What to know
- The Pop-Up Chapel Co. is giving 12 LGBTQ+ couples fully produced weddings during Toronto Pride weekend.
- More than 80 couples applied from across Canada and internationally for the opportunity.
- Ceremonies will take place June 27 and 28 at The Sutton Place Hotel Toronto as part of a weekend of wedding ceremonies.
- Organizers say the event aims to create an inclusive space where Queer couples can celebrate love openly and authentically.
A local chapel is celebrating love in a big way this Pride weekend in Toronto, helping a dozen couples tie the knot with a series of intimate ceremonies.
The annual Toronto Pride parade is set for this weekend, along with the Trans March, Dyke March, an epic street fair on Church St., and dozens of parties and events. But for 12 couples, this weekend will have even more meaning, as they are set to be legally wed.
Pop-Up Chapel Co. is a Toronto company with a mission of making weddings more accessible through what Alicia Thurston, the chapel’s CEO and creative director, calls a shared wedding model. With weddings that share venues, decorations, and more using designated time slots for ceremonies, Thurston says that hosting events in this style allows couples to celebrate in unique venues while splitting costs.
On June 27 and 28, The Pop-Up Chapel Co. is partnering with The Sutton Place Hotel Toronto and Abrielle Toronto to host what they’re calling a wedding weekend. The affair will see 12 soon-to-be-newlyweds receive fully produced wedding celebrations, including a complimentary ceremony experience with decor, photography and a cocktail reception for guests.
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“We want people to feel like no matter what their gender, or how they express themselves, they are in a safe space and they can get married and celebrate their love,” Thurston told Queer & Now.
“Especially in our day and age right now, and all the issues we’re seeing around the world, I think [this opportunity] is even more important,” Thurston said.
The organization first hosted a Pride wedding event in 2024, marrying four couples during the Toronto Pride parade. Thurston explained that this year’s expanded celebration, with triple the number of nuptials, became possible through partnerships with Sutton Place and Abrielle.
12 weddings, 12 unique love stories
The creative director shared that when organizers opened the application process for those looking to tie the knot, more than 80 couples sent in their story, vying for the opportunity. This included submissions from the Maritimes right out to the west coast, and as far as Germany. While organizers originally planned for 14 weddings, two couples were ultimately unable to attend, leaving 12 couples set to marry over the course of this weekend.
With a dozen couples set to tie the knot, Thurston says that there are also a dozen beautiful, inspiring, and touching love stories between the fiancés. She explained that couples were selected based on two elements: Their love story, and why the experience of getting married during Toronto’s Pride weekend would be meaningful to them.
Shevaughn & Rahema: A love story that crossed continents
One couple, Shevaughn and Rahema, first met nine years ago at a concert while living in Jamaica. Having a conversation during the show, the couple realized that despite never meeting before, they lived in the same area of the island.
In that brief chat, it soon began to feel like the pair had always been in each other’s lives. Soon falling in love and moving in together, they experienced violence and discrimination while living together in Kingston, leaving everything behind to begin a new life together in Canada.
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First arriving as refugees in 2019, they crashed on friends’ sofas, taking any work they could find to make ends meet. Seven years later, they live together with their puppy, Ella, and are excited to be tying the knot.
“I often say to Rahema: I could die tomorrow, and I would be okay going, as I’ve lived — because I have been loved, and I have loved. And nothing else matters,” Shevaughn said in a statement.
Daniel & Curtis: Waiting nearly a decade
First meeting in Toronto a decade ago, Daniel and Curtis first connected at an interior design show, becoming “modern-day penpals” before going on their first date in February 2017.
The couple say that their connection felt effortless from the start, but because Daniel hadn’t come out to his family, their relationship stayed private for years.
They shared that for almost ten years, the only thing stopping them from getting married was Daniel’s dream of having his family support him during the big day, something that would come to fruition this year. Before she passed away last spring after a battle with cancer, Daniel’s beloved aunt made his mom promise to embrace Curtis and truly get to know him. They say that promise changed everything.
Both families came together for the first time during a visit to Vancouver, where the couple now live, in August of last year. Now, for the first time, Daniel says he felt free. Now, as their tenth anniversary gets closer, they are coming back to the city to get married.
“This would not simply be a wedding,” they shared. “It would be a celebration of everything we fought for together.”
Rina & Melanie: Building a family
Another pair of soon-to-be newlyweds, Rina and Melanie, first met during the COVID-19 Pandemic and fell in love throughout lockdown. Things got serious quickly, and before their first date, they chatted on the phone, delving into a deep topic: having children.
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Rina asked Melanie, who had never dated a woman before, if she wanted to be a mother. Melanie said yes. The two soon became inseparable, spending lots of time one-on-one while the world was in lockdown.
Rina asked Melanie to marry her on her birthday, May 8th, with a proposal that didn’t exactly go as planned, as the restaurant accidentally slipped up and tipped Melanie off on the surprise.
“That feels a little like real life,” Rina said in a statement. “Things don’t always go perfectly, but what matters is the love behind them.”
Now, after almost five years together and an IVF journey that cost over $30,000, they have a baby boy who is set to turn one this summer, and will become wives on the 28.
Joy in celebrating love
Throughout the weekend, ceremonies will run hourly beginning at 11 a.m., with each couple receiving a private 15-minute ceremony followed by a 45-minute cocktail reception with family and friends.
For Thurston, creating opportunities for people to celebrate their relationships is at the heart of the event.
“I think that connection and love is why we’re all here,” she said. “There’s just so much joy in that.”
As Toronto’s Pride celebrations bring thousands together to honour the city’s 2SLGBTQIA+ communities, the wedding weekend offers a reminder that Pride is also about celebrating the freedom to love openly, authentically and without fear.
