Amie and Shannen featuring Red Flannel Photography

Amie and Shannen

PHOTOGRAPHER RED FLANNEL PHOTOGRAPHY

Redflannelphotography.com

Originally from Georgian Bay, Ontario,

Shannen came out west in 2011 looking for adventure. After spending a few years in Banff, AB, she found Fernie and quickly called it home. Amie is from Essex, England and came to Canada in 2014, also looking for adventure and good winter snow. Little did they know what else they would find here. “A mutual friend knew us separately and introduced us. It was Amie’s first day in town when we met, and we haven’t been apart since,” says Shannen.

Both Amie and Shannen have a passion for winter sports and camping. “I even successfully encouraged Amie to switch from skiing to snowboarding,” says Shannen. Their family grew by one when they adopted their puppy, Gullie in 2017 and the adventurers grew from two to three!

“We decided to get married in Fernie because it is our home and we couldn’t imagine getting married anywhere but here, surrounded by these mountains and the Fernie love,” says Shannen. “We were overwhelmed by the amount of people who came across the globe to join us on our special day. We were very proud to show our friends and family the beauty that surrounds us every day.”

Shannen being a local Nurse, and Amie head chef at Nevados, they both feel deeply connected to the community and wanted to ensure the wedding represented this connection and was close to their hearts. “It was an easy decision to celebrate here,” they add. They held the wedding at the Bull River Guest Ranch. “Gina is a wonderful woman and it felt like she was family! The Ranch was extremely accommodating and she made us feel like we were the most important people in the world,” Shannen says. “The landscape was exactly what Amie and I dreamed of, it really was a dream wedding come true!”

Their goal was to make the wedding as DIY as possible, and they felt as though the Bull River Guest Ranch fit this vision perfectly. They decided to use High Country Catering for a pig roast, which they felt suited the backcountry theme and budget. For photos, they went with Red Flannel Photography. “Randi was recommended to us by a friend, and we could

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not have been more pleased with the moments that she captured.” For flowers, they kept it super simple. Amie’s bouquet was made by the talented crew at the Green Petal, and they ordered baby’s breath for the mason jars that were on the dining tables. Shannen made her own bouquet from local greenery, wildflowers and feathers.

A beautiful summer day and epic mountain views completed the celebration perfectly, congratulations, Amie and Shannen and thank you for sharing your story.

What is your favourite moment of your wedding day?

Our favourite moment of the wedding day was playing lawn games for hours with everybody, Our friends all donated games and set them up, it was effortless fun!

What advice would you give those planning their own wedding day?

Advice that we would give couples planning a wedding is to just be easy going, nothing is ever going to be perfect or exactly how you expected it. If you just go with the flow things might even turn out better than you expected. It certainly did for us. We did all of the finer details over the course of a year, collecting and saving, so there wasn’t a big rush near the end. We both kept saying that it felt too easy! Keeping things simple made for the perfect day.

What were some unique elements to your wedding that really stand out - things you tried to do differently?

The unique elements were the simple decorations. A roll of burlap from Home Hardware, a few cases of mason jars, some wood rounds a friend cut up and cedar branches. We really loved how we made our music play list. We asked all of our guests to provide us with five songs with their RSVP. This made for a wicked playlist for dancing and lawn games! We also asked both sides of our family to wear something of a particular colour. Amie’s side wore yellow, and Shannen’s wore green. This made for awesome pictures and great conversation between our families that were meeting for the first time!