Real Weddings: Ellie and Patrick

Ellison (Ellie) Abbott, a 30-year-old head of partnerships at an entertainment company, met Patrick Firth, a 30-year-old media consultant at a management consulting firm, when they were both students at the University of Southern California in 2014. In 2022, the couple got engaged on a trip to Ireland. They were married in Toronto, Patrick’s hometown, with a celebration that included a drag performance by Tynomi Banks and a flash tattoo station. Here’s how it all came together.

Ellie: I first met Patrick in October of 2014. We were both studying at the University of Southern California. I went to a party at a friend’s apartment and saw Patrick from across the room. I thought he was cute, so I made one of our mutual friends introduce us.

Patrick: I have some social anxiety, so when Ellie came up to me, I was very nervous. I thought she was pretty, but I didn’t know what to say.

Ellie: I wasn’t sure if he was interested in me. We didn’t talk much, but later that evening, I saw Patrick again at the campus bar. I went up to him and offered to buy him a drink. That was my go-to move at the time if I wanted to let a guy know I was serious.

Patrick: By then, I had some liquid courage in me. It felt easy to chat with Ellie, who is the bubbliest, most outgoing person. We started talking about hockey. I found out Ellie is from Boston, so I was like, “Screw the Bruins!” It was fun.

Ellie: We found each other on Facebook after that. We’d message occasionally.

Patrick: Soon after we met, it was Thanksgiving, and then Christmas. When we got back to school in January, I decided to ask Ellie out. I was going to a party that had a sports theme. I loaned Ellie my high school hockey jersey, and I wore my Toronto Maple Leafs one.

Ellie: It was a really fun party, but the floors were slick from people spilling their drinks. At one point, Patrick tried to be cute and pick me up, but then he slipped. We both fell, and he accidentally headbutted me and broke his nose. Suddenly, there was blood pouring on me.

Patrick: My friend, who happens to be on the football team, offered to pop my nose back into place. It was probably a terrible idea, but it worked.

Ellie: I was so worried at the time, even though we laugh about it now. That whole week, I was texting Patrick to remind him to ice his nose. It was a funny way for us to continue chatting. From there, we started seeing each other every day. A lot of our early dates were just going to the grocery store, buying things and making food together.

Patrick: After we graduated, Ellie and I stayed in LA for another four years. We were both working and living separately. In 2019, I got into business school in New York.

Ellie: We’d talked about wanting to live on the East Coast and be closer to our families. Patrick’s family is in Toronto, and my parents were in Boston. We decided to relocate to New York and move in together. Then, when the pandemic hit, my parents very quickly invited us to live with them in Boston.

Patrick: It was nice to have a place to escape to, because our apartment in the East Village was tiny—only 500 square feet. It was also a great way to spend time with Ellie’s family.

Ellie: Patrick and I always talked about the future, and the topic of marriage came up more and more after we started living together. We acted like we were each other’s person from the moment we met. We got to grow and change together. He was and is my biggest supporter.

Patrick: I think I immediately loved Ellie. We were still young when we met, but I was sold on her right away. So by 2022, once we were back in New York, I decided to propose. Ellie had made Pinterest boards of the rings she liked, and I understood the assignment. I picked out an emerald cut with tapered baguette diamonds on the band.

Ellie: Patrick and I usually like to travel over American Thanksgiving, since there are good deals on flights. That year, we’d booked $300 round-trip tickets to Ireland.

Patrick: I figured that our Ireland trip would be the perfect occasion to propose. I decided to do it on the second day—we wouldn’t be super tired from flying, but it was quick enough that I wouldn’t be nervous for the whole trip. I booked a stay at an abbey in Galway that had been converted into a fancy hotel. I called ahead of time to let them know I planned to propose, and they suggested a room off a foyer that would be nicely decorated for the holidays.

Ellie: When we arrived, Patrick suggested we hang out in the great room, a beautiful lounge area in the abbey. Then he went to get us drinks from the bar.

Patrick: I actually ran up to the front desk to tell them that I was the one who had called in about proposing. They took me to the private room they were suggesting, but it was ugly and dimly lit. So I decided to propose to Ellie in the great room instead. When I went back there, though, she was gone. I also realized I had forgotten the ring, so I sprinted back to our room to get it.

Ellie: Patrick had been gone for a while, and I didn’t want to stand around awkwardly, so I went to go wander.

Patrick: On my way back, I made one last stop to ask the hotel staff to come into the great room in two minutes with champagne.

Ellie: By the time Patrick caught up with me, he was nervous and sweating.

Patrick: We waited for a long time, but the staff didn’t come in. Finally, I told Ellie that we should get a photo and then leave. When I opened the doors to find someone to take the photo, six of the hotel staff were there with champagne and glasses. That’s when I got down on one knee and proposed.

Ellie: It felt unreal. I couldn’t believe it was really happening. I was so excited.

Patrick: The proposal was chaotic, but the rest of our evening was perfect. We had an amazing dinner at the hotel, then we wandered over to the movie theatre on the property. They had just finished the last showing of the day, but the staff said that we could pick whatever movie we wanted and watch it. We chose Love Actually and had the whole theatre to ourselves, which was pretty great.

Ellie: We started wedding planning right after we got back. By that point, I’d been working in event planning for over ten years, so having my own wedding was the ultimate opportunity. I had a million ideas and Pinterest boards, and Patrick was an amazing planning partner and sounding board. He also took care of all the food.

Patrick: Originally, Ellie wanted to get married in Boston. But, by then, her parents had moved to LA, so that didn’t make much sense. Since a third of our guests lived in Toronto, we figured we’d do it here instead. Ellie and I were heading back to Toronto for the holidays, so we used that opportunity to look at venues. We had limited options since we wanted to invite 250 guests. We ended up booking Steam Whistle Brewing for January 20, 2024, which was the ninth anniversary of when we’d started dating.

Ellie: I’ve always wanted a winter wedding. I never wanted to be sweating outside, and I love the coziness of people getting together in wintertime. We went with a baroque, antique feel for our decor, with lots of velvet, exposed wood, deep blood red and brass finishings.

Patrick: I knew I wanted something different and unique for my wedding outfit. I saw an Instagram post of rapper Joey Badass wearing a kilt and a double-breasted suit jacket at a GQ men of the year event. I thought it looked awesome, and I ended up finding a Simone Rocha kilt on Ssense. I got a custom double-breasted suit to go with it, plus a Regency tie. Ellie: I had three outfits for the wedding. For my main dress, I always knew I wanted a traditional ball gown. You really only have one chance in your life to wear something like that. I ended up finding my dress in New York, from Vera Wang. It’s strapless and has a brown butterscotch tulle skirt with lots of textured elements and raw edges. I knew I wouldn’t be able to move much in it, so I got a fun minidress from Khirzad Femme, an Australian designer, to change into afterward. The third outfit was a fully bedazzled nude illusion bodysuit for dancing.

Patrick: The morning of the wedding was pretty chill. I got ready at my brother’s house on Queen West. I’m not great at keeping to a schedule, so Ellie’s dad was there to make sure we showed up at the venue on time.

Ellie: I got ready at the Soho Hotel. It felt really relaxed. We were playing music from the ’90s and 2000s, and we put The Princess Diaries on in the background on mute. Patrick: I’m not a big crier in general, but when we did our first look and I saw Ellie in her dress, I started bawling. Then, as I was walking down the aisle during the ceremony, I had such a serious look on my face because I was trying not to cry.

Ellie: The ceremony itself was pretty quick, about 20 minutes. I felt nervous about reading my vows in front of everyone, but it all went smoothly. Then we had my godfather, who officiated my parents’ wedding, join us on stage. He led the Jewish tradition of stepping on a glass.

Patrick: We had a cocktail hour after the ceremony, while the main hall was flipped for dinner. Ellie manages touring artists as part of her work, so we thought it would be great to have one of them—Roméo Testa from the band Farr—perform for us. Then we moved back into the main hall to do the hora. After our family participated, we had a jar with everyone else’s names that we drew from. For dinner, we served a salad starter with three options for the main: sous-vide beef, pesto pasta and a cauliflower steak. Instead of a sit-down dessert course, we had a Krispy Kreme tower. We also found out that about 20 friends had birthdays within two days of our wedding, so instead of a wedding cake, we got a massive sheet cake from Sobeys to celebrate them.

Ellie: We wanted to make sure our guests had an incredible time. That was what mattered to us.

Patrick: We hired Tynomi Banks, a well-known Toronto drag queen, to perform two songs for us to get everyone hyped up. Then we had a live band playing covers of fun, upbeat pop songs.

Ellie: We also had Timeless Ink set up a station for quick flash tattoos. I had seen a makeup brand do it for an event two years ago and thought it was a great idea. A lot of our friends are heavily tattooed—Patrick and I aren’t, but we got our first tattoos at the wedding: hearts with “E+P” written inside them. I think 50 people must have gotten tattooed that night. So many of our guests told us that they got their first-ever tattoos at our wedding.

Patrick: We also had a maple taffy station on snow, which is a nod to my French Canadian side. We thought it would be a fun thing for the non-Canadians to experience.

Ellie: The evening turned into a club night, which was super fun. Our friend Maggie, who runs a lesbian club night in New York called Holy Rollers, deejayed a set of disco mixes. We had Gatorades ready for people to leave with, but some people found them earlier, so they were drinking them on the dance floor.

Patrick: The wedding ended at 2 a.m., but a friend who lived nearby invited us over for an after-party, so a bunch of us went there and kept dancing until 3:30. We finally made it back to the hotel and saw that the staff had laid out roses, snacks and balloons for us in our room, which was sweet.

Ellie: It really felt like the perfect day. We kept telling each other stories of things we’d seen. We were on such a high.

Patrick: The next day, we planned a little brunch at the Marriott next to the Rogers Centre, then we went to Dim Sum King for even more food. People continued reminiscing about the wedding, which was fun. Then we immediately went on a mini honeymoon to Jamaica. In March, we went on a full three-week honeymoon to Japan.

Ellie: It feels odd to call Patrick my husband. I keep having to remind myself.

Patrick: It doesn’t feel weird at all to call Ellie my wife.

Ellie: Being married is the best. I love it. It feels kind of the same, but more fun.

Cheat Sheet

Date: January 20, 2024 Photography: Erin Leydon Videography: Dennis Duong Getting-ready venue: Soho Hotel and Residences Wedding venue: Steam Whistle Brewing Officiant: Matthew Gnegy Florist: Hunt and Gather Decor: Event Rental Group, Simply Beautiful Decor Food: The Food Dudes Cake: Sobeys Donut tower: Krispy Kreme Musical performance: Roméo Testa of Farr Band: Sole Power DJ: DJ Maggie, Holy Rollers BK Tattoo station: Timeless Ink Toronto Drag performance: Tynomi Banks Bride’s hair and makeup: Baz Beauty Co. Bride’s ceremony dress: Vera Wang Bride’s ceremony shoes: Valentino Bride’s reception dress: Khirzad Femme Groom’s kilt: Simone Rocha Groom’s suit jacket: Mr. Cavaliere Candles: Helix Candles A/V: Quest Wedding planner: Alusha Domanska, A Lush Affair Events Liquor: William Grant and Sons