot (so to speak), and stirred it around some.”

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“For example, I love bunnies, and we have three house rabbits, so it was natural for me to stick rabbits everywhere possible. Rabbit shoes, rabbit hair clip, rabbit pictures, rabbit napkins… Joe grew up playing Nintendo and watching Star Wars, so 1 up mushrooms, coin blocks and light sabres it was. The only part that that was deliberately considered was the colour scheme. People asked me what colours we had chosen, to which I responded ‘All of them!’.”

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“Although we had a non traditional venue, we had a traditional Catholic wedding mass onsite, as there is a consecrated chapel”, Sara continued. We were both raised Catholic, and while we have major issues with some of the doctrine that the Church preaches and do not go to mass regularly, it was the right decision for us. I was worried about it, originally, I wondered if we were doing it for the right reasons, or whether it was simply out of a childhood attachment to Catholic ritual. Wouldn’t it be fun to write our own vows? Or to walk down the aisle to a song from Final Fantasy 6? Do we really want to participate in and so validate a system that excludes others through its doctrine? But after some nice long chats with our priest, I stopped worrying. We have issues with stuff, okay, but he was of the opinion that making room for God in our marriage and our relationship, and learning to communicate with him together was the important thing.”

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“But what about the dress!?” I hear you all cry. Unbelievably it cost her just $600 as it was actually a prom dress and she bought it online! “The wedding dress had many people happily surprised”, she explained. “It was generally assumed that I would be wearing white. In fact, I had looked at many white dresses and I had even shown many people a white dress which I thought that I was going to wear, but it wasn’t me. And I knew it. My little sister called it the Sparkle Firework. Obviously, I needed to wear neat shoes with such a neat dress so bunny shoes it was! Then I dyed my hair to match – pink, blue and purple ombré! People were like ‘Whaaa?’ when I discussed the concept before the wedding, but I knew it would be awesome. (A little boy saw me walking into the forest for pictures after the ceremony and he said to his mom ‘look, a real princess…’ in a very serious voice….awwww.)”

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The reception had a carnival theme, with games and things set up for everyone to play. “Our friends Nathan and Ross created the fabulous carnival games that were outside for the cocktail hour, and during the reception Nathan approached me and asked me if he could propose, that he felt it was the perfect moment, would I feel if my thunder was being stolen? I was like it ‘thunder for everyone! Go for it!’ and so we have the incredible memories of watching two people we are very fond of get engaged in front of 100 cheering onlookers. We were glad we could be part of their story!”

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“If your friends and family are not keen on helping out, do not try for a DIY wedding”, she concluded. “It is not a great idea to stress out your relationships with people so that your wedding can have 100 metres of fabric bunting. Our families and friends were cool with doing some things, but not cool with other stuff, and we needed to respect that, especially when it came to repetitive tasks. The folding of 100 napkins into bunny form almost caused a mutiny among some of our more energetic volunteers!”

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