Dancing Chinese Lions, COVID Elvis and a fleet of supercars: in the wedding of a car-obsessed couple

Lisa Marie Chen and Lelan Leontowich met in 2010 while working at Toyota Canada. Commissioned with the design of a show car, they have teamed up to put their own personal stamp on it. “We named the car Project 77 because it looked like two Ls standing upside down,” says Chen, “like Lisa and Lelan.”

Eleven years later, the Duo Project 77 achieved their most ambitious feat to date, celebrating a wedding that culminated in a parking lot party attended by Chinese lions, an Elvis impersonator, and a fleet of supercars. “Looking back, I think we had no idea how much fun it would be,” says Chen. “We just rolled with it, and somehow it ended up being super magical.”

Despite their initial creative spark, it would be six years before Chen, 37, and Leontowich, 39, turned up romantically. After Chen left Toyota, they continued to hang out, going to auto shows and races together. (She eventually ended up at IBM, where she is the Director of Design for Business Automation.)

“On a return trip from Montreal, someone once held someone’s hand,” she says, pointing discreetly at Leontowich. “I’m not saying who. In the beginning it was like, is it embarrassing? No! It actually makes a lot of sense. “

Although they had a lot in common, they were very different in some ways. Leontowich, who grew up in Vancouver, loves nature, especially camping in the hinterland. Chen, who grew up in downtown Toronto, would rather wander to the nearest air-conditioned bubble tea shop. But during their courtship, they began to appreciate each other’s interests, culminating in Chen going offline with Leontowich for a two-week wilderness trip. “Against all the concerns of my family and friends that I wouldn’t last long, we made it,” she says. “And now I love going on these adventures with him.” The couple even started the Instagram account @ The77Adventures to record their travels.

Last summer, they got into their 2020 Lexus GX 460 truck, which was equipped with a refrigerator, bedding, and a tent roof, and headed west. “Let’s see how far we can go,” Leontowich said to Chen. When they reached Manitoba they decided to keep going and eventually reached Vancouver. The entire trip lasted two and a half months. “We actually had to come home because we ran out of clothes,” says Chen. “It was starting to get cold and we’d only packed for the summer.” It was in the mountains of Sasquatch Provincial Park in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley that Leontowich fell to one knee. “I just started crying,” Chen recalls.

Planning a wedding against a backdrop of a pandemic was never easy, but the couple agreed to keep it simple. “We have committed ourselves to something that we would not have to postpone if COVID worsened further,” says Leontowich. “If it got better, we would scale.”

Their initial guest list expanded from 10 to 17 when Ontario moved in just two weeks before the wedding in Step 2 of the reopening, which allowed outdoor gatherings of up to 25 people. After a church ceremony, the guests met for dinner at The School, a steakhouse in Markham that Chen has been visiting with her family since childhood. Each guest received two pairs of rainbow chopsticks, a bespoke to-go meal set from Patois, and a Hot Wheels car that matched either the guest’s dream car or their actual car, spray-painted an iridescent white.

After dinner, other well-wishers arrived in their Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porsches, all of which were decorated with balloons and congratulatory signs for the occasion. Men in costume performed the Chinese lion dance, a tradition to scare away evil spirits and bring good luck. The bride and groom played along by holding a long pole with a head of lettuce dangling from the end, which the lions are attacking. “It’s actually a big old mess,” says Chen. “There are pictures of us with lettuce on top of each other.”

When the dance came to an end, one last guest came: COVID Elvis. Chen had found the Elvis Presley impersonator – who started making The King after losing his job during the pandemic – on Instagram, but he felt it was over her budget. When his minivan pulled up to the strains of Burning Love, Chen knew that Leontowich had conjured up the ultimate wedding surprise. For Leontowich, it was worth it to see the joy it brought not only to Chen, but also to her father (after all, he called his daughter Lisa Marie). When COVID Elvis shook his hips on “All Shook Up,” Chen asked her father to dance. “I’ve waited for this all my life,” her father said before cutting the carpet, or in this case the concrete.

The night ended with Chen’s 17-year-old niece performing the couple’s favorite song, the Presley ballad “The Wonder of You,” on acoustic guitar when the newlyweds shared their first dance. “We had a moment,” says Leontowich, “because we thought this was the best day of our life.”

As they left, Leontowich said to Chen, “We should have the 77th day every year.” And Leontowich doesn’t expect the fun to end anytime soon. “This was just a continuation of our shared joy and further proves that we can get through anything,” he says. “We have an adventure all the time.”

THE DETAILS

Florist Ashton Creative, Ashley Plainos

planner August in Bloom, Sara Lam

Venue The fine dining school

Meal set Patois Toronto, Chef Craig Wong

Fit Custom-made garrison

Wedding dress Wona Concept, Superior Bridal

Qipao designer Alice Ko Designs

shoes Christian Louboutin

Wedding rings Chanel

Lion dance Wushu project

power COVID Elvis

music Isabella Hsu

cake Sugar Tooth Fairy

Cake topper Choi art

Logo design Shingo Shimizu

invitation Jacqueline Liu

Print and sticker Shinzo Media, Mike Chau

photography Claudia Hung, wedding editorial team

Videography Jacky P. Tran

hair Puzzles Creations, Justin Ming Cheung

beauty AglowbyJoan, Joan Huang