Wedding: August 21, 2015 Photographer: Geneoh Photography / Carly Jo Studio Ceremony & reception: The Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise, Banff, Canada Minnesota reception: The Outing Lodge, Stillwater (September 5, 2015) Honeymoon: Germany and Ireland
While the average bride-to-be might spend months—or even years—before the wedding thinking about her dress, for Wynne Reece (a Minnesota event planner and owner of La Vie Charmé Events), it started much earlier than that: when she was 5. In fact, her parents still have some of the airplane napkins she used to sketch her first wedding gowns, inspired by an airport copy of Martha Stewart Weddings magazine. Years later, Wynne’s wedding to Ben Klaassen was a week-long affair in Banff, the renowned Canadian national park, with a Minnesota reception afterward. Guests enjoyed canoeing on Lake Louise and hiking to mountaintop tea huts, with a fondue dinner and a made-by-the-bride s’mores buffet for dessert. Wynne’s parents’ 40th wedding anniversary fell on the same day as the reception in Minnesota, and in a surprise gesture of gratitude and love, she and Ben offered them the floor for the first dance; furthering the surprise was the appearance of a capella vocal ensemble Cantus (clients and friends of Wynne’s mother, composer Libby Larsen) to serenade the other happy couple.
