Lenna & Matt’s big fat traditional Armenian and Japanese wedding

The offbeat bride: Lenna, marketing coordinator, freelance designer, tap dancer, and choreographer

Her offbeat partner: Matt, writer and aspiring comic book colorist

Date and location of wedding: St. Cuthbert's Anglican Church and Le Dome Banquet Hall, Oakville, Ontario, Canada — August 19, 2011

Our offbeat wedding at a glance: I knew that by agreeing to follow my parents' wishes for us to be married in the church with a fairly traditional wedding that I would be giving up the ability to do some of the more offbeat things I would have liked such as a library or museum venue, robots or monsters (two of my favourite things), superhero-named table settings, etc. That said, my parents knew I'm an offbeat kinda kid, and quite graciously and patiently listened to all of my wacky ideas. In the end, they let me do my own thing within an unspoken set of boundaries. I could push tradition, but not too much.

The first thing I was adamant about was not wearing a totally white dress. I hate white, I never wear it since I'm super pale, and I don't feel comfortable in it. The compromise was doing black and white, so my mom hand-sewed black beads onto my otherwise white dress, and I accessorized with black lace gloves and black nails. I went with a black chenille dot birdcage veil and white feather fascinator.

I DIYed almost everything. As a designer, it was a no-brainer to do all my own printed materials. I made all the bouquets myself, which were fabric flowers with rhinestone beads and ostrich feathers for embellishment. My centrepieces were vases lined with fine handmade Japanese papers, filled with tiny Ikea battery-pack LED lights, and sparkly white sticks that had tiny black flowers and tiny black paper cranes tied on. I set them on top of square mirrors, which were a dollar store find.

I folded 1,000 paper cranes since we suspect Matt is part-Japanese, he likes Japanese culture, and I've been obsessed with folding cranes since I read “Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes” in elementary school.

The cranes were on the centrepieces, but also lined the receiving table, the cake table, and strung from the wall behind the head table. Each table was also named after an origami creation, and I had instructions and paper at the table for guests to fold their table's piece.

Our wedding party came from all over: locally in Ontario, but also from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Seattle, and LA. To make things easier and to allow for personalization, I just told them all to stick within the colour “Apple” at David's Bridal and Men's Warehouse, and they were all able to take care of their own clothing choices.

There were a few other small things that alluded to our concert-going, comics-loving personalities. There was a crossword puzzle in the program with some personal trivia, and board games for the people who don't like to dance (like Matt). Our hand-bound guest book was filled with our engagement photos, as well as stills and characters from the movie Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World, since it was the theme of our engagement photos.

Another important aspect for us was to make sure that our wedding was as sustainable as possible. That was a tough feat after agreeing to a “Big Fat Culturally-infused” wedding, but we still managed to make it happen. We were very conscious of the environmental impact of everything we bought, how much travel was involved, our food choices, etc. I purchased sustainable energy for our event through Bullfrog Power.

Tell us about the ceremony: Despite neither of us being overly religous, we had a fairly traditional Armenian ceremony. My father is the president of the church committee, and the church has always played a well-defined role in our lives, so it was important to my family that we be married in the church.

Armenian wedding ceremonies can be long and confusing (especially if nothing is in English, as has been the case with the majority of weddings I've attended), so I made sure to include an explanation of the Armenian Rite in my program, so non-Armenian guests could follow along. I was hoping we could write our own vows, but it wasn't allowed by the church. What we did get to do was have readers (albeit reading religious passages), and secular music for the processional and recessional. We used Vitamin String Quartet covers of “Just Like Heaven” and “Everlong.” We also chose to do the majority of the service in English, with only the hymns and certain parts being spoken in Armenian.

Where I grew up in Ontario, we attended a Western Orthodox church, but when I lived in Wisconsin with Matt, I joined the Eastern Orthodox church and befriended the priest there. We were able to have him come up from the U.S. to co-officiate, which meant that our wedding required the permission and blessing of the head of both Western and Eastern Orthodoxies, from both Canada and the U.S.!

One of the neat parts of the traditional Armenian ceremony is a unity ritual called the “crowning.” Sometimes it's done with actual crowns, but the traditional version uses ropes called “narods.” They are braided strings of red, white, and green, and our Wisconsin priest actually sent us the ropes and had us braid them ourselves. The red and white ropes are supposed to symbolize the sacrifice of Christ, to remind us that marriage is a sacrifice, and also that Christ must be involved in our marriage. The green symbolizes the hope that there will be growth in the marriage. There's a cross in the middle of the narod, and there's a special “Blessing Prayer” that's said during this portion of the service.

My favorite moment: One thing I really wanted to have happen at the reception was to start off the night with a traditional Armenian line dance — but not just any dance, one that was specifically from the small town where my father was born overseas. One of my best memories of my grandfather is of him teaching me this dance, and he used to always lead it at every family function. I had my cousin lead the line, and then halfway through I took over the lead. Seeing hundreds of my family, plus my new (very non-Armenian!) husband and in-laws trying to follow along is one of my best memories of the whole day.

My advice for offbeat brides: I've always believed that your wedding isn't just about doing what you want, no matter what anyone else says. I spent most of my planning thinking about everyone else and doing things to make sure the guests had a great time. That being said, you have to know what your top couple of must-be-this-way items are and stick to them. Because in wanting to please everyone else, I didn't stick to mine, and it's my only wedding planning regret.

I knew my top four were: my outfit not all white, having awesome photographers, environmental sustainability, and the music playlist. I stayed on top of the first three, but the last one gave me problems. I spent months writing down songs and daydreaming about it when a song would come on the radio that I love. But the speakers in the hall were owned by a DJ company, so you could hire them, or rent the speakers from them. I wanted to rent the speakers and set up a computer with a set playlist, but we ended up hiring the DJs. They ended up being a disaster by not playing all the music I had on the list, but also making an audio mistake that caused me to sustain an injury and take me off the dance floor for most of the night. I still regret that choice. The point: know what you want and stick to it.

Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?

• Dress: David's Bridal
• Gloves: Etsy seller ZenandCoffee
• Fur stole: Etsy seller AlexBridal
• Netting for veil: Etsy seller HatShadows
• Feather fascinator: Le Chateau
• Shoes: Ferragio Shoes in the Toronto Path
• Bridesmaids: David's Bridal
• Groom and groomsmen gear: Men's Warehouse
• Hair/Makeup: Gravity Hair Design in Cambridge, Ontario

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