Leila & Eduardo || Manoir Hovey Winter Elopement

Leila & Eduardo met one night on opposing charade teams at a party in grad school that they attended in Texas. Leila says

We quickly discovered we have very similar taste in movies and started talking more … It always fascinates us to think that E's originally from Mexico, L from the Philippines, we met in Texas, got married in Quebec and settling down in Toronto!

Eduardo says that what he loves about Leila is

that she is very thoughtful about health and she's always improving her dessert/food recipes to make them healthier and tastier (and I didn't think that could go together). She is very intelligent and always encourages me to be the best version of myself.

Leila & Eduardo reached out to me looking for a way to have a very Canadian, read: very winter & mountains, wedding on Valentine’s Day, which is a very special day to them.

Originally they had wanted to get married in Banff, Alberta, which as serendipity would have it, I had some experience with as I had lived there after I graduated from highschool for two years working as a waitress. (And incidentally worked with Naomi before she started Mountain Events ).

After some brainstorming, we landed on one of my favorite hotels and I directed them to Elyna Kudish to help them finalize all the beautiful details of their wedding day.

Ceremony and celebration wise, Elyna Kudish pretty much took care of everything. We had an initial convo of what we had in mind and it was a breeze since then. We'd video call and email regularly to iron out details. Definitely one of our most loved aspect of our wedding --- No stress.
The only hard part is not being able to have our family and friends over since they're from overseas. However, rather than fussing out about these travel details (which, admittedly we spent quite some time on), we ultimately decided just have a separate and more informal celebration later on with them.

And what a beautiful wedding day it was! It really goes to show that even with a curfew under red alert, in frigid temperatures, “love is not cancelled”.

Last little bit of info before I sign off here, Leila & Eduardo went off to Les Terrasses Cap a L’Aigle for their Honeymoon, a suggestion I gave them based on my great experience there after photographing Gabrielle & LP’s micro wedding over the summer. I really loved how open they were to suggestions and for enjoying every moment of it, which I think you can tell in these photos :)