Bride and groom hit the slopes after wedding ceremony for 'quiet moment together'

— -- This Canadian bride and groom hit the slopes after their wedding ceremony, using the few hours before their reception for a “quiet moment together to reflect.”

“It was super sentimental,” Andrew Leonard of Vancouver told ABC News. “The day we got married, it was important to do a run on the mountain. We didn’t bring the wedding party up, no friends or family, just us.”

“It felt like a really sacred ritual to do that run together on our wedding day,” bride Chela Davison explained. “It symbolized some of the underlying values of what we care about in our relationship and partnership -- not just big adventure in a ‘woohoo’ fun way, but really going after dreams and things that are meaningful to us. Those runs together really felt like a symbolic ceremony of what we’ve been in together and where we’re headed.”

The newlyweds, both on the leadership team with Integral Coaching Canada, had a ski-themed wedding at Whistler Blackcomb Resort in Whistler, a location that holds special meaning for them.

“That’s where we had our first date,” said Davison. “We got engaged up in Whistler and we go every year for our anniversary.”

Obviously comfortable on the slopes, the adventurous couple skied black diamonds in their full wedding attire, including the bride’s wedding gown and the groom’s dapper top hat, which remained on his head the entire time.

“I had a jacket for when it got colder and layers I could work with,” said Davison. “But when I went shopping for my dress I really had in mind, ‘I need to be able to ski in this.’”

“The dress, because it was so big and heavy, she looked like a beautiful bride floating down the mountain,” Leonard added.

They chose their wedding photographer, Pascale Gadbois, a former member of a national freestyle ski team, based on her ability to ski with them to capture these awesome yet tender moments.

“She was incredible,” Davison said of Gadbois. “She knows the mountain really well. She lives up there. She had great ideas about where to take us.”

“We had the mountain all to ourselves,” Leonard added.

Although they were physically alone on the mountain, Leonard said there was a touching moment when he realized there was one additional guest shining down on them on their big day.

“One of the most impactful parts of my day, we got up to the top of the lift and Chela and I are messing with our bindings and ski [stuff] and then from behind us Pascale says, ‘I don’t know what you believe in or what your religion is, but I believe in the power of nature,’” Leonard recalled. “And that was when she pointed out the rainbow around the sun.”

“My brother passed away in November and he was going to be the best man at the wedding,” the groom added. “It looked like an eye in the sky. It was the amount of presence and intimacy that brought that whole moment together, having that feeling of knowing he was there.”

Davison couldn’t agree more.

“It did feel sacred,” she said. “And it did feel like a deeply spiritual moment for the two of us.”