A Guild Park & Gardens Wedding in Scarborough: Josie + Nelson

Nelson stood on the far side of an iron gate and waited.

Josie came up behind the bars in her gown, a step to his left, close enough to put a hand on the metal. Neither of them turned around. They found each other through the bars, and that was the first picture of the day.

Josie and Nelson married at Guild Park & Gardens on a Saturday at the end of August. I covered the day in photo and film. This is what a wedding there actually looks like from the inside.

Guild Park & Gardens at a glance

Location: 201 Guildwood Parkway, Scarborough. The Guildwood neighbourhood, up on the Scarborough Bluffs in Toronto’s east end.

What it is: A public park, free to walk into, open year round. Rosa and Spencer Clark ran the estate here as the Guild of All Arts from 1932 and spent decades rescuing stone from downtown buildings that were coming down.

The ruins: Over 70 architectural fragments from more than 60 Toronto buildings demolished after the Second World War. Columns, arches and carved facades standing in mown grass.

The Greek Theatre: Built in 1982 from eight marble Corinthian columns and the arches of the 1912 Bank of Toronto at King and Bay, torn down in 1966 for the Toronto-Dominion Centre.

The venue inside the park: The Guild Inn Estate, the restored 1914 Bickford House plus new wings, reopened in 2017. Seated ceremonies and receptions happen there, not on the public lawn.

Getting there: 25 to 35 minutes from downtown by car, free parking on site. The 116 Morningside bus runs along Guildwood Parkway, and Guildwood GO is about a 25 minute walk.

Before the ceremony

Before the ceremony the garden split in two. Josie’s bridesmaids in sage green held her bouquet up between them while she laughed at something off to the side. Out on the lawn, Nelson’s groomsmen piled into him in a hug that turned into something closer to a tackle.

Then the garden went quiet for the two of them.

There is a wall of blush hydrangeas in the garden and we used all of it. Nelson tucked a loose strand of hair behind Josie’s ear. They put their foreheads together and said nothing for a while.

A short walk away there is a stone balustrade with carved figures set into it, saved from a building downtown and now standing in grass. Josie’s cascading orchid bouquet in front of old stone is the whole idea of this park in one frame.

Then the arch. Josie opened her veil wide underneath it and held it there, and the lace filled the whole opening.

Her bridesmaids threw white rose petals at her after that, and she gathered the train in one hand and laughed her way through it.

The ceremony

The ceremony ran under a white draped tent on the stone terrace at the Guild Inn Estate, a chandelier hanging in the middle of it, white and green florals at the posts.

Josie came down the steps between her parents, veil down, train following her. Nelson was already at the front. There is a frame of him waiting, taken between the shoulders of two seated guests, and he is not looking at anything except the top of those steps.

Then the part I keep. Josie read her vows through her veil, from a small booklet with the word Vows printed on the cover in gold. For a few minutes that veil covered both their faces at once, close enough that nobody else under the tent could hear a word of it. Nelson laughed in the middle of his own vows.

The ring went on and he kept hold of her hand after it was on. Then he lifted the veil.

They walked back up the aisle through bubbles, Josie lifting her train off the stone, and the tent stayed loud the whole way out.

Portraits in the ruins

Once the ceremony is done the park belongs to you, and here that matters more than it does at most venues. No hotel corridor, no waiting on a lift. You step out of the tent and you are already in a garden full of rescued stone.

A full marble doorway stands on its own in the grass. It used to be the way into a building downtown. They stood inside it and laughed at each other while the lawn ran away behind them.

Out on the open grass the sun sat low enough to draw an outline around both of them from behind. Josie changed into a second dress for the evening and we walked the allée, a long path with marble columns either side and flowerbeds running the length of it.

The tent, the toasts and the candles

The tent filled up and the string lights came on. Nelson pulled Josie into a dip underneath them, her bouquet hanging down green and long. At the head table they sat shoulder to shoulder, laughing at whatever the rest of the room was laughing at.

The speeches got them both. Nelson on the microphone, Josie beside him laughing over her own pages. Bottles and glasses met over the candles. Later, against the glow of the chandelier, the two of them turned into one dark shape.

Then the guests went outside and lit candles.

They made a tunnel along the path, two rows of raised flames in the dark. The couple walked into it and stopped halfway to kiss. That is the last frame in the gallery and it should be.

The vendor team

Tsunki Event Planning ran the day. Athena planned it, her assistant Leon was on site throughout, and between them they kept everything moving without ever getting in front of the moment. This is the second time I have worked with Tsunki Event Planning, after Zoha and Moe’s anniversary celebration, and there is a simple reason I am glad to see their name on a schedule. When the planning is this tight, I stop watching the clock and start watching people, and that is where the pictures are.

If you are planning a wedding at Guild Park

Two things get mixed up here constantly.

The park and the estate are separate bookings. Guild Park & Gardens is City of Toronto parkland. The Guild Inn Estate is the event venue sitting inside it, and the estate is who you speak to about a seated ceremony and a dinner. Josie and Nelson’s ceremony and reception were both at the estate.

A ceremony in the public park comes with rules. The City permits ceremonies in the park itself for up to 100 people, standing only. No chairs, no decorations, no confetti, no food and no drink. That covers a short outdoor ceremony and nothing more.

Wedding photography in the park is its own booking. The City lists it at $485.47 for two hours including tax, for up to 30 people, through Client Services Park Bookings at 416-396-7378 (press 2). You need a City of Toronto booking account first, with both your names on it, and then you make the call yourselves. My step by step guide to booking a Toronto park photo permit covers every step. Engagement sessions and general photography need no permit, which is the part most couples do not expect.

Timing. In late summer, save the last hour of sun for the open lawn and the allée. Everything before it can live near the ruins and the hydrangeas, where the trees hold the light soft all afternoon.

See the full gallery

That is their film, shot the same day as the photographs. The full fifty image gallery lives here: Josie + Nelson at Guild Park & Gardens.

Their pre-wedding session at the Toronto Music Garden was earlier this year, on the downtown waterfront with the skyline behind them. Put the two galleries side by side and you get the whole arc, city water in spring and old stone at the end of summer.

If you are getting married at Guild Park, or anywhere across Toronto and the GTA, reach out here. Photo and film are both on the table, and I would rather start with a conversation about your day and your people than with a list of numbers. More on how a wedding day works on the wedding photography page.