Unconventional Wedding Ideas to Make Your Day Even More Unique

Your wedding day is supposed to be the most magical day of your life– full of love, friends, and family. That being said, traditional weddings aren’t the only way to go. Having personalised, different touches will give you and your guests a special experience that will leave a unique memory and inspire everyone to think a little bit outside of the box. Whether it is the wedding venue, food, or decorations, creativity will always shine through. At the end of the day, always do what makes you and your partner happy. Here are some ideas to inspire you: 

1. Unique Wedding Cake

Flavours aren’t the only thing you can customise in your wedding cake. There are so many unique options to do instead of your standard white tiered wedding cake. Going for a cake made of donuts, cupcakes, crepes, (or sushi?!) allows for your guests to actually enjoy a piece of cake without the mess and stress of cutting it evenly. Top it off with customised bobble head figurines of you and your partner for an extra touch of humour and cuteness.

2. Not-So-Typical Outfit

There is no denying that a long extravagant white gown is beautiful, timeless, and symbolic of a wedding day. That being said, there is nothing more symbolic than a statement outfit. Try a white pantsuit or 2 piece set instead of a traditional ball gown. It is both bold and memorable to step outside of the typical expectations. If you still want to wear a dress, opt for a short and breezy dress– perfect for summer and more comfortable to dance in all night! Speaking of comfort, always keep a pair of comfortable dancing shoes with you. Your feet will thank you later.

3. Book a Cool, Modern Art Gallery Instead of a Regular Event Hall

Let’s face it… we should leave the event halls for business conferences and high school proms. The wedding venue is the very basis of your special day, and choosing a venue that is beautiful and unique, enriched with art and culture can completely transform the magical feeling of celebrating love. In Toronto, there are countless galleries and event spaces to choose from– most notable Twist Gallery on Queen St W. This space offers open, high ceilings, huge beautiful windows, and is lined with incredible art from local artists to help you celebrate your day. Call (416) 588-2222 for more information.

4. Toss Out Bouquet Toss for a Fun New Game Instead

As fun as tossing the bouquet is, the game is admittedly not very exciting or inclusive to every wedding guest. If you’re opting for an outside wedding, consider setting up cornhole, bocce ball, or giant jenga to ensure all your guests can join in the fun. If your venue is indoors, have interactive games like Connect 4, Chess, and Tic Tac Toe stations. Add a DIY craft station to encourage creativity and allow your guests to leave you special little gifts to commemorate the magical day.

5. Audio Recorded Guest Book

You’re probably wondering what we mean by an audio recorded guest book. Well, it’s exactly that: a guest book full of sweet messages that you can listen to over and over! Your guests can leave you messages that will create the sweetest playlist of all time. Have both audio and written guest books if you want double the love!

6. Unique Centrepieces

Although flowers and greenery are undeniably beautiful, they are basic wedding centrepieces that do not necessarily “WOW” a crowd. We suggest doing something more personal, something that reflects you and your partners personalities and can be sent home as wedding gifts for your guests. Pile 5-10 of your favourite books on each table, books that tell your loved ones the stories that moved you and the words that left their mark on you. They will likely not be reading during the wedding, but they can take home the book that stood out to them the most, and hopefully pass it on to someone else they love after.

At the end of the day, all that matters on your wedding day is you and your partner celebrating your love with the people who mean the most to you. Everything else is just details– but within these details is where you can get creative, exciting, and fun. Create unforgettable memories in unique ways by expressing your love with these little tips!

Meet the Gestures Artists

With work so breathtaking, words are necessary to describe the beauty of Gestures. Twist Gallery’s two-month-long exhibition displays 8 local Toronto artists’ brush strokes, showing just how intentional and deliberate each stroke is. Experience the feelings illustrated in this exhibition, it is sure to leave a mark

→ Join us at 1100 Queen Street West, Tuesday to Saturday from 11 AM to 6 PM ←

Gestures Opening Reception

Join us for light appetizers, refreshments, music, and a chance to meet the artists.

Thursday, April 7th, 2022 | 6 pm to 9 pm

1100 Queen Street W

Along with the incredible works done by our various artists it is important to us that we get to know each artist more personally. We asked each artist to send in a short paragraph explaining a bit about who they are in order for us, and you to feel more connected to them outside of their work! All of the artists from this exhibit have such incredible stories and explanations for why they love their craft, and we invite you to learn more about how they came to be who they are, and why they decided to create. Keep reading to get the full story!

MEET THE GESTURES ARTISTS

Alice Kelso

Alice Kelso is a Canadian artist, teacher, and social advocate. Though based mainly out of Hamilton and Toronto, she has also shown her work at pop-up exhibitions in the UK. As a graduate of OCAD University's painting program (BFA) and Sheridan College's social services program (SSW), she teaches (and learns) through an anti-oppressive and holistic framework. Alice's work is abstract but representational and her process is expressive and cathartic. It showcases the patterns created by natural growth through texture, mark-making and colour harmonies; conceptual interconnectivity between art and science, people and the world around them.

Andrea Higgins

Andrea is a contemporary self-taught artist with a background in music, film and dance. 

Her work is physical and improvisational, driven by emotion captured through an abstract lens. She describes her works as a dance with one's self, spontaneous and free, releasing energy and emotions in a limitless direction. 

Similar to the way music creates a soundtrack to our lives, colours play a role in the background of our everyday moments yet carry meanings that vary from person to person. 

Andrea lives and works in Toronto, Canada.

Andrea Rosara

Andrea Rosara is an interdisciplinary artist from Venice, Italy. He works primarily in the media of painting and drawing and has an interest in printmaking. He holds a Bachelor’s of Fine Art and a Master’s of Fine Art/Visual Studies in Painting, Drawing and Printmaking from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia. Andrea has exhibited his work in a wide variety of solo and group exhibitions in Venetian galleries and art festivals including Atelier 3+10, the Festival of Contemporary Art Giudecca, La Fenice Gallery, Techwood Venezia, and Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia. He is now based in Toronto, Canada.

Caroline Chorazy

Caroline Chorazy is a self-taught, Toronto-based abstract artist specializing in acrylics and gold leaf. She draws her inspiration from natural elements in an attempt to capture organic movement and flow in all of her artwork. Her use of gold leaf and pigment gives each piece a unique gesture and ability to change appearance or shape in cohesion with the room and light.

Moses Salihou

Moses is a contemporary artist whose artwork reads like visual poetry; subjective & limitless in its interpretation.  His inspiration and creativity are sourced from his surroundings, the environment and his imagination.  Moses’ creative process is guided by a desire to establish a dialogue through his work without setting any limits.

As a versatile artist, Moses uses various supports (canvas, paper, reclaimed materials) and mediums (oil, acrylic, watercolour, pigment and charcoal).  Originally from Cameroon, Moses now calls Toronto home and his artwork is proudly featured in private collections in Canada and abroad.

Seokhoon Jun

Seokhoon Jun loves family, friends, and nature. Currently studying art therapy at Toronto Art Therapy Institute with an interest in how art and spirituality come together in life. Glad and grateful for the opportunity to connect through art.

Valentina Youkhanna

Valentina Youkhanna is a self-taught artist who has always had a creative side since childhood. She spent a lot of her time as a kid drawing, colouring, and painting. In her early 20s, she began painting with acrylics and it’s been love ever since. She is not only passionate about the arts and creativity but also had a career as a mental health worker and facilitated art groups for those facing mental health and addiction challenges. In her late 20s, Valentina decided creativity would take the main seat in her life and pursued an education in hairstyling which ultimately led her to work in both professions. By 2019 she would dedicate and commit more time to her creative outlets and left the mental health sector to solely focus on her hairstylist career and art. 

Valentina is passionate about healing through art and believes everyone is creative. She believes everyone has gifts and talents in the arts but as time goes on and people “grow up” they forget what it means to play, to have fun, and let your mind be creative. She hopes to see more people tune into their intuition and create from the heart and soul to express or heal. She values community, supporting one another and believes there is abundance for all in the art world and no need to compete because as she states, “no two people can draw the same line.”

Vian Ewart

Vian’s early career was in the graphic side of journalism. About 15 years ago Vian had the opportunity to go to the Gallery School at the AGO, and then the Toronto School of Art, and then the three-year adult art course at Central Tech Art School. For several years since, Vian has been part of the ProjectArt studio group in Toronto. He has also been involved with a number of group exhibitions from the Praxis Gallery to Lennox Contemporary to Don Valley/Forest Hill and most recently Gallery 1313. Last year he completed a couple of commissions in Canada and the U.S.

We hope to see you there!

This exhibit is one of the longer ones, and we felt that this was necessary due to the complexity and emotional depth inherent in a lot of the artists pieces. We hope that this blog post gave you some insight into why each artist decided to express themselves through this medium, and how their art has helped shaped their life. We are excited to see you at the new exhibit Gestures and hope this work will inspire you in the way it was meant too.

Get to Know the Artists From Chromatics! March 2nd-26th

This month Twist Gallery has chosen 7 local Toronto artists to be a part of our Chromatics Exhibit. Each of these artists has their very own unique inspirations, creative processes and messages they display in their art. Their artwork communicates the same theme of expressing themselves through the use of bold and vibrant colours. How they use and express these colours is entirely unique.

→ Join us at 1100 Queen Street West, Tuesday to Saturday from 11 AM to 6 PM ←

Liz Szymczak

Liz Szymczak’s painting journey started in 2018 as therapy for anxiety, post-heart attack. She initially started painting rocks that she gathered from her walks at the lake. From there she jumped to small canvases, and now Liz’s largest piece to date is 36” x 48” and she hopes to go even larger! Painting opened up in her a well of creative energy that lay dormant for most of her life. Now painting is her sanctuary! All of her work is intuitive and many of her works have appeared to her in dreams. Liz’s only hope is that her art makes the viewer feel- because that is what makes life so beautiful!

Tamar Kevorkian

Tamar is an Armenian Canadian painter born in Beirut, Lebanon. Tamar grew up in Montreal, where she studied Fine Arts at Concordia University and Photography at Dawson Institute of Photography. Her infinite imagination and inspiration from her life experiences along with the influence of Pablo Picasso give life to an empty canvas.

Tamar’s preferred mediums are acrylic, oil pastel, charcoal, and ink, using brushes and palette knives of various sizes. She brings forth harmony to explore and create the visual imagery of her cubist graffiti paintings. Now living in Toronto, Canada, Tamar actively paints both on canvas and on digital media.

“Art should have no boundaries, therefore I paint freely and boldly because Art always matters.”

— Tamar Kevorkian

Judith McKay

Judith McKay is a Toronto-area abstract surrealist artist. Her intensely coloured, vibrant landscapes and portraits are influenced by magical realism and surrealistic dreams. The concept underlying her work is that of inseparable and contradictory opposites. The playful duality of abstract and representation—altering perception and reality. Interconnectedness and dissolving boundaries permeate her work—one element flows into another, merging and mixing, creating something altogether new. We think we recognize the places and people in these paintings but they are not as we remember them.

Her artworks featured at the Chromatics exhibit depict powerfully ethereal women spirits and sensual flowing skies, birds, and flowers in vivid, hopeful colours. Her mission in creating these works is to offer an alternative elsewhere, an escape from the chaotic world we find ourselves in. She uses acrylic on canvas; painting with swirling motion to give a sense of floating in ambient air. 

Recent exhibitions include the Loft Gallery Group Exhibition, The Artist Project, Toronto Outdoor Art Fair, HIRAETH, a solo show at the Urban Gallery, Toronto and FUSION, a shared solo show with Moses Salihou at the Freedom Factory Gallery, Toronto. Her work can also be found in private and corporate collections across Canada, the US, and overseas.

Adeeba Aslam

Adeeba comes from a deeply artistic family of painters, potters and clothing designers with roots in Pakistan. She is a self-taught artist who derives inspiration for her work from her spirituality, lived experiences and interactions with her community.

Over the past several years Adeeba has been trained with and is currently under the mentorship of a prominent Canadian artist, Catherine Shea.

Influenced by expressionist painters, Adeeba typically doesn't have a plan before exploring the canvas. She works with acrylic paint and selected mediums using unconventional tools and techniques to create her abstract pieces. Using bold colours, spatial and organic structures, Adeeba’s paintings evoke an ethereal depth and drama in telling her stories. The process of painting is both a deeply emotional and meditative experience for Adeeba.

Adeeba’s work has been featured at various locations in Toronto, where she was born, raised and currently resides.

For more information about her work, contact adeeba.aslam@gmail.com. Check out her Instagram: @adeeba.aslam.art.

Andrea Higgins

Andrea is a contemporary self-taught artist with a background in music, film, and dance. Her work is physical and improvisational, driven by emotion captured through an abstract lens. She describes her works as a dance with one's self, spontaneous and free, releasing energy, and emotions in a limitless direction. 

Similar to the way music creates a soundtrack to our lives, colours play a role in the background of our everyday moments yet carry meanings that vary from person to person. 

Andrea lives and works in Toronto, Canada. Check out her Instagram: @andreahigginsart.

Giuseppe Mandarino

Rooted in Italian tradition, Giuseppe was born in November 1976 and raised in the Downsview neighbourhood of Toronto. Giuseppe has been passionate about putting paint to canvas since his childhood. Experimenting with his artistic style by fusing a combination of textures, colours, and mediums his creations are one of a kind pieces developed through emotions, surroundings and human connections. Giuseppe speaks through his work, and each paint stroke is an expression. His art is created to channel feeling, movement, and inspiration for those that view it. With a love for his hometown of Toronto, Giuseppe has created custom work for an array of local art collectors, entrepreneurs, and admirers. The world that surrounds us has inspiration everywhere if we take the time to notice it, which Giuseppe displays on his canvas.  

“Do something you really enjoy and it will never feel like work. I’m grateful for my family’s support, and for the opportunities I have been given.”

— Giuseppe Mandarino

Kim Benoit

Creating art is the perfect occasion for an artist to explore happiness. Experiencing art is a mindful activity which allows time and space to experience an emotion. In the paintings from Kim’s series “What Is Happiness?”, she proposes to expound on happiness. What aspects of art make someone feel good? Making a painting that aims to have someone explore their happiness or even to guide them to feel happy is no easy task. She needed to find a visual vocabulary to define happiness. All artists choose a palette to convey the mood. Dark colours can be calming or depressing, bright colours can be uplifting or overwhelming. The use of space can attract or repel. Loose brush strokes and flowing organic shapes can be freeing or disorienting. Strict movement and controlled geometric shapes can evoke safeness or confinement. All of these elements affect the experience. In Kim’s series ‘What Is Happiness?’ She selected paintings that are bright, flowing, and organic for the Chromatics exhibition. To see Kim’s other paintings which express stricter controlled geometric expressions, go to kimbenoitart.com.

The artist’s portion of the proceeds of the sale of these paintings will be donated to research and programs which support people with a mental illness.

We hope to see you there!

Expert Tips to Style Your Wedding Aisle

Guests begin to gather, the music starts to play, your ceremony becomes the main focus as the attention of your loved ones are waiting excitedly for the procession and the bride to arrive. Picking the best aisle decorations can help you craft the feel of the entire ceremony to celebrate you, which helps make your wedding much more memorable. You can choose between the girly aesthetic of bows, flower petals, tiebacks, ribbons, or going with a sensible runner. Your wedding aisle is another place where you can show off your own personalization for your wedding, awe your guests and set the tone for your big day as a bride. Wedding planners at Twist Gallery are able to help to-be-wed couples select and coordinate their aisle decor with the overall wedding theme.

Spread Your Creativity With Flower Petals

One easy addition to your aisle would be lining the aisle with beautiful coloured flower petals, which can add a pop of gorgeous colour to any indoor or outdoor ceremony. Flower petals don’t only have to be reserved for flower girls. They can give you dimension as well as add to a soft and romantic feeling for the entire ceremony. Couples can choose to use multi-coloured petals for pops of colour to the ceremony, or use petals that are found from seasonal wedding floral arrangements. Try to create a unique pattern like a monogram using petals to have a more modern twist. Using ombre flower petals can help give you a more subtle range of colour while also adding more creativity and drama. For more elegant vibes, try creating a pattern using the petals, or scatter petals in specific widths along the sides of your aisle.

Many brides also include lanterns or soft candles lining the aisle, which help light the aisle as well as give off a magical ambiance. Think about including fall leaves, flower heads, fabrics or feathers into the composition to help enhance the scene.

Decorate The Wedding Easel Chairs

Depending on your ceremony, you could have chairs which are typical in outdoor weddings or pews found in a church ceremony. To help further enhance your ceremony, you should decorate the chairs found along the aisle. For example, you could add on flowers to create subtle aisle decorations. Or, get more creative for beach weddings by tying on starfish and coral using blue ribbons to represent the ocean. For more rustic themes, hang some dried grass, wheat or fall berries using some natural coloured string or twine to the end of every pew or chair. The opportunities are truly endless when it comes to creating your dream wedding aisle that is pleasing to the eye.

Multi-Use Mason Jars As Decoration For Your Wedding Aisle

Mason jars add a rustic and vintage aesthetic when used as part of your aisle decor. These are cost effective and versatile design elements and they can even serve as a core element for your wedding theme. You can fill them with colourful bouquets to line the aisle, or they work well as hanging decorations as well.

Also Read: Event Space Toronto, wedding venue Toronto, Wedding Reception Toronto