Don’t Panic, Just...

 

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The poster above was produced by the British government in 1939 during the beginning of World War II.  It was intended to raise the morale of the British public under the threat of impending invasion.  It was only recently that the poster was rediscovered and used as a decorative item for a range of products.  (Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_Calm_and_Carry_On)

Anyway, the reason I used this image is because I had a (minor) freak out over the holidays.  In between all the eating, and family and friend visits (which seems somewhere far off in the distance now), I was able to have some time to look through wedding tasks.  The item that is always on my radar is the budget and the guest list - two key elements.

Pat and I save our electronic stuff in a shared online server, specifically, www.dropbox.com.  We’ve been using it for awhile now, even before the wedding planning began.  It’s great - I upload something, and then he can view it and even download a copy to his computer.  It was pretty useful when he was in Toronto also.  Very reliable.  So now, we’re using it primarily for wedding planning.

You are probably guessing what happened next.  I was going to check up on the budget, to see how things were shaping up, what could I update, and yup, somehow, that day, I opened up the dropbox folder and almost everything was gone.  I thought... hmmm... I know Pat was updating his computer... maybe he removed the files...  which still doesn’t make any sense.  I didn’t panic.  But I called Pat right away since he was at his parents' place.

Mel: Hi.
Pat: Hi.
Mel: Ummmm have you looked at the dropbox lately?
Pat: No, not really.  I’ve been cleaning out my computer.
Mel: Yeah.  That’s what I thought.  Ummmm... (I am trying to find a non accusatory tone at this point).  I can’t find any of our files.  Our wedding files.
Pat: What?
Mel: Yeah.
Pat: Wait, let me check.  (shuffling occurs on the other line).  *$&%^ everything’s gone!  WTF?!

Moments passed, and Pat was searching for an undo function.  He checked the history.  It was quite strange.  Meanwhile, I was pacing up and down the hall with my phone in my hand.  The line was silent.  Luckily, after moments of torture, Pat finally found a function that restored everything and slowly we got everything back.  I immediately copied all the files to my Mac for backup.  And we changed our password, just in case.  Whew!  
 

Then, a couple weeks later, I had the strangest dream.  It was my first wedding related dream.  I dreamt that I was walking up the aisle, my dress was a little different from the one I choose, but that didn’t seem to bother me.  When I looked down at my feet, I noticed that my shoes were these big red clunky pleather flats, kind of like these 

 

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Don’t get me wrong - I love me some compfy flats.  But these were obviously not my wedding shoes.  And this was precisely when I began to lose it.  I was freaking out and asking my MOH, where are my shoes?!  These are not my wedding shoes!

Thank goodness it was a dream.  My first wedding related dream...  Interesting that it was about shoes! m.

Let's Get Married... part deux

Hi blog followers... as you've already observed Mel owns like 90% of the blog entries... so I figured I should stop slacking and put in my two cents.

The following are my thoughts regarding Salon Marions-Nous.

This one-stop shop wedding exposition was filled with all sorts of vendors for every aspect of wedding planning: transportation, hotels, venues/rental halls, caterers, decor, photography, bridal shops, suits/tuxedoes companies, and even gift registries.  To the newly initiated (aka first time goers) I can definitely see how one can feel overwhelmed by the bombardment of information. 

As you may have expected, I wasn't really looking forward to attending such expositions, but I figured I should attend at least one.  Lucky for me 1) Mel's been to a few of these shows in the last year and has become a veteran as to how to approach the exposition in a time efficient manner; 2) because a lot of things for our wedding have already been taken care of (church, venue, catering, DJ, photography) - we were able to bypass a lot of vendors without much hassle.

As Mel has already covered most of the practical tips for attending the expositions, the following is more to help out the helpless grooms who are dragged by the fiances.

1) Bring a backpack!

These expositions need to attend a SAVE the PLANET seminar because they waste so much paper printing flyers with little information on them.  That being said, it would be wise to bring a back pack or tote bag to stuff all the papers into.  I opted to bring my back pack that has loops with clips on it.  This came in handy to hang all the bags that that we received while we were there.  (If you have carabiner clips, these come in handy too).

2) A recycling bag is not a bad idea.
It's useless to try and argue with a vendor that you don't want their pamphlet because one way or another it finds its way into your bag.  Perhaps a solution is to keep a separate plastic bag on you to recycle the unwanted flyers and ditch these on your way out of the exposition.

3) Sign up for gift registries on site.
A lot of stores that are present have incentives if you register with them at the exposition.  Also the note that Mel wrote about getting a separate email account is also very helpful when signing up for things.  Just note that you should try and keep the email address short and simple.  Ours is simple but rather long and I ended up with hand cramps a few times.

 

 

4) Enter the hall with a plan of action. 
It's unrealistic to think that you can visit, plan and execute every aspect of your wedding in one afternoon.  If you can, kudos to you... you're not normal!  In our case, because we already took care of various aspects of the wedding we were mainly interested in suit rental places and decor.  This made our trek up and down the aisles more efficient and we didn't feel too overwhelmed and bombarded by the cornucopia of vendors.

With these tips, hopefully you'll survive the Salon Marions-Nous.

- P

Let’s Get Married

All the oldies out there will know the song that the title refers to is by Jagged Edge:

“Meet me at the alter in your white dress
We ain't gettin no younger we might as well do it
Been feelin' you all the while girl and I must confess
Lets get married”  

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Here's the YouTube link for the young ones: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF8IaExPv7s

Anyway, the reason for this title is that this past weekend was Let’s Get Married’s Grand Salon Marions-Nous exposition at Place Bonaventure. http://www.marionsnous.ca/.  It’s a huge hall where hundreds of different companies set up their kiosks to display what they can offer you for your wedding day.

My maid of honor (MOH), my best man and our flower girl’s mom joined us when we went already last year, so were not going to go again this year.  However, we got free tickets so decided to go again.  Free is a very uncommon thing when it comes to weddings!  This time around, it was my MOH, best man, Pat and myself off to check out the show.  He actually survived!  I guess I mentally prepared him.

 

maybe I should get this for Pat...

The salon is a great start for brides to get ideas from.  There’s a fashion show of wedding dresses, bridesmaid dresses, tuxedos, suits...  It’s also a super crowded event, with tons of people so it’s recommended that you wear a light coat, comfortable shoes, and bring snacks and water.  Oh, and your fiancé - he’ll come in handy when the bags get too heavy.  And he’ll be helpful when speaking to vendors, too, of course.  Others have also suggested that you create a separate email address for signing up to contests and even making labels with your name and contact info so that you don’t have to write it out each time you enter your names in a draw.

The best part is really all the freebies or “swag”.  You get free magazines, tote bags and other goodies.  I think it’s worth it to go just to get the free wedding magazines, considering if you were to buy them at a bookstore, they are well over the ticket price of the salon.  The event can be very overwhelming though, especially if you are already stressed about planning!  

Any body out there have other tips for future brides and grooms attending these salons? m.

A Super (Ring) Bowl

Happy New Year everyone!  

 personal photo - waving sparklers at the stroke of midnight

Sorry for the delay in posting.  The holidays were busy - they quickly came and went!  I was back to work on Monday.  Which also means back to wedding planning and blogging!   

Today's topic - ring bowls.  The first time I saw a ring bowl, I loved it.  For those who don’t know what it is, it is an alternative for a ring pillow.

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Since we are not having a little ring bearer, this would be perfect for our best man to have with him.  Of course, it costs $38 US.  Hmmm... for clay and string?  I don't see Pat agreeing to this expense.  I asked... He said no.

So it was time for me to put on my crafty hat.  And to do some research online.  Someone MUST have tried to make it themselves at some point.  And of course - someone did!

It was actually not too hard - I ended up testing several different air dry clays and buying stamps from the $1 store.  Ribbon too.  It did take a few tries but I love it.  Plus, we can use this after the wedding too - we can put our rings in it before going to bed... we can hang it on our Christmas tree...  The best part is the fact that I made it myself and it only cost me a few dollars!

Here it is in all its glory.

 personal photo

Please excuse the lighting.  As you can see, I kept it simple - just our wedding date.  In the picture, I attached my engagement ring.  On the wedding day, we'll add our wedding bands and the whole thing will be placed in a deep blue velvet pouch.

I can't wait to get glamour shots of my hard work!  m.

Let Them Eat Cake

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Ah, cake.  Mary Antoinette said it best.  Full of creamy, buttery sugar and fluffy carbs.  Yum!  This past weekend, we met up with our baker extraordinaire and brainstormed our ideas for our wedding cake.  I knew what I liked.  Of course, Pat had to put in his two cents.

At first, I had suggested cupcakes.  He didn’t like that idea because he felt it wasn’t as traditional.  I was cool with either.  Originally, I suggested cupcakes because it would save on cake cutting costs (for those who do not know, caterers often charge a cake cutting fee, per slice, to cut and serve your cake!).  After meeting with our caterer, we were informed that the cake cutting fee was included, so having a traditional cake was still on the table.  (hee hee yes... on the table!!! … bear with me, wedding planning is stressful.)

I showed Pat a few sample images of cakes that I liked:

Source: Image 1, Image 2, Image 3

He hated the look of the thin layer, particularly a square or rectangle one, with a round layer on top.  He said it looked like a top hat!  Of course, as soon as he said that, that’s ALL I saw.  Decorated top hats!

So we continued to brainstorm, and thanks to our baker, we came up with some great ideas that made us both happy.  The top and the bottom will be round and the middle layer will be square, with rounded edges, but not too thin, to avoid the top hat look!  Three different flavors will be incorporated into the cake: chocolate coffee for the top, lemon vanilla for the middle, and finally, red velvet cream cheese for the bottom layer.  And it will all be covered in white butter cream, with beautiful gold dots of fondant streaming down each cake layer.  Simple, elegant, but gorgeous.

My cousin Annick will be making the cake topper, and we have a beautiful silver tray that Patrick’s parents gave us to put the cake on.  They received the tray as a wedding gift when they got married and their names and wedding date are engraved on it.  We’ll be adding our names and date on it too.  I can’t wait to see it all come together!  m.

 

Entertainment for the People

Since I was a young girl, I have always loved watching lion dancers perform in Chinatown.  My parents used to bring us every fall to watch them.  The firecrackers, the drums... it is such a lively and energetic show.  Every time I watch a performance, it makes me proud to be of Chinese decent.  Having them perform at the wedding would be wonderful.  It is such a great tradition.

Lion dance

I also want to incorporate a Mauritian sega show, another part of our heritage.  This involves a few performers in traditional Mauritian sega clothing and is very festive.

Sega dance

“The sega is both the national dance and musical form of Mauritius. Introduced by African slaves during the French colonial period, the sega is an exotic, often erotic dance. Women in colorful skirts twirl and undulate, using graceful hand and arm motions while their feet shuffle along the ground.” source

Of course, both of these shows cost a pretty penny.  Pat thinks these are unnecessary expenses.  Obviously, they are not essential, but I think they could bring some nice cultural elements to the wedding.  It could come down to decor versus entertainment.  We’ll need to think about this one...  m.

The Batmobile wasn't available...

So Mel put me in charge of transportation for the wedding.  Great! I thought this was going to be a fun and easy job. I get to go find awesome cars to rent for the wedding day.  I was pretty gun-ho about the whole thing and was shocked about how expensive it could be! So here’s a summation of our thought process and what we’ve decided to do in the end.


Option #1 - Let’s rent a limo!  So do we rent a stretch limo or stretch SUV?  Mel informed me that her dress is somewhat poofy and so I thought to make things easier I’ll rent the stretch SUV.  FYI - there are dozens of website for renting a limo in Montreal and each offer various perks.  The ballpark cost for a limo + driver is $150 per hour + gratuity.  Oh and I forgot to mention, that rate is only applicable if you rent for a minimum of 4 hours!  So that`s $600 + gratuity to drive us around our home town.... hmmmmmm.... no thanks!

Option #2 - Rent an exotic SUV... maybe that Hummer or that blinged out Escalade... Nothing says making an entrance like showing up at the church in vehicle meant for the army or coming in all gangster in my rap mobile.  Ironically, it was quite difficult to find renting agencies for both those cars.  When I did find a few and checked out the quotes, they were just as expensive as renting the limo... so that option was axed.

Option #3 - Contact private owners of exotic luxury cars to chauffeur us around for the afternoon.  I contacted this one fellow who owns a 1957 Chevy Belair with a dropped suspension.... why you would make the classic car a low rider is beyond me, but meh, to each their own...  Anyways, I was pretty excited about this option and quickly informed Mel, to which she asked.... does it have A/C?  I responded... it’s a classic car, the A/C is on when the car is in convertible mode.  After much rational arguing, Mel made a good case that A/C should be one of the criteria since it may be quite warm in June... so bye bye to option number 3.


Option #4 - As the batmobile was not available for the day (can you believe that?) we decided to rent a luxury car from our local car company (AVIS, Budget, Discount, Enterprise, etc...).  After shopping around for prices, the best bang for your buck is AVIS or Budget (price differs by only $20).  The only downside to this option is that we won’t know what model or colour the car will be until I go pick it up at the rental place.  The upside, for half the price it would cost me to rent a limo, I’m going to get a nice luxury car for the entire weekend! 


-- P