This Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise wedding is the picture of understated elegance. With such a stunning location to get married, you don’t need to fuss much with decor.

For Carrie and Xiao’s wedding, we created an understated elegant vibe, using ivory, gold with navy accent. The flowers were our pop of colour! Neutral wedding flowers usually take the stage at our weddings, and Carrie wanted a dreamy pastel-y palette of blush, peach, and hints of yellow. The flowers provided just the right amount of colour to the wedding without being too much.

This Manhattan couple and their guests live in concrete jungles with busy city life. Because of this, Carrie and Xiao wanted their wedding weekend to be about natural scenery and a calm, dreamy atmosphere. The Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise was a natural fit!

Chinese tea ceremony

The day started off with a Chinese tea ceremony. This is a tradition where the couple serve tea to their parents and elders and receive gifts in exchange. For this event, Carrie wore a a traditional Cheongsam and red heels. We loved the extra hair pin details she added to her up-do!

After the tea ceremony, Carrie changed into her traditional Western-style wedding dress. She changed up her hair slightly and make up too for the different event (why only have 1 look when you can have several?).

Lake Louise lake view wedding ceremony

Hands down, the most popular location for a wedding ceremony is the lake view terrace at Chateau Lake Louise. You can certainly see why.

The only downside to this location is that it is often very crowded with tourists. The area directly behind where your ceremony takes place is Banff National Park property, meaning that you cannot ask people to stay away as it is not hotel property.

If you want this spectacular view for your wedding ceremony, you have to accept that the area will be busy. Most of the time, tourists are respectful and will give you space. Our team, as well as the Fairmont Chateau’s staff, stand guard at different points around the ceremony so that tourists don’t crash the wedding!

Our decor here was simple greenery garland with pops of coloured roses. Carrie and Xiao didn’t want much else to clutter up the view.

Champagne toast photos instead of sunset photos

One of Carrie and Xiao’s primary concerns was spending time with their guests. Since guests were travelling from halfway across the world, Carrie and Xiao didn’t want to spend too much time away from their guests. They opted for a First Look, and instead of sunset photos, they did Champagne Toast photos.

The Champagne Toast photos was great idea to sneak away for a few minutes and have a private moment during the day without the pressure having to slip away at the exact time the sun starts setting.

Chateau Lake Louise wedding in ivory, navy and gold

Clean, unfussy details was the theme here for the Victoria Ballroom wedding reception. Starting with the escort card display, we focused on a base of ivory in our linens and allowed the flowers to pop. The greenery laid between the escort cards are strands of passion vine — so romantic, yet simple.

Instead of the more traditional chiavari chair, we chose a cross-style chiavari chair for some visual interest. The accents of colour came from the navy napkins and our bright flowers, not to mention the gold flatware. In all honesty, couples almost always go for the gold flatware versus the in-house stainless steel flatware because it’s a simple to elevate the decor for not a large investment!

To stick with Carrie’s preference for clean, modern lines, we didn’t use the ever popular gold mercury votive candle holders. Instead, we rented cylinder glass and hammered gold candle holders. These brought a nice weight to the design but kept the table decor streamlined.

First Dance after Grand Entrance

Here’s something we love to switch things up: have your First Dance immediately after your Grand Entrance instead of after dinner, speeches, etc.

For a lot of our couples, the First Dance is something that makes them anxious — it’s another item on the checklist of the day’s events, so they can’t really relax and enjoy dinner. If you’re like this, scheduling your First Dance right away can help you relax throughout the rest of the evening. Your guests are also more alert at this time too.

There are some DJs or musicians that find that the First Dance helps kick off the dance portion of the Reception, so they prefer having the First Dance later. In this case, we arranged for Carrie and Xiao to say their Thank Yous and wrap up their speech by asking their DJ to kick off the dance with a fun, party song. They would walk/dance immediately to the dance floor, and their wedding party followed to create a lively energy for the dance.

A funny story though: the emcee forgot to invite Carrie and Xiao up to say their Thank You speech, and instead he was the one to ask the DJ to kick off the dance floor. Thankfully, the DJ reacted quickly and hit the song, and Carrie and Xiao shrugged it off and went straight to the floor to party! These little hiccups will happen on your wedding day, and the best way to handle things is with an easy-going attitude.

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Planning, Design + Coordination: Evelyn Clark Weddings | Photography: Kristyn Harder Photography | Videography: Twisted Filmworks | Venue: Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise| Flowers: Flower Artistry | Decor rentals: Mountain Event Rentals | HMUA: Rainki’s Makeup |  Stationery: Minted Weddings | Officiant: Robin White | DJ: Class Act DJ | Transportation: Highland VIP