Finding the perfect location and venue for your wedding is important as it becomes the background for your love story to unfold for your guests.

At Gentle Planner we particularly love the outdoors, especially exploring how these spaces can be used for weddings and elopements. We came across Vive Lavender Farm in Uxbridge Ontario and immediately feel in love with the space. The owner Sally was delightful and welcoming. Through a lot collaboration, we formed a team and designed a vision for a style shoot at Vive Lavender Farm. In our design, we ensured unique specialities of this venue were highlighted: beautiful elopements and micro weddings.

As a wedding planner, I wanted to design and plan a style shoot that is representative of my style, vision, and values. This style shoot tells a story of a gentle and calm love. The calming scent of lavender and apricots evoke a sense of comfort and brightness. This theme is woven throughout the shoot without it feeling overbearing.

Our story also carries the values of wellness, sustainability and inclusivity.

Gentle Planner - I have a background in therapy, so when I chose a place to shoot I wanted it to evoke a sense of calm and wellness. I chose the Vive Lavender Farm as it is surrounded by greenery, a calming lavender scent, and in a quiet area. When you enter the space of a wedding venue and notice how you feel, do you have positive memory from that place, or do the surroundings bring you a sense of calm or excitement? When I had the privilege to visit Sally at Vive Lavender Farm, I immediately was drawn to it’s quiet, calming, and charming scene. I knew I wanted to create my style shoot here because of how the place made me feel. On your wedding day do not forget how our space can impact us and our mood. Choose a venue that brings the type of energy you are looking for.

I incorporated aspects of sustainability as I purchased the white dress from The Brides Project TO. This is a company that provides a sustainable, socially conscious, and budget friendly options for brides with proceeds going to cancer research. Many of the items and decor pieces were secondhand or offered by family and friends in order to reduce waste. It is always great when you can be environmentally conscious when planning your wedding. It is possible to have a beautiful wedding, while finding ways to reuse items and keeping the waste we create minimal.

Inclusivity is at the heart of my work. It is important for me to feature an Indian model in a lehenga along with a western model in a traditional white dress. Being part of the Indian community, I wanted to bring a part of my heritage and culture to the shoot. When I was younger, I would often browse through wedding magazines and remembered noticing a lack of Indian outfits or brides featured. As I’ve grown, I have noticed the industry has come a long way becoming inclusive of cultural diversity.

Design - The table design features candles, extensive floral arrangements, bud vases, personalized floral name cards, and gold cutlery. The welcome table which features loose lavender guests can throw at the couple as they walk down the aisle, a guestbook, pens, photos of the couple and a Polaroid camera for guest to use. The drinks and dessert table is on a vintage wooden slab with wheel barrels which hold it up. The desserts give a nod to high tea with vintage tea cups and mini desserts. The wedding cake is an apricot colour inspired 4 tier cake for guest to enjoy. Lastly, I created three different types of drinks all inspired by our lavender and apricot themes. Gentle Planner build cohesive events that are inspired by people’s love stories. This was no different and it was an incredible experience to be able to make this story come to life with a great team of vendors.

Vendor Team- Here is some information from each of the vendors around how they incorporate aspects of sustainability, wellness and/or inclusivity in their work:

Baked & Brewed is a female-owned small business that offers custom wedding cakes, guest favours, and small event catering. We focus on bridging flavours of the humble classics with the nostalgic favourites of the South Asian diaspora. Taking inspiration from our unique intersectional couples, we're always working on new flavour combinations and specialty items to serve a wider community. We like to consider seasonality and sustainable food practices like repurposing cake scraps to reduce food waste, sourcing bulk produce from local farms, and safely collecting eggshells for community gardens.

Field Notes is an ecological farm that employs earth-first, sustainable practices in both our growing and design work. We strive to mimic nature in our farming including: minimizing soil disturbance, growing crops organically without synthetic fertilizers or pesticides, and focusing on adding diverse plants that are native to our region. Our goal is to bolster the ecological resiliency of local species, and to build healthy soil life, which in turn results in an abundance of beautiful blooms that are in harmony with the changing seasons. Likewise, sustainability is at the heart of our floral design- from using homegrown seasonal ingredients to minimizing plastics and waste. We try to think creatively about reducing our impact on the environment in every step of our design work. We utilize reusable or upcycled containers, pottery made in small batches by a local artist, and source local eco-dyed ribbon for wedding bouquets.

Serene Beauty Studios - Mental wellness is important at serene because our outer appearance reflects the inner world. At serene, we encourage self love through accepting the authentic version of yourself. We do that by teaching our clients tips and techniques via skincare and minimal makeup to show off their beauty in the most genuine way. We believe that mental health and beauty has a strong link. In return, we want to empower our clients with positive self talk and self care that can be implemented simply at home.

Livia Hair Stylist - Wellness is a part of my art as hair has the power to lift spirits. My job as a hairdresser is to make an impact, I like to see people smile and feel confident within themselves.

KB Design Studios - My passion for digital and graphic design has stemmed from a young age. Being able to design artwork with an artistic lens has allowed me to create products that are inclusive to all cultures. Thinking with a sustainability mindset allows for designed products to be reused and recycled by creating high quality stationery.

The Brides Project T.O - The Brides Project TO which is a company that provides a sustainable, socially conscious and budget friendly options for brides, and the proceeds go to cancer research.

Bohemian Blooms -Casey believes in working toward positively impacting our environment and tries to source a lot of items secondhand, to help prevent them from ending up in the landfill. She also tries to keep things local to help lower CO2 emissions, package waste and excess. She focuses her photography on women's empowerment and supporting women to feel confident and comfortable behind the camera. She also runs a plant shop and has a true love for all things that grow!

Vive Lavender Farm -The entire 11.5 acres of property has a mix of woodlands, spring-fed ponds, native planting, gardens and a lavender hill. We have set an intentional plan to care for this environment by carefully and purposefully integrating business into nature and the natural beauty around us. We grow many flowers, herbs and vegetables right here which are used in producing lavender and herbal products, decorating and eating. We believe that we are preserving, restoring and improving the natural environment. For instance, the lavender crop grows on a hill where the drought tolerant crop thrives. We promote our property as inclusive. We fly our rainbow flag because we believe that all humans are valued and therefore respected. The property is easily accessible and on one level. The property welcomes guests to One-Day Retreats offered at the property. Yoga classes are available on the lavender hill during the summer months.

All the photos in this gallery have been taken by Bohemian Blooms.

Our shoot was published with Today’s Bride, check out the article here.

We would love to discuss your wedding day needs, if you are looking for full planning or Month / Day-of coordination services, click here to learn more about Gentle Planner and how we can support you in your wedding planning journey!