On June 15th, our team headed to Jeff (Janie’s brother) and Lindsay’s backyard and had the wonderful opportunity to design a floral wall to celebrate their engagement/house-warming party! Janie also designed beautiful bud vases, centerpieces, and a bridal bouquet and pocket boutonniere for the couple. But there was a catch, only the couple and their immediate family knew about the surprise… that they would actually get married that day! 

It’s no surprise that planning a surprise wedding would be “a lot of work” as Lindsay says, especially because they are hosting it in their own home. Jeff and Lindsay were specific about very different things. While they decided on a garden party, Lindsay was adamant that every detail was perfect, such as including signs for the gates, labled bug sprays to match the aesthetic, QR codes for photos, and even custom beer lables to represent themselves and their adorable dogs (Sour Otis, Hoppy Little Frankie, and Missing Piece Jeff and Lindsay). 

Jeff and Lindsay found that one of the more difficult tasks was keeping the secret from as many guests as possible. Because of the secret, they ended up doing all of the prep work and organization themselves including tasks like applying stickers on 240 cans of beer and hand beading 70 drink tags!

The biggest enemy of the surprise wedding was unfortunately the weather. Not only was there a rain & hail storm during the designing of the floral wall, but basically everything Lindsay and Jeff had planned fell through when it absolutely down-poured 20 minutes before the guests arrived. Also, over half of the guests arrived really early before the catering staff was present which led to a super chaotic start to their event. 

These sequence of events led people to get really suspicious about the surprise when Jeff and Lindsay had to move all the furniture from the living room to the basement. 

In the end, they were able to move the floral hedges at the base of the flower wall into their living room for their ceremony, and made the most of the flower wall by taking photos with their guests despite it raining heavily. 

The worst part of the wedding for Lindsay was “the rain making the house very squishy.” But the best parts were the “flowers, marrying my absolute dream husband, doing a first look, tricking everyone by announcing our wedding through trivia, and the music.” Plus, a lot of rain on your marriage day typically means good luck, so it seems even the weather wanted to surprise the new couple at their surprise wedding!

At first, Janie was a bit hesitant about the surprise wedding due to a past experience where she designed flowers for a surprise wedding for a New Years Eve party. Unfortunately, many guests cancelled due to unforseen circumstances and Janie was worried something similar would happen to Jeff & Lindsay since their guests would be under the impression that they were going to an Engagement/House Warming Party. But since their immediate family knew about the surprise, including Janie and her husband Oscar, she felt much better about the event and the turnout!

To Janie, Jeff and Lindsay were super easy going and loved all of her floral ideas. Janie based the colour palette off of a bouquet that Lindsay showed her, then ordered seasonal flowers with lots of peonies, garden roses, hydrangea, delphinium, and tweedia for all of the floral decor. 

Fun fact, Mark (Janie’s other brother who is a welder) created three metal frames/stands for the floral wall to be designed on! They were quite sturdy and perfect for the greenery and florals to stay on, even in the heavy rain and hail storm!

Despite the heavy rain, Janie was glad that the guests got to take photos in front of the floral wall with Jeff & Lindsay, even if it wasn’t for the ceremony like they had originally planned. She also liked the many little arrangements in bud vases and small decorative vases that they placed all over their home! The flowers really brightened the space and many of the guests couldn’t believe they were real. The next day, Jeff and Lindsay took more photos in front of the flower wall before taking it apart to bring flowers to their parents, neighbours, and co-workers, such a wholesome end to their surprise wedding!

Despite how much work designing the flower wall was, Janie is so happy that they made it into the photos and that her team (Fanny and Quiana) helped out so some stress was taken off of her and she could enjoy getting ready and spending the day with her family. 

Checkout our reel featuring Jeff and Lindsay's surprise wedding as filmed by Oscar from Castaño Films (our sister business) here!

Congratulations to Jeff and Lindsay once again! xoxo

If you need helping with flowers for your wedding, surprise or not, we'd love to help you out! Please fill out our contact form to inquire about our availability!

Photography: Tara Whittaker Photography