Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/171645
From the get-go, McNally knew she had to make a strong impression at the MacKinnon-Telford wedding. "Erin's mother Deb MacKinnon is a well-known artist and painter in Vancouver and Burke's mother, Nancy, has organized a lot of charitable events for the BC Children's Hospital," she says. "Nancy could have planned the wedding but she didn't have time. Still, she wanted her voice heard, and I wanted to make sure she was impressed. I knew she had high expectations and I had a lot to prove." Some brides are forced by budgetary restrictions to pinch their pennies, but for Erin and Burke's wedding the budget was fairly generous. "They have good taste and high expectations, but they don't throw their money away," McNally says. "Making smart decisions was important to the couple but it didn't come before creating a fabulous end result. Their priority was to do it right and have an impressive look." The look they wanted for their wedding was elegant and chic, full of playfulness and reflections of themselves, but also with a feel that was modern yet timeless. McNally says she was thrilled when Erin chose a colour scheme of peach, white and black to complement the heritage, classic feel of the club's ballroom. "Initially she had talked about peach and orange, but after seeing the colours together in a palate, she changed her mind," Top: A sign of things to McNally says. "I was glad, because the peach come. The groomsmen and orange scheme didn't have the clean, crisp, had to push the car up the driveway as Erin elegant look I'd envisioned." and her father were But of course the colour peach can mean leaving Burke's parents different things to different people, as they home. Middle: Karen Ell officiated. The maid all experienced at the first 'showing' with the of honour and best man florist. "The flower arrangement was more of were longtime friends. a flesh-pink than a peach in tone," McNally says. "After the showing we selected a larger, higher floral arrangement and I contacted the florists with a more specific shade of peach." The job of a good wedding planner is to lift stress and pressure from the shoulders of the bride, and McNally simply excelled at that, Erin says. "Geneve introduced me to fabulous vendors and was wonderfully organized, which meant I didn't have to worry about anything," she says. The two spoke daily on the telephone, and exchanged some 237 emails over the course of the seven months they worked together. "That's actually less than usual," McNally confides. "I've exchanged as many as 400 emails with brides over the course of a year of wedding planning." One of those vendors was Upright Décor, a company that helped McNally pull off an event that would be elegant, chic and full of playful touches, but not in the least ostentatious. While McNally honed in on the details, Erin and Burke enjoyed dance classes at Broadway Ballroom in preparation for the wedding reception. As their June 12th wedding approached, McNally had the event fine-tuned with a schedule that defined what would occur every 15-to-30 minutes. Still, as she knows "Making smart decisions was important to the couple but it didn't come before creating a fabulous end result." www. r e al we d d i n g s . ca RW21_part 1.indd 55 55 9/19/11 3:24:31 PM