shinydoodle

[shinydoodle]

We've picked our rings! It was a fairly easy process since I already had an idea of what I wanted - the tricky part was figuring out a ring for E! We went to Hasler and Kim Creations since that is where E picked out my engagement ring. I adore my engagement ring to pieces so it makes sense to get something to match. I picked this particular one because the engraving matches, but the width and the tiny diamonds make it clear that it is a separate ring (I didn't want to my engagement ring just looking too wide) and it will look nice if I ever wear it on its own. For E's, he tried on a few but he was drawn to this design right away. He has fairly thin fingers for a man (thank goodness! The price increases with the size) so they will be adding this design to a square ring instead of a domed one as shown in the picture. They were pricey since they are custom, but we are delighted with our choices! Another thing down, only a few more things to go!

[shinydoodle]

Mother of the Bride Dresses

So it turns out that Mother of the Bride dresses are only a few notches down in seriousness of ordering! My Mum and I had no idea, so she left it until now. We were looking online and some dresses were said to deliver in mid-July, so we started panicking and went shopping right away! My Mum wasn't feeling that great, so we only went to one store - http://www.chrisandtinas.ca/, which she went to because online it indicated that the store carries the brand that had her favourite dress. It's a small store in a small mall, but we were immediately welcomed by the sales staff, even though we didn't have an appointment! They had a fairly large range of the mother of the bride dresses. There were some that were for sale off the rack, which appeared to be more 'wintery' and then there was a selection of dresses that could be ordered in. Unfortunately, due to the limited time left until the wedding, the main saleslady suggested that we pick any of the dresses and buy it off the rack, which limited us quite a bit in terms of colour. There were a great range of styles - strapless, with/without shawls/boleros and straps. There were none with attached sleeves, like my Mum was hoping, as they had already been sold. The exact dress model that my Mum liked had been in the store at some point, but was not in stock and would take too long to be ordered. These challenges aside, they worked patiently with my picky Mum, and we ended up giving her bridesmaid dresses to try. Thankfully, we found one by Alfred Angelo that works well for her! The advantage to getting a bridesmaid dress is that they come into stock much more quickly, so the expected arrival date is June 1st! Huzzah! This also allowed my Mum to choose the colour that she liked. We ended up going with a new colour called 'beyond the sea', which is a teal-like colour that matches the tone of 'victorian lilac' that my bridesmaids will be wearing. The store has an on-site seamstress and she offered to make my mum a matching bolero out of matching chiffon, which made my Mum very pleased. All in all, it was a great experience and we were happy to order through them. Hopefully the dress comes in on time!

[shinydoodle]

Just booked my dress fitting! It's at the beginning of April so I still have a bit of time to get things the way I want them body-wise before the wedding.  This is the dress that I will be wearing - the Lindel by Maggie Sottero. It's no longer on her website, which is a shame, because it's such a lovely dress! I was lucky to find it off the rack. I'm pretty sure the colour of this dress in the photo is white, but mine is ivory. Excitement! 

[shinydoodle]

Purple and Yellow Flowers

So I picked a florist a few months back and I was really happy with our talk and our plan for the day. They are going to make a chuppah that looks similar to one that they have already made for a wedding, which is fabulous and I'm confident I'll love. They've also done weddings on the rooftop of our venue, which is where my fingers are so crossed it'll be, so it's good to know an experienced pair of hands will be going up there. But since the initial meeting I have been thinking that I would like the bouquets to be brighter than we originally discussed, to fit our "Scottish Jewish Wedding in the Tropics" theme. (Haha, I know.) I've been looking for pictures that show what I am looking for, and it's nearly IMPOSSIBLE to find samples of bouquets that have bright purple flowers with butter yellow flowers. I can find pale yellow with lilac, or deep yellow with deep purple, but nothing really in the middle. BUT I will keep looking and hopefully I'll see what I am looking for so that I can pass it along to the florist. 

Right now, this is what we have planned (although I only have a vague image in my mind of what this will look like):

Bride: (Ivory Dress) Round, hand tied bouquet, compact and ball shaped, not too large in scale and filled with butter yellow Crème de La Crème roses, dark purple lisianthus, purple Vanda orchids, white cymbidium orchid with yellow throat (not pink throat)

Bridesmaids: (Lilac Dresses) Round, compact bouquets filled with butter yellow Crème de La Crème roses and cream lisianthus

Centrepieces: In 6” square vases, (stems showing) and filled with white hydrangea, few fuchsia mokara orchids poking out, maybe a few green kermits, palm leaves poking out around edges cut up blooms of purple glads OR pale OR dark purple purple lisianthus, and maybe a few brighter yellow cymbidium orchids mixed in if possible

I'll do a vendor review at the end and an update if I have more rants about the flower selection. 

(This is the one that is closest to what I like, but unfortunately it won't replicate well with the Victorian style dresses we have going on. So ideally, I'd like something with this kind of impact, but with a more Victorian feel. Yeah, this is kind of impossible)

[shinydoodle]

Pause

There's been a bit of a break in my wedding planning. The current project is invitations, which as been a long and slightly frustrating experience. I'll do a full post about it once I have the invitations in so that I can post a picture of what I decided.  With work starting back in September, my energy has been so focused on that, but I am realizing that I need to get back into the swing of things so that vendors aren't booked!

Things I still need to book:

- *Wedding Decor* --> This is a huge one. I need a chuppah, centerpieces and other general decor (aisle, head table, etc.) I should get on this one ASAP

- Flowers --> I think I am going to use someone close to where I grew up for flowers. Once we pick up the bridesmaid dresses I will book the flowers.

- Favours --> This I can do closer to the date, but I have been thinking of ideas. My favourite idea my Mum isn't too crazy about, so we'll have to see what happens there.

- Suits/Tuxes --> This one is on hold until E figures out who he wants his groomsmen to be. Regardless, they will all live in different cities (countries) so this will be a hard one to coordinate

- Wedding Registry --> We prefer cash, as most young couples do these days, but we do need to set up a registry for those who are not comfortable with cash. I am debating between Sears and the Bay for the Canadian end. We'll probably use Crate and Barrel for the American end.

- Hair and Makeup --> Not looking forward to booking this one. As I mentioned in a previous post, I have difficult hair and our wedding date is on a holiday.

- Transportation --> Ev has started looking into a shuttle for our guests from the hotel to the service, but we do need transportation for ourselves. Since we are doing both the ceremony and the reception at the same venue, we only need transport for the way there and the way back, which will only take 15 minutes each way. It will be hard to find someone who won't have a minimum 3 hour booking or something.

- Wedding Cupcakes --> I already know what I want, I just have to book it! Wedding cupcakes for the guests (with beach-y icing) and a gluten free upper section with a cute cake topper (octopuses or dinos) for us to cut. This one will be fun to book. Although I've looked into custom cake toppers and they tend to be a bit pricey. 

Whew, it was good to write all of this down. I'll be sure to post again once I've booked something new! An old friend from high school has made a wedding website that I love and I'm wondering if I should too. Would be fun, but I already run a blog for my class, so it might be more work than it's worth.

[shinydoodle]

Wedding Dress Shopping

So today, I bought my wedding dress!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So very very exciting. I kind of didn't do what you're supposed to do. I went into a store on my own yesterday that I was passing by... tried on a few dresses and found some that I LOVED. Then my mum and I went to a bridal store today, tried on more dresses, then I took her to the store that I first visited. Well she saw the dresses and her favourite became my favourite, and after a good off the rack deal, we ended up getting the dress!!! So it's scary, since it's such an investment, but I am positive that I will love it forever. I do have to change the ideas I have for my flowers and decor a bit, since originally I was thinking of bright purples and yellows, but now that my dress is ivory and muted, I will need to use more muted flowers, thus probably more muted decor as well.

So since I didn't go to many dress shops, I can't review very many. I ended up getting my dress from , Bridal Fashion Fraire, and I loved the service and the dress selection. The price range was from about $200 to $2500 and they had a wide selection of good designers and styles. The lady was extremely helpful, not pushy and very knowledgeable. The boutique style was enjoyable. Hopefully the alterations go well, but for now, I highly recommend them. The other shop I went to was Bridal and Beyond, a more warehouse style shop with a good selection, some items on clearance and also has many styles of shoes, invitations and favours. The saleslady just brings you the dress and you go into the dressing room with whoever you go with, which is just like a regular shopping experience. They give you a print out with pictures and prices of the dresses that you like, which is extremely helpful for reference. Again, I have no clue about the ordering process, but the trying on experience was enjoyable.

So I don't need this map anymore, but this is the map I made for my Toronto Dress shopping adventure! I made it based off of my price range ($2000 and below) and good selection of designers.

View Wedding Stores in a larger map

[shinydoodle]

Curly Haired Discrimination?

So it may be a little early, but I am trying to find really pretty curly haired wedding styles, and it's pretty much impossible to find. Since my hair is extremely unique, I'm trying to look up both "white" and "black" hairstyles that might suit my hair, and it's incredibly difficult. In "Black" magazines, the hairstyles don't match my hair type, and in "White" magazines, the hairstyles don't match my hair type. I don't go to the hairdresser often, so hair isn't something I worry about a lot, but of course, on my wedding day, this will be of great concern. Another concern is that since our wedding will be on a Sunday (a holiday Sunday, nonetheless), it will be hard for me to find a good hairdresser who will style my hair on that day. I certainly cannot get it done the day before because after lying down on it, it will just transform into the way that it was on my pillow, which of course, isn't a good look. Thankfully, I have lots of time to keep looking, but I have a feeling that this will probably be the biggest pain of the planning.

[shinydoodle]

So another post that kind of has nothing to do with the wedding. But a little bit! I just found out that I missed the sale for Drake tickets. By ONE DAY! And I could have even gotten the American Express pre-sale but I just didn't know about it. I am a horrible fan of music. I don't go to websites regularly, so I usually miss live performances in the city since they sell out pretty much immediately, which of course, sucks. I'm just hoping I don't miss Radiohead tickets when they go on sale. But back to Drake. Drake is the hottest man in showbiz, as far as I'm concerned.  He has the same killer hot smile as my sweetie. And part of me thinks that I like him so much because he could potentially be my kid with my partner, since he's half black and half jewish. You could call it narcissism, or you could call it evolutionary programming at its finest. Yeah, let's go with the latter :D

[shinydoodle]

The Why

So there are many, many, many things going through my head as I prep for a wedding, and I fear that mentioning them to someone every time they pop into my head will only make me an outcast. My partner loves me lots and lots of the time. He's a patient man. There are some times, however, where he just tolerates me. Throwing a temper tantrum because I am hungry and want McDonald's falls into that category. I am pretty sure that the non-stop babble about the wedding has also gone into the 'tolerate' category. So that is why I have this! For all my thoughts! I will try to limit it to one thought a day even though I have about 198391283213. But I do have to ration them since I have just about 400 days until the wedding actually happens. Maybe my thoughts will help other people plan! But mostly, I'm just so damn excited I needed some sort of non-human outlet that will still love me no matter how much I talk about it.

[shinydoodle]

This is where I'll be getting married just over a year from now. Am I stoked? You betcha!!!