Kevin and I met working together at a local seafood restaurant in the seaside town north of Seattle I grew up in. After 8 1/2 years of blissful dating life together he surprised the crap out of me and proposed while in Victoria on a birthday getaway weekend.
We set a date for a cool theme party and a little private ceremony before hand. Then we made a list, realized it was bigger than we thought but started looking at venues in varying sizes anyway, because we had 18 months to plan. Then we found Thornewood Castle.
We knew right away we wanted something different than your average wedding. He is a chef and I am a salon owner, so we both have been to and worked at several weddings and knew we wanted to break the rules...a little. We wanted more than a day with our closest inner circle so we decided to rent the whole house and all adjoining apartments for the night after the wedding.
We had settled on a Victorian Gothic ball and encouraged all guests to participate on the invitations. We gave all our bridal party and family free reign to buy and wear whatever they wanted within our color palette and theme. Working in hospitality for so many years, we knew all of our vendors personally, so it helped make the whole event so personally perfect. From the red light beams cast up the 500 year old staircase and seamless music, to the elegant hand made desserts, friends, family and loved ones all helped make the fairytale ball in a castle the best wedding any of us have ever been to. It's been nearly 6 weeks and everyone is still raving about every detail of the beautiful elegant party, some even said they never wanted the night to end! No one understood what we were doing while planning, until they stepped onto the castle grounds and back in time to an era of elegance, with a touch of the dark gothy vampire side of us two little night owls:)
