Personal: How I Planned My Micro/Intimate Wedding

*Photo by Into the Aisle

Hello! So earlier this week, I got MARRIED. What a massive word to even type! It was the 11 year anniversary of when we had started dating and exactly one year since our engagement. I know when I first got engaged it was a bit overwhelming. I did not really know where to start. When I first posted on social about the wedding there was definitely some interest in the planning process. I hope for all the brides/grooms to be, this post can be of some help!

First, a bit about what I was looking for with my wedding. To be honest, the thought gave me anxiety. Since my partner and I have been together for so long, there was no hesitation in the actual commitment of it all. But for the longest time, I hadn’t really seen the appeal of weddings. They cost a fortune for one day. This mindset shifted slightly during the planning process, but we did want to be cognizant of costs.

Start of Planning

I didn’t start really seriously planning until around October 2020. With the COVID-19 pandemic still seriously affecting everyday life, it was hard to really do any sort of planning. By the October time frame, we had our initial lists. We had started out planning a more traditional wedding with around 120 people and the ceremony to be done on-site at the reception venue.

We actually did a few site visits. At the time, we were planning for 2022. There was quite a bit of initial costing I did in terms of rentals, food, florals etc. All of it was mostly theoretical though. We got to a point at about December-January timeframe where it was just too risky to plan anything. By this point, the vaccine was still a bit of a pipe dream for regular folks (those not in the medical field). Every place we looked at needed a deposit. This was honestly just too risky for us. We were lucky to not have been in the time frame where we needed to reschedule (since we had gotten engaged much after the pandemic had initially hit). All the contracts were flexible to a point….but not flexible as well. We just didn’t think the risk was worth it for the amount of money we’d be putting up…

Pivot to Micro/Intimate Wedding

With the pandemic came the emergence of micro/intimate weddings. With all of the uncertainty and also honestly the cost savings, we thought that this would be the best way to go.

At first I thought that Micro and Intimate wedding were interchangeable and they sort of are. From my reading though, Micro is used to describe a wedding that is just of a smaller nature. You still have a ceremony, reception, etc. Whereas Intimate is used more to describe events of a smaller nature all around. So for example, an elopement in a backyard, maybe not with a reception afterwards, etc.

So what we decided, with things still unsure, was to have 8 guests (our immediate family only).

Initial Resources

One of the first things I bought was The Knot’s Ultimate Wedding Planner and Organizer.

I wanted this one because it’s a binder format, so I could add things and remove them. In terms of content, it gives a good base, but I found it a bit dated. Some of the colour combos, dress types, etc. I found a bit ‘older’. This was originally published in 2012 and it does show. I think this would have been more helpful for someone getting ready for a full wedding as well. I was not going to have a bridal shower, bachelorette, or even really a full reception, so those sections were skips for me.

If you are looking for something to keep you organized and you prefer a hard copy option, this is a decent choice.

Pinterest is also an obvious initial planning choice. What I don’t like about Pinterest is you can’t add in any sort of notes. So Pinterest was good for florals, dress, and visual ceremony looks, but not good for planning in general. For Pinterest to really be of use though, you need to have an idea of what you’re looking for.

My Pinterest planning board can be found here.

Another surprisingly fantastic resource if you’re in the GTA/Toronto Area is the show Where to I Do? from CTV. This was actually the single most helpful resource I used when starting planning. The show features an interior designer, Tommy Smythe, who takes a couple around to different venues to gauge interest. The reality show format is helpful because it does give a good idea of many different couples and many different wedding styles including costs. If you are a local bride/groom, I highly recommend giving this show a watch. You can watch it on Crave or On Demand (through Bell)!

Finally, another great resource as I was stepping into the planning process was Jamie Wolfer’s YouTube Channel. She has a couple of really helpful YouTube videos to help in coordination, planning, and everything in between. It was super easy for me to put her on in the background while I was doing something to try and get that wedding knowledge into my brain!

The Dress

My dress search was decently normal considering the COVID circumstances. The first place I went was Kleinfeld’s Bridal in Toronto. The location was really nice. It’s huge and you’re able to distance quite well. I could only bring two guests, which actually was more than a lot of places. I wasn’t able to bring my fiancé’s mom though, which was quite important to me.

I found a lot of nice dresses, but there were a few things to note about the appointment. Prior to the appointment, I was told to add dresses I was interested in to my Hudson Bay account ‘wishlist’ so the consultant would have an idea of what I was looking for. When I first came, the consultant was a bit brisk with me, not asking about the wishlist at all. So I kind of fumbled to get some pictures of dresses I was looking at. I also found the consultant brisk in general. She pulled some nice dresses, but I found her pressuring me a bit to purchase. I just didn’t get a great vibe. Also, they don’t do off the rack (or if they did, it was few and far between) so I had very few choices for Summer 2021. I was very interested in Hayley Paige and the Allure Disney Collection, but those were 100% out of the question. They weren’t even sure if they could get them by end of 2021. Since I wasn’t able to also bring my future Mother in Law, I decided to keep the search up.

We next went to Bliss Bridal in Whitby. It was definitely a different feel than Kleinfeld’s, but just as beautiful. It’s definitely more of an intimate feel, with a few less designers. They focus mostly on Canadian or local brands which was nice. I was able to bring my future Mother in Law for this appointment, which was great. I was able to guide the appointment a bit more since I had what I liked and what I didn’t like from Kleinfeld’s. I landed on this one of a kind Mikaella  dress which happened to be on sale which was amazing. Mikaella is actually a super local company which is out of Toronto. I loved that I could support a brand close to home! I’m so pleased with the dress and also got a long cathedral style veil with sparkly beads on the rim. It definitely pulled together the look.

Ceremony Location

When looking for a ceremony location, I definitely had a specific look and feel in mind, but didn’t want to break the bank. I had briefly considered doing a complete turn key ceremony, where you pay one company a set fee and they do florals, invites, decor, etc. This definitely seemed the easiest, but I wanted to do something where I could pick my own vendors. I’m so so glad I decided to do this, just because I could really research and pick whatever I wanted.

Evergreen Brickworks was advertising a micro ceremony and I jumped at the chance. It definitely wasn’t cheap (per person), but it was a great way to be able to make use of the beautiful space that is Evergreen. If we were to do a more traditional wedding, Evergreen would have been completely out of the question with costs. Even when reading the contract, you could tell that if there were more people or just more coordination, it would be a fortune.

Reception? Sort of?

This was definitely the most stressful part leading up to the day. Indoor dining opened up around a week and a half before the wedding. We decided that with our fully vaxxed group, we’d be comfortable dining indoors at a private room. After a lot of back and forth, it was decided on Jump which had a semi private room available. The food and service was amazing, and we’re so glad we were able to do this considering the restrictions.

Other Vendors

I looked for our other vendors at the same time while I was locking down Evergreen. Most of my other vendors were found through Wedding Wire (I would definitely consider Wedding Wire over The Knot just because Wedding Wire has a Canadian version which is super helpful!). If not through Wedding Wire, it was through Instagram actually. I’d search through tagged photos, and just go down a rabbit hole looking at things that I enjoyed. All of our vendors were really top notch and I’d totally recommend them in a heartbeat. Here is a list of them. In my next post, I’ll go into a bit more detail on their service day of.

Photographers: Into the Aisle

Florals: Wildfell

Music: Denise Fung (Harpist)

Officiant: Lisa Allain

Favours: Cupcake Junkie

Quick Tips and Tricks

So if you’ve made it this far, thank you! I could honestly talk about this forever and my planning process. If you’re in the middle of planning or recently engaged, I thought I’d put together my top tips and tricks that I learned while planning and executing my micro wedding!

• Wedding planning is a huge endeavour. Even with my small 8 person wedding, the amount of time it took me to go back and forth with vendors, plan and coordinate the day, etc. was a lot. As much as wedding sites say this, it’s totally true. You need to be ready as it truly is a massive time commitment
• Somewhat similar to the first point, but be ready to send a LOT of emails. I wish I had actually set up a separate ‘wedding email’ so everything could be filtered out of my other email. A lot of vendors do not place their rates upfront, so you’re forced to send them an email
• I didn’t really DIY any portion of my wedding, but if you’re crafty, it’s a good way to save money. As much as the planning process gets you down a bit and you just want to give up and pay for the rental or more expensive item, shop around. I would reach out to a few vendors that I was really interested in to compare prices.

And there we have it! If you made it this far, I hope this was helpful! I know this one didn’t have a lot of photos of my actual wedding day but that will be coming soon!

Thanks again, have a great day!

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