Kit and Amanda wanted to celebrate Amanda’s Latvian heritage and decided on the Latvian Cultural Centre for their wedding ceremony and reception. Choosing March for their date as a way to get family together before the summer.
Kit and the guys decided the Mill St Brewpub in the distillery district was the perfect spot for them to relax before meeting up with the rest of the wedding party for pictures before the ceremony.
When Amanda and her bridal party arrived I stole Kit away from his fellas and I tucked him away against a corner wall where he and Amanda blindly passed notes to each other before having a first look. I’m a gigantic proponent of the first look / private reveal; especially if you’re a couple who prefer not to have the spotlight on you all the time or if you’re an emotional person and don’t want to have a public display of those emotions with anyone other than your partner. Kit and Amanda shared their love notes and tears before the rest of the wedding party found us hiding in a corner and we walked around shooting portraits and group shots in among the revelers of a weekend in the distillery district.
If you’ve spent any time in Toronto in the spring you know construction season starts as soon as the snow is sorta gone. Driving to the venue for the ceremony was tough as Eglinton Avenue was down to 1 lane in sections. With a limousine full of people drinking the extra time in traffic was used appropriately – at one point I figured everyone was going to get out and walk the last kilometer to the venue.
Arriving with time to spare the bride and groom snuck into the side room to touch up and allow everyone to get seated for their conventional wedding ceremony. With flower design created by a friend of Amanda’s @ Fleuristic Flowers and the ceremony music performed by a family member, every touch of their big day was personalized by them, for them.
After several wonderful toasts (roasts) of both the bride and the groom by their friends and family a traditional Latvian mičošana ceremony which transforms the newly-weds from bride and groom into man and wife. According to traditions, one can still call the wedding off after marriage in church, but there is no way to call the wedding off after mičošana. The tradition involves guests gathering in a circle to sing and then replacing the bride’s flower crown with a wife’s headdress/cap. Kit had put a tremendous effort into learning the language to speak Latvian leading up their the wedding and was flawless in his reciting of the vows.
A fantastic dance party followed up the mičošana and we snuck out for a late portrait in the chilly Toronto night.
Below are some of my favorite images from the day:
