A short drive outside of the city of Barrie sits the loveliest wedding venue. A staple in our area for wedding photographers, yet this was our first wedding at this site. Its funny how it works out, you can live just a few minutes away from something wonderful you have never seen before. Belcroft Estates was a complete surprise. This location has everything, a full finished barn, manicured gardens, a stately farm house, a pond with a covered bridge, a top notch salon, a quirky games room, and a tree line that could rival any setting of a Nicholas Sparks book/movie. Its that gorgeous. Then to top it off, Katie & Kaylee had an awesome wedding planner Christina Spring who truly understands weddings, and photography.
Katie & Kaylee were married on a warm July afternoon under the canopy of what could be 100+ year old oak trees, and surrounded by their closest friends and family. You could feel the love and energy at this wedding, it was coming in ten fold when it came time for the vows. Both Katie & Kaylee wrote their own, and like clockwork wedding guests were tearing up. Its no lie that when we shoot wedding ceremonies or wedding speeches with well written, meaningful words that I tend to keep the camera in front of my face longer than normal, occasionally filling up the view finder with my own make up and tears.
The reception was held in the barn and dancing on the back patio. Probably my favourite feature of this venue is the back patio, lit up by tiny twinkly lights, their first dances were held under the stars as their guests stood strewn out across the two levels of verandah. Unique, and casual settings like the one at Belcroft Estates encourage beautiful, real moments. While strategic planning is great for wedding budgets, or schedules, or even family group photos, Belcroft Estates unique set up allows for us as photographers the chance to create real candid imagery that we are so proud of.
Katie & Kaylee worked hard to create this beautiful day, and while they had the help of some excellent vendors, they were quite hands on for the entire wedding planning process. Check out their list of vendors and all the amazing details they created for their big day at the end of this post.
Congratulations Katie & Kaylee. Getting to know you both these past few years and being the team to photograph your beautiful wedding at Belcroft Estates, was to say the least, an absolute pleasure. Ryan and I voted, and the consensus is that you should have another wedding so we can photograph you again, because the first one was so awesome, and I am pretty sure your guests would agree with us.
Cheers
& Ryan
Katie & Kaylee’s Wedding Vendor Dream Team
Venue: Belcroft Estates
Wedding Co-ordination: Christina Spring
Dessert: cupCake
DJ: Keep Them Dancing
Flowers: Posh Beyond Events
Linens: Kerr Events and Design
Catering & Ice Cream Bar: Wildwood Hospitality
Stationary: Katie Williams Design Co
Make Up: Jessica Gignac
Hair: Jennifer Rogers
Katie Dress & Accessories: Kleinfelds
Kaylee Dress: Keiras Bridal
Kaylee Accessories: Tiffany & Co and Betsey Johnson
Wedding Officiant: Mandy St.Germane
Shuttle Service: Hammond Transportation
Photography by Rowell Photography
Things we did on our own (Katie & Kaylee)
- Our table numbers were different photos of our Golden Retriever Murphy (our fur baby) with numbers (taking these photos in different locations was over a year in the making and often took great coordination and sweet potato treat bribery!
- The birch wood slabs used for the table centre pieces were cut from Kaylee’s family cottage
- The charm around Katie’s bouquet was a token of memory of her grandparents who passed away and was also a Christmas gift from Kaylee.
- The necklace wrapped around Kaylee’s bouquet was the St. Michael patron saint of the Airborne which was given to her father as a gift from her mother when her father was a paratrooper in the military and was her something borrowed.
- The large vases with twinkle lights at the head table were recycled fire hose and couplings to bring in fire fighter touches.
- We designed and created our personalized programs-including attached photo strips, seating chart, name tags at each seat, drink tickets and golden rescue donation cards .
- We put together kids packages to keep the kiddlets busy during dinner and speeches that included colouring books, stickers, toy cars, crayons and large lollipops.
- Our guests wrote well wishes to us on tags and hung them on our wish tree which acted as our guest book.
- The day after our wedding we took the flowers from our centre pieces and donated them to Hospice in Barrie
- Katie made Kaylee a “Letters to the Bride” book which included hand written letters from our family and closest friends which Kaylee could enjoy reading throughout the day as she got ready. To be honest there were so many tears Kaylee saved them after reading the first one on our wedding day and we read through them together the next day and cried over them all then 🙂 LOL
- Kaylee set up mini gifts for Katie to open at different stages in the day. The last gift was a surprise minimoon to Touchstone Resort in Muskoka. A special place in the couples heart and where they first talked about marriage.