Our wedding day felt like a dream, absolutely perfect.

We've heard that it's good luck for there to be a storm on your wedding day, which was a lovely sentiment until it thundered right up to the moment our outdoor ceremony was about to begin. A special moment from our day that we will never forget, is how those storm clouds began to part as we walked down the aisle. While we held hands and shared our vows, the birds began to chirp and the sun shone down on us - our own fairy tale moment!

Despite having both gone to Queen's University, living just a block apart and even working in the same building, we didn't meet until several years later when a job at CHEO brought Dan to Ottawa. Although we have different personalities, our values and goals always seem to align. After both working to help individuals with neuromuscular disorders (Dan as a researcher and Meagan in non-profit), we have once again found ourselves in similar fields, both of us supporting people on their journeys with cancer. After 6 years together, we have happily settled in Ottawa with our two dogs and are so excited to be starting our married life together.

We knew right away that we wanted the energy of our wedding day to feel light and joyful, and that led us to Derrick at Union 11 and Stonefields Estate. We didn't want to put pressure on ourselves to recreate trends or feel pressured by what we were seeing online. We wanted the moments of our wedding day to feel organic and for those genuine moments to be caught on camera. Derrick was able to capture all of that and more, and we couldn't be happier.

If Dan had one piece of advice for couples planning their wedding, it would be to choose the customs and traditions that reflect who you are, rather than incorporating things into your wedding based on obligation or expectation.

Meagan's advice to every bride or groom is that anyone can have the perfect wedding, it's all in your frame of mind. There is not a single wedding where everything goes according to plan, but it's all in your mindset. We knew that some things would not go as planned, but we decided far in advance that those were not going to be what mattered to us or what we would remember. At the end of our wedding day, we marveled to each other about how perfect it felt and how we wouldn't have changed a single thing!