A Beautiful Rustic Wedding In the Mountains – Kayle & Dusty

What happens when you hold a beautiful wedding in an unbelievably beautiful setting? You get dreamy, breathtaking photographs that you’ll want to mount on your wall! Heck, I don’t even know Kayle & Dusty and I want to put a some of these photos on my wall! Top all of that off with so many personal touches throughout the day and what you get is a perfect, bespoke wedding…

“The proposal was a complete surprise. We were running a business in Red Deer, AB and Dusty said he was going out for a run that morning and asked if I could come pick him up later. I agreed and fell back asleep. He called me to come pick him up and I rolled out of bed in my pajamas and headed over to our business location where he was. There was a note on the door saying everything would be okay—I was stressed about the business—and to come upstairs. I still had not clued in. Upstairs he had our teddy bears that we each had since we were babies. My teddy had a note around his neck basically saying I should say yes and a ring. I was in shock. It was so cute.

My parents were amazing. My mom cut and sewed table runners, made kraft paper banners, and put together fabric-and-paper bunting. My dad cut out stumps for our aisle, cut out wood slices for our centerpieces, and even made us a huge wooden archway for the ceremony, which was taken apart and put behind the head table in the hall. It was absolutely awesome.

We had personalized our vows with a reading from “The Amber Spyglass” Philip Pullman. It was a beautiful passage and even our photographer Justine was tearing up! We also exchanged vows that we wrote ourselves. I have never been so in the moment for anything. It was pretty special.

Our guest book was a picture of a bike with strings coming up and people could press their thumbs into an ink pad and make ‘balloons’ on the ends of the strings, we also put questions on all the tables that people could answer and sign … things like ‘What should we name our kids?’ and ‘What should we do in our first year of marriage?’ It all came together so well. I loved how the hall looked when it was all decorated and everyone was there with us

The food was so delicious and we got so many compliments about it! The buffet dinner was: mixed green salad with French Camembert, toasted walnuts, cucumbers and pear vinaigrette, followed with rosemary roasted potatoes, wild mushrooms and summer corn succotash with applewood bacon. Guests were able to choose between two locally sourced entrées: roasted Alberta pork loin with wild mushroom sauce and free-range lemon-rosemary Alberta chicken. There was also a medley of cupcakes in flavors of vanilla-chocolate collision and red velvet made by The Sweet Side, as well as assorted squares made by Dusty’s mom and cheesecake bites.

We kept guests on the dance floor using an iPod Wedding DJ app, the Shoe Game and garter and bouquet tosses. It worked so well!

Our advice for a DIY wedding would be: Don’t try to take on everything yourself. Release the reigns a little and let all the loving, helpful people in your life be there for you!”

Super Suppliers: // Photography: Milton Photography // Venue: Ceremony held at Quarry Lake Park; Reception held at Miners’ Union Hall // Cupcakes: The Sweet Side // Catering: Bow Valley Gourmet // Dress: Pallas Athena // Suit: custom-made from Indochino // Makeup: Maisie McClure // Hair: JK Hair Designs //