Signing their crane.

We met Sarah and Kyle at Indie Wed last weekend, they drove six and a half hours to attend the event (it helped that they have family in Chicago) to find a few details for their St. Louis-based vintage, outdoorsy-with-a-short-dress, casual, fun wedding on their 10th anniversary in September.

When we asked what the groom would wear on the day, he smiled and shrugged, “maybe a vest, maybe a hat, not a suit” and she followed up, “maybe some suspenders for the groomsmen.”

Dressed at Indie Wed, as Sarah put it in an email earlier this week, “in matching cowboy shirts” they looked every bit the ultimate couple for the show. And their wonderfully hands-on, personalized wedding is a perfect fit for the artisanal exhibitors. Kyle is a photographer and so pictures are making up a large part of the budget while a lot of the decor sounds like it will be DIY however, they loved the super 8 cinematography they found at the show as well as vintage wedding veils and the adorable wedding cake toppers from The Small Object.

We’ll find out soon enough if they do go for any of the Indie Wed vendors; we’ll be keeping tabs on Sarah’s own blog, Sarah’s Confections: Sweet little daily thoughts, a spot where she organizes and muses on her favourite online finds and potential projects as well as shares her thoughts about the planning, such as the anxiety she feels over their lack of venue.

The Small Object's cake toppers start at $135US

On Saturday, The Wedding Co. participated in Chicago’s first ever Indie Wed show with The Crane Chandelier. Held inside Ravenswood Event Center, a venue that’s filled with mint condition vintage luxury cars and equally special vintage neon signs; not surprisingly, it was the perfect spot for a show that wasn’t about the traditional wedding, and made the “unique wedding show and market” feel all the more distinctive and refreshing. And that’s exactly what we felt we were part of. When I asked the brides and grooms in attendance if they identified with being ‘indie’, most felt they didn’t, but they came, they said, because they knew they’d find a room full of things that were fun, original and as one wedding planner in attendance said, “they care about the hand that’s involved with their weddings and that’s why they’re interested in meeting these independent businesses.” More about the show, The Crane Chandelier Project, the attendees and the vendors (especially those whose products are available outside of Chicago) later. But first, a few pics of the day to get started with “Indie Week”.

At the Hotel Monaco ... our pink and orange cranes were a great fit with the room decor and also got a view of the Windy City

Set up is just getting underway on Saturday, January 30: It's so incredibly different being an exhibitor at a show, rather than running it and we loved the experience.

The Crane Chandelier Project is set up and ready to go!

Signing a crane for our growing collection

... and another crane! We'll be posting our full report on the Crane Project shortly.

Indie fashion! Loved some of the models' '50s-inspired hair and the one-of-a-kind dresses

The finale of the fashion show

The end-of-day sunlight came streaming through the skylights just before the show closed, it was beautiful!

Catherine and I spent the day in Chicago’s downtown today, Catherine was preparing for our booth at Indie Wed where we’ll introduce The Crane Chandelier to couples in the Midwest. The event is tomorrow from 11A – 5P and we’re so excited to meet the incredible vendors who are mostly local professionals who have products and services that work for both boho and traditional weddings.

Set up at the Indie Wed show started earlier today ...

... and continued

We're very excited about the bags!

Images courtesy of Indie Wed

Yesterday, our lovely intern, Stephanie (S) began sorting our current stash of cranes. Since moving into the new office and actually having a space to put them all together, boxes filled with the tiny paper birds have been arriving regularly. Stephanie (G) and Catherine have been pulling them out of closets and trunks where they’ve been storing them safely until we could find a time and a place to get a little organized.

Today, Stephanie continues, and we’re hoping we’ll have some idea of how we’re going to organize them… we’re thinking by colour.. as well as a final count. Stay tuned.

It has been a while since we have given you an update about the Crane Chandelier Project but it has not been for lack of material.

The Project is celebrating it’s first birthday at The Wedding Show this weekend and we have almost reached our one-year goal of 5000 cranes, we currently have approximately 4665 and I am sure will exceed 5000 by the end of the show. We hope to collect 10,000 cranes from engaged couples around the world by The Wedding Show in January 2011. We’re thrilled by the success we have thus far and have great expectations for the coming year, if you’re planning a trip to The Wedding Show this weekend, definitely stop by The Handmade Stand to sign one yourself.

Thank-you to Jacqueline and Ryan who in November sent us 700 cranes for the project, they were exquisitely folded and each one had a sticker with their name, date and location of their wedding.  They folded 1000 cranes for their wedding as a symbol of health and happiness, and we hope the time they spent folding the cranes will give the family strength and hope as Jacqueline’s mother recovers from a heart attack she suffered the day of their wedding.

We are taking The Project to the Indie Wedding Market in Chicago at the end of the month to continue to spread the word. We just received an email from Christine Noelle of Dilly Lily in Chicago telling us that they have already started collecting cranes for us, thanks Christine!

Click for more information about the Crane Chandelier Project.

It’s the start of a new year at The Daily News, one where we hope to continue to bring our readers new and noteworthy content in a pretty package. We’re so pumped to be nearing our one-year mark of launching the blog and hope to continue pursuing the topic of wedding planning in a refreshing and current manner, providing just what Canadian couples might need to take their wedding from fabulous to flawless in terms of style, creativity and personalization.

But enough about us. Who wants two tickets to Chicago’s Indie Wedding Market? Contest closes at noon on Monday, Jan. 4, 2010

We’ve got a pair to the newly minted show and we’re giving them away to a reader on Monday at noon. And, for those of you close to one of Porter’s terminals, the airline has just extended their 30% off promotion until Monday at 5, that’s plenty of time to book yourself and your best bud a seat … maybe you’ll end up on our flight, Catherine and I are traveling to Chicago for the event to showcase The Wedding Co.’s Crane Chandelier Project and to see what the Windy City’s wedding experts are up to.

To enter to win the tickets, write a comment on this blog post telling us what the word Indie means to you with regards to weddings, it’s a term we adore and we’re wondering if you do to…

Yesterday, we received two huge deliveries of origami cranes for The Crane Chandelier Project! There’s nothing like that delivery truck pulling up outside and a stack of giant boxes making their way to the door – it takes some getting used to that the boxes are light as air, from their size you’d expect them to be heavy!

Sebastien first contacted us about the 1000+ cranes that he and his fiancée, Hope, were making for their wedding in Oregon. He shared a very romantic story of their courtship; they started making cranes for each other through architecture school and had 250 in their apartment before they decided to incorporate them into their wedding. Clearly, we were thrilled when he wanted to share their wedding with us too.

The couple met for photographs before the ceremony, Sebastien said it was magical and very personal to see her in her dress

Hope and I were married at McMenimen’s Edgefield in Troutdale, Oregon (near Portland). It’s a beautiful site. McMenimens is known for their brewpubs, and for restoring old properties. This place is particularly unique, as it was the county poor house, before falling into disrepair and then eventually being restored. We chose the location for a number of reasons. First of all, the services were great. [They take] care of food, rentals, servers, bar/liquor and extras like PA systems. It was a bit more expensive than organizing it all oursleves, but we were able to select everything, including menu items a la carte, so we could keep prices down that way.

Portland was close to my family, and Hope lived there for several years, so it was a good place for us, and it offered plenty of things to do for family and friends visiting from out of town. In fact, Hope actually crashed a wedding in the very same hall on the property years earlier, so we couldn’t resist the possibility of that happening to us.

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The Crane Chandelier Project is going to Chicago!

January 30, 2010 The Wedding Co. is participating in Indie Wed, a unique wedding show and market. We are excited to take the crane project on the road again and meet some of Chicago’s unique and talented vendors.

And how fitting to take a flight-themed project to the windy city!

Kristin and Jason's Crane Favour

Kristin and Jason were married this summer amongst hundreds of cranes of their own making. They are the second couple to entrust The Wedding Co. with a huge donation of the paper birds as part of our Crane Chandelier Project.

This is an excerpt from the email we received once they’d sent in their cranes:

Hi Stephanie and Catherine,

Thanks again for the opportunity to donate our cranes to such a great project!

I’ve picked out a couple pictures of our cranes. [As well as using cranes for centrepieces and favours] we hand-made a shadow box frame and have hung the cranes our guests signed inside it as a keepsake.

Cheryl's Meadow

I’m also attaching a rather personal photo.  Jason’s mom died from breast cancer.  After the wedding, Jason’s dad brought one of our cranes to “Cheryl’s meadow” — the place where they scattered her ashes.

Kristin (and Jason)

The Shadow Box

It’s letters like these that have made us realize what an important and meaningful project this has come for people outside the company! We feel so honoured to be collecting these stories where love and the sense of family stretch beyond the borders of newlywed bliss, as beautiful and moving as that bliss can be, and we’re so excited to be moving toward our goal of 10,000 cranes by January 2011.

Kristin and Jason's Gorgeous Wedding Party

To find out more about The Crane Chandelier Project, take a moment to read our motivation and objectives for launching it, or read more blog posts about our growing collection of cranes. To submit a crane of your own, request a pre-made one here.