A magical vegan wedding with type 1 diabetes.

April 28th was one of the most magical days of my life. I got married to the man of my dreams.

We had a small wedding in California with a tight knit group of family and friends that we planned in six weeks.

The wedding planning went smoothly, my Dad flew all the way from Australia and Alex’s Dad and Uncle joined from Ecuador to celebrate with us.

From the moment we chose our wedding date we knew we wanted a vegan wedding. Veganism is something that is part of both of our lives and we believe that the lifestyle is good for our health, the environment and the animals.
We wanted as much of the wedding to be eco-friendly, health promoting and kind to all living beings not only for us but our guests too.

We found an incredible vegan chef Pascual Vegan Catering who catered the food for the evening and made sure everything was gluten free and a lot of the dishes oil free (which was for me inparticular).

We got the most amazing raw vegan wedding cake made by a very talented chef and artist Stephen McCarty Solar Return Shop in Los Angeles.

In the mix of all of this, I also had to manage my type 1 diabetes leading up to and on our wedding day.

I knew on the day that there was going to be a lot of emotions, mostly happy ones and a lot of excitement and adrenaline running through my system. This would make my sugar levels rise more than usual and make things a little more challenging to manage at times.

Thankfully having the freestyle libre glucose sensor on my arm (as you can see in the photos) made things a lot easier, without the hassle of having to prick my finger multiple times to know my BGL reading.

We got married in Alex’s brother beautiful back garden, decorated with fairy lights, white chairs and tables and a few candles and bouquets of flowers.

I like simple and this day was perfectly simple.

Our wedding day started nice and early around 8am. I woke up asking my husband-to-be if he wanted to go for a morning run… lying in bed for an extra hour was more appealing knowing we had a hectic day ahead.

I had my usual breakfast of a plant-based protein shake with almonds, cinnamon and baby spinach. This normally doesn’t spike my sugar levels too high, but this morning was a different matter, heading up towards 300mg/dL (16mmol/L) as we were heading out the door to start our day.

We got the final set up done in the wedding garden by 11am which allowed me to quickly shower and have 30 mins of peace and quiet before my hair and makeup was to be done, while Alex and my friend Cris went to get poke bowls for lunch.

By this stage I had brought my BGLs back down with a correction dose with inhalable insulin Afrezza, which starts to drop my sugar levels within 10 mins of inhaling it.

This allowed me to relax and chat with the girls while they did my hair and make-up.

We had decided to have some pre-wedding photos taken early afternoon right before the ceremony.

We weren’t having a traditional wedding so this felt perfect and a great way to get some amazing photos and also enjoy our celebration all in the one day.

For the whole 2-hour shoot my bgls were hanging around 160mg/dL (8mmol/L).

I was feeling a little dehydrated from the sun but being on the trails with Alex and our great photographer Jen: http://burrowandthistle.com, I couldn’t have been happier.

As we drove back to our house quickly to grab some water and freshen up, I started to get a little nervous and my BGLs started to rise quite quickly. I gave a relatively large correction dose through my insulin pump knowing that the wedding ceremony would be finished within an hour so the likelihood of dropping low during it was minimal.

As we got to Alex’s brothers house I went in the back entrance to meet my Dad and our beautiful flower girl Camila, while Alex quickly said hello to the guests.

The ceremony was everything I dreamed of and more. My dad made me cry as we walked down the aisle even though I had the biggest smile on my face.

Paul, Alex’s twin brother was the celebrant and his words were so warm and funny.

We shared our vows which we had both written ourselves and hadn’t shared prior to that moment.

And then, before we knew it we were husband and wife and ready to celebrate with everyone who had joined us for the evening.

We took photos with family and friends while they enjoyed the food and drinks.

My BGLs were being stubborn and sitting higher with all the excitement and adrenaline I could feel in my veins.
I decided to take 12 units of Afrezza for my dinner. It was a large dose but I wanted to be able to enjoy the food, taste everything, and definitely have some of the wedding cake.

With a little walking around, speaking to people and sipping on kombucha, my sugar levels began to drop and I was able to sit down, smile at my husband and enjoy the most amazing vegan food.

By 7pm it was time for speeches and the wedding cake.

I couldn’t contain my excitement for the wedding cake, but beforehand my Dad made me cry a second time during his wedding speech, followed by lots of laughter and a little bit of embarrassment as he recalled a few memories from my childhood.

The cake came out, we cut it, I got some on Alex’s face (and beard-whoops momentarily got in trouble for this hehe) and we got to enjoy a piece before it was all gone.

As the afternoon turned into night, we felt so elated and relaxed and squeezed in a little bit of dancing before the evening wound down.

It was one of those days that couldn’t have being more perfect.

Exactly the way I had thought my wedding would be.

My diabetes wasn’t perfect but I knew that would be the case and I was okay with it. It didn’t impact my wedding day one bit.

My top 3 tips for a vegan wedding:

Find a chef who specializes in catering for vegan events – better chance the food will be delicious and your vegan and non-vegan guests will love the food equally
Amazon is great for eco-friendly cutlery, napkins and decorations – we ordered a lot of our stuff from here
Tell your guests prior to the evening that you will be serving vegan food at the wedding (we did this on our invitation), this allows guests to eat beforehand if they want and also know what kind of wedding you want to have

My top 3 tips for diabetes management on wedding day:

Know that there will be a lot going on for the day and the most important thing on your wedding is to enjoy it
Don’t let your BGL stress you – it is only one day and if they aren’t ideal it is okay
Make sure your sensor, BGL monitor and insulin is always close by so you can access it whenever you need too – I kept mine on our table the whole night and moved it closer to the dancefloor when I needed too

All mentions of products in this blog post are of my own accord with no sponsorship or promotion from companies.