Picking Up The Invitations

Tonight, our wedding invitations were hand-delivered by Cyd. We met in Watertown, New York, about half-way for both of us.

Here we are getting the invitations:

Here's Cyd and I talking:

A nice picture of us, with our (okay, my) eyes open on every try, for once:

Wade bringing in the invitations to their new (albeit temporary) home:

Me showing the invitations some love:


P.S. Happy Birthday, Cyd. (I always knew you were a fool! ... I couldn't resist after you told me everyone says that on your birthday.) Seriously, Cyd, have a great birthday.

Seamstress

I need to contact a seamstress. Not any seamstress. The seamstress who will alter my dress and modify my veil. There's a seamstress above the downtown Kingston bridal shop (from here on called "the bridal salon"), but rumour has it she's twice as expensive as a seamstress who works out of her home but does an amazing job. This elusive seamstress is recommended by the uptown bridal shop in town (from here on called "the other shop"). And I need to figure out who this lady is.

I need to get off my lazy bum, and call the other bridal shop, and ask who they recommend. I didn't buy my dress from them - actually, I didn't buy my dress from either spot, but we got the bridesmaids' dresses from the bridal salon.

When I was looking for the bridesmaid dress, I was at a local bridal show. I went up to the other bridal shop's booth. One lady asked when my wedding date is, she realized I must have my dress. I told her I was looking for bridesmaid dresses, and I felt like I was dropped as she pretty much turned away when she realized it wasn't a big money maker. So they left a sour taste in my mouth.

P.S. Tomorrow, I pick up the invitations from Cyd, blogger, Bella Figura employee and coordinator extraordinaire. Yay!

But you don't get to see them ... but you already knew that I'm not sharing the invitations on the blog.

Safety Saturdays: WHAT NOT TO DO

Do NOT give the bride and groom a cake with those gag candles that don't go out. If you do, do NOT follow up by squirting massive amounts of silly string at the bride and groom.

I can hear you saying: "But why, Krista? That seems like such a good idea!"

Well, here's why:



Fire Wedding - video powered by Metacafe


P.S. Does anyone have any shots of wedding pictures on foggy days or at sunset? I'm trying to find inspirational photos, things I can show my photographers that I like. I have a great idea in my head, but am not very good at articulating my ideas. Email them to me if you have any!

Can't. Hardly. Wait.

Remember the invitation teaser? No? Well, it was small. Here it is another teaser (but this is your last sneak peak):


Well, they'll be ready on Monday! (Imagine me saying that in a sing-song voice.)

Cyd will be guarding them, no doubt with her life. I'm going to pick them up on the week-end ... but ... might not make it to the week-end. (Sorry, Cyd - do you mind if I show up mid-week? I might not be able to wait!)

P.S. That was the last invitation teaser. You won't see any more hints on the invitations on here until after I'm married. I have to save something for the scheduled posts while I'm on my honeymoon to France, after all! (Wedding guests, you can expect to see these in your mail box in about 2 weeks ... assuming everything goes to plan! No promises.)

Update

So, several of you have assured me two things.

First - invitations are sent out at 6-8 weeks, not 8 weeks. So I'm fine!

Second - I need to relax. :) Trust me, I'm not panicking. But I am having bad dreams abot it, which is my clue that I'm stressing.

Thanks for the kind and helpful words!

Confession

You've probably noticed I'm organized, have lots of lists, and am clearly a Type A personality (Minus the constant impatience. If I know there could be a delay, I won't be impatient. If I don't know there will be a delay, I will be impatient. Best to tell me we'll be late, then it'll all work out.)

True story: I'm organized because I'm horribly forgetful. So forgetful. I'm a visual person, so I write things down. I leave myself sticky notes. I write out directions to get to a meeting. If it's not written down, it may not get done. I know myself, so I try to prevent failure.

So I'm organized because if I wasn't organized, I probably would be pulling out my hair trying to get things done.

But I have a confession.

I'm starting to fall behind. I have lots of honeymoon planning to do. We've been the flight and a tour, but before and after the tour has yet to be booked.

And the alterations on my dress have been started yet. I haven't even contacted a seamstress.

And the invitations? The invitations should be sent out this week, by all those timelines (remember, it's a June 6th wedding). Yeah, they're not even done yet! Won't be done until next Monday (March 30th). Um ... And I may not be able to pick them up until the week-end of April 5th. You know, the week people should have already received them. (By the way, we need confirmed numbers for the reception meal by May 15th, by the way. So we need to ask people to RSVP by May 4th, so we can call any late RSVPers to find out if they're coming.)

So, although some parts of the wedding are really far ahead - other parts are falling behind.

P.S. # 1 - I hope Wade's not reading this. I really hope not. He'd be ticked off if he knew I was falling behind. He's starting to be a bit of a nag to make sure we wouldn't fall behind. And now we have. I'm going to blame it on his nagging. :)

P.S. # 2 - I'm starting to panic that things are not done, and I just don't feel I have enough time in the day to do that and my little petition for which I'm trying to get electronic and (the harder part) real signatures.

More thoughts on what the flower girls should wear

In response to the flower girl post, I received many suggestions to look for Easter dresses, out now. I have started looking.

Marie-Ève thinks that sewing a dress is easier than it sounds. I am tempted by this idea, but I am not sure. I wouldn't ask my mom to take this on, and I'm not sure I'd have the patience to do it (while retaining my sanity).

I found this on the website for The Children's Place. It's cute, too. Slightly less pouffy than I'd had in mind.

Maybe I could sew a tulle overlay on top of the skirt, which would be a merger of most people's suggestions to look for Easter dresses with Marie-Ève's suggestion of sewing a dress.

Thoughts?

Flower Girl Inspiration

My flower girls are sisters, and I'm trying to save their dad (a groomsmen) some money by finding flowergirl dresses that are reasonably priced. I am looking for a poufy skirt, simple top, in white or ivory.

So far this is the cheapest dress I've found that meets those requirements, on etsy from seller sweetplume:


At $170 plus shipping for 2 dresses, this is still not exactly a bargain for a single parent ($68 American times 2 is approximately $170 Canadian). Adorable dresses, but that's too much money.

What do you think I should do? Any ideas on where I can look?

P.S. #1 The older sister, Lily, informed me in a very matter-of-fact matter that the best flower girl dresses are in either bright pink or ocean blue. She was absolutely adorable, with the complete seriousness that only a 7 year-old can muster. I don't think "ocean blue" or "bright pink" quite matches the colours of gold and red, but I hope she will be happy if she can wear something in that colour if her dress is white - shoes or a flower.

P.S. #2 This dress is adorable. Sony from Bridal Bliss will have a flower girl wearing the above dress in white. If I was looking for one flower girl dress, or I lived in the US and didn't have to deal with currency conversion, I would consider this dress. If you want any feedback, contact Sony for a genuine recommendation.

I like the government ... when they give ME money!

It's tax time! If you haven't done yours, and you have all the info you need, why haven't you done them?

I like tax season. I always get a refund! In school, it was because I deducted my tuition, bringing my income "below" the poverty line, so I got the taxes back. Now, it's because I invest in RSPs (tax protected investments) and donate to charities, so I can deduct those contributions. Then my income comes down, and I get money back!

I don't mind income taxes because I appreciate that the money from income taxes goes to support so many necessary programs, particularly healthcare. Any country with universal healthcare will have higher taxes than those without healthcare, but I personally think it's a fair trade-off. No matter what treatment I need, no matter how expensive, it's covered. Higher income brackets pay more, which isn't "fair" if you're healthy, but it ensures those with less money are still able to access necessary treatments. (Unless you need oral chemo, in which case you're on your own until you're over 65, but I've talked about that before and am trying to campaign to improve the situation.)

But even though I don't mind taxes, I don't exactly like them. So when I do smart things like invest for retirement or give money to charity, I keep the receipts so I can deduct the money. Then I get some of the money back. Yay, money back! So, in a week or two or three, the government will mail me a cheque. And it's always fun getting money in the mail. (It only happens once a year - the rest of the year, my mail is filled with bills.)

P.S. I don't do my taxes. My dad is accountant, so he does them. But a few years ago, he started to use one of those tax computer programs. He says it's great - you just enter the information and it does it all for you. You don't need an accountant if you have this program. He highly recommends anyone using this computer program. You can put several claims on one program, so share the cost with friends/family.

The "meat and potatoes" of the wedding

After work on Wednesday, Wade and I went down to City Hall to pick up a marriage licence. We didn't have to get it this early, but you can get it up to 3 months. I figured we might as well get it, so it's done with.*

Here we are walking up to City Hall. We parked a little over a block away, paid for parking, and walked up. Wade clearly thought I was nuts for taking pictures:

We walked in City Hall. I didn't know if we need to go right or left. Then Wade saw two signs on the right that said "Licences" and another sign that said "Payments (parking tickets)" or something like that. You can't see the signs in the picture, but we figured we needed to go to "Licences", so we headed to the right. The lady at the "Licences" desk told us we had to go to the clerk's office, which was actually to the left. So we went to the left:
The lady in the clerk's office took our form, which we'd already filled out. She gave us a card to pay for the licence, which she said was down the hall, pointing to where we started: So down we went to the same lady in the "Licences" line. She told us we actually had to get in the "Payment" line. Same room, different line. The lady in that line was smiling and excited that we were paying for our marriage licence. I should have asked to take her picture, but I was too shy. Anyway, when we were done paying, we headed back to the clerk's office with proof of payment. When we returned, the clerk was typing up our Marriage Licence that we sign on the wedding day. She has a lovely view of the market behind City Hall. Here she is typing: We had to put our hand's on a bible and she asked us basically if the form was correct (in a lot of words) to which we responded, "Yes". She was only half paying attention, which offended Wade. But I figure she's probably a busy lady who does this all the time - it's a lot more exciting for us than her! Then we had our licence. We left City Hall and tried to find someone to take our picture. We couldn't. Here's the view of leaving City Hall: So we took a picture of ourselves. In spite of Wade's goofy grin, he was actually really excited when we left. Here's Wade being extra-excited for the picture of him holding the licence: I told him to look normal ... so this is the look he gave me: This is the rink behind City Hall. In the summer, it's a beautiful market. As you can see, the rink is out of comission because it was 8C: Here's us in behind City Hall! Again, Wade looking less excited than he was acting. Here's an unhindered shot of the rink behind City Hall. We went to Red Lobster for dinner. Yum. And we drove by "Kingston's Castle" on the way home. Oh yeah, this isn't really a castle. It's a penitentiary. Yep, that's one of the prisons in Kingston.

*When I was 17, I worked at Sears for a few years. My boss, who seemed like a grown-up, but was probably my age now, was getting married. She didn't get her marriage licence too far in advance. A month before her wedding there was a civic strike in our city, so she had to go to another municipality to get her marriage licence. She made it seem like going to another municipality for the licence was a huge hassle. So I wasn't taking any chances!

Bouquet ... warning: you might drool

Here are some bouquets that I like, filled with white peonies and English roses (aka cabbage aka David Austin roses).

Peonies:

More peonies:

More peonies:

English roses:

More English roses (or peonies ... I'm not completely sure which):

And for something a little different ... burgundy peonies!

Source: the knot

Bridesmaid Feature: Emily

You've met Kristy and Crystal, now I'm going to introduce you to Emily!

Em is an elementary school teacher who apparently knew she wanted to be a teacher when she was a kid. I think she was inspired by her parents, also both teachers. How do people know what they want to be when they're kids? I don't get it - I changed my mind about what I wanted to be every day - almost as often as I changed clothing! (When I was little, I sometimes changed twice a day when I bored of my outfit. Weird, I know. So if I can't pick clothing to last the whole day, I certainly couln't pick a career.)

Emily and I met when we were roommates - along with Kristy & Caroline. She took geography (social geography, not physical geography, as she recently reminded me) and English. She also took courses in German, because her mother's family is German - her grandparents emigrated to Canada after World War II. She was very excited to learn some German, then go with her grandmother ("Oma") to visit her extended family (including her great-grandmother) in Germany. Her plan was foiled when she discovered her family speaks the lesser-spoken Low German, whereas she learned High German. Fortunately, many of her third cousins or second cousins once removed (or whatever they were) spoke English.


P.S. You met Emily before, when I introduced you to her "slave labour" boutonniere making here.

St. Patrick's Day

P.S. Happy St. Patrick's Day! Traditionally, St. Patrick's Day does not involve green beer. Personally, I prefer stew or potatoes. Celebrate how you like, but since it's a week night, I won't be going out! May the luck of the Irish be with you, and if you catch a leprechaun, he owes you his pot o' gold.

Bells of Ireland Bouquet

Source: www.thebridescafe.com

Flower Inspiration Part 1: Maid of Honour Bouquet

MOH Joce has indicated her favourite flower is carnations. Her bouquet will be all carnations in an orangey-yellow colour:

Grouped together like this:

Source: WeddingBee's Mrs. Flamingo

Source: Martha Stewart

What's in a name? Again

I've talked about how to change your name (here and here) but I didn't talk about what I'm doing.

That's because I don't know! I always assumed I'd hyphenate my name. Yes, that what I'd assumed I would do. I didn't see the point of changing my name. My name is mine. But I also didn't see the point of "refusing" my husband's name. My ultimate would be if he took my last name as a second middle name. But that's not going to happen. Wade is not very traditional about many things - he does our laundry and packs my lunch every day. He will support whatever I do, but he is not adding my last name into his name. (And that's fine with me.)

But it seems like every other blogger posts about how stupid "hyphenating" your name is. They say it means you couldn't decide what you wanted to do, which is not the case with me, and I know I shouldn't be swayed by someone saying this, but I was. (Frankly, in my experience, most women who dislike hyphenation are the same women who always "knew" they would change their name.)

So what to do? I could always embrace the old-fashioned allegedly "Scottish" tradition (I can't find anywhere I can cite, but I'm sure I read that somewhere) ... Scottish women traditionally did not change their name.

What will / did / would you do?

Michael's Sale

Flowers!

I booked with the florist today. I won't tell you what I'll be carrying - mostly so it's a surprise for family & friends. MOH Jocelyn will carry a bouquet of yellow-orange carnations, which are her favourite flowers. The other bridesmaids will each have a different bouquet of one type of flowers: yellow (with burgundy tips) cymbidium orchids, yellow spider mums and confetti (yellow with red tips) roses. Remember, they're wearing these dresses. (I'm so excited about their bouquets. I picked some of my favourite flowers. The only of my favourites I left out are phalenopsis orchids. The florist told me phalenopsis orchids are "crazy expensive" - I believe those are her exact words. So I nixed that idea and substituted cymbidium orchids. Not a bad substitution, in my opinion!)

Each of the groomsmen will wear silk mini callas, which I posted about here.

My dad, Wade's dad, my grandpa and my brothers will all have matching boutonnieres. My mom, Wade's mom and my grandma will have matching corsages. I won't say what they'll be made of, only because I haven't told them yet!

I had an idea for our pew decorations, but because the pews at the church are not normal pews, to attach anything would be ridiculously expensive! Seriously, it would have almost doubled what I'm now spending on flowers - just for tiny pew decorations. The florist suggested I purchase silk flowers and she could either wire them for the pews, or she could show me how to wire them for the pews. How awesome is that! She'll show me how to do the pew decorations!

All in all, our flowers will cost just over 1/2 of what I'd budgeted, which pleased me. That was largely due to her project suggestion.

Ring Bearer (Post for Corry)

For Kylan
Shirts:











Left: Gap; Centre: Old Navy; Right: Children's Place

Pants:

Either shorts with tall socks (page boy look) or pants like Ryan's.

Paired with a tie OR a vest & tie:











Left: Sears; Centre: Sears (vest) and Sears (shirt and tie); Right: Sears

(Or with a bowtie instead of a tie.)

Ring Bearer / Junior Usher (Post for Corry)

For Ryan
Shirts:











Left: Gap; Centre: Old Navy; Right: Children's Place

Pants:











Left: Gap; Centre: Children's Place; Right: Old Navy

Paired with a tie OR a vest & tie:











Left: Sears; Centre: Sears (vest) and Sears (shirt and tie); Right: Sears

(Or with a bowtie instead of a tie.)