Shana & Sean’s Jewish meets Trinidad wedding with Carnival headdresses and a huge reception surprise

The Offbeat Bride: Shana, Lingerie Store Owner (and Offbeat Bride Tribe member)

Her offbeat partner: Sean, Contractor

Date and location of wedding: Rosewater Room, Toronto, Ontario, Canada — October 26, 2014

Our offbeat wedding at a glance:

There were many elements of Trinidad, which is Sean's background. For example, the wedding cake was a naked layered cake of Trinidadian black fruit cake, carrot cake, and sponge cake. To top the cake, we had the Hulk and She-Hulk because Sean loves the Hulk. We had the traditional drink of Sorrel made by my mother-in-law, and our DJ was a famous Toronto Soca DJ. We also used Carnival headpieces from my previous Carnival and Toronto Caribana costumes for guests to wear.

Sean does Aikido, so before dinner we had an Aikido demonstration where he was flipped and flipped people. The funny thing is that he forgot his brown belt, so somebody brought him an orange belt, meaning he got demoted for the day.

We hired a cartoon artist to draw a cartoon of us in Carnival costumes and asked the kids to colour them during the reception. Following our honeymoon, we taped all these pictures to our kitchen wall for a few months to remind us of our wedding.

My dress was a lace knee-length dress I bought online for less than $200. The challenge was that I was pregnant, and we didn't want to tell anybody until the reception.

Tell us about the ceremony:

Our ceremony was a Jewish Humanistic Egalitarian ceremony. We included many Jewish traditions. Sean and I made our Chuppah. I don't understand the tradition of pairing off people to walk down the aisle, so we had everybody walk separately unless they were already couple.

Instead of bouquets, we gave everybody in our wedding party a lantern with a lit candle in it. After they carried the lanterns down the aisle, they placed them along both sides of the aisle to make a lit path for Sean and I to walk through. Like the clothes our wedding party was wearing, the lanterns were similar but all different.

For our ring bearer, Sean's childhood E.T. doll was driven down the aisle holding the two rings on his finger.

For my bouquet, I made a brooch bouquet using brooches from my great aunt and from my grandmother, who had both passed away. It was meaningful to me because it felt like these important women could be part of our day. Our wedding party walked up the aisle to “You're All I Need To Get By” by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. Sean and I walked down the aisle to the reggae song “She's Royal” by Tarrus Riley.

When Sean and I got to the chuppah, the Rabbi asked everybody to make themselves comfortable. I took off my shoes because I was pregnant, a little stressed, and my back was killing me!

Another funny moment happened during Sean's vows. Recalling a certain moment in our relationship, he said, “I knew at this point we would be together, but I didn't say then because that would be creepy.”

Tell us about your reception:

To decorate the tables, we used the same lanterns that our wedding party carried down the aisle and put them on my grandmother's antique doilies. We didn't want to have to kiss during our dinner, so we made up a quiz. If someone wanted us to kiss, they would have to come up to the front with someone else and answer a multiple choice question. If they got it wrong, then they would have to kiss; if they got it right, then we would kiss.

The first question was, “What do Sean and Shana want to announce:”
a) Sean and Shana are moving to Nairobi.
b) Sean is starting clown school.
c) Sean and Shana are getting a pet goat.
d) Sean and Shana are having a baby in April.
This was how we announced that we were pregnant!

For our first dance, Sean learned the Cuban dance that I dance called Casino. We started out dancing just the two of us, but then we had other couples join in the dance like a flash mob, until we were five couples dancing together in a style called Rueda de Casino. Then we had the traditional Jewish chair dance and following that, the Hora.

As favors, we had little jars of hot sauce that we had made ourselves.

What was your most important lesson learned?

Our biggest challenge for the wedding was the expectations of others and reactions to some of our choices from friends and family. I was nervous that Sean's Christian family would have issues with our Jewish ceremony, but it all went well. My Rabbi deserves all the credit for that because she crafted such a beautiful ceremony. We were also paying for the wedding ourselves and had to put our foot down when the guest list started to get larger from family additions.

Some advice if you want to use your bridal suite for some alone time after the ceremony: Ask the venue to not let anyone use that space before you get there. We missed out on alone time because of that.

Vendors

• Photography: David Morris Photography
• Dress: Gilded Grace dress from Modcloth