Home IS WHERE THE HEART IS
Backyard weddings make a special day more personal, memorable and affordable for couples and their families
Family, friends and a familiar, meaningful location are among the top musthaves for Canadian couples planning weddings.
The family home or farm, the grandparents’ cottage and friends’ backyards are performing double duty as marriage venues as the popularity of home weddings grows. In North America and Europe, this month and next are the most popular time of the year to be married, according to a poll of 20,000 people by Weddingwire.com marketplace.
Yet, creating a wedding event means plenty of planning and effort. And while home weddings don’t always save money, they do mean flexible scheduling — no other couples vying for your date — and a more relaxed atmosphere.
Here’s how four Ontario couples did it:
Amanda and Joseph
Imagine an entire classroom of kids in a backyard and you have the scenario for Amanda Dumoulin and Joseph Stephan’s nuptials in July 2017.
With a guest list of 71, half of whom were kids including their own three, the Whitby couple, both in their 30s, knew they’d need a flexible venue. When a good friend in Pickering offered her home and large backyard, the couple jumped at it.
Amanda arranged for one of the teenagers to keep an eye on the little ones, the backyard playset was pressed into service, and when the music started after dinner, the kids danced and let off steam. “Our friends all said it was one of the best weddings, with everyone on the dance floor, even the kids.”
From engagement to wedding was five months. The one thing Amanda insisted on was a wedding planner. “She saved my sanity.”
The large rental tent underwent three transformations. For the ceremony, chairs were set in rows with a central aisle and pots of flowers tied to the end chairs.
For the buffet, barbecue dinner, eight guest tables and a head table were set up. And when the DJ started, tables were pushed to the side to create a dance floor.
They were lucky with the weather: a small rainshower, followed by a rainbow. Natalie and John Reconnecting after 20 years via Facebook in 2014, Natalie Perron and John Boddy’s friendship turned to romance and, by Christmas 2015, they were engaged. The Englehart, Ont., couple, in their 40s, looked at a destination wedding, but nixed it when most of their family couldn’t attend.
When Natalie’s sister, Brigitte Upshaw, began planning a family reunion at her Roseneath, Ont., farm in August 2018, the couple asked if they could add on a wedding.
Budget concerns demanded a DIY approach, and Natalie made the invitations, programs, signage, an arbour and the bouquets. A neighbour officiated, an old classmate photographed, siblings made salads and dessert. Only hot dishes came from the caterer. The total cost was about $10,000.
They weren’t so lucky with the weather; after the ceremony and speeches, it started to pour and all 88 guests had to share umbrellas to get from the main tent to the food tent and back.
It stopped in time for the dancing.
Extra umbrellas were one of many details Natalie thanks her wedding planner, Liz Josevski, for, who went the extra mile, even “running to the corner store to get the coffee cream I forgot.” Kelsey and Michael High school sweethearts Kelsey Lee and Michael Spriep, both 26, married this past summer at his five-acre family home in Burford, Ont.
The yard where Michael and his siblings once played soccer was big enough for a tent to accommodate their 140 guests.
The couple initially thought they might save some money having it at home. But the sitdown, fully catered dinner of several courses, live entertainment for the ceremony and dinner, and a DJ for dancing, came in “somewhere north of $50,000,” wedding planner Caryn Leith says. “You have to remember, with a wedding at home, you’re basically creating a whole new venue. It’s a lot of rentals: tent, tables, chairs, linens, china, glassware, portable washrooms.”
But they could create the look they wanted, Leith adds: “Organic coastal-chic — so we used lots of greenery and colours such as white, grey, gold and dusty blue. We also incorporated a mix of modern and rustic elements, such as wood harvest tables and crossback chairs, as well as modern gold flatware and acrylic signage.”
The advantage of marrying at home, Kelsey says, is that “our guests were so familiar with the home, everyone was super comfortable. They changed into shorts and shirts after the ceremony, and there was no one kicking us out at 1 a.m.”
An unexpected benefit of months of planning to landscape the property? “It drew our two families together. It was a group effort, for sure,” Kelsey says. Greg and Stephanie Gregory Morrell, 36, and Stephanie Page, 40, win the award for “chillest couple,” wedding planner Trevor Frankfort says.
They married in August 2016, in her twin sister Julie’s Toronto backyard, during a “vicious heat wave — 40 C with humidex, every day a 40 per cent chance of thunderstorms … but nothing. Until the wedding day, when it poured. And poured. Torrential. The tent was caving in from the pressure of the water and the arbour Greg made for the ceremony had to be abandoned for the living room.”
Stephanie just laughed it off and said they were “making memories.” Dinner and dancing continued as Greg’s buddies poked the tent top with broom handles to release the water. Stephanie’s dress had a six-inch hem of mud by evening’s end.
“Friends and family … just embraced the weather and had a blast,” Greg says of the celebration that cost them around $10,000. “We had a campfire and roasted marshmallows once the rain cleared. My mom, normally so proper, was barefoot and cross-legged in front of the fire with a glass of wine and marshmallows.”
Chill seems to run in the family. Since the hosts had a newborn, the house was off-limits. But that changed when the deluge started — the kitchen and dining room were used for food prep and serving, guests were in and out drying off.
“Julie, as well, laughed everything off that day,” Frankfort says. “And the baby? Not a peep all night.”
As a thank you, Greg and Steph hired cleaners to do the house top to bottom.