Katrina and Trey wanted to make their wedding feel like the best house party anyone had been to. “The best weddings we’ve attended have been the small intimate ones where guests mingled and there was time to just be together and enjoy the occasion; we wanted it to feel like that,” said the couple. Documenting all of it was Annabelle Agnew, a photographer who treats a wedding like a room she gets to quietly disappear into. Her instinct for the unscripted stuff, the dip nobody planned and the speeches nobody wanted to end, is exactly why this Laurentian summer day reads the way it does.
Location: The Laurentians, Quebec, Canada
Style: Pastoral, Tented, Joyful
Time of planning: 1 year
Number of guests: 80
Setting: Tented manor estate
Season: Summer
Their origin story runs on long distance and a serious amount of Air Canada points. They matched on Hinge while Trey was in Montreal writing for CBS’ Ghosts, the sitcom that shoots its haunted country manor right there in Quebec. Katrina, meanwhile, works as a rural family doctor in James Bay in northern Quebec, and was only passing through the city for a few weeks. What followed was two and a half years of catching each other in cities across the continent, held together by daily texts, until Katrina made the call to relocate to Los Angeles while keeping the job she loves.
Trey proposed in Santa Barbara through a meta crossword puzzle he built himself, which is roughly the most on brand way for a professional comedy writer to pop the question. They made it legal at the Van Nuys registrar office first, then threw the real celebration back in the Laurentians exactly 365 days later. The vision underneath all of it was one line Katrina keeps coming back to.
Bride's Morning & Fashion
Katrina’s dress came from Jenny Yoo, and the word that fits it is sculptural. The silhouette does everything through clean architecture, a high neckline up top, a bare back that drapes low. Katrina called it a look that “subverts trends over time,” and that restraint is the entire point.
Hair and makeup came from Atelier Eva Blanca, kept soft and low key so nothing upstaged the face. The one deviation from the pared back palette is a flash of red on her heels, a small rebellion against all that white that tracks with a bride who was never going to color inside every line.
Annabelle remembers, that when she walked into the bride’s suite, they had karaoke going, where Katrina and her closely knit group of friends belted out songs from Sister Act. She found this really special and spoke to Katrina staying authentic to herself and her friends, without feeling any pressure to do the bridal things we see so often now. This kind of energy carried throughout the day, Katrina and Trey wanted to be present and enjoy their wedding day while staying true to themselves. And this really shows up in the photographs.
Groom’s Fashion
Trey went American classic with a Ralph Lauren suit, navy instead of black, cut close and clean. The choice mirrors Katrina’s restraint, one more vote for tailoring over flash. The single wink is the tie, a spotted print that keeps the look from taking itself too seriously. For a guy who writes comedy about a haunted manor and then got married at an actual Quebec manor, a little humor in the neckwear tracks perfectly.
First Look
There was a first look, and it played out with zero production value in the best possible way. This couple skipped the choreographed bridal rituals almost entirely, the reveals and staged dressing sequences that have quietly become the genre default, and went straight for the real thing. What you get instead is two people actually seeing each other, indoors, unhurried, with the grand old bones of Manoir Davis around them. Annabelle has said she loves weddings where presence beats pretense, and the first look is the first proof of that thesis.
Ceremony
The ceremony happened on the balcony at Manoir Davis, looking straight out over the Laurentian mountains, and the light did plenty of the heavy lifting on a bright summer afternoon.
It was important for the ceremony to showcase our mixture of cultures, so we included readings and songs from Chinese, Jewish, and Christian backgrounds.
The officiant situation is its own small legend. Their original officiant, a close friend, had to step out less than a week before the wedding because of a family emergency, so the best man and maid of honour got drafted into the role on almost no notice and pulled it off. Around the couple, the wedding party leaned into butter yellow, mixed with prints and a powder blue suit so the color story stayed loose instead of matchy.
Moments Together
After the ceremony, the couple finally had a moment to themselves. It was here that Annabelle captured some of the most tender and moving photographs of the day, with no rehearsed poses or staged gestures, just the two of them being completely present with each other. Shot in black and white, they carry an added sense of timelessness, allowing the emotion, the glances, and the bond between the couple to take center stage.
Cocktail hour moved to the back of the Manoir, and the couple opened it by sabring bottles of champagne to pour over a coupe tower, which is about as confident an entrance as a party can make. The day hit peak heat right around then, so the cold pours landed exactly when everyone needed them.
The cleverest touch was the escort card hack. Each guest got a tumbler with their name printed on a little parasol, which pulled double duty as shade in the sun and as the marker for where they would sit later under the tent.
Reception
The reception entrance was a full statement. The whole tent was primed to celebrate, and Trey answered by dipping Katrina the second they walked in, fast enough that the moment almost went undocumented. The cake came early on purpose. Rather than burying it at the end of the night, the couple cut into the Lecavalier Petrone cake at the tail of cocktail hour, specifically so the many kids in the room could enjoy it at full energy instead of missing it past bedtime.
Studio CK handled the florals in that loose garden gathered style, La Nouvelle Tablée supplied the rentals, and the bar ran on MTL Craft Cocktails. Then came the part everyone remembers.
The best part of the day was the speeches! I was so nervous about how many we had lined up but they were all such thoughtful and hilarious reflections of us and our relationship, and we could’ve listened to them for many more hours. It helped that some were professional writers!
Advice from the couple:
• Starting out can feel really overwhelming, so we found that it helped to think of some “moments” you want to create. They can be really small but help to build the scaffolding around which you can plan. For us, it was the different cultural elements of our ceremony, a cocktail hour which we kicked off by sabering bottles of champagne, and featuring the wedding cake before dinner, often cake happens so late that people miss it and we especially wanted the children in attendance to be able to enjoy it to their hearts content!
PHOTOGRAPHER Annabelle Agnew Photography | VENUE Manoir Davis | FLORALS Studio CK | HAIR AND MAKEUP Atelier Eva Blanca | BRIDE’S DRESS Jenny Yoo | GROOM’S SUIT Ralph Lauren | CATERING Mirepoix Traiteur | TENT Sperry Tents | RENTALS La Nouvelle Tablée | CAKE Lecavalier Petrone | BAR MTL Craft Cocktails | DJ DJ Bruno Berdnikoff
