The word of the day is "exhausted"

(Ok this post contains tons-o-wedding crap so if you're not so into the wedding stuff I'd suggest you skip it.)

Our wedding was really a phenomenal day - better than I'd expected, than we'd planned, and better than we'd hoped for. Even the freaking weather cooperated!

For now we're completely exhausted. From last Friday until today we really haven't had much of a break. We went from the wedding, to the reception, to a hotel for a couple of hours, to the airport, to Florida, to the cruise ship, ran around the ports we stopped at, to a hotel, to the airport, to Toronto's airport, home, lunch, and back in the car to Cobourg to see my parents, to bachelor(ette) party and wedding in Ottawa this weekend where I was a bridesmaid, home this afternoon, and work tomorrow. So, here's the longer version if you're interested.

The days before the wedding were spent making programs, putting together ribbons and sheets of organza to wrap the blue spruce trees which were our wedding favours for all the guests.

We rented Victoria Hall in Cobourg (where I grew up) for our reception. The exterior is one thing, and is definitely beautiful, but the concert hall is something you have to see to believe it. It's totally gorgeous. The hall itself was built in 1860 and was opened by the Prince of Wales. The concert hall, where we had the reception has walnut floors, beautiful murals on the walls and a hand painted ceiling that is incredible. (plus it rents for a song compared to most places!)

My parents, my sister, her fiance John, and Dave's mum helped us decorate the tables Friday morning and get the hall ready. We just had plain white floral table cloths, jewel toned tea lights and we were lucky enough to have a friend of my mum's take the gladiolus that we ordered for the centrepieces, add some Queen Anne's lace, Solomon's seal, hosta leaves and asparagus ferns to make fabulous arrangements for the tables. I was totally amazed at how beautiful they looked even though we were far from a big budget wedding. This is the interior of the grand ballroom for another event but you get a sense of how pretty it is.

I left part way through decorating the hall to a spa afternoon Dave planned for me. By the end of it my hands actually looked like they belonged to a girl (I've never had a manicure before). When it came to picking a nail colour for my toes that was easy. My toes were my "something blue." (Yes I have hideous feet.) The other something blue was borrowed from Sara - a blue toe ring.

The rehearsal went well and it was so fantastic to have a wonderful dinner and be surrounded with friends and family. My family spent hours pulling it together and we really appreciated it.

Our wedding day started very early for me - when a neighbour of my parents' had their car alarm going off for about 20 minutes around 4:30am. I slept like a log to that point, but it took me a while to fall asleep again. The woman doing all of our hair has been doing my hair for the last 12 years, and I've been going to the same salon before she started there since I was 4. She does a phenomenal job, and doesn't charge nearly enough for an up do. She came to the house and had everyone done in time.

It was indeed my high school stalker's wife who did our makeup. In fact, it was him who dropped her off, along with an assistant (who assisted by sitting on the couch). He lingered in front of the house and when I saw that I made my sister run to get the door. Hah! Foiled ya, creepy dude! In the end she was reasonable, and did a pretty good job of making pretty girls even prettier. No make-up guns were set to "whore" as I feared.

I don't know who picked up the flowers, but they were done by Sav-A-Centre (A&P) and I was so impressed. They were cheaper than most places, and totally gorgeous.

We had some photos taken at my parents' house before taking the limo to the church. My family has been members of the church since I was a kid, and this summer we got a new minister who really helped us personalize the service and made it feel like OUR wedding.


I was shocked at how fast the whole service went. It seemed that suddenly we were at the back of the church and the bridesmaids were walking down the aisle, quickly followed by my dad and I (the aisle wasn't big enough to add my mum in). I was really happy with the service, especially the music. My high school music teacher sang a solo (and boy can he sing), and brought along a fellow soloist and I was completely blown away. Several eyes in the house weren't dry; they were that good. I felt like all of a sudden it was all over and we were walking up the aisle (with Dave telling me to SLOW DOWN cause I was too excited and wanted to walk too fast) and we were married. The picture in the post below is us at the top of the aisle at the church. My mum did the flower arrangements in the photo above the day of our wedding.

We then went to a lakeside park for more photos, where the limo driver (who we booked until 6:30) announced he was leaving at 5:30 because he had another job to get to. My sister tore a strip off him and our photographer took a picture of me giving him the finger as he drove off. I'm nothing if not classy (actually, I like to think I put the ass in class).

So, there we were with no way back to the reception hall, when we had the rescue of the year. Dave's friend Curt and his beautiful wife Katy have a brand new white mustang convertible, and he totally became the knight in shining armour with lots of horsepower. We rode in the back of the car while he chauffeured us to the reception, honking the whole way. We just sat in the back amazed at how awesome our friends are and what a fantastic rescuer we had. It totally made our day. My dad took some phenomenal pictures of us in the car, and our wedding photographer got this one too.


When we got to the reception my gorgeous friend Jodi jumped in with her event planning background and ushered everyone in and directing hors d'oeuvres our way while we waited for everyone to get seated. Dinner was great - we served a spinach and grilled asparagus salad with passion fruit dressing, entrees were either a mushroom risotto, chicken with sundried tomato cream, or rime rib beef, along with roasted tomatoes filled with ricotta and spinach, broccoli and dauphinoise potatoes. Speeches went through dinner so no one got too bored (hopefully), and the dancing started and went late into the night. Judging from the dance floor I like to think it was a good party.

In order to get us to dance we made the tables get up and do a dance (with the assistance of the DJ who provided music). There was some definite creativity in the room. By the end of the night we decided to turn the tables on everyone and Dave danced to "The stripper" while I sat and watched to get everone else to kiss.

Our first dance was Etta James singing "At Last," and my dad and I danced to Rod Stewart singing "I wish you well." Dave and his mum danced to Carole King "Child of mine."

The boquet for tossing went directly (and completely unintentionally) to my friend Sara, who was in our wedding party and getting married 8 days after us (I was in her wedding party too). She luckily survived a few stray elbows that narowly missed her head. Apparently it went right to her like some sort of ouija board boquet. I just whipped the thing over my head.

The garter was some cruel joke too, as it went directly to my sister's fiance. Poor John was our wedding day gopher, and had, only minutes before run to the house because I realized I had forgotten to wear a stupid garter. Now the poor guy had my sweaty stinky garter in his hand, having just retrieved it. Dave and I are looking forward to being the gophers at their wedding next summer.

For our last dance the DJ asked everyone to stand around us in a circle holding hands as we danced to Louie Armstrong singing "Wonderful world." That was totally one of the best moments of the day because at every step we could see friends and family around us (and hear my dad and Dave's best man singing). It was an awesome feeling (and to anyone who is getting married DEFINITELY DO THIS for your last dance).

We walked to the hotel room my parents rented for us, crashed for an hour or so, Dave shook me until I gave in and got up, and Dave drove us to the airport in a huge storm around 2:30am so we'd get to the airport in time for our 7am flight.

Next? What kind of morons snorkel during a hurricane! Uh that'd be us!

Dear wedding dress alterations place,

I would consider it an essential component of your job and continued success as a business to NOT lose components of a person's dress.

Say like heavily beaded straps to someone's wedding that is three days away.

And, should you fail in that basic component of your job, then blaming the customer for you losing the straps because they did not give you the dress in a zipped garmet bag to enclose said straps would not be such a great idea. Because, really? It's your job not to lose the straps. Not mine.

And finding a strap colour, that, while similar is not exactly right and proclaiming it "perfect" won't hide the fact that you LOST THE FREAKING STRAPS TO MY DRESS.

Also, when you say you "won't charge me" for making new straps I just want to yell "No shit, sherlock!" into the phone. Because suggesting that you would have charged someone to make straps when you're the one who lost them in the first place? Yeah that's not cool, and will result in the person getting very crusty.

And, a $25 refund for the inconvenience of traveling back and forth to your store all day while you "look everywhere" for them on $260 of alterations really doesn't cut it, especially when one also rented a crinoline from you and paid to have you make one's veil.

So yeah, you can deliver the dress tomorrow, but the beading on the straps better be perfect and like the old ones or there'll be one really, really unhappy camper.

Sincerely,
Bridezilla.

[Edited to add: the alterations place dropped the dress off yesterday with the "new! Just as nice!" straps. Yeah um they look ass-tacular, like three blind mice sewed on the wrong beads in completely random fashion. The fabric isn't the same weave or colour but at this point I have no choice. Strapless it is!]

Head in the clouds

(because my brain is too mushy to write only one coherent posts, here are the things that have been bouncing around in my brian of late)

• Today was my last day of work before the wedding! Yay vacation!

• Most of the wedding crap is organized, we just have a few details left to get done between now and Saturday.

• I love this time of year. Listening to the songs of the crickets in the fields at the dog park at dusk is fantastic. As night falls pockets of cooler air develop among the cedars along the trail, you can take one step and find it several degrees cooler. If I was allowed to pick the weather year-round, it would without a doubt be August weather.
  

• Holy crap am I geeked about our honeymoon!

• Dave has a special date planned for us tonight. All I know is that I have to dress up and that we're leaving at 6:00. It'll be our last date before we're married and I'm curious as to what he has planned.
  

• We had the best Newfie plumber in the world come to our house last Friday. Not only was he nice, but he helped us save money by suggesting Dave and I do some of the work ourselves and he helped us along. He ended up cutting out the old pipe by the laundry tub so it drains faster than 10 mL per hour (it really was that slow). (please don't get mad by me calling him Newfie - he introduced himself as such and I frankly believe Newfoundlanders are among the nicest people to be found anywhere. Plus? I haven't met any Newfoundlanders who weren't a ton of fun to hang out with)
  

• My sister hosted a bachelorette party for me last Saturday which was awesome. It was the second bacheorette party but she planned it to the hilt by making the tackiest veil she could find and making me wear it and some white plastic leis and candy necklaces. We decided to hit Hamilton's Hess Village, where much drinking took place when I was at school at McMaster. I had some fantastic friends who came from near and far to attend, which I really appreciated. They're the kind of friends where you have to try not to have fun with them around. Some weird random dudes bought us shots, and, in typical me fashion the night I passed out fairly early. Photos? Um let's hope there are none! My sister and I spent the afternoon shopping and relaxing together which was great fun.
  

• Just a couple of blocks from home the low tire pressure light came on in my car, and I didn't think much of it because I was almost home. I went to drive to work Monday and pulling out of the driveway I heard a whap-whap-whap, and sure enough I had a flat tire! Dave's been my to-and-from work chauffeur this week.

• Have I mentioned how excited I am at the prospect of a honeymoon?

• If I knew where the Weather Network was located I'd go down there personally and demand an explanation and/or beg for them to say nicer things about the weather Saturday. Two weeks ago I could check the weather forecast and it would say "sunny" one minute then nothing but rain clouds the next." Up until yesterday the little icon said sunny and the temperature sounded perfect. Now there's a big dark cloud, no sun, and lots of lightning bolts forecast for Saturday with an 80% chance of rain. Jerks. I think you could get just as accurate a prediction about the weather from the crackheads (some of whom are actually quite lovely but sad people) outside coffee time in downtown 'Shwa as the weather network can provide. Why not just admit they have NO IDEA what the weather will be like! I really hope they're wrong; we were going to take pictures on the rocky shore of Lake Ontario.
  

• Today is "clean the house top to bottom day" so that when Dave's brother (who rocks) is house and dog-sitting he doesn't think (realize?) we're complete slobs.
  

• My dress will finally be ready tomorrow morning and Dave's tux will be ready then too.
  

• Dave has a day at the spa planned for me the day before the wedding. I'm getting a salt scrub, full body massage, pedicure, and manicure (I've never had one!) before our rehearsal dinner. Should be fun.
  

I am hoping that post-wedding my posts will begin to suck a whole lot less than they have of late.

Four days to go!

Three rants and a laugh

Ah weddings. The happiest day of your life. What people fail to tell you is you'll be pulled a million different directions, and learn more about family politics than you ever wanted. And? People will do things to hurt your feelings! And be irrational! And need some rum punchey punchey!

So, you're guessing there's a story there? Funny enough you'd be right. Actually there are so many stories I don't know where to begin.

RANT ONE
We sent the invites out about two months ago. Aren't they pretty? No one was excluded, and before every invite was dropped in the mailbox we checked that it had postage, a return address, and checked people off on our list so no one would get accidentally forgotten in the process of addressing 155 invites. Anal, but purposeful..

We started getting response cards back right away, and were excited when people were coming.

I started to notice, though, that one side of my family we hadn't got replies from almost anyone. We did some digging around to find out why.

It turns out that one of my cousins and her husband didn't receive the invite, despite our careful checking. I know we sent it but somehow it got lost in the mail or something and hadn't arrived.

As soon as I heard my cousin (we'll call her Sue-Bob cause I like that name) didn't get one I called and left a message for her saying "I hear you didn't get an invite by mail, of course you're invited, as you know it's August 26th and we hope you can make it. If you don't get the invite in a couple days, call me at (gave number twice) and I'll send you another one. Hope to hear from you soon."

Sue-Bob never called back. I actually left 3 messages and called 5 times over the course of 2 weeks. They have call display so she knows how many times I actually tried to get in touch with her and never got a response.

Apparently what happened is that she assumed when she didn't receive an invite in the mail (despite knowing about the wedding months beforehand and actually helping to host a shower for me and me saying I was looking forward to seeing her at the wedding in my thank you card) that she didn't get invited.

Instead of saying "hmm this is odd" or "maybe I should call" she assumed she wasn't invited.

Honestly what kind of jerk do people think I am? That I'd intentionally exclude them from my wedding and invite their siblings and cousins but not them? Even after I called to clear things up a few times this was still the assumption.

Finally, my parents actually drove there and hand delivered an invite to her (a 40 minute drive away) to make sure she knew she was invited. They also drove over to smooth things over with her parents after learning they too assumed she wasn't invited (of course without asking my parents what was going on). Apparently she got the invite I initially sent in the mail the next day.

Problem solved, right? She got 2 invites and all would be well.

Apparently not. I still hadn't received a reply card so yesterday I called and left her a message asking her to call me back (again), saying I heard she got the invite finally and we hoped she and her husband could make it and were looking forward to seeing them.

She finally called me back last night to say she had already taken vacation time from work and couldn't get anyone to cover her shift so they wouldn't be coming.

After all that.

Aren't you glad I made the effort? That my parents hand delivered an invite? That I called all those times and got no response only to hear "I'm working." The funny thing it's probably still my fault in most peoples' eyes.

Why on God's Green Earth didn't we elope?

RANT TWO
When people spend money to invite you to their wedding and include a reply card with an envelope with postage on it, it's not a fridge magnet or secret decoder, it's a REPLY card. You use it to reply to the invitation! All you have to do is mark on it your name and whether you're coming (in handy little boxes no less) and then you drop it in a mailbox. Easy! No sweat! I can handle it when they're late but not having the courtesy to mail it back? Not cool. In fact? Really rude. So glad we spent the time to invite you, asshats.

RANT THREE
If you're not coming to your nephew's wedding because of a pigeon race don't have your daughter send a note saying you're too ill to come (she can't come because her mom usually dog sits and can't because her father is too ill). In my view "well enough to go to a pigeon race" to me would be "well enough to go to your nephew's wedding." I'd frankly prefer a nice dinner to being covered in bird feces, but hey! To each their own! In the end just give us the real reason you're not coming. It may make us laugh more when you get bird flu.

LAUGH:
The story is here, but I thought the picture was worth more than any story it told. Apparently this chickie decided to have a John Deere themed wedding. Nope, totally not kidding.



All I can say is Oh Deere! What was that girl thinking? She's ploughing ahead with a wedding and bridesmaids in rubber boots. I'm not sure the gears are working too well in her head. (note I never said the jokes wouldn't be horribly corny, you'll have to plough through them). Ok I'm tire-d. I'll stop now.

The next bridesmaid who says they hate the dress the bride picked out? I'd make her wear the rubber boots and Deere dress.

Gallery of Hair "Don't"s

What with getting married in, oh, 17 days or so now (insert appropriate freakout about the number of things that have to be done and the short period of time that we actually have to GET them done) so I figured it would be a good idea to figure out how I want my hair to look. I have uber fine hair, but lots of it so wearing it down really isn't an option. It'd become a kinky, frizzy mess in no time.

So, I turned to the trusty internets to suggest ways I could wear my hair. Below are some of the suggestions I came across but have declined to don myself.


This is one I like to call "miss-muffet and her mini bananas." While it may look nice when eating curds and whey, and bananas are healthy and nutritious are not suitable hair pieces. I'm also not a fan of the exploded baby's breath, but that's the least of my worries on this one.





This is one I like to call the "sci-fi alien princess-meets-beekeper" do.

I think that it even comes with the stunted "you humans do amuse me so" look if you pull the hair tight enough.

Um pass.






I can't decide about this one; is it the "I always wanted to look like Spike from Degrassi" do or the "I wanted to pay tribute to my career as an electrician" hair. Either way, I remember my love of the crimping iron in hindsight as a fashion don't and have no plans to resurrect mine.





Again with the explosions of baby's breath! This one truly is a
testament to the gravity-defying power of hairspray. Not only do those bangs have wicked height but all of her hair actively defies gravity as well with the shellacked to the centre (where most crazy people would put a part) and straight up. Sir Isaac Newton would be baffled, as am I.



Finally we have the "I'm marrying a greaser so I have to look the part" do with the large height bangs in front, and the slicked up back. It reminds me of those dinosaurs with big plates on their heads like the triceratops or corytosaurus

It would be a good way for me to look taller than Dave in the wedding photos, though.


The search continues!

'Shwa tidbits

Yeah the humidity here made it feel like 48 degrees outside today (118.4F for you Fahrenheit people). Without the humidity it was a mild 38 (100.4F). Pretty sure I could've baked a cake in my car while I was at work today. Mmm cake. Stupid afterthoughts.

If this weather keeps up I think my slurpee habit will get outta control.

We're getting married in T-25 days. I hope the weather is nicer by then. The slurpee habit is probably not helping me with the whole "wear low back wedding dress" thing I planned for myself. Hah what was I thinking? Ah well, too late now!


Oh and the chickie doing my make-up for the wedding? I called the other night to touch base. She's a friend of my mum's friend. I kinda figure it'd be a good idea to get a trial run lest it look like I was shot by the make-up gun Homer invented on the Simpsons.



The call goes something like this:

Me: Hi! May I speak to [make-up chickie]

Male voice: Hi Heather! Uh she's not here right now.

Me: [baffled. no idea how dude knows my name. Ok it's probably caller id but dude! that's freaky! Why is this random dude knowing my name and acting like we're buddies.] Oh, okay. Is there a more convenient time I could call her back?

Male voice: Yeah hi, it's Paul. She's just stepped out to get some dinner for the family. [young kids screaming in background, I look at my watch. Yeah it's 9:30 at night. I'd be screaming too if I hadn't had dinner]

Me: [still baffled. no idea who Paul dude is.] Uh... ok

Paul: Actually I know you. Remember me? [hmm not ringing any bells] I'm a friend of Bob's. We went to high school together.

Me: [Ok I'll bite. Hamster wheel in head turning, picking up speed. Who the hell is this Paul dude who knows me from high school through Bob? .... Heeeeeey! Wait just a freaking minute! YOU'RE THE GUY WHO USED TO STALK ME IN HIGH SCHOOL. You used to show up randomly at my work until my bosses would ask you to leave! You used to call my house all the time after I told you not to call! You used to come up behind me in the hall and tickle me and scare the crap out of me. I used to elbow you in the groin/ribs for doing it! You used to come over and sit with me on the bus and I'd change seats! Gah you still sound creepy! I should've had you charged with criminal harassment!] Oh right! Paul. How are you doing?

Paul: Sooooooo I hear you're getting married. [and he said married like maaaa-reeeeed, like you did in public school to tease someone]

Me: [yeah! and not to you, captain insane-o!] Yeah I am. [oh man why do things like this happen to me?]. Really looking forward to it.

Paul: Me? [Make-up chickie and I] have three kids. [yeah I figured it was either kids or a pack of rabid hyenas at a kill site in the background]

Me: Oh. That's great. Good for you. They sound like a lot of fun [or that they may in fact had just moved on to decapitating each other in very close proximity to the phone. Seriously. Someone feed these kids. It sounds like they're starting playing that Mayan ball game where the winning team loses their heads in some sort of ritual sacrifice]

Paul: so what are you doing now?

Me: Oh just working, that kinda stuff. No kids.

Paul: I work at [a factory known, oddly enough, for sexual harassment] building [things].

Me: Oh that's great. Good for you. [awkward pause] So is there a good time I can reach [make-up chickie]?

Paul: Uh yeah. She should be back soon.

Me: Ok I'll try her again later! thanks!

[click]


I haven't called her back.

****************************************************************************

Ceiling? Almost de-wallpapered. Go Dave!

I'm not some wedding-crazed bridezilla...

and I've never been very girley... so why on earth do I find myself wanting to order these? In hot pink no less?

Heeeeerrree fishy, fishy fishy!

If I try on an (otherwise beautiful) wedding dress and immediately decide I don't like it because the back of it makes me look like a cuttlefish does that mean I'm not mature enough to get married? Does likening bridal gowns to cephalopods (and demonstrating it to the sales lady) confirm my mental maturity is equivalent to that of a 4 year old? I think my mother and sister were somewhat mortified.


Either way, tomorrow the search continues with a contingent of friends to help along the way. I'll feel much more organized about the whole wedding thing once the dress part is out of the way.