Josie and Nelson chose a place built out of other places. Guild Park & Gardens in Scarborough keeps carved columns, arches and doorways that were saved from downtown Toronto buildings decades ago, and stands them in gardens above the Bluffs. I met them there on a late summer Saturday as their Toronto wedding photographer, with a film of the day to make as well. Nelson waited on one side of an iron gate. Josie stepped up behind the bars, and they found each other through the metal before either one turned around.
The ceremony ran under a white draped tent with green and white flowers at the posts. Josie held a small booklet with Vows printed on the cover and read through her veil. For a few minutes that veil covered both their faces, close enough that nobody else could hear them. Nelson pushed the ring onto her finger and kept hold of her hand after it was on. They kissed, the tent went loud, and they walked back out through bubbles with Josie lifting her train off the stone.
Then the garden emptied out for us. They stood inside a marble doorway that used to belong to a building downtown and laughed at each other, and we walked the columned allée while the light came in sideways. On the lawn the sun sat low enough to draw an outline around both of them from behind. Later the tent filled up, the speeches had them laughing again, and glasses met over the table. Under the string lights Nelson pulled her into a dip, and under the chandelier they turned into one dark shape. At the end of the night their guests lit candles into a tunnel, and the two of them stopped inside it to kiss.
