... 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.