A Covid Union | Jessica & Monty {Real Wedding Story}

BRIDE & GROOM: Jessica Lee & Monty Mak

WEDDING DATE: August 23rd, 2020

LOCATION: Royal Canadian Yacht Club (www.rcyc.ca) Toronto, ON

PHOTOGRAPHY: DA Photography (www.daphotostudio.com) Guelph, ON “Monty and I know NOTHING about photography but the one thing that was important to me was having good photos. So I knew that we were going to need help and have someone that knew what they were doing to guide us. Dragi was a preferred vendor at our original venue and so we contacted him through the sales manager. We loved his energy and his work! Dragi knew the venue so well and had so many ideas that we knew we could trust him!” – J

COLOUR PALETTE: “Burgundy mostly with some blush, green, and rose gold. We kept most things minimal as our venue really didn’t need much more and we really didn’t want to bring too much over on the ferry.” – J

SEAMSTRESS: The Village Seamstress (www.lvseamstress.com) Toronto, ON “Sarah helped make sure both of my second-hand dresses fit and were
comfortable.” – J

JEWELLERY: Loulabar (@loulabar) Toronto, ON “I own very little jewelry so I needed help. Louisa was so nice and helpful in designing some clip-on earrings – they didn’t hurt despite 14 hours of being on!” – J

FLORALS: St. Clair Flowers (@stclairflowers) Toronto, ON

CAKE: Cake Crown (www.cakecrown.com) Toronto, ON “A 16-layer honey cake that was DELICIOUS and BEAUTIFUL! She’s an artist – I let her design it any way she wanted.” – J

DJ: United Entertainment DJ (www.unitedentdj.com) Toronto, ON

PLANNER: Karina Lemke Wedding & Event Design (www.karinalemke.com) Toronto, ON “She was a lifesaver. She helped guide us and basically plan a wedding in a month….during COVID!” – J

BIGGEST CHALLENGE: “One word = COVID. COVID-19 definitely caused a lot of uncertainty and made it difficult to know what was going on. Things were changing daily and no one could tell us the plan. We started to ask the question all couples did in 2020: Do we wait and see what the news is? Go ahead with modifications? What were we even allowed? Postpone and hope for the best? Trying to predict the situation was impossible. Eventually, we did postpone from our original date in May to later in the summer. We came up with multiple backup plans: having it at the original venue, having it in my parents’ back yard, or the officiant’s yard. We also had multiple guest lists (if we could have 5 people vs 10 vs 25 vs 50). It helped make it more manageable that we had a plan for most situations and that we were at least discussing it. It also helped that we had GREAT vendors and everyone was flexible. We did end up losing a few and having to find new vendors last minute but we’re so lucky to have hired who we did.” – J&M

ADVICE, ONE COUPLE TO ANOTHER: “Figure out what’s the most important thing to both of you about that day, and then just enjoy the rest of the process. I never dreamed of planning a wedding (my plan was to elope) so I didn’t know what to expect. It can be overwhelming but remember no one is going to judge you for any choices. Things may go wrong and in the end, the wedding might not be exactly how you planned or believed it would be but it will probably be even better than you dreamed.” – J&M