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Your wedding day is meant to be the vision of your dream, realized.  There are few couples that are afforded the opportunity to take a blank slate, perhaps something even more complicated then a blank state & truly put their stamp on it.  Such is the absolutely gorgeous case with the stunning fete of Jenelle Matson & Quinn McLean.  Lifelong friends, our sweet couple took on the Herculean  task of taking an abandoned red barn & transforming it into the beauty that you see.  It was indeed a labor of love with almost a year’s worth of work & effort invested.  The result is a novel sized wedding filled with bright poppy colors, sweet gentle touches, & plenty of attention to detail at every turn.  This is by far our lengthiest feature though Jenelle & Quinn’s wedding could not  be more deserving.  Take the time to soak in not only the creativity but the execution of design.  Their vision is perfectly clear to me, brought to life by so many wonderful things.   Be sure not to miss out on Jenelle’s Novella of the Bride after the pictorial, as her commentary is outstanding, truly vocalizing her emotions, thoughts, & process throughout everything.  I am in love with this wedding & I know you will be too!

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What Storyboard Likes…

The Vision– I could seriously write an essay about everything little thing that was done to make this wedding the vision that it is, but between the 90 million photos I couldn’t edit down from & Jenelle’s below commentary, I’ll spare you my hot air!  What I must say though is I respect so very wholeheartedly the gusto with which our gorgeous couple attacked this dream they shared.  To take a completely abandoned barn, resurrect it, filling it with bright strong yet cohesive colors with sweet details like unique blooms, hankie napkins, poms, mad libs, & so much more, is truly amazing.  Getting a vision out of your head is a feat in and of itself, taking it to utter wedding bliss, is so very next level!

Bridal Beauty– I have a board on Pinterest specifically titled, Bridal Beauty.  This board is devoted to the lovely brides of Storyboard that I feature & their gorgeous wedding day looks.  Jenelle’s look is a perfect representation of what bridal beauty is.  Her overall look is one of feminity & strength.  The choice of textured updo paired with the underpinned veil, perfectly compliment her form fitting lace Tara Keely gown.  The gown of choice works divinely with their red barn wedding made modern.   The soft feminine do works in unity with the perfect amount of makeup, serving only to enhance, not over power.  The Pièce de résistance for me however, is the statement multi-strand necklace.  This little touch gives a powerful injection of fashion forward style that keeps the overall look from being too country sweet.  The blend is stunning & outcome…. A modern bride who’s has sweet heart style yet definitely likes being on trend!

Not Your Momma’s Flowers– As you well know, I have a flower thing.  I can not get enough of the pretty.  What I loooooove about the flowers this time around is that Jenelle & Quinn went after unique  & lesser seen blooms!  From the purple poofs {Alliums} to the yellow spires {Pin Cushion Protea}, utilizing unique flowers instantly brings your guests into a world that feels magical.  So frequently we see much of the same that when we are greeted with something so fresh, it almost feels dreamt up!  What makes these bizarre beauties that much more powerful is the absolutely vibrant & brilliant collection of hues that assault you.  Such a wide & fun color palette, these gems work in a harmony that is not always achieved with such a wide range of colors.  Between the uniqueness & brilliance, the flowers are a star all their own!

 

Novella Of The Bride…

Quinn and I were friends throughout our whole lives. Both of our families attended the same bible camp each summer so we have known one another since we were very young. We are from two different provinces in Canada, however he grew up in the same small farming community as my parents did, which also gave us another connection growing up. Throughout the years we attended family camp, then children’s camp and youth camp together, as adults we both became camp counselors and saw one another annually each summer. Quinn and I crushed on one another for years, however, with him being a small town farmer boy, and me as city girl as it gets, we never pursued a relationship. Then one year, something changed, I remember looking at him thinking, I will move to the middle of nowhere for the rest of my life if I get to be with this man. That summer we connected in a different way from years before and soon enough we were madly in love.

Meeting my husband, dating him, becoming engaged and then beginning to plan a wedding was so much more incredible than I ever could have envisioned.  All of the events and feelings happening in our lives seemed like magic and when I thought about putting together our wedding I wanted to pull those magical feelings out from the inside and make them visible for everyone to see.  This was a time in our lives where we were experiencing more joy that our hearts ever could have predicted we would.  We were happy, in love, content, eager and we wanted to somehow find a way to make our wedding an outward expression of the way we felt about one another.

Almost immediately after our engagement we fell hard for an old abandoned barn that we found on a farm yard in his hometown and began thinking up ways of how we could use it as our wedding venue.  There was nothing easy about the idea of using the barn; it hadn’t been used in over seven years, it was dirty as dirty can be, electricity didn’t work, floors needed to be fixed, and there was endless junk that needed to be cleared out, but oh the vision, the vision made it all worth it!

There were more jobs than I can even remember as we prepared for this wedding. The barn we got married in had been completely abandoned which meant we had to clean it out, clean up the yard, fix electricity, pound in posts for the lights, drag away old equipment that hadn’t been touched in years, hang up lights, set up seating, set up the games and the washrooms, prepare the table seating and on and on. This wasn’t a place like most venues, it came with absolutely nothing. We had to rent silverware, dishes, glasses, and all from two hours away. It was a crazy amount of work and without the help of so many people we absolutely could not have received the dream wedding we did. My Mom Elaine, Quinn’s parents Pat and Faye, my sisters Christa and Tiffany, and Quinn’s sister Glennis were all incredibly gracious and helpful as we planned our big day. My Uncle Lorne, Aunt Louvain, cousin Neil and our florist Kelly were most definitely our life savers during this project doing more than either one of us even realize. To say this wedding was a huge project would be an understatement, it would have been absolutely impossible to pull off without all of these people willing to help up and cheering us on along the way.

Within a year we had the barn all fixed up, cleaned out and ready to hold one of the best celebrations of our lives.  The venue was perfect; the barn stood tall and proud on our wedding day, its age showed, but like laugh lines on a face its character told a happy story.  We filled the tables with antique jars, tins and vases that held some of the most unique and beautiful flowers I have ever seen, mason jars were incorporated as light sconces, vintage hankies were used as napkins and scrabble pieces lined the tables with words that represented our love.  Endless time was poured into the small details of the day and once it was all put together it melted into a beautiful picture and made all that time and effort seem so very worth it.  The wedding was small town and big city, it was humble and bold, it was soft yet colourful, it was calm yet filled with laughter and smiles, best of all it so represented Quinn and Jenelle.

As we look back on our day we are filled to the brim with gratitude.  It is one of the most amazing feelings to be surrounded by your closest friends and family who are there simply to love, support and lift you up as a new couple entering a significant chapter in life.  Truthfully, we had a few whoopsies on our wedding….the three tired cake fell over and turned into three one tired cakes, the flowers were late putting the ceremony behind schedule, the DJ played music for more than half our vows so people couldn’t hear us and on, and on, and on.  The most beautiful part though….NONE of the mistakes mattered.  Quinn and I were off in our own world, we were celebrating one of the best days of our lives and nothing could stop the pure bliss were experiencing.  I suppose the lesson is, don’t sweat the small stuff; pour into your big day, make it an absolute dream, but never lose sight of the significance of the words you are saying and the moments you are making.  In the end it worked, our day turned out to be magic, just the way we dreamed it would.

 

Vendor Love

Venue: Abandoned Barn Saskatchewan, Canada | Caterer: Mervs Pitchfork Fondue | Florist: Fresh | Hair: Kayla Flanagan | Wedding Dress: Tara Keely 2958 | Shoes: Sugar | Men’s Attire: Mexx | Bridesmaid Dresses: BCBGeneration (PXB6M189-1B1) | Etsy Designers: Three Eggs Design,Little Mae Designs, Due Cuori, PartyGoodies, delicatecreationsbym, Sarah Walsh, PickleDogDesign, rosebudlips, DesignsbyTami, silkandmore, CLCOSTADESIGNS | Cinema and Video: Bright Bokeh | Photographer: Janine Sept Photography