June 4th – Tyson and I went out for another hike. This time it was to Bluenose Mountain, a place where neither of us had been before. I though it was going to be like most of our hikes, up hill climbs, amazing views and a few bugs here and there but then things took a slight twist. Before I knew it Tyson had me watching a video he made that involved a collage of pictures of all our time together and it ended with a proposal. Completely surprised and amazed I said yes to the rest of our lives together.

We tossed around ideas of when it should be. We assumed August would be too hot and smoky with wildfires. Also, Tyson’s parents were planning a trip September/October so it would have to be sooner rather than later. July 20th was now penciled in. This was leaving us only 42 days. We knew the venue and finding the person to marry us would be the two challenges but the rest would fall into place. We were also feeling ambitious and thought we could do all the food ourselves as well as an open bar. Time to get planning.

June 8th we boarded the tandem bike with Croozer attached and ventured over to Tyson’s long time family friends, Nancy and Brian. These two amazing people were more than pleased to host our event in their open style barn on their acreage. But as things are, there always seems to be some sort of hiccup in the plans. This one was a bit more of a gasp. At this time Brian and Nancy had just moved into their place, had an amazing pasture with stunning views but there was no actual barn. Nancy then proceeded to call one of her retired friends, being a minister in her spare time, and she was readily available to marry us any day we chose. As we all needed this barn we agreed to help with the man power and get this structure built. They welcomed the idea and before we knew it, things were falling into place…. fast.

I mentioned to my maid of honor, Janal, that I wanted royal blue dresses for them to wear and she immediately found some used ones on Facebook Shop and Swap.

June 13th – us girls met the Shop and Swap lady at Blendz coffee shop for the dresses. They happened to fit both girls perfectly. We then shifted to Bliss Bridal to try on new gowns, none of which styles I liked. We continued onto Ashbury Bridal in Kelowna, a wedding dress consignment store, and found my dress! It fit perfectly and needed no alterations. All of this happened in a total of 3 hours.

Next was the groom and groomsmen attire.

June 20th – Tyson and I headed to Kelowna to RW & CO and within 15 mins had shirts and pants picked out for all three of the guys. We swiped the plastic card and were on our way home, drop the outfits off to the groomsmen to try. They were an excellent fit for all.

All in all we were ahead of the game and had almost everything sorted out in the first two weeks.

Time to plan what we were going to serve for dinner. We needed something simple but tasty as we had about 120 on the guest list. We decided on cold ham, buns, and salads.

An open bar is always fun at weddings so we chose to go this route.  I did all the searching to see if we needed a liquor license and what hoops we had to jump through.  But because we were having the venue on private property with family and friends and no money was being exchanged we did not need anything.  We did however find a friend with “Serving It Right” to bar tend for us.  We had a huge variety of options including beer, wine, hard alcohol and ciders.

The barn building was organized for July long weekend. We recruited a half a dozen people and arrived ready to work, babies in tow.

Brian had previously dug the post holes and the cement pads had been poured in place. It was a tad mucky as the ground was clay and it had just rained for days on end. With gum boots on the guys lifted the burly 8×8 posts into place one by one and holding them while being back filled with the tractor. We had small crew of people moving posts into position, standing them up and others even packing the earth and leveling.

All 18 posts were placed in the 9 hour period. This included a BBQ lunch break and beer:30 before we called it a day.

The proceeding day Tyson, Bruce, Doug, Jeremy and Brian worked on building the trusses. This was a bit slow going. Not as much got completed as we had hoped but it was still moving in a positive direction. Throughout the week Brian had to work so the building of the barn halted. The following weekend they were back in action and completed the support beams and trusses then moved onto sheeting the near 1800 sq.ft of roof. This was just in time as Community Roofing was slated to come finish the torch down for on Monday. Brian also arranged for his neighbor to come by with his skid steer to level the floor and had R.E. Postill and Sons drop off truck loads of crush rocks to finish the surface.

With the barn complete now time to figure out decorations and where the bar, tables and dance floor would go. Good thing we are fairly mellow people cause most brides would be stressed to the max by now. We just went with the flow and knew it would all just fall into place. I had purchased a random box of fake flowers and Leslie kindly volunteered to make center pieces with them. I had also bought cork lights that go into an empty wine bottle and Leslie had also picked up a few other battery operated lights to scatter on tables. This seemed sufficient.

Wednesday, July 17 we finally had the barn figured out, how many tables and chairs we actually have and what we might need to rent… the bar area was still in the works.

Niki (bridesmaid) had organized the outhouses and they had been delivered without notice and just dropped off at random. Good thing Brian had a tractor to be able to move them to a more desirable location.

We decided to also do the rehearsal the same day, July 17, which went fairly smooth. A short time later we all headed over to Tyson’s parents place for dinner of Lasagna and salad.

Friday rolled around and Bexley, Lidija, Janal and I dropped Tyson off for the night at Jeremy’s. We returned back to the house and had a few other girls over for the evening.

The big day arrived, the day I would walk down the isle and marry my best friend. At no time in the past 6 weeks was I stressed at all. Everything fell perfectly into place and the day went without a hitch. The weather leading up to the day had been rainy and dreary but the rain stopped around 11 am and started to dry up the ground. By 2:30 when I walked down the isle the clouds were parting ways and the sun had made its appearance.

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Right away the wedding party ran off to a nearby park for pictures while the guests enjoyed catching up with old friends. We returned and got dinner started while we snuck in a few family photos as well. After everyone was fed we moved some tables and made a dance floor. Once night arrived, a T-Rex even made an appearance.

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We did some of the traditional stuff that goes along with a wedding. We had a minister, photos at a different location, cake cutting and first dances. We did not however do a bouquet or garter toss, clinking of glasses to kiss, speeches and whatever else I have forgotten to mention. But it is exactly how we wanted it, casual with no pressure. We just wanted all of our family and friends getting together to help us celebrate our special day.

We really have to thank everyone involved that helped make it happen in the 6 weeks we had to find a location, build a barn, and organize food etc. Most people say eloping would have been more simple but we found this pretty easy and never expected to have the turnout of 100 people we did, especially with such short notice.

Special Thanks to the following people for all your amazing efforts. We could not have done it without you.

Janal – Bridesmaid, dresses, bar set up, cleaning and organizing. Niki – Bridesmaid, hair, makeup, washcars, clean up. Jamie – Groomsman, coolers, tables. Jeremy – Groomsman, barn build, coolers. Leslie – Flowers, food prep, serving. Linsey – Photos. Doug & Louise – Rehearsal diner, barn build meals, wedding meal, barn build, set up, clean up. Jim & Yvonne – Food prep, wedding meal. Cam, Ashley & Kalin – Bar tenders. Becky – food prep, serving. Brian – Ice. Rhianna & Lisa – Barn decorating, clean up. Lindsay & Ed – Cake. Bruce – Barn build, ceremony music. Heather & Everett – Barn build, T-Rex. Aaron & Steph – Barn build, dessert. Lee, Jenn, Hayden, Blake & Evy – clean up.

Most of all Brian and Nancy for providing the venue and so much more.