Updated weather forecast

What can I say? I can't pick the weather, so not much I can do. But it's still early, yet, so it could change again.

Oh no! The bad dreams are back!

Between 7, 8 months ago and as far as back as a little over a year ago, I would occassionally have bad dreams that I forgot to plan most of the wedding. I knew why I had these dreams: it was just because it wasn't planned yet. It was my "subconscious" worrying about all the planning yet to be done. As I planned more and more, these dreams went away, as I knew they would.

Well, last night, I had the first wedding nightmare in months. I often have nightmares when I'm worried about something or stressed by something. Now, just to clarify, I'm not worried (I'm done planning) and I'm not stressed (um ... because I'm done planning). In fact, I have exactly 3 things left to do: get dog stickers (kind of a long story ... I'll explain later, when I explain the table themes), pick up my dress (10 am tomorrow!) and get tea lights (next time I'm at Michael's or Walmart). That's it. Everything else is done. Done, done, done! Oh yeah, and I have to bake the cake, but that's why I have Friday off from work. (Trust me, I'm not worried about this one. I'm going to bake way more cake than I need, and I have the coolest cake stand ever, homemade by Wade's dad.)

So, what was last night's nightmare about? I forgot to attend the wedding until an hour before hand. Who does that? Apparently, me in my dreams. For some reason, I was in Toronto (a 2 1/2 hour drive west) and the wedding was in Ottawa (a nearly 2 hour drive north east) in one hour! So ... I was going to be very late for my wedding, and I obviously didn't have time to get my hair done or even do my make-up.

I woke up in a sweat. And I reminded myself that I wasn't going to Toronto the day before the wedding, nor is the wedding in Ottawa, so I was not going to miss my wedding! Oh, the emotions of dreams!

Up next:
-Attend my final fitting and pick up dress (tomorrow)
-Attend my bachelorette (tomorrow - it's a mystery road trip - yay!)
-Write thank you notes as gifts arrive. I have been shocked and surprised by how lovely and generous all the early gifts we have received. Writing thank you notes is normally hard to motivate oneself to do, but I have found the opposite. In fact, I find the thank you notes hard because I don't know how to concisely articulate how thankful and how flattered I am by the gifts in such a small amount of space!

Groomsman Barbecue: Pictures!

Remember the Groomsman's Barbecue I told you about? Here are some pictures!










Above: Pamela, baby Charlie, Dave, and Wade's side; Groomsmen Mark, Dinger and Greg; and Mark.











Above: More pictures of the same people - Mark, Dinger, Greg, Pamela, baby Charlie and Dave. You can see how pleased Dave looks with his tickets to see the Toronto Blue Jays. He was even more pleased when I told him Charlie could go and he didn't even need a seat!











Above: more of the same people. In the picture on the right, you can really see Greg's look of happiness as he opens his gift and realizes what it is. I don't think he had any clue. (That's an extremely emotional expression for Greg.)











Above: More of Mark and Dinger, but you can also see Best Man Ryan in these pictures.










Above: More pictures after they've opened their gifts.











Above: More of the same people, plus Patches the dog. Somehow, there are no pictures of Jocelyn, who was sitting beside me.

Just to recap, our gifts were themed on "experiences" they enjoy. Ryan got a very fancy barbecue utensil set (trust me, few people like the barbecue as much as Ryan - he'll prepare for days to get the right seasonings for a bbq) and gift certificates to take his family to the movies; Mark got tee-off fes (presented in a mini golf bag); Dave got Blue Jays tickets; Dinger got a Nascar ticket; and Greg got Green Day tickets.

It's getting close ...

And I know this because (well, other than being able to read a calendar) the long-term forecast is available for our wedding.

Actually, it's been available for a few days, but I didn't clue in I could check it. Wade pointed out today that it's supposed to have stopped raining and be okay on the 6th: sunny with cloudy periods, a high of 21C (70F). Wow, that sounds good to me! Of course, it's still a crapshoot at this point! :)


And what's the worse that can happen? It rains really hard? While a hard rain would be disappointing - no outdoor pictures - I'll still get married. Best case scenario? A day that is not hot / humid. Either way, I should have a lot of fun!

Shower #1: Saturday, May 2nd

My grandma hosted a shower for family & family-friends on Saturday, May 2nd. Here are some of the pictures:









In the above pictures: cake; Kate, me and MOH Joce; Wade's mom Mary, her best-friend Stella, Wade's Aunt Lorraine and Wade's cousin's spouse Kate. Kate was fantastic, helping Jocelyn and I to track gifts!










In the above pictures: Mom (in an unflattering angled picture), her very close friend Gerri and her best friend Jackie, Wade's Aunt Sharon (who is Jackie's sister - small world, eh?), Mary and Stella; Lorraine and Kate; Lorraine, Kate, me and Jocelyn.










In the above pictures: more of the same people: Lorraine, Kate, me and Jocelyn. (I'm doing this in order we're seen, hence why I'm not "last" as is typically considered polite.)










In the above pictures: um, more of the same people. In the picture on the left, you can see the back of Gerri's head, the back of my mom's head, the back of my Aunt Linda's head, the side of my grandma's head in the bottom right corner, the side of Laura's head (Diana's daughter, and younger sister of a friend of mine who couldn't attend as she's studying in Australia!), the side of Diana's head (family friend and wife of one of the m.c.s) and the side of Sue's head (family friend and wife of the other of the m.c.s).










In the above pictures: more of Jocelyn and me. Note to Jocelyn: using tape to stick the "ribbon bonnet" to my head was not a good idea. What on earth made you think it was? :)










In the above pictures: the food spread, and Laura playing her piccolo solo for us. I can't believe Laura - what a sweetheart! - she brought her piccolo in the hopes she could play a piece for me! It was quite lovely.

Note: some of the last pictures are a little blurry because the camera is moody. I got this camera during the Boxing Day sales last December, and while it can be great, it can also be annoying. Thanks for taking these pictures, Janis! (95% of the pictueres were amazing, which is a much better success rate than I have with the camera, so you did amazing!)

A couple of notes: my Aunt Janis didn't make any pictures (being the photographer), my Aunt Ruth somehow missed all the pictures, and my grandma and Aunt Linda missed most of the pictures, too. But they were there!

And did you see the corsage (pale yellow carnations) I'm wearing? My grandma got it for me, as well as a similar pale pink corsage for my mom and for Mary. Isn't that gorgeous? I thought it was - and it lived for a few days after!

And the floating balloons my grandma put beside me? Yeah, the one balloon is still floating. Seriously!

Donation in lieu of favours

Wade and I made a donation to the Canadian Cancer Society today instead of purchasing favours. Our favour budget was $1 per guest, and I had a great DIY project to make super fun heart-shaped lollipops. I actually thought I could do it for less than $0.50 per guest.

The Canadian Cancer Society website indicates that while any donation is acceptable, they encourage people to donate what they would have spent on their favours / bonbonnieres. Somewhat insultingly, the website goes on to say that most people's budget for favours is apparently $5-10 per guest. Well, la-de-da, our budget was only $1 per guest, but apparently people who donate to the Canadian Cancer Society give better favours than I, and so I thought I'd be rude if I *only* gave the Canadian Cancer Society $1 per guest. I found that statement to be off-putting (and still do). I was going to make a large donation to the Canadian Cancer Society anyway, so after some soul-searching, however, I decided to donate $5 per guest.

Now, I still find that statement off-putting (um, thanks for telling me I'm cheap), but not enough to refuse to donate to the Canadian Cancer Society. They were just trying to make a point - to give to them what you would have spent on the favours - but it still rubbed me the wrong way.

Am I weird to have been bothered by that statement?

Things done this week-end:

-Had a dress fitting (went well)
-Bought a card box (well, I bought a box that I glued the lid on and Wade cut a hole in)
-Had the groomsmen over for a barbecue and gave them their groomsmen gifts
-Bought flip flops at Old Navy for guests

The groomsmen each got a different "experience" themed gift based on their interests:
-Groomsman Greg like music, so he got a ticket to a Green Day concert (we "happen" to have tickets to the same show in seats beside his);
-Groomsman Dinger likes Nascar, so he got tickets to next week-end's Nascar race (he already knew he was going and thought he was paying for his ticket to next week-end's annual trip to Nascar; this was just a pleasant surprise);
-Groomsman Dave got tickets to a Toronto Blue Jays game (his wife had helped us pick out a date for them to go up);
-Groomsman Mark got a gift certificate for green fees for 3 rounds at a golf course near him (one of his favourite things);
-Best Man Ryan got a fancy-schmancy barbecue set and a gift certificate so that he can take his wife and two sons to the movies (two of his favourite things!).
They were all thrilled with their gifts!

Goals for this week:
-Finish the escort cards and place cards;
-Go over the ceremony with the minister;
-Book rail travel for Europe (if time permits);
-Practice our first dance;
-Pick up a guest book.

A neat idea to protect your guests feet?

I've read an idea that some couples provide their guests with optional flip flops, so that if their shoes start to hurt, they don't need to dance barefoot. Dancing barefoot, while it seems fun, is not always practical or safe in a large group (someone may drop a glass or something on the floor). While that is a nice idea, it can be expensive ... unless you buy the flip flops this Saturday from Old Navy (in Canada, anyway).


Just a thought :)

... Psst! ...

Wanna win a free honeymoon? (Or second honeymoon? Or kick-ass vacation?)

Then go to Pre-Owned Wedding Dress to enter! I'm so busy most days that I don't even have time to enter this contest. Seriously - I should be entering it. But anyhoo, you can enter once per day for every email address you have until the end of June!

(Mary, if you're reading this and you want to enter multiple times every day, let me know. I have 4 email accounts - 1 personal, 1 for this blog (to preserve internet anonymity), and 2 for work. I can give you the emails, so you can use all of them to enter several times every day!)

So what are you waiting for? Click here so that you can go here!

Sorry for whining ...

In spite of my very best intentions, I am busy with last minute things. Many of these things I could not do in advance - for example, the escort cards. Nonetheless, it is frustrating having done so much and yet having so much to do. Wade is particularly frustrated, wondering aloud how we could have gone from "being so far ahead" to feeling so far behind. He takes comfort in being reassured we couldn't do much of this in advance.

Don't get me wrong - I am not stressed. I feel pressures from having so much to do and being so busy, but I do not feel overwhelmed and stressed. I also had some big (and fun!) projects at work in the past month, which further reduced my spare time and increased my level of busyness.

Also, because of time constraints, I am not commenting on others' blogs. I still read them, thanks to the ease of google reader! But I just don't comment.

To those who follow who are married - whether recently or not, any advice on how to get everything done? Or any advice on how to continue to remain with excessive stres?

(Sent via my blackberry, from a train travelling for work. Excuse any typos.)

Happy Victoria Day!

It's May 2-4! A day off. Well, I don't feel like I was off today, but that's another story.

Marie-Ève got married this week-end. I went to 2 barbecues, went to Syracuse to go shopping, dropped off one dress for the Montreal bridesmaid (we met half-way, an hour and a half east of here), met another bridesmaid half-way to Toronto (for the Toronto & Hamilton bridesmaids) on a different day, went grocery shopping, finished booking the hotels for the honeymoon (I think), and finished the seating plan.

And I'm skipping aerobics tonight. I just don't have it in me!

Things Done, Things yet to do

Our guest list for the ceremony & dinner was about 120, of which about 105 are attending. We still don't have a couple replies, but the reception has said we have until next week to let them know. This number was limited by two factors: (1) the church is very small, and will be packed with this number, and (2) the dining room at our venue holds 115. (The room for dancing holds over 200, so we could have had our dinner there, but I liked the idea of dinner in a dining room, then moving to the other room for dancing. Plus, it tied in with the capacity of the church.)

But upon reviewing our guest list, and reviewing who is important to us, we just didn't feel right. We just felt awful excluding some people who were meaningful people to us. I made the suggestion we invite more people to the reception for dancing. We added another 25+ people to the reception - inviting co-workers, extended friends, and a few family friends. I feel really good about this decision. I wanted to be clear to these valued guests that they are there to help us celebrate - not to get more gifts. Consequently, the wording on the invitation invites them to "dance and celebrate" our marriage, and at the bottom (in lieu of a small "R.S.V.P." tag) it says "Best Wishes Only".

We feel really good about this decision, and hope that these guests feel honoured and pleased to help us celebrate. I hope they realize this isn't to get more gifts (as we aren't doing this wedding "for gifts") but rather to have them with us.

Inspiration

If I'd seen this board earlier, maybe I'd have blue dresses hanging in my closest, instead of red ones.



I'm not regretting what I have. I'm just saying I think Mara has a fantastic board.

2 things (non-wedding)

-Re-reading the last post, I realized that I use the word "so" far too often. I need to stop that.
-It's almost the long week-end here in Canada. YAY!

What I've been up to ...

SPOILER WARNING: if you are coming to the wedding and you want to be suprised by the meal, stop reading NOW!!!

Well, this week has been crazy. I had a visit with my specialist on Tuesday, who is based in Toronto. I was referred to her when I was living in Toronto in grad school, and since I like her and trust her, I haven't asked for a referral to someone closer to me! So, I took the train there and back in the same day. Yesterday, I spent half the day with my mom visiting her doctor. And got good news! Not great, but certainly better than most people hear. And today, I took a long lunch to meet with the reception venue to finalized the dinner menu.

So, I heard from a friend who was married at the same place we're having our reception that their cold peach soup is amazing. So, our soup course is cold peach soup. Our salad course is the standard garden salad with a cranberry vinaigrette. The dinner is choice of chicken, salmon, vegetarian, or kid's chicken fingers, served with Ontario wine. The dessert will be a fruit-pecan upside down cake with a caramel or rum drizzle. Apparently, the chef just came up with this recipe a few days ago (it's not on the menu yet!) and all the workers there couldn't stop eating it. So I was sold!

So, yay!

Jack and Jill

There was a bride there who was ending her bachelorette party, who you can see had the same tiara as me. And the singer of the band came into the crowd giving away "money" that said their band's name. And some people (Joce and Wade among them) decided to wear the decorations as hats. You can also see our balloon-filled car in the McDonald's drivethrough! Woooo - it was a very fun day.