The end is in sight

The light at the end of the tunnel no longer feels like it is most certainly an oncoming train. It's been a busy few weeks. Here's the last of the wedding/honeymoon posts (Promise!).

Friday afternoon when our plane landed we scurried home, took Dave's brother (who is the best dog/cat/house sitter ever to grace the earth) out for lunch (yay Thai food), took some dirty clothes out of the suitcase and threw them in the general direction of the laundry, added some clean ones, and grabbed my bridesmaid gear and drove up to Ottawa (about 4 hours for you out-of-towners) to Sara and Scott's bachelor(ette) party. Sara and I are really close friends - we joke that we actually share a brain (and some days it may in fact be true). We dropped our stuff at our hotel room and cabbed it over to the bar where we met up with everyone and drank until the wee hours of the morning and happily collapsed in bed.

Saturday we slept in until 10, then rushed around to get a wedding gift and run errands. We ended up relaxing late Saturday afternoon, vegging in front of the tv. We only have rabbit ears in this house, so watching all the home improvement, home repair and decorating shows made me supremely jealous. I think if we had cable my ass would never again be able to be separated from the couch. So, rabbit ears it is!

Sunday at 8:30 I was at the salon, getting all prettied up for my bridesmaidley (no, that's not a word) duties, we got ready for the wedding, and seemingly minutes later we were walking down the aisle. Ernesto the pesto struck again, apparently following us from the honeymoon right to Ottawa where his "rain of terror" (well it really wasn't terrifying but why ruin a good pun?) continued, moving the service inside. Their wedding service was lovely, the dinner was great, and the party lasted late into the night.


I promised Dave (in my somewhat drunken state after the wedding which really ought not be believed) that I would be ready to get up and drive home early Monday morning so he could get some work done to be ready for work the next day, but when he shook me at 8:00 to get up and get moving my brain could only grunt in acknowledgement. He mercifully let me sleep until 9:30, when he woke me up again, so I threw some clothes on and stumbled with my eyes still mostly closed downstairs to the continental breakfast where I grabbed some munchies for us and a coffee (which I promptly spilled all over my lap) and stumbled into the car. Dave drove the whole way home, with me passed out in the front seat for a good portion of it.

Once we got home we drove Dave's brother to the train station, had dinner and headed to bed to get ready for a week at work.

After a four day week that seemed like at least 8, Dave worked all of last weekend at job #2, and I had the fun of cleaning the house top to bottom on Saturday and hosting my great aunt from Scotland who was heading to the airport that day. Sunday I got up early and drove down to Windsor and back (4 hours each way for the out of towners) to a wedding shower, and had another long week at work this week. Wedding showers in my somewhat hick life involved jello salads and finger sandwiches and punch. Gifts at such showers were as elaborate as a toaster but that'd be the extent of it(ain't nothing wrong with toasters, I love our new one!). This one was entirely different - a 4 course meal (with some wicked desserts), and entire appliance sets. I mostly sat with my jaw gaping (like the hick I am) at the extravagance of it. It wasn't that the recipient didn't deserve everything she got (and more!) but it was like no wedding shower I'd ever experienced before - the food was amazing, and everyone had a great time.

So, safe to say anyone who suggests doing anything remotely wedding related or anything involving me not impressing ass groves into the couch will have no idea what hit them. We'll probably write thank you cards or at least pick a picture to include in them (we have pictures from the photographer! Yay!) but are mostly planning on giving our brains and bodies a break before we collapse. Here's to making it through the rest of today and some desperately needed down time.


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Oh, and find out where there's a Terry Fox Run in your area this weekend and go! This is something I've done every year since I was 7, and I've only missed it one year since. It's a fantastic cause (who doesn't know someone who has been effected by cancer!?) - funding cancer research, it has resulted in huge gains in research and treatment, and the operating costs of the organization are among the lowest you'll find in any charity. I'll be at the one in the 'shwa Sunday if anyone wants to join me!

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!

Over the moon (and possibly to it!)

Cause we booked our honeymoon! We were planning something super small in Quebec City, which I hear is gorgeous, fabulous, and wonderful, but we decided to go for broke and take a cruise in the Bahamas!

We still need to book airfare (still shopping around for the best deals) but it looks like we're leaving bright and VERY early the morning after the wedding to Florida, then off to the Bahamas.

With everything that's been going on I wasn't overly excited before, but now every five minutes I turn to Dave and say "guess what!? We're going on a cruise!" It's short (I'm in a wedding 8 days after ours) but should be sweet. I'm so looking forward to the turquoise waters and relaxing together and getting away!

Now that I've torn the house apart looking for my passport and have managed to find it, we're ready to go!

Dave's also been doing a great deal of stripping for me lately.

Sadly, it's of the paint variety.

I've done some too, but not as much as him. Anyone thinking of doing renovations AND getting married in the SAME summer... yeah I'd advise against it. We're also lucky enough to have a thin coat of dust on EVERYTHING in the house because Dave's been sanding the plaster job he did. But? Soon we'll have flat walls and a gorgeous wood entrance! Yay!



UPDATE: we just discovered that the space shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to launch a half hour after our cruise leaves Cape Canaveral! We're so excited! I have always thought that seeing a shuttle launch would be amazing, and the fact we JUST booked a trip without knowing that was a prospect is so cool. (Yeah, I know it's going to the space station, but I can pretend it's going to the moon so it fits with the blog title, no?)