The Lake House Calgary Vow Renewal

In December 2020 my husband Oscar and I celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary with a winter vow renewal ceremony at The Lake House on Lake Bonavista. This Calgary wedding venue has been near and dear to both of us for many years now and is our go to date night restaurant. We had originally planned to have a ceremony and dinner with 50 of our closest family and friends but, as everyone who is planning a wedding during this pandemic knows, our plans were changed. We shifted to plan B which was a ceremony and reception dinner with 15 of our closest family and friends and ended with plan C when the restrictions changed to no receptions and ceremonies with only 10 guests. In the end we decided not to have any in person guests and only had our vendor team physically present with our families and friends watching via live streaming. One of my biggest regrets 10 years ago was not having a wedding videographer and I was not going to make that mistake again. I honestly can't remember our original vows or what Oscar's dad (who was our pastor) said or what the lyrics were to the song that his brother's wrote and sang for us. It just so happens that my husband Oscar is a wedding videographer so his associate videographer Mark was able to live stream and film the day for us!! Thank you Mark!

During the last 10 years we've moved from Bolivia to Canada, started our flower and videography businesses, bought a home and worked hard on our marriage. A lot has happened during this time and we really wanted to celebrate our 10 year anniversary in a significant way, which for us was having a vow renewal and re-commitment ceremony officiated by our favorite Calgary wedding officiant Tamara Jones. We also exchanged personal vows and rings and had a prosecco toast following the ceremony where we got to thank our virtual wedding guests for joining in. We also danced a Viennese Waltz that we had learned by taking online classes with our friend Aga Bohun who runs a dance academy in Vienna. We met her during our travels to Vienna in 2018 and took an in person Waltz class with her. We thought it would be a nice way to reconnect and learn how to waltz as part of our 10 year anniversary celebrations plus I'd been begging Oscar to take dance lessons with me since we got married.

After our romantic, candlelit vow renewal ceremony in front of the iconic fireplace at The Lake House Calgary we met up with our wedding photographer, Tara Whittaker in Kananaskis for some couples portraits. Tara asked me to forgive her for the location name, "Widow Maker" and I'm pleased to announce I didn't become a widow during our portrait session ;). Tara captured the most beautiful golden hour light in Kananaskis and we are so happy with how the photos turned out! Our videographer Mark of Castaño Films also captured everything on video and then Oscar edited it which made it even more special!

A big thanks to our amazing vendor team listed below and cheers to 10 more years of marriage with my best friend!