Introducing Mr. and Mrs. KitchenOperas!

Well now that everything is said and done, it’s officially official: Mr. KitchenOperas and I are married!!

The wedding was absolutely everything we could have dreamed of — we wouldn’t have changed a single thing! And now that we’re back from honeymooning, we are happily settling into our new married lives together, and just loving every minute.

On the day of the wedding we ladies got ready at my folks’ house, and we all got to spend girly time together with my Mum, sister (Maid of Honour) and all the bridesmaids. Getting ready involved lots of delicious treats: Ash brought lunch for the two of us “complicated” ladies — healthy and treaty salads, wraps, green juice, and drinks courtesy of the wonderful Carol at Belmonte Raw. Pem brought a snack pack that included necessary quinoa cookies, Turkish Delight with pomegranate seeds from Turkey (!), chocolate, and coconut water. And my Mum put out a lovely spread of sandwiches and treats for all of us!

It was so very special to be surrounded by family and friends as we literally “tied the knot” in our handfasting ceremony):

My beautiful bridesmaids (and amazing Sister / Maid of Honour) were there every step of the way, full of support and love — how could you not want to surround yourself with these ladies?

And then we had one really big party!

Of course, I have to tell you about everything we ate!

As someone who eats vegetarian and gluten-free, I often have a tough time eating traditional wedding food. And so when we were planning our wedding, I wanted to make sure that I could have a great meal, and that everyone there could enjoy it, no matter what the food restrictions were. And we had to make it work for people who needed to eat vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, peanut-free, and several combinations of the above… as well as die-hard meat eaters! Indian buffet seemed to be the answer to our quest for delicious wedding food we could all eat!

And ohhhhhh did we ever luck out with the awesome folks at Bombay Palace. Not only was their food UTTER PERFECTION, but their service team was so wonderful. We worked with the truly wonderful Raajiv, who went above and beyond in every possible way to make sure our day was glorious. Raajiv was truly the best caterer we could have asked for. He even offered to help us out with anything we needed at 2am the night before the wedding! We are so glad that Bombay Palace has two restaurants in town: Bombay Palace on Jarvis, and Bombay Express on Church. And out of all the compliments we received about the wedding, most of them were about how good the food was.

It all started while we were taking photos (and family and friends were mulling about at “Cocktail Hour”), and we had a gorgeous spread of all-vegetarian appetizers — aloo tikki (potato cakes!), samosas (stuffed with green peas, potatoes, and raisins!), paneer tikka (homemade cheese cooked in a tandoor oven), and onion bhajis (onion fritters to die for)!!!!

Then we descended into dinner:

For the vegetarians in the crowd, there was a gorgeous aloo papri chaat (“sweet medley of crispy wafers chickpeas, potatoes with yogurt-mint chutney dressing”):

Beautiful salads and slaws:

Spicy pickle and cooling raita (yogurt) to go alongside everything:

And the tasty tasty main dishes, served with rice: Channa Masala (“chickpeas perfumed with ginger, garlic and onions”)

And Sweet and Sour Eggplant (“blended with onions, tomatoes and sultanas”)

And the wedding cake for us was a no-brainer. We were at the wedding of my wonderful cousin Lianne (she and her husband, Erik, are celebrating their ten year wedding anniversary this month!), and they served a kransekage — a traditional Scandinavian wedding cake made out of rings of almond cookies. Well, ten years ago, Mr. KitchenOperas and I decided that when we got married, this would be our cake. And you know what? It’s gluten-free and dairy-free because it’s made from almonds, eggs, and sugar! PERFECT!

It’s also a tradition in Mr. KitchenOperas’s Mum’s family to have kransekage at special events. His Mum (below, in blue — with his Dad & Stepmum on the right) had one for a big birthday party, and so we had an official tradition to uphold!

We got our delicious and beautiful kransekage from Hansen’s Danish Pastry Shop.

We had a great party, full of dancing, laughing, drinking bubbles, heartwarming speeches, tears, and lots and lots of love.

Definitely a day we will never forget.

We had a lot of people that made our day super special — and one of those people was Erin Leydon of Leydon Photography, who took all the photos in this post. If you want to see more of her stuff, she’s got an online portfolio at Leydon Photography, or you can follow Erin on Twitter. I love her instagram feed, and have to keep myself from hitting “love” on every photo she posts!