Spring Craft Wedding Market – Some highlights

I wish the Craft Wedding Market was around a couple years ago when we were planning our wedding. There were several vendors with fun ideas, creative people, and best of all, a low key, nice gathering of people that might be planning a wedding, or interested in crafted goods and DIY.

I won tickets courtesy of Food Forward, and brought JC along for the “fun” and treats and info. As I exited the Elevator at Bento Miso up to the 3rd floor, the first person I see is Marie Fitrion, who with her partner Daniel Holloway,  have created Urban Acorn Catering, a plant-based friendly catering company. They do a few events every month that are either totally plant-based or have decent options. Like their upcoming Evening Vegan Brunch, which sounds amazing and full of delicious options.

We wandered around checking out the different vendors and creators, one thing I liked finding out about at this show was The Den, a DIY space with wedding & any ring workshops plus the workshop of several skilled jewelers. While I love the rings we ended up getting (from Brent & Jess) the idea of making your own ring together with your partner has some serious appeal. They also do parties and other events, so while I wont be making any wedding rings soon, it’s definitely a space I’m going to keep in mind. (I’ll have to find out if making jewelry for my stretched lobes is an option…)

Black Oak Brewery was there showing off their vegan-friendly craft beer (see them on barnivore.) so we got a sample splash of their delicious Nut Brown Ale, and then JC bought a bottle to walk around with. It’s one of my favourite beers, and I have Recipe for Change to thank for discovering them in the first place. If you drink, and, like me, don’t like IPA’s, the Nut Brown Ale is an especially wonderful choice.)

In the back corner there was Tori herself, from Tori’s Bakeshop showing off the cakes, donuts, and cupcakes the bakery has done. They do vegan & vegan gluten free wedding options, which is nice, especially for people with allergies or sensitivities that also happen to like eating cakes that are tasty.

The Tori’s Bakeshop cakes look pretty rustic to me (and I think that’s how they self-identify them as well), and while they’re not my style, they still always look beautiful adorned with fresh cut flowers and have a beautiful variety of colour choices too.

Right next to Tori’s, was The Golden Apple Confectionery which is a chocolatier in Liberty Village that makes custom truffles & sweets. They’ve got so many different dairy-free, egg-free chocolate options that if you like chocolate, they’re probably worth a visit.

At the show they were sampling out a few things, but one of them was the plant-based smokey chocolate truffle, which was divine, with exploding chocolate deliciousness. When we were living in a temporary rental in Liberty Village while we waited to move into our new  house, I may have visited Golden Apple Confectionery several times a week on my way back from the gym. Yummy.

Pickles or fermented foods aren’t something I normally associate with weddings, but we had some of those kinds of things at our wedding, and I’m just all around a big fan of fermented foods (hello, I’m Polish.) Alchemy Pickle Company had a nice little sampling of their products as well, my favourite was the pickled carrot.

The one thing I keep putting on every gift wish list is to be part of the Alchemy Pickle Share – conveniently if any of you want to join in on the delicious batches of fermented foods –  a new pickle share starts up between May – August, though I don’t know if you can opt out of getting honey sodas. (Either way, sign ups are on now – visit here for more info. p.s. I finally signed up.)

All in all, we had a nice time. It wasn’t the raucous frenzy of some of the other wedding shows we had made the error in visiting during the first few months of our wedding planning, but I do hope the Craft Wedding Market gets a tiny bit bigger, and does another session this year (and in future years.)

The one thing we didn’t do was check out any of the demos going on – but they all seemed relatively useful, so hopefully demos and workshops continue to be part of future Craft Wedding Markets.

One other thing the Craft Wedding Market has going for it? Space. Since it was held at Bento Miso (which is normally home to a collaborative workspace and has a statement on accessibility) there was elevator access to the third floor where the market was taking place and ample aisle space as tables were lined around the edges of the room and not clustered in the middle.  I hope this continues to be a consideration for future markets.