Wednesday, September 16, 2009

St Andrews and the Lau/Sallis Wedding

Last week I used the event of Andree and Jason's wedding in New Brunswick as a damn good excuse for a week off and a chance to visit the east coast of Canada. Tim and I visited New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and then to Chicago for the weekend where we caught up with my friend from Uni, Danielle, who was travelling round the states for the summer.

I was super excited to be on the coast again and couldn't wait to see how different the opposite side of Canada is. I'll break up our trip over a few posts.

Tim and I flew to Toronto to meet each other and then caught a flight out to Moncton, NB. We drove the 3 hours or so in the dark down to St Andrews ready for the wedding the next day. Was weird driving all the way without being able to see much of the landscape around us, especially seeing as we know that the sea was just there... It was a beautiful night, a full moon and clear skies. Was great being able to see all those stars again.

The wedding venue that they chose was the Rossmount Inn in St Andrews-by-the-sea. A beauftiful house turned hotel set up on a hillside looking out over the bay. Most of the guests from the wedding were staying at the Rossmount too. The food there on a normal day is supposed to be sublime, although we didn't get a chance to sample it this time. Next time!
St Andrews in a little town on the Bay of Fundy. It's pretty touristy, thankfully we were there towards the end of the season so it wasn't too busy. The town is made up of wodden houses of all different colours and shapes. Theres a nice little pier with fishing boats tied up to it too.
Saturday brought Andree and Jason's wedding. It was honestly the most beautiful wedding I have been too. The day was relaxed and laid back and seriously seriously enjoyable. We were blessed with a beautiful cloudless blue sky, and it was lovely warm day. Andree and Jason had obviously planned the day so well that it seemed effortless. The ceremony was out on the pool deck of the hotel, a record 8 mins of some beautiful vows and my two friends were declared husband and wife. Swiftly followed was champagne and lots of lovely canapes out on the pool deck, Oysters, Goats cheese tarts, salmon, raspberry refreshers and more...
The programming language themed table plan was also a lovely touch. Definitly an 'in' joke. Andree had picked out some lovely options for the dinner, Tim had a pretty damn tasty Lamb dish and I went for the yummy fish. On our tables Andree had left us some really thoughtful party favours. Some how she had managed to find a picture of each of us and Andree or Jason, and put them into photo frames. Such a lovely idea. I was honoured to be part of their day, and they both looked radiant and so meant for each other. Yay.
We spent the rest of the weekend in St Andrews too. The post wedding brunch the next day was pretty fun, more food than any of us could ever manage (even Andree's Dad!), and great wrap up from the day before. Tim and I then took a boat trip to go whale watching. It was brilliant to get out on the ocean again, miss being on a boat. (ironically my brother was sailing with my Dad and stepmum at the time too). We went with Quoddy Link Marine, it was refreshing to see that they were really concerned with letting the whales be whales, they didn't want to crowd the whales like all the other boats were so we went off in search of some more whales. And that we did, we saw quite a few of the massive Finback whales, and also a whole load of seals sat on a rock that gets covered by the massive tides in the Bay of Fundy.
That night saw us having a chilled out evening with those left around from the wedding party.

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