Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/391714
I "I always tell people you can meet someone amazing literally anywhere, because I met Kevin on a street corner in the middle of the night," says Jenna Smith of her writer- husband Kevin Afanasiff, whom she serendipitously met in 2007. "We ended up talking for the rest of the evening," says Kevin, "and that started the whole big thing." e avid travellers (who dropped everything to go to Europe for a few months shortly after they met) were on a month-long trip to Central America shortly after their fifth anniversary when Kevin proposed at Agua Azul in Mexico, one of his "favourite places on earth," with his grandmother's vintage wedding band. "We were in our bathing suits on a little dock hidden away and we managed to find a moment of seclusion," he says. "It was important to me that we get married somewhere where I had never planned a client's wedding — I wanted the venue to feel like it was 'ours,' " says Jenna, the owner and principal planner of Revel Events, who also knew their nuptials wouldn't be held during the hectic summer wedding season. Although the couple initially thought to marry in the Rockies near Kevin's hometown of Edmonton, "a quick trip to Whistler revealed the perfect venue right in our own backyard," says Jenna. "Nita Lake Lodge had everything we were looking for: a cozy lodge atmosphere, beautiful scenery, excellent food, gorgeous rooms and the possibility of snow on our wedding day. We booked it on the spot! "e rest of our vendors were a no-brainer," she adds. "I simply picked my favourite people from the Vancouver wedding industry, in many cases close friends who would have attended our wedding anyway as guests." Her vendors included the local wedding world who's who, among them Filosophi Events (who provided day-of coordination) and SideOne (who provided a duo during the ceremony, a one-man band for cocktail hour, and a six-piece band for the dance party). e outdoor ceremony took place at the lodge's porte-cochère, with the couple's friend Tyler officiating, as a hundred friends and family members looked on, warmed Jenna Smith Kevin Afanasiff November 10, 2013 Nita Lake Lodge, Whistler realweddings.ca 27