Tanya McGinnity

Continuing in this series of blog posts about how I was able to find some great partners to help us our with our recent wedding, here’s the third post. Thanks for bearing with me. Regular posts will resume shortly.

Celebrant Lea Meneghel from My Dream Wedding made the planning of our ceremony easy and could very well have written the book “Wedding Ceremonies for Dummies”. We had read a feature about this Montreal-based business and noted their focus on inclusiveness as well was their flexibility and openness.

Rachel at Brazen Design is a mistress of bling and put her blood, sweat and tears into our custom designed rings. They really weren’t the easiest of designs to complete so we value and appreciate all of her hard work at creating rings that are so very special to us. Beyond the rings, her attention to keeping us posted on our fitting times and adjustments shows how customer-centric Rachel is and that this girl truly knows how to satisfy her customers. These rings warrant fist bumps…

The team at Terrafolia Flowers were able to create arrangements that not only matched our “purple, goth-punk, they’re finally getting married, we’re not the traditional type” attitude but that caused much conversation with our guests.

Black calla lillies are my new favourite flower thanks to Terrafolia Flowers- it’s a flower that is beautiful, mysterious and moody and looks like it should be wearing a long gown and smoking a cigarette from a long glam cigarette holder. Their service was supreme and the fact that they are truly floral artisans really did show through.

My non-traditional, non-white wedding dress was from a shop based out of Ontario by the name of Gloomth.

To fit my frame, there were some adjustments that needed to be made and Taeden was a pro at seeing this through. Her clothing is so well made and her designs are creative, innovative and have a gothic fairytale feel to them. It was the perfect outfit and each time I wear this dress in the future, I’ll think of this magical day spent with friends and family.

We ordered our invites from Botanical Paperworks who make well-designed eco-friendly paper products containing seeds allowing them to be planted after the event.

It’s interesting that the design we chose bears a resemblance to a special social bird but we didn’t stick to 140 characters for our invite copy!

So back to the inital post that kicked off this flurry of writing on a topic that I thought I’d never be writing  in such detail. Weddings truly are a grand expression of community. It’s easy to lose sight of this when you’re neck deep in the planning, but when you look back on the results, it’s well worth it. I’ve made some lifelong business contacts who I will now shop from for life and will recommend to others wholeheartedly, without hesitation.

Sheesh. I make weddings sound so romantic huh!

Zero 8 was the scene of the crime where the deed was done. It’s a Montreal-based allergy-friendly restaurant that delivered on taste and service. Everyone was so impressed with their dishes and some were struck by the magnitude of the cote de bouef which was compared to that as seen in The Flintstones.

The meatness

It’s no easy feat to feed a crowd of folks well, provide exceptional service and allow the bride and groom to play some pretty loud punk rock towards the end of the evening. The team at Zero 8 went above and beyond in providing us with a memorable occasion and left our guests convinced that this restaurant is well worth returning to again in the future.

The drinkness

The decor of the restaurant is very zen (a complement I don’t give out that often and reserve mainly for zen centres!) and features a bar area that is a giant ‘Z’ which could have been made by a woodsmith version of Zorro.

The Z-ness

The kitchen overlooks the space, but didn’t interfere with the activites in the main dining room, but allowed us to peek in just enough to see what the cooking team were up to.

Menu-wise, we chose to have a mix of dishes to ensure that there was something for everyone. Starters consisted of an endive salad that introduced a new love affair for endives for many of our guests, a warm mushroom and artichoke cassolet and a carrot ginger soup.

Mains were the aforementioned monsterbeef, duck confit and a veggie pesto corn pasta dish which alarmed those who had it without being privvy to it being known that it was corn and not wheat pasta.

Dessert was an orange rice pudding. Now don’t turn up your nose. My description isn’t doing it justice as it was far more complex that I’m making it out to be. I’ll let this photo do the talking.

The team at Zero 8 were fabulous and truly understand that customer service and exceptional food are essential to a restaurant. We noticed that they tucked away a card for us signed on behalf of their staffers congratulating us on our marriage and served us up some champagne on the house as thanks for booking with them.

To close out this rather long post, please drop by Zero 8 if you are in the St. Denis zone and try them out, or be sure to recommend them to any of your allergic friends or those with kidlets with food allergies. It’s important to support local businesses and especially those that are doing such good in the allergy friendly community. I recently watched a news report where a woman was there having a birthday meal with friends and she raised her glass in toast to all of the other folks in the room who also had allergies. Now talk about inclusion.

*****All photos by Taran Matharu