A Canadian Wedding!

Dave's niece Stephanie found a lovely young man named Brandon. Their story begins through Social Media; Facebook to be exact. They met while playing Farmville; a real-time farm simulation game developed by Zynga. It's an application on Facebook and has an App on both the Apple iPhone and Android. The game allows members of Facebook to manage a virtual farm by plowing land, planting, growing and harvesting virtual crops, harvesting trees and bushes, and by raising livestock. So with that said they developed their love and affection for one another and announced that they were to be married on 10/10/10. Brandon is a Canadian. Stephanie moved to Canada to be with him and they live in Calgary. Their wedding was in Canmore, Alberta Canada. Canmore had it's humble beginnings as a coal mining town.

As Dave's designated vacation days are quickly coming to an end for the year; he was limited on his travel dates. We fly out on Saturday, October 9th and returned home on Monday, October 11. While we as Americans celebrate 10/11 as Columbus Day, it is celebrated in Canada as Thanksgiving Day. Truth of the matter is that Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving on the second Monday of the month of October. The first Canadian thanksgiving was celebrated on 15th April 1872 to thank the recovery of King Edward VII from serious illness. The next thanksgiving was celebrated after a few years in 1879 on a Thursday. Canada later, had a turbulent time deciding the day of national Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving was celebrated on a Thursday in November between 1879 and 1898. It was later celebrated on a Thursday in October between 1899 and 1904. Thereafter, it was celebrated on a Monday in the month of October. This was between the period of 1908-1921. In later years, thanksgiving came to be celebrated on 'Armistice Day'. This was however, amended in 1931. Finally on January 31, 1957, Parliament announced the second Monday in the month of October as the official 'Thanksgiving Day'. It was declared as "a day of general Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed."

We flew from San Antonio to Calgary and rented a car and drove into Canmore; a scenic enjoyable journey!

Street pole banners.

Welcome sign

The view from our balcony room.

Saturday was her "family day" on the wedding invitation and she, Brandon and various family members traveled to Banff for the day.  As Dave and I got in later in the day we chose to remain close and unpack to prepare for the wedding.  Saturday night was an informal family dinner at Blackstone Mountain Lodge.  Brandon was the grill master and we all stepped up in preparing the meal.

The love birds.

The wedding was on Sunday at 4:30 pm so Dave and I had some free time to play.  We drove about 30 minutes or so to find an Indian casino. We arrived at Stoney Nakoda Resort & Casino. We played there for just a few hours killing some time before the wedding.  

Tee pees just outside of the casino.

From there we drove back and got ready for the ceremony.  Stephanie and Brandon had their ceremony in Canmore outside in a pretty park. Unfortunately the day of the wedding it rained. It was cold and wet but she made for a pretty bride.

The wet and cold bridal party

After the ceremony we went to Blackstone Lodge for the reception. On Monday we had a departure brunch with the two of them and family, said our goodbyes and made our way back to Calgary for our departing flight. Pin It Now!