Real Weddings: Briony and Stephen

Briony Douglas, a 41-year-old visual artist, first met Steve McKeon, a 40-year-old custom fabrication engineer, when they were working as bartenders in Toronto in 2008. They lost touch for years, until Steve asked Briony out on Instagram in March of 2022. Their relationship progressed quickly after that: travelled to Vancouver six weeks later for a family wedding, and Steve moved into Briony’s apartment later that year. The couple was engaged by March of 2024 and wed in a whimsical lemon-themed wedding at the June Motel in Sauble Beach this September. Here’s how it all came together.

Briony: Steve and I first met 17 years ago, in 2008. Steve ran Wrongbar, and I was a bartender working at Ultra Supper Club. We met through our bartending friends, and the two of us became friends ourselves.

Steve: I was definitely attracted to Briony, but we were both young, in our 20s. Both of our lives were pretty chaotic at the time. As bartenders, we were working a lot and always out late. To be honest, those years were a bit of a blur.

Briony: I definitely found him attractive too. But a serious relationship just wasn’t something I was looking for at the time. And I’m pretty sure that, if we’d tried to date back then, it wouldn’t have worked out.

Related: What sculptor and photographer Briony Douglas is coveting in home decor

Steve: Our lives took us in different directions from there. I went on to open two restaurants in Toronto: Small Town Food Co. and Fat City Blues. Then, from 2016 to 2019, I worked as a tour manager for two artists: Grandtheft and Keys N Krates. So I was constantly on the road. Then I got a job working as a marketing manager for a tech company—it was mostly remote, so I lived between Toronto and San Francisco and spent winters in Costa Rica.

Briony: I stayed in Toronto and worked a plethora of jobs, from marketing and advertising to newspaper delivery to working in a welding factory and a car factory. In 2015, I decided to become sober. And then one day I picked up a camera, and a month later I was published on the front cover of a European magazine. That made me realize I could be an artist for a living. Now I make large-scale installations out of unexpected or upcycled items. I’ve built a Formula 1 car out of 50,000 roofing nails and a six-foot hockey helmet out of PWHL hockey sticks that is now on display in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Steve: After Covid hit, my perspective on what I wanted in my life changed. I felt like I’d been running around, chasing things. I felt like I’d outgrown that version of myself—I wanted a slower, more purposeful pace and to be more rooted. Bri and I were still connected on Instagram, and I saw how she was so creative and had started her own successful business. It was inspiring for me to see her doing her own thing. I admired that she’d become sober, too, which I knew from her Instagram posts celebrating her sobriety.

Briony: In early 2022, I started noticing that Steve was liking any photos of me in bikinis or scandalous outfits. I could see that he was interested in me.

Steve: I’m not going to pretend that I was being subtle. I definitely wanted her to notice.

Briony: We had a couple of quick DM conversations here and there. For example, I moved into a house that was actually on his old street, so we chatted briefly about that. Then we found out we were both going to be in LA around the same time in early 2022.

Steve: We tried to meet up in LA, but the timing didn’t work out. I was heading back to Toronto soon, so I just took a shot and sent Briony a message saying, “If you haven’t found your Prince Charming by the time I move back, I’d love to take you on a date.”

Briony: This was around March of 2022. I was very busy with work at the time. My focus wasn’t on dating, so I actually brushed Steve off. I cancelled on him twice.

Steve: I figured I would try one more time to ask her out, then I’d stop chasing her. Luckily, after the third time, she said yes. I took her out for dinner at Vela.

Briony: It sounds corny, but when I arrived and saw Steve smile, I was filled with this feeling that I’d always loved him. He made me feel so comfortable, and he remembered that I was sober and had a mocktail menu ready for me when I arrived, which was really thoughtful.

Steve: Briony and I had a great time just catching up on the past 14 years. We didn’t actually know that much about each other, so we covered all the basics, like where we’re from—I grew up in Erin, Ontario, and Briony is from Woodstock—and where our paths had taken us.

Briony: We were having so much fun that, after dinner, we went to the Rec Room and played games together. I blew him away with my cornhole skills. A whole crowd gathered around, and I broke the highest-score record. That’s the Woodstock in me. We played games for hours, and it was the most fun I’d had in a long time.

Steve: From there, Briony and I started hanging out all the time. It felt easy to be with her from the beginning. There was always a light-hearted playfulness to our time together. In June, I was going to a family wedding in Vancouver and invited Briony as my date. She met all my family then, even though we’d only been dating for a month and a half.

Briony: We tested a lot of big things early on, like meeting our families and travelling together, but we passed all the tests. And my dog, Gucci, who I got in 2017, fell more in love with Steve than I did.

Steve: When I moved back to Toronto in March, I was kind of homeless and living out of a hotel. So I gradually moved into Briony’s place. I also left my job that summer and started helping Bri with her art.

Briony: Steve helps me plan things out after I get awarded a job. He’ll diagram and measure everything out and figure out what we need.

Steve: Eventually, Bri was busy enough with work that assisting her became my full-time job. Then, in November, I planned to spend the winter in Costa Rica and brought Briony with me.

Briony: I was supposed to be there for two weeks but ended up staying for two months. While we were away, we realized that my place was not big enough for the two of us. Steve and I are both big nature people and had talked early on about how nice it would be to live outside of the city.

Steve: We found a rural property online in Terra Cotta, Ontario, which is 20 minutes west of Brampton, and pre-paid a year’s rent without ever seeing it. Admittedly a crazy thing to do with somebody I’d only been dating for six months. But it worked out. We moved into our new place in January of 2023.

Briony: Marriage was never something I felt like I needed. But, a few months after moving in with Steve, in mid-2023, I realized that I wanted to be married to this man and have that security with him.

Steve: I initially felt the same indifference about marriage. But Briony and I had a few conversations about it over the next few months. After she told me that she felt more strongly about marriage, I realized it was something that I wanted too.

Briony: I was very direct with Steve about the kind of ring I wanted—a radiant-cut diamond on a simple band.

Steve: I had the ring ready by the end of February 2024, and I proposed on March 9.

Briony: The proposal was super casual, which I loved. I was sitting in the kitchen one morning, eating blueberries, when Steve just slid into the room, got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. I love that it was not a production. It was so simple and pure, which was really reflective of our relationship. It would have been weird if Steve had planned a whole thing for our proposal.

Steve: Initially, Briony and I thought about eloping. I don’t love being the centre of attention. But I knew my mom would kill me. Then Briony was like, “If your mom is there, my mom should be there too.” Then it snowballed into 75 people.

Briony: I was against having a big wedding at first because I’m hyper-aware of the fact that I can be neurotic. I didn’t want to become a Bridezilla or have someone forgetting to put apples on the salad ruin the day. But we did really want to celebrate with the people we care about, so I knew it would be worth it to try my best to be chill on our wedding day.

Steve: We definitely didn’t want a formal, grandiose wedding. It’s lovely for other people but just not for us. We wanted something that was fun and casual and an opportunity to celebrate with the people who are closest to us.

Briony: When it came to the venue, we wanted a unique spot that wasn’t a barn. The June Motel in Sauble Beach has a vintage, Palm Royale feel to it. No one had ever done a wedding there before. They have these beautiful vintage yellow-and-white umbrellas around the pool, and I just ran with that. My brain threw up on Pinterest with lemons and yellow. The florist had an idea for lemon centrepieces, and I knew we couldn’t have a wedding without some of my art, so we made giant foam lemon sculptures as a decoration.

Steve: The motel has 28 rooms, and we booked the whole place for two nights so a bunch of our guests could stay with us.

Briony: I had initially bought my dress, a long ball gown, from LoversLand on Ossington. But, when we decided to go with the June Motel, I needed a whole different dress that was more playful. I ended up working with the designers to customize the original dress—they shortened it and sewed in wires to make the skirt more voluminous, then added some bows. It ended up looking like the wedding dress from the Guns N’ Roses music video for “November Rain.” It was very cool.

Steve: For my outfit, I just bought a suit from Saint Laurent. I’m a pretty black-and-white type of guy, and I just wanted something that was simple and classic. I wore it with a bowtie.

Briony: We decided on a “no black” dress code because we wanted a very colourful wedding. The only person allowed to wear black was Steve. I know that black is a lot of people’s go-to, but I wanted to be able to look through the crowd and see everyone looking bright and colourful.

Steve: The months before the wedding were busy. In March of 2025, we got another dog, a puppy named Rue. Then, in June, we bought a house in Erin, Ontario. It’s funny—when I was growing up in Erin, I found it so boring and couldn’t wait to move to the city. But something drew me back here.

Briony: For someone who has such bad anxiety, I should not have planned all the events outside. Our ceremony was on a walkway that usually had the motel’s campfire pits and chairs, then cocktail hour and dinner were on the patio of the motel’s restaurant, Heydays. We had zero rain contingency plans. Initially, the forecast had been calling for rain, but a few days before our wedding, it changed and we were golden.

Steve: Briony and I checked into the June Motel a day early to get set up. We had a giant trailer behind us with the lemons and all our supplies.

Briony: Most of our friends arrived on Friday, with a few arriving on Saturday—the wedding day. We had a group dinner on Friday night at Gigi’s Italian in Sauble Beach. It was a relaxed evening.

Steve: The morning of the wedding, Briony and I got ready in our room. Even though I’m the one who doesn’t like attention, I was oddly not nervous at all for our wedding. As people arrived and Briony finished getting ready, I walked around and talked to all of our guests. Hanging out with everybody in a casual way helped me feel less nervous. We hired a sitter to come take our dogs for the day, and she brought Gucci out dressed in a tux as guests were arriving so she could hang out with some of our guests, which was really nice. Rue is still learning to trust people, so she stayed inside.

Briony: I did a good job of being chill the whole day. The only time I got nervous was right before I had to go out and walk down the aisle, which was weird because I’m normally quite comfortable being in the spotlight. I was also trying really hard not to cry, because I’m not a “single cute tear down my cheek” person. It gets messy. So when I walked out, I didn’t look at anyone except for Steve. I was thinking, Just get to Steve. Just get to Steve. Once I was with him and he held my hands, I knew I’d be okay. Steve could tell that I was nervous, so he started doing a thumb war with me to calm me down, which was funny—and it worked.

Steve: Our ceremony was quick, about 15 minutes. Then our guests moved to a cocktail hour while Briony and I had some photos taken. Dinner was family-style—we had shrimp cocktail, burrata and tomato salad, steak, and fried chicken.

Briony: I thought it would be fun if the wedding cake was a bunch of different wedding cakes stacked on top of each other. My friend Loren, who makes me a cake every year for my sobriety anniversary, built it. There were nine cakes on top of each other in seven tiers. It was perfect.

Steve: We hired a DJ who only played records, which was really cool. Our first dance was to the Tragically Hip song “Long Time Running,” which spoke to our story and our path. I got custom matchbooks made that said, “Well worth the wait,” which is a line from the song. After the ceremony, the June Motel staff moved the firepits and chairs back out so there was another spot where people could hang out. I set up a cigar station there too.

Briony: After dinner, we had a dance party, which was so much fun. I just remember being up on my friend’s shoulders for Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club.” At one point, a bunch of people jumped into the pool with their fancy outfits on. I didn’t go in, but Steve did.

Steve: The party went until 3 a.m. At the end of the night, I felt relieved that nothing had gone awry and everything had come together the way it was supposed to. Bri took care of all the creative details. I knew she had her mood boards and a vision, but I couldn’t really imagine it in the same way, so it was cool to see everything come together.

Briony: I was so jazzed on energy at the end of the night. Steve and I stayed up and talked for another hour and hung out while we read through our cards. The next day, we said goodbye to our guests and packed up our stuff. The lemons actually stayed at the June—the owners asked to keep them, and we said yes! Then we drove home, and the next day we were off to Japan.

Steve: We were there for two weeks. We went to Tokyo, Kyoto, Mount Fuji and then back to Tokyo.

Briony: I didn’t think married life would be different, but it does feel a bit different. Twice a day, I’ll say, “You know what’s crazy? You’re my husband.”

Steve: I call you my wife any time I lose you in Costco. I’m like, “Where’s my wife?"

Cheat Sheet

Date: September 13, 2025 Photography: Steph Montani Video: Hype Gal Venue: The June Motel Food: Heydays Florist: Blush and Bloom Wedding planner: Mad Bash Briony’s dress: LoversLand, Former Girlfriend Briony’s hair: Nicole Pidherny, Pomme Salon Briony’s makeup: Sandra Yang Steve’s suit: Saint Laurent Cake: Loren Mohoruk