If, after first meeting someone online then taking off on a trip to the other side of the world, you’re even more excited to go on that first date, one could say ‘there’s something there’! And that certainly was the case for Dave and Stephen when they first met in early 2018. “It was the initial conversations we had online that really got me hooked, they were just so genuine and effortless!” Dave said of his first interactions with Stephen. “Right after we started chatting, I left for the Maldives where I had no cell reception for a week on a dive boat, and just had to hope he wouldn’t be the one that got away by the time I got back!” But, when it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.

“For our first date we went out for drinks. I had only recently moved to Edmonton from central Canada, but Stephen had grown up here, and he knew a lot of people.  That night at the bar a group of his friends swarmed our table at one point,” Dave explained, laughing. “I was thinking ‘gosh this guy is popular’ and wondering if maybe I was being not-so-secretly vetted by his crew!” The two hit it off. Their second date yielded a kiss in the parking lot after dinner. More dates followed and, just four months from first meeting, the two hit the major milestone of traveling together. “I asked him to join me on a work trip to Spain and France and he said yes! I was just so taken with how easy it was to travel together and how ‘go the flow’ Stephen was about the whole trip, despite my intensive itinerary!” It was a great early test of their relationship, and the night they were back in Canada, they declared their love for each other.

Their relationship deepened with regular Sunday dinners with Stephen’s family, attending festivals, and more travel adventures together. For Valentine’s Day 2019, Stephen presented Dave with a basket of chocolate roses that hid a key to his house with a keychain that read: “mi casa es su casa”.  And with that, yet another milestone was checked off as Dave packed up his condo and moved in.

While the two had casually discussed getting married, the moment still proved a surprise. In July of 2019, the two set out for the Okanagan Valley, Canada’s wine country (Napa of the North!). Having spent a lot of time there in his childhood, the Okanagan was a special place for Stephen, so it seemed the perfect place for Dave to pop the question.  Dave carried the ring around with him for a couple of days waiting for the perfect setting and moment, casually asking Stephen which were his favorite wineries, trying not to give anything away!  After finally settling on Hester Creek winery as the backdrop, while Stephen had stepped away for a moment, Dave asked the sommelier to take pictures of the big moment. “I was wobbly on the one knee, so I ended up asking Stephen to marry me on two!” Dave said laughing. The answer from Stephen - a resounding yes! 

Venue planning soon ensued and it had always been Stephen’s dream to get married at a winery in the area, and so they booked their date of August 7, 2021, and location based on the fact that 2020 was fully booked, a blessing in disguise given the rollercoaster ride so many engaged couples would end up having to navigate that year.  Making the most of the downtime that 2020 provided, Stephen and Dave bought a house together and adopted their sweet puppy Scarlett, taking her to the mountains for their engagement shoot with their talented photographer Joel that fall.  And then the serious work of wedding planning began in earnest.

“The best thing we did was hire a planner,” Dave explained. Setting aside the fact that they had to essentially plan for so many contingencies because of the pandemic (including five different guest lists ranging from 150 down to fifteen depending on restrictions on gathering size), Dave underlined how truly valuable it was to have their planner Steph on the team. “It is a lot of work to plan a wedding at baseline without a pandemic and ever-changing government restrictions in the background, no matter how much you think you might be able to wing it yourself”.  Steph talked Dave down several times when new government announcements would come out on the various COVID restrictions. “Plus, on the day, she would appear at the perfect moment with a glass of rosé for us!  It was truly magical how seamlessly she managed our big day!”

The one part of wedding planning Dave cited as surprising was the timing of all the invoices! “There’d be days during that last month before the wedding when a handful would come in all at once, we we’d be like ‘wow, that’s a lot!’” We inferred from this a great lesson: in addition to budgeting, make sure to monitor your cashflows when it comes to those final days when all of the bills seem come due all at the same time, though you do rack up the credit card points!

Despite threading the needle through COVID restrictions (had the wedding been only two days later Stephen and Dave would have had to cut half their guests!) and with everything coming together with the venue and vendors, the two still weren’t out of the woods. A nearby massive and rapidly spreading forest fire had forced many guests to reroute travel due to the local airport being closed because of smoke and the couple, planner and vendors were all on high alert. “Seeing the huge fires on the other side of the lake the night of the rehearsal was surreal, and the only comfort was that water served as a geographic barrier to its engulfing the entire area” Dave said.  Some guests woke up to ash covering their cars, some received notices of potential evacuation from their hotels and unfortunately a small handful even turned around and weren’t able to attend for fear of getting stuck in the area if the fires worsened and jumped the highway.  The morning of the ceremony the smoke was so thick it felt like being in a foggy dream sequence, and Stephen and Dave had moments when they wondered if the wedding could even happen.  By some miracle, fifteen minutes before the ceremony was set to begin, the skies opened up and a gentle rain pulled all the smoke out of the air, cleared the skies and cooled things down, making for the perfect wedding day.

Dave’s mom walked him down the aisle and Stephen’s parents did the same for him.  Dave’s father presided over the ceremony and the two exchanged vows they’d written the night before. “No matter how much we said we’d write them in advance, we just kept getting side-tracked because there’d be something else would just keep coming up!” Dave said, again laughing. But Dave got choked up when recalling the feeling of seeing all the family and friends who’d gathered to witness the two of them become husbands, and seeing his groom walk down the aisle: “It was such a magical moment” he said.

There was superb food, delicious wine and, while dancing and mingling were off limits due to COVID restrictions, a drag performance (including bingo!) by two local drag queens made for a rollicking reception for the couple, their families, and friends. Further proof of things being meant to be that day, Mother Nature made her presence known by delivering the couple a jaw-dropping double rainbow, which their photographer made sure to capture by stealing the couple away mid-dinner for an extra photo shoot!

On their one-year anniversary, we asked Dave to reflect back on their first year as husbands. He simply shared this: “We just keep falling more and more in love with each other as we live our married life together.” Looking back on the day, despite navigating pandemic restrictions, dodging forest fires, and somehow never having to reschedule, the very best day of their lives came together. A hearty happy first anniversary to Stephen and Dave, from all of us at Men’s Vows.

Venue: 50th Parallel Estate Winery
Wedding Planner: Stephanie Reitsma
Photographer: Joel Jaszczyszak
Venue Coordinator: Dana Crichton
Chef: Kai Koroll
Cake and Cupcakes: Sugar Sweet Cake Co.
Popsicles: Okanagan Ice Pops
Harpist: Dana Kowalsky
Drag Queen: Ella Lamoureux
DJ: DJ Spinalshift
Flowers: Classic Creations
Makeup and Hair: Allure by Tanin Nicole