How much do you LOVE the boho wedding blog of our first wedding? Hope you have seen it? The pictures of the day taken by the amazing Johnny Draper are included and we are absolutely over the moon with them! Helen from Didsbury life has also blogged the wedding part 2 AND 3! We are doing a live interview today for The Vanessa Show which airs at 2.15 on June 22nd I will put the link on facebook and twitter so you can watch it incase you miss it! Also for those of you in the Manchester area we are live on the Heather Stott show on Friday so tune in and give our Hull/ Manchester accents a listen haha!!

Our last few days have been amazingly stressful as we have been searching for a home on wheels in the Toronto area. We tried and failed on foot so hired a car for the day. We booked a car, the cheapest of the cheap, arrived late to collect it and ended up in a luxury Dodge 4X4 which was an absolute bonus! We set off, rented GPS leading the way in search of our new home! We wanted character, affordable, reliable and with cooking facilities as we have come to call Toronto the $10 city as no matter what you get to eat it ends up being $10 each!

We went all over the place; and Toronto aint small, we saw a few great vans, a few not so great vans and were staring to loose the will to live when at our last port of call we found her! All the way in Hamilton, a good 100 miles from Toronto she was waiting for us. Smiling on the street as we arrived I instantly hoped that she would be the one to take us on our adventure.

After being shown around the 1987 Dodge Ram camper van very thoroughly
by the ever helpful and equally lovely Bill we decided that she was the one!

We drank soda and looked at the pristine paperwork with Bill while he told us his travel stories and where he and his wife had been in the camper. He recommended Yellowstone, gave us an atlas ‘to give us perspective’ and gave us a great piece of advice! ‘Keep your spidey senses on high alert…if it dont feel right it probably isnt!’

Bill and Susan told us that the Camper was famous as she had been in their sons bands music video! We had a look at the video and its brilliant. I felt so proud! The song is great too and we will definitely be on the look out for The Reason while we are here in Canada!

Bill kindly offered to help us sign over the van and to take us for our new plates and complete the paperwork. This is when we find out that in Canada the plates dont come with the car, you have your own plates…cue next hurdle!

We said we would pop back the next day (Monday) and sort all of the details out and headed upto Niagara falls for the evening. We arrived at 7pm thinking that the crowds would have dissipated and that we could enjoy the “honeymoon capital of the World” in peace but to our surprise we arrived at a mini vegas style town with a seaside resort feel! (Blackpool!) It was still busy and we made our way to the falls.

We  are obviously looking for wedding locations and we both agreed we hadn’t found one there. Dont get me wrong, tonnes of water crashing over a 52 meter cliff is a fabulous sight and a wonderful display of ‘natural’ forces but having a wedding there was not the top of our list. More a coffee in a clean cup and a quiet corner to drink it in! We watched the sun go down over the falls trying to imbue some romance into the situation and failed. We wouldn’t have missed it for the world but it will not be the location of wedding number 2.

We crashed at a motel for a few hours and headed back to Bills to sort paperwork and plates and to collect our new home! Back and forth a few times for the correct signatures from mechanics and a nightmare with addresses etc etc, we finally handed over the cash and she was all ours!

We have kitted her out with bedding, pans and wine glasses and it really feels like home now. 1 night in a Walmart car park and we’re hitting the road to finally, properly begin our search for amazing wedding locations!
PS. We’re yet to name the camper so any suggestions post them in comments. Im thinking Peggy after my Nanna as they have alot in common. She is still going strong (24 van years must be 92 people years), she’s tougher than she looks, she’s got a lot to give and will look after us well but Alex thinks Peggy might be asking for trouble. Send us your thoughts!

Lisa x

See what happens next in our wedding travel adventure!