Two Doctors, One Alpine Lake and a Disco After Party: Jackie & Alan's Wedding at Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise
- Author: Natali Grace Levine
- Wedding date: 09/20/2025
- City: Banff
Love Story
Jackie and Alan’s love story began in a hospital, during a pandemic, behind two surgical masks. Both were interns in the early months of their medical residencies in Chicago, and for a long stretch, neither actually knew what the other looked like. “We didn’t even know what each other looked like for months because we would only see each other with masks,”Alan jokes. Their paths first crossed in labor and delivery, Jackie’s home turf as an OB/GYN resident, where Alan was rotating. A couple of months later, the roles reversed, and Jackie joined him in the emergency department. Alan sums up what came next with a grin: “A tale as old as time, you know, starting as co-workers to friends to dating during a pandemic.”
Today, Jackie is an obstetrician and gynecologist, and Alan is an emergency medicine physician, two careers built on long shifts, quick thinking, and very little sleep. After three years of dating, they got engaged, and as this story goes to print, they are celebrating their first wedding anniversary, six years after those first masked introductions.
The proposal came with a pun built into the setting. Jackie had just finished a shift when Alan took her to dinner at Ever, a Chicago restaurant connected to its sister lounge, After. Following a seriously hefty meal, the staff, who were in on the plan, offered the couple a tour of the kitchen and led them to a private room Alan had reserved between the two spaces. That’s where he proposed. Soon after, their families arrived to celebrate with them, joining, in Alan’s words, “shortly there(ever)after!”
About Your Wedding
When it came time to choose a location, the couple’s decision process was refreshingly brief. They had always loved the idea of a wedding in the mountains, and the thought of adding an alpine lake to the picture sealed it. “Banff was on our bucket list so it kind of went, ‘Should we…?’ ‘Let’s do it,’” they recall. On September 20, 2025, after 18 months of planning, Jackie and Alan married at Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise before 115 guests.
Having attended dozens of weddings over the previous few summers, the couple knew exactly what they wanted to avoid: the familiar rhythm of ceremony, a long gap, dinner, and a slow start to the dancing. Instead, they built the day around surprise. Guests felt it from the moment they came up the road and saw the Fairmont and Lake Louise for the first time, and the surprises kept coming throughout the evening. The overall goal, they explain, was a wedding that felt special while remaining easygoing. “We wanted something particularly special yet relaxed and casual,” they say. “The after-party, however, was neither relaxed nor casual, which was an absolute dream too.”
For the design, Jackie and Alan shared their preferences, then left the rest to planner Julianne Young of Julianne Young Weddings. The result was classic and elevated, a kind of quiet luxury that felt polished and refined without ever becoming formal or stiff. The design drew directly from autumn in the Canadian Rockies, with warm, layered, organic details inspired by the season's colors and textures. Elevated florals and thoughtfully designed paper goods brought a touch of tradition, while subtle whimsy kept the atmosphere inviting rather than overly rustic or themed. So few decisions proved difficult that, by the couple’s own admission, the hardest was choosing the songs.
Morning Details
Every paper detail of the wedding traced back to the invitations by Plume Calligraphy. Their designs carried through to the day-of signage and table numbers, and one clever touch stood out: the envelope liner pattern from the invitations reappeared as the backdrop behind the bar, linking the first piece of the wedding guests received to one of the last places they gathered.
The most meaningful detail, however, was on Alan’s hand. The couple worked with the designers of Jackie’s engagement ring to create wedding bands that reflected each of their personal styles, and from the start, Alan wanted his to include jade as a nod to his heritage. Finding the right jade proved surprisingly difficult, with barrier after barrier across multiple trips. Then, during a visit to Chateau Lake Louise in the spring before the wedding, the couple came across jade bracelets in a shop at the hotel itself. Their jeweler crushed the stone and set it into the inlay of Alan’s band, so the ring he wears every day now carries a small piece of the place where they married.
Both mornings unfolded inside the château, each with a view of the turquoise lake. Jackie got ready in the Marquis de Lorne suite, while Alan prepared in the Belvedere Suite, and the couple counted down the hours separately until their first look.
Bride Getting Ready
Jackie’s morning was intimate and family-centered. With no bridal party, she was surrounded by the women closest to her: her mom, mother-in-law, sisters, and cousin. Wearing a soft white robe, she sat by the window of the Marquis de Lorne suite as the turquoise water and the mountains filled the frame behind her, a calm, light-filled start to the day. Her hair and make-up were by Topknot Brides.
The dress search ended almost before it began. Jackie found her gown at Bliss Bridal in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, and it was the very first dress she tried on at the boutique. Her styling followed a clear philosophy. “I tried to keep my look minimalist, adding a plain veil and a necklace gifted from my mom,” Jackie explains. Her bouquet came from The Romantiks, the florists who designed the wedding’s arrangements and whom the couple trusted completely to bring their vision to life.
Groom Getting Ready
Down the hall, Alan spent his morning in the Belvedere Suite with his dad and friends. His tuxedo was by Atelier Suiting, and the photos follow him through every step of getting dressed: checking his watch, fastening the studs and cufflinks of a crisp white shirt, and tying his black bow tie. Once he had stepped into his black tuxedo, Alan and his friends headed out onto the suite’s balcony, where tall stone columns frame a view of Lake Louise and the surrounding peaks, and raised a toast before the day began. With a bright turquoise lake below and the mountains rising behind them, it would have been hard to find a better setting for that toast. The easy laughter of that moment matched exactly the kind of wedding the couple had in mind: special, but never stiff.
First Look
The couple’s first look took place on the Belvedere Suite balcony, and both admit the anticipation was intense. Alan’s reaction needed only one word: wow. Jackie, meanwhile, has a slightly funnier memory, noting that he was crying before he even saw her. She also adds that he looked so handsome she couldn’t take her eyes off him, even with Lake Louise in the background. The nerves faded as soon as they were face to face. “Once we saw each other, we both felt grounded, and that was nice,” they say, setting the tone for a day spent fully present. On the same balcony where Alan had toasted with his friends only a short while earlier, the two of them finally had a few private minutes together before the rest of the day began.
Photoshoot Before The Ceremony
Before the ceremony, the couple headed down to the shore of Lake Louise for portraits, which meant competing with one of Canada's most famous backdrops. Photographer Justine Milton handled it with ease. “Justine somehow was able to highlight us despite the insane backdrop we were in frame with,” the couple says, and they credit her with doing the same across every kind of light the day brought, from bright morning sun to the after-party. Videographers Maddy and Felicia of iHeartCreative, who traveled from Santa Barbara for the weekend, helped them relax in front of the camera, something neither of them usually finds easy. The lakeside setting also echoed why the couple chose Banff, placing the alpine lake they had fallen for at the center of their portraits.
Ceremony
The ceremony came with perfect timing. “We had the insane good luck of being the first wedding at the newly constructed, finished-that-week, Victoria Terrace,” Jackie and Alan say. When they booked the venue, they took a relaxed view of it: if the terrace was finished in time, wonderful, and if not, that was fine too, just like the weather they couldn’t control either. In the end, both worked out. Their nephew served as ring bearer, Cole Hofstra of Married by Cole officiated, and Jackie walked down the aisle to “Yellow” by Coldplay beneath a floral arch by The Romantiks, a detail the couple says made a far bigger impact on their moments and photos than they had expected. The ceremony also included a moment of pure excitement: the couple accidentally kissed far too soon. Above all, they remember feeling surrounded by so many loved ones in such a magical place.
Photoshoot After The Ceremony
As golden hour arrived, Jackie and Alan returned to the lake for their first portraits as a married couple, choosing a different stretch of shoreline from the one they had photographed earlier in the day. The warm evening light gave the same landscape a completely different feel, softening the mountains and turning the turquoise water to gold. Choosing a new spot meant the couple left with two distinct sets of lakeside portraits: one in the bright light of day and one in the glow of sunset. It was a quiet interlude between the ceremony and an evening that was about to become anything but quiet.
Wedding Venue & Decor
For a couple who had dreamed of mountains, Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise exceeded every expectation. “We loved the idea of being in the mountains, but when you throw in an alpine lake in there? Whoa,” they say. The setting did not just influence the décor; it shaped the entire experience, from the first glimpse of the lake on the drive up to the brand-new terrace where they exchanged vows. The château also let the celebration unfold in distinct spaces, moving from the newly finished Victoria Terrace for the ceremony to the Victoria Ballroom for dinner, then shifting scenes for the after-party. Each transition was designed to give guests something new to discover, keeping the energy high from one part of the day to the next.
The palette took its cue from the season, with warm, organic autumn earth tones that felt natural against the alpine backdrop. Florals by The Romantiks and rentals from Modern Rentals completed the design, leaning into the natural colors and textures of fall in the Canadian Rockies while staying refined and personal. Inside the historic hotel, the warm, layered details softened its grandeur and gave every room a welcoming, personal feel. Every element was intended to feel connected to the setting, with just enough of the unexpected to keep guests delighted.
Couple's Advice
“Book Julianne Young and put your trust in her, then let go.”
Reception
The surprises began as soon as guests entered the Victoria Ballroom, where live musicians from Upscale Entertainment greeted them. Instead of a wedding cake, which the couple decided wasn't important to them, Jackie and Alan worked with Julianne and the Fairmont to create a signature cocktail for each part of the day: the Quebec 75, the Lumberjackie, and the Call Me Maeby, named after their cat. The bartenders were so good that one guest, who had recently married, later named a signature drink after the couple. For their first dance, they chose Isabelle Kensington’s cover of “Still Into You” by Paramore.
Then came the scene where guests still talk about. Four days before the wedding, Julianne called Alan at work to tell him there had been a small problem, already solved, and asked whether he wanted to know about it. He didn’t. That night, nobody noticed the problem, but everyone noticed the solution. As the whole wedding walked into the Nouveau Disco after-party, a surprise saxophonist was waiting to kick off the celebration. From there, DJ Fayyaz of Pez Productions took over, combining lights, graphics, and a video panel with a perfect read of the room, and the couple says it felt like being transported into a club. Snap Beauty Photobooth kept guests busy between songs, and Banff Sedan shuttled everyone safely home.
Looking back, Jackie and Alan cannot praise their team enough. “The professionalism and execution of every single one of our vendors was so top-notch,” they say. Julianne, they add, solved countless problems they never even heard about, allowing them to enjoy a planning process that was far less stressful than expected and a wedding day spent simply being present. Maddy and Felicia of iHeartCreative have since become friends, and the couple considers bringing them on board one of the best decisions they made; their films capture the pair exactly as they are, balancing silliness with sincerity, and the couple suspects they set a record for the amount of storage used. Asked what they would repeat the same way, their answer is one word with a question mark: everything?
Wedding Team
- Planning & Design Julianne Young Weddings
- Photography @miltonphoto
- Venue @fairmontcll
- Videography @iheartcreativefilms
- Florals @the.romantiks
- Stationery @plumecalligraphy
- Rentals @modernrentals.ca
- DJ & Lighting @pezproductions
- Hair & Makeup @topknotbrides
- Musicians @upscaleentertainmentinc
- Photobooth @snapbeautyphotobooth
- Guest Shuttles @banffsedan
- Officiant Cole Hofstra
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