Keeping the date: a real wedding

Chantal Amlinger & Ian Brock

While a larger celebration has been postponed to next June, this couple honoured their original date with a beautiful, small wedding at the home of the groom’s parents. It is the oldest home in London, Ont., and is now a heritage site. The 28 guests dined under a birch tree that was planted by Winston Churchill! Here’s what Chantal had to say about the day.

What made you decide to still get married and not wait? The moment we decided to postpone our wedding, we knew we still wanted to get married on our date if we could make it work. It was the day we had been planning for the better part of a year, and we simply did not want to wait any longer. With all of the sadness and disappointment that came along with postponing, it was nice to have something else to plan and look forward to. I think it really helped soften the blow, and the more we realized how different and intimate this wedding would be from our original/postponed plans, the more excited we felt.

What was your favourite part of the day? Though the obvious answer would be “getting married”, there are so many special moments throughout the day that really stand out for me. Having all of our nearest and dearest together to celebrate us, paired with the fact that due to the pandemic it was actually the first time seeing (and hugging) most of our family members in months would have to be a top contender. Ian’s mom also gifted me the diamond earrings that his dad gave her when Ian was born, which was such a special moment. Lastly, having had to change plans SO many times over the prior months, it was really rewarding to see everything come together, especially when most of it was DIY. When the day finally arrived and we were setting everything up, we were just so happy that it was actually happening.

Will you do another ceremony next year? Or just a reception? We will still be doing a ceremony next year. It will be almost one year to the date, and we had worked with our officiant on a really customized ceremony that we’d still like to have. For our small intimate wedding, we just did a really short ceremony with a reading at the end. Knowing we wanted to carry on with our original ceremony plans for the bigger wedding, we wanted to differentiate the two as much as we could. In customizing our larger ceremony, our officiant had Ian and I answer some questions about each other separately, which she summarizes and shares during the ceremony. We’re really looking forward to this specific part of our ceremony next year, to reflect on how we felt about one another right before getting married, nearly one year after being married.

Advice or “words of wisdom” for other couples who have had to postpone? I know how disappointing it is, but try and use it as an opportunity to really realize what’s important to YOU when it comes to getting married. Control the things you can, but be willing to let go of the things you cannot (which is a lot right now). Embrace what you can learn from either getting married, or planning a wedding during a pandemic. Though certainly not ideal, there are so many important lessons to be learned, especially when entering a marriage: to accept changes as they may come, and not to take the everyday for granted. And lastly, hang in there! There is no right or wrong way of doing this, and you deserve the wedding you want and have planned for.

Photography: Brandon Taylor
Rentals: A&B Event & Tent Rental 
Hair: Selah Vie
Makeup: Florencia Taylor
Suit: Sydney’s
Pocket Square: Pomp & Ceremony
Dress: Nasty Gal
Shoes: Steve Madden
Accessories: Olive & Piper
Catering: Black Friars Bistro
Florals: Drew Wardlaw (a dear friend of ours actually did all of our flowers (using flowers from local farms: https://www.yellowbrickflowers.com/)