And just like that... it was over...

I have a lot of catching up to do, I guess, but in the meantime, here's some of the bad news. :D

Aw. :(

:D

And also, with an initial budget of $5,000, we totally didn't make it. Here's the final pie:

(It clicks bigger.)
The total, including the rentals which my dad paid for, and the flowers that Robin paid for, came to around $8,500. It's a pretty intensely huge sum of money, and while I can't say it was worth it (because it's such a huge amount of money), I can say it was a really, really, really magical day. I don't know how it all came together so amazingly well, but it did and I'm so grateful.

Also, I miss the shit out of my house guests. They were so easy to have around that I got used to them all being here and the house still feels empty (and way less funny) without them.

It was a good week, you know? I'll post more later, I guess. Pictures and things.

Timing is everything..?

Ok! So we don't need a permit from the city, but I was warned about the consequences of supplying alcohol, which further reinforced my intention to... um... not.

I contacted the rock guy, but he said I have to set up an appointment at the warehouse because there isn't always a person there, so I have to do that this week.

Robin and I discussed the flowers s'more. Pink hydrangeas are apparently too expensive and too intermittent in terms of quality, so they're not a sure bet. Instead, the florist she's working with suggested Akito roses, which I'm ok with since they're pretty fricken pretty.

I wrote another part of my part of the wedding ceremony today that is intended to be read (also by Robin) but it's six minutes long... Is that too long for a reading? I have no idea. And I have no idea if I should let Mike read it before the wedding or not since he's supposed to write the same thing from his point of view... Twelve minutes? And then the poem would be like five minutes, intro five minutes, other thing with the things about six minutes too, then the vows which are like five minutes each, then the rings which are about five minutes total... so... like... give or take forty-five minutes? Is that too long? I have no idea. Bah.

Do to things from last time and new things!

Last week's to dos (I'll use a musical note to denote they're done because I can't figure out how to do a check mark on here):
♪ - Post the announcement at the courthouse (we posted the other one in the park already).
- See about ordering rocks for the guest book.
- Call the city to make sure we don't need a permit.
♪ - ummmmaaah.
- Finish the script (a little more at least).
- Show the offish and the local bridesmaidy my newfound makeup abilities...
- Start organizing the basement... (Ugh.)
- Eventually, paint.

Um.. Oops.

But there is news!

My friend Robin called yesterday to ask how things were going with the weddingy stuff and so I went through everything and she was all, "What are you doing for centerpieces?" and I was all, "Um, nothing, really. Fuck it, I guess. White table cloths are fine." And she was all, "I'M DOING IT! WHAT COLOR ROSES DO YOU WANT? WHITE?!?"  And I was all, "WTF?!?!!!" And she was all, "YEAH!" and I was all, "ARE YOU SERIOUSLY FULL OF SERIOUSNESS?" Ok, so maybe it wasn't that dramatic, but it felt like it.

So now we're going to have centerpieces (!!) with white roses and other things to be determined. AND!!! New paragraph for the best part that I've been thinking about all day.

My plan was to go to costco on the Friday, buy the best roses they had (they sell two dozen roses for, like, twenny-five dollars including tax), take two for the rose ceremony and make makeshift centerpieces with the rest. And I know from oooing and aahing over those roses for the past twelve years or more that they never have white. Sometimes they have yellow, but the yellow ones generally are a little bruised. Usually, they have really strong and fresh pink ones or the yellow ones with the reddish streaks, but the rest are kind of touch and go. And you can't have yellow for a wedding (infidelity, even though that's such a load because yellow roses are awesome), and pink? Well, pink is alright, but with my dress already pink...

But now (!!!!) she's getting us white roses for the rose ceremony. Like.... I'm so grateful and I didn't even realize how much I actually wanted white till she made it an option.

I didn't really budget for flowers. I mean, I spent about $200 on the bouquets (fake flowers), but I couldn't see spending more than that getting other flowers, especially not a ton of flowers that would eventually just go to waste.

Except that... I love roses. As un-friendly and choppy as cut flowers may be, I do have a soft spot for them for some reason. The yellow ones remind me of my grammy and the white ones are the ones I used to give people when they were having a hard time (unless they were having a really hard time, in which case, they needed yellows). The yellow ones remind me of the fragility of life and how the small things can be so beautiful, while the white ones, to me, are symbolic of an eternal shared love we have. You know what I mean? It's pure and complex and beautiful...

I dunno. I just like roses. They're my flower of choice.

I'm so grateful she offered to do this. It's the sweetest thing. And to top it off, she was all, "Do you want the rose ceremony ones to be a bud or open or...? Send me a picture of what you want and I'll get it."

So now I get to look at pictures of roses for a while. *prances with jazz hands*

Also, how scary is it that the little counter at the bottom of this page has the snowman almost touching the house?! GAH. I never thought this would ever happen. I thought he'd stay at the six month mark forever.

Things to do this week...ish....

- Post the announcement at the courthouse (we posted the other one in the park already).
- See about ordering rocks for the guest book.
- Call the city to make sure we don't need a permit.
- ummmmaaah.
- Finish the script (a little more at least).
- Show the offish and the local bridesmaidy my newfound makeup abilities...
- Start organizing the basement... (Ugh.)
- Eventually, paint.

There are other things I'm forgetting.

I fixed (hopefully) the bridesmaids' presents and we got the favors in the mail today and they're fricken awesome.

That's about it, I think.

Update...

Point form because I'm sleepy.

Wedding script: coming along.
Rentals: rented- including tan colored parasols, white square plates and white table cloths. Yey! Somehow, our wedding might end up really pretty and summery...
Dress alterations: done and great. I can't really breathe in my wedding dress, but it keeps my back straight. :D The shorter dress is bigger, so if I want to eat, I'll just change.
Bridesmaids' presents: I got them, but they're a little broken, so I have to fix them all.
Favors: They're supposed to be in the mail (as of June 30th), but I have no idea how long they'll take to get here. She had to mail them super slow ground mail because they're magnets and magnets kill planes.
What else?
Hair: I decided on a haircut, I think. Short. Natalie Portman style. I think I decided it a long time ago, but thought maybe something would come along that would be better...
Nails: I found a nail polish I like. This one. It's actually a top coat, but it goes on shimmery and sheer, so yey.

I think that's it for now.

Dress! And other things...

At Maxine's behest, an update on the dress.

I'm due to pick it up Saturday at eleven thirty. Hey, speaking of Saturday at eleven thirty, you know, Maxine, you could always crash the dress fitting and see it? :D

Anyway, after a scare this morning upon receiving an email saying the dress was done but ended up too small (what's the saying? Measure twice, cut once? Or something about not being able to make a short thing longer once you've cut it?), it seems to have worked out in the end, I think. The short dress might not be done in time, but luckily my dress altery person is the same size as me, so she's been able to check the fit as she's gone along.

Anyway, it'll be nice to see what she's done with it, if she removed the flowers under the waistband and how that looks if she did- hopefully it'll make me look thinner and less bulky around the midsection without all those extra layers.

We'll see.

I should also mention that Mike got me the earrings I wanted, except not.

Remember these?

Source: etsy.com via Prin on Pinterest

Except that instead of those, which I wanted because they're topazes and they'd match my engagement ring, Mike got me these:

Source: etsy.com via Prin on Pinterest

But really, the picture doesn't do them justice, and I'm actually really glad he got me these instead of the topaz ones because they're so delicate and tiny that when you hold them in your hand, you can't fathom how the topaz would fit or make it nicer. Then again, maybe if I held the topaz ones in my hand I'd feel differently, but I really don't think so. They're teeny tiny and simple. Perfect, I think. And the 18K wires mean I don't have to worry about getting all infected, which is what happens when I wear any other earrings than the 22K hoops my dad got me when I was four.

Maybe I should take my own picture to see if I can do them more justice.

Also, I decided that instead of a guestbook, I want to do this:

Source: historicfloridawedding.com via Prin on Pinterest

Except that means I have to figure out where to get stones that are lightly colored enough that writing will show on them. The alternative, maybe, would be blank fridge magnets that people write on, but I'm not sure how long they'd last.

What else?

Oh, today we went to the notary, but I'm in the process of writing about that elsewhere... so... the main points are the paperwork is filled out, the rules and laws and such were explained to us and she managed to make us cry. :D

Meanwhile, my dad and stepmother are handling the dishes ordering... And I sent out the pinterest registry to everybody on the list... And I guess that's it for now.

ETA: That ticker at the bottom of the page is starting to freak me out. "2 months and 4 days" GAH! The website that came from says 65 days. Holy crap. O.o

Updates- dress and officiant... and things...

So my SIL got an email notification last week saying the government received our form asking for her to be the officiant. Eee.

Tomorrow, I'm meeting with the lady (my friend Jon's sister) who will hopefully make my dress fit more fabulously than it does now. It needs to be cinched at the waist more and my friend Robin decided I should ask if she can cover up the seam in the back a little better. We'll see. Remind me to pack an extra ativan tomorrow just in case I panic. I'm not great with trying on clothes in stores.

97 days to go. HOLY SHITSNACKS WITH RICE AND SOME COOKIES FOR DESSERT.

Also, we have to figure out the schedule and the menu. And where my hair will be done. And make up. And I think that's all I'm freaking out about at the present time. Oh and the vows and structure of the ceremony. I should book the notary.

Hooo. It feels like I had everything figured out a few weeks ago... Now? Not so much.

ETA: Oh, and while there are some invites still in the mail mysteriously, there are about a half dozen we forgot to mail. :-o Sorreh. :D

Dress!

So the dress alterations will probably happen Saturday. Well, the decisions on the alterations, anyway. We'll see what happens.

Also, invites are still being delivered to Montrealers. It's utterly ridiculous. A month to go from a suburb to the city? Come on. Just unbelievable.

That's about it for updates.

Eeee... and random updates...

Mailed the officiant papers today. :-o We'll see what happens.

Theknot.com says we have 106 days. Hopefully the papers will get there before the 90 day cut off mark.. Eee. Also, the knot says I have 109 things to do and 72 things done... It doesn't feel that way...

I may have also found the gifts for the bridesladies, which I think is just my sister in law (officiant), Maxine and Tracy, so cost-wise, it's not so bad. :D I found something that I think is plain enough to be worn, cute enough to mean something and hopefully, depending on the vendor's response, a certain color to represent us.

Mike still hasn't decided boo about his groomsguys' gifts as far as I know.

I guess the other main things left are deciding what we'll do for the ceremony, fixing my hair and make up,  getting the dresses altered, telling Mike's mom (if he wants to?) that she's doing the rehearsal dinner...? Um. What else? Finalizing things with the photographer... Arranging the rental of the plates and stuff... Deciding if we want a tent... Um... I guess a lot of stuff.

So far... [counts] Twenty people are coming. I don't think we'll need a tent for that.

I guess that's it for now. Oh, and some people still haven't gotten their invites, which is a bummer. The people we know of are in Montreal too, so wtf.

Invites!

In other news, the invites went out yesterday and apparently, quite a few of the local peeps got them today already. :-o

me: It sucks how you can't predict Canada Post's reliability.
Mike: It could get there in a day... or three weeks. Yey!

:D

It's kind of a mixed bag of emotions. If it was a pie, it'd break apart kind of like this:

"Oh my gah! I have to get married!" - 15%
"Oh my gah! This wedding isn't all in my head anymore! It's actually real!?" 20%
"People have our invites, like, in their little hands. Huh." 20%
"I wonder if they'll come..." 18%
"I wonder if they understood the invite." 18%
"I wonder what their face looked like when they opened it." 55%
"Holy shit. It's in four months. I hope Mike still loves me then." 36%
"Man, this is so over 100% but I'm going to keep going anyway because my family always ends up with more than half a pie left, regardless of how many people attend the party." 4%
"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee..." 63%
"I wonder what my family's reaction was/will be." 22%
"Boo better survive till my wedding." 92% (He's having a bad night tonight.)
"I wonder who else I forgot to invite." 37%

I think that's about it. :D

"It's your day! ... Except you're doing it wrong."

Some of the elements of this wedding so far, in no particular order:

1. attire
2. cake toppers
3. rings
4. guest list
5. location/decor
6. main meal
7. cake
8. budget
9. photographer
10. date/time
11. flowers
12. invites
13. music
14. favors
15. veil
16. hair and make up.


And now, to make things complicated (and to make myself feel less antagonistic), the flack we've gotten so far for each one by number, rather than by title.

Keep in mind, this isn't an attack on anybody in particular. If you made a comment, odds are you are by far not the only one who made it. I'm just writing this all down for my own sake and for Mike's sake, because as the day gets closer, the flack is shifting from me to him and I just want him to know that we've made it this far and so far, everything is exactly as we want it so we don't have to start compromising now.

Oh, and I won't use quotes just because it's tedious. Also, it helps if you read each one with a quasi-judgmental, condescending tone. :D

And! last, but most important point before I start: the majority of these things have been resolved. But in the moment, these were things that were said to us (especially to me). I'm not holding a grudge or anything, so please don't misinterpret this for anything of the sort. Some of these statements were blurted out in shock (?), but since then, we have garnered support for almost everything so far. So yey, in the end. :D

Anyway, on with the list. 

1.
Really? Pink?
Really? Flowers? Why so girly? Why so... froo?
You're not going to wear shoes? You have to wear shoes.
You bought it online?
They're wearing white?
Why wouldn't you get something traditional? You only get to be a bride once.
Oh come on! You need the full skirt!
If you don't wear the big dress to your wedding, I will!
Why are you making people dress up if it's a casual wedding?

2.
I don't get it.
That's... interesting?
They don't match.
Why a yeti and a bigfoot?
Yeti and Bigfoot don't live in the same geographical area. I don't get it.
But they're not edible.

3.
[We didn't get too much flack for these because we did it mostly privately.]
You bought them online?
They're probably not real gold. You should have bought from somebody you knew was reputable. [We did know they were reputable, which is why we trusted them with this...]
You're getting a wedding ring too? Isn't an engagement ring supposed to be both?

4.
You can invite whoever you want. Just not [list of people].
I'm calling to talk some sense into you because I heard about your guest list.
You're setting yourself up for failure.
You're setting yourself up for disappointment.
You're setting yourself up to get hurt.
It's better not to invite people who are busy because it puts too much pressure on them to have to say no.
It's better not to invite people who live far away because to expect people to come all that way just to see you get married is unreasonable.
I'll give you the addresses you need, but I don't think you should invite any of these people because I don't want to have to put them up or to find them accommodations.
If you invite [person], I won't come because [person] makes me feel like shit all the time.
If you invite [person they have a problem with], it's guaranteed that [person] will find a way to ruin your day just because they have a problem with me.
Don't invite the whole family.
You have to invite your mom. She's your mom.
You have to invite my friends. They're my friends. They invited me to their kids' weddings.

5.
[When we were thinking of buying a cottage to host it at]
Even if it's what you want, you can't buy a cottage now.
What if it rains?
You can't expect people to drive all that way.
[When we switched it to the arrangement we have now]
You can't fit that many people in your house.
You need a tent.
You need to rent tables and chairs. You have to have tables and chairs. People can't be standing around.
You should rent picnic tables. No, you shouldn't. People might hurt themselves.
You have to rent linens! How can you not be planning to rent linens!? You have to have linens.
Just rent a hall. You can't have everything.
At a certain point, you have to weigh what you want and what's reasonable and compromise and get a hall.
What if it rains?
How will people find the place?
You can't have everybody standing.
You're not going to make us stand for too long, are you?
What if you get there and there's somebody in the spot you wanted? You'll have to get there really, really early.
You're setting yourself up for failure.
[I'm surprised nobody has said anything about parking.]

6.
You're cooking at your own wedding? You can't cook at your own wedding.
Why would you want to stress yourself like that?
Why wouldn't you hire a caterer?
Why would you ruin your day like that?
You're not going to enjoy yourself.
Soup? In August? Ew.
Or you could just have finger sandwiches?
I'll bring the potato salad! (This one was a joke because everybody knows I will not stand for anybody bringing potato salad, aka food poisoning in a bowl. This concept ties into the next one.)
Make it a potluck. That way you won't have to worry so much.
There's no way you'll ever be able to figure out the quantities you'll need.
You're giving your guests far too many options.
I'm not saying you haven't thought this through, but I don't see how it's going to work.
Why are you having an informal wedding with so many guests? It's not going to work.
If you're adamant about having an informal wedding, why don't you just elope?
It's not going to turn out the way you expect.
You're setting yourself up for failure.
You're not having alcohol at your wedding?
What will you toast with?
You can't not have alcohol at your wedding.
Not having alcohol at your wedding is rude and disrespectful to your guests.
Why would you punish all of your guests because you're worried about a couple of drunks?
It's your day, you can do whatever you want, but I'll bring some wine. Or at least champagne for the toasts.
You're having a dry wedding? Nobody has a dry wedding. That's going to be so boring.

7.
Don't tell her I told you, but she's secretly making a cake. She's doing a practice run today.
You're not buying a cake?
I don't get it.
Why won't you just buy a cake?
You have to have a wedding cake!
How will you cut the cake? You can't cut a pyramid of cake balls.
You're making it yourself? You won't have time for that.
You don't realize how busy you will be before the wedding.
You're setting yourself up for failure.

8.
You have no money!
I hope you don't expect me to contribute anything.
You're not omitting things because of the budget are you? You're getting everything you want, right?
You have to spend the money! It's your wedding!
You have to spend the money! It's a once in a lifetime thing! We'll spend the money.
I hope you don't think this is some sort of contest because I can't match the help they offered.
[Just a note here- this section in particular, which is a sensitive subject for the people involved in it, has gotten resolved beyond anything we imagined. We still don't want to spend that much money because it is kind of a waste of money, but still, it's nice to have the support and to not have to worry about it so much. We are grateful.]

9.
I don't know what you expect your photographer to do, but you have to have the standard shots.
Why are you getting a photographer? That's a waste of money.
Why are you getting a photographer? Guests will take tons of pictures anyway.
Why not just get a local photographer?
Why this photographer? Why not shop around?
Why is the photographer such a huge chunk of your budget?
Forget it. We'll think of some other way to get pictures.

10.
September? People will be in school or too busy.
We're going away then, so you should pick a different day.
You should check with [whomever] before setting the day to make sure [that person] is free.
Why so early? The day's going to be so long! The people with kids won't like it. What? You expect everybody to leave by suppertime?!

11.
[When I was considering spray roses and vendela roses]
I looked for the flowers you wanted and they're too expensive. They're $3 each [i.e. not priced in bulk].
You're doing your bouquet yourself? You're not going to have time for that.
You want pink?
Just roses? Really?
[When I got my artificial flower bouquets on etsy]
You're not going to have real flowers?
Really? Fake flowers?
Really? Just white?
You got them already? Are you sure that's what you want?

12.
[This part will be relatively short, but for this one, above all the others, we got the same questions so, so, so many times from so many different people.]
I don't get it.
It's a bit too cynical for a wedding, don't you think?
Why would you want the picture on it to be scary?
Why teeth?
Why black?
Why not just use the original picture?
I don't get what you want to convey.
Why that size?
It has to be a card so people can open it up and sit it on a table.
Why do you have a map on it? Everybody has access to google maps now.
North isn't north on your map.
The lake is on the wrong side on your map.
The paper you want too flimsy.
You're not going to put the cigarette paper in it? Invites always have this weird cigarette paper in them. You should buy some rollies or something and stick them in there. [That one was a joke. I still haven't figured out what invitey cigarette papers he was talking about. :D]

13.
You're not going to dance? You have to dance.
You have to have a dance floor.
You're not getting a d.j.?
Princess, it's not funny. It really isn't. [That was Mike when I suggested we dance our first dance to "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" by Amy Winehouse. :D]

14.
But you're not cat people.
They're not very pretty.
Ok, they're funny, but really, think of something else.
Sure, I'd keep mine, but think of something else.
They're not very romantic.
They're not very personal.
Why?
Shotgun two monocle kitties! [That wasn't a complaint so much as really funny.]

15.
I haven't gotten any flack for the veil. That's why I put that on here. Well, aside from the ladies at the store. They were a little clueless about how a veil with a comb would not work in thin short hair. But all in all, especially in the store, my entourage was pretty helpful and supportive.

16.
Hair and make up! Eee! I haven't even booked a thing or decided anything for this. I'm quasi-in-between hair people too. So it really is up in the air. Mike thinks I shouldn't wear make up at all, but naw, I think I'll wear some, but nothing too dramatic. I still want to be me. I'm hoping somebody can teach me how to do my make up so I can do it myself. We'll see. It might be too much pressure. All that to say, I haven't gotten any flack for this because I haven't decided a thing yet. :D

Anyway, so there you have it. A summary, albeit probably with tons of stuff missing, of all the flack. Add to that the general criticisms about how our wedding is unconventional, how we haven't thought things through, how by not doing things like the mainstream, we're setting ourselves up for failure or disappointment or regret...

It goes on and on.

It's at the point now where I really don't care what people think. Why didn't I invite Aunt X to my wedding? What if she asks? Let her ask. I'll tell her flat out why she's not invited. Why? Because I don't care. Why don't I care? Because people have been criticizing from the minute we announced our engagement and frankly, when you tell them however tactfully and carefully that you're going ahead with things the way you want them, they get hurt anyway, so fuck it. Very, very few people have considered our feelings in all this (and the ones who really have, thank you forever), so I'm done being diplomatic. If you can't understand the toll it takes on us, if you don't know us well enough to know we're both sensitive people and if you do know us well enough but just don't care, then I don't have any reason to try to spare your feelings about our wedding.

Because hey, we're not doing it wrong, we're not making a mistake, we do have our priorities straight, we are doing it the way we want to do it, we can do it the way we want to do it, we are able to pull off whatever we choose to pull off, we do know what we're getting ourselves into, we're not setting ourselves up for failure, regret or disappointment, we are being true to ourselves, our relationship and our future, and we have thought it through. All of it. Carefully.

And so far, everything has worked out magically.

Like my friend's mom used to say, when you're on the right path, the doors will open. By that logic, nothing in my life has ever been more right.

So Michael, even if we're the only ones who get it (even though we really aren't because we do have some strong support in our corner), it is our day and we can do it because we're a fucking awesome team. And the invite says it too- they're invited to witness the awesome. Until then, they'd better just work on not expecting us to have the wedding of their dreams and instead, get themselves ready for our wedding because there will be nothing else like it because there is nobody like us. *shrugs*

What if it rains? Bring it.

Registry... it continues...

I added some things to the registry on pinterest. If anybody has any idea what else to put on it, please help me out. This is the hardest thing about the wedding planning so far- harder than family politics, finding a location, wrangling the list and the invites.... all of it.

Any ideas? What do regular people need? Or want? We totally have everything we need...

Gah.

The ugliest side of weddings...

Planning a wedding, as I'm learning, is both the most amazing bonding experience and the most confrontational experience of my life.

It's bonding because there are these people around me who just stepped up from Day 1 and have just been in my corner the whole time, helping me, encouraging me, getting me out of various ruts and funks...

And confrontational because every step of the way there are people who I feel are completely against me, against us, against this wedding, against me or us being happy, and against being out of control of this thing. And no matter how hard I've tried to not let it affect me, it does. From deciding on the guest list and having strong push-back about that, to having to deal with those who are not invited and the offense that causes, to people just generally invading our wedding by making plans for it without us, the antagonism of getting married wears a girl thin. Add to that the number of friends I've lost just by getting engaged? The ones who used to be close friends who have displayed clearly jealous behavior to me about it? Not to mention all the guy friends I've had to come to terms with losing (those terms being that they only wanted me for one reason and without that reason, I'm useless to them).

It's such a strange experience overall. I've come to terms with the choices I've made and I'm at the point now where I'm generally not very diplomatic about the things I've thought long and hard about, but there are still a few people who have the ability to really upset me, especially when they make unilateral decisions about our wedding without consulting us at all or, to be honest, when they're completely indifferent when they shouldn't be (or I feel they shouldn't be). It's like they're either happy for us or they're really not. There's no in between.

At the end of the day, all that matters is that I'll marry this guy and we'll be a team, but I can't help but feel that these issues are a symptom of other things. Will the invasive people grow more invasive with every life event we go through? Will the indifferent people be supportive in the long run? And the jealous ones- should I be bracing for a goodbye?

I guess it's about boundaries. If we don't set them now, we may be opening the door for these sort of toxic behaviors to rear their ugly heads later on. I'm not good at boundaries and I'm even worse with bullying (when it comes to me). I tend to retreat and shut down.

I don't want to shut down about wedding things, you know? So many times throughout this planning, I've hit that point where I shut down and I've told Mike I just don't want to do any of it anymore. He usually talks me off my ledge, but it'll happen again. And again after that. And each time, I know I'll react the same way.

The most irritating thing about it is when people are being utterly controlling and then at the end of it, they say, "It's your day." Really? It's our day? What about your controlling behavior points to you actually believing that?

One of these days, I'll learn to be assertive.

In the meantime, there's always blogging...

Wedding budget... and other things...

This wedding thing is overwhelming sometimes. Not because there's so much to do, but because of the pressure that surrounds it and the weird expectations. Not even for me, per se, although there are some on me, but in the world.

I peruse Pinterest's wedding section for ideas sometimes, and there are women in there who have their entire wedding planned out massively and you can kind of tell by their other boards that they're not even with man yet. They've got endless pins of dresses, flowers, arrangements, jewelry, future engagement rings and even undies to suck it all in under their future couture gown.

The most discouraging has to be when I look at these so-called budget bride websites. Holy crap is your "low budget" totally not congruent to mine.

So here you go, why not, the breakdown of our "low budget" wedding, so far:
(In Canadian dollars.)
Wedding rings (including customization of mine, molding materials, shipping (fedex) and taxes on this side of the border:
$1282
My dresses (2):
$400
Hair clip:
$115
Flowers (so far, for bouquets & boutonnieres):
$335
Cake topper:
$49
Décor (so far):
$48
Favors (not bought yet, but priced out):
$112
Venue:
0! YEY!

Other estimated costs (yet to be cemented):
Food:
$1000
Photographer:
$1500
Pants and a new tie for the groom:
$200
Wedding dress alterations (the waist is a little big):
(I have no idea how much that will cost, but it's booked, so we'll see.)
Stamps:
Let's go with $60 for this one and hopefully we'll group some together. :-/
Hair:
I figure I'll do the Natalie Portman haircut, so I can do that a couple days before and not worry on the day.)
Make up:
Gah. My one "I have no idea what to do about that," left...
Wedding party gifts:
No idea about this either, but I'm less stressed about it because prezzies are well within my comfort zone. :D

Things parents are paying for:
Rented plates & cutlery, etc - my dad.
Invite paper and printing - my dad (We kept costs way down here though. We're going with plain white thick paper. That's it. Let's say... $70 total? I don't know how much he's spending. He doesn't say. -.-)
Potential tent (bleh) - my guy's parents. We'll see how many RSVPs we get and decide whether or not we need a tent. With the tent come chairs and tables and stuff... and complications..... anyway.

Add that mess all up and add estimated notary fees (and don't include the rentals, potential tent, alterations, gifts and other things I'm forgetting) and you get:
$5911

EeeeeeEeeeEEeeEEeEEeeeee... Already $911 over budget- not even including the cutlery and stuff! Man!

A handy pie chart. It goes clockwise from smallest to largest (down the list).

It's really hard to blow a wad this huge on one day. And these so-called budget brides with their $20,000 budgets? How do you do that? I mean, even if we had the money, we wouldn't do it. The most frivolous and unnecessary thing we've bought for this wedding so far is my hair clip. Other than that, it was pretty standard and relatively cheap. Especially my dress. And I don't even have shoes on there either because I intend to be barefoot or wearing my vibrams under my dress.

Oh, and I think the cost of a barbecue is covered in there somewhere, but Mike's asleep so I can't ask him if it's in there for sure or not (he's the food section).

I still kind of want the earrings I posted a while back and I'm not getting a garter because I find that tradition creepy. What else? I'm still debating on whether or not to drop $100 on hydrangeas from Costco or not. We'll see. There will probably be added costs for decor, as I have to find a tiny hole punch and buy some wood and hooks to hang the origami butterflies.

We don't have a dj or anybody hired for music. There is no alcohol in the budget because I refuse to fund that stuff. There may be alcohol for a toast, but that's not coming out of my dog food money.

I guess that's it, really.

Man, it's so hard to stay cheap though. We've done our best, I guess. And we're happy with everything we've gotten so far, so that helps.

It is weird though, being among these women who have been planning these things for decades, long before they even knew what man they'd actually marry. I didn't have that kind of experience. Aside from joking about having a curling wedding with an ex who never loved me at all, weddings just were never on my radar. I'd to to weddings and know it wasn't for me, and yet, here I am, right in the middle of it. I mean, I'm even wearing my wedding ring still, as I write this.

The only other memory I have is from when I was tiny and would hide behind the sheer white living room curtains and walk outwards and let the curtain slide over me, pretending it was a veil. My most vivid memory of those moments was the intense smell of dust as the curtain slid over my face.

That's about it.

I never had a boyfriend in high school. I had some crushes, but they tended to end in me being humiliated, which was fine because I somehow adapted to being embarrassed to the point where it didn't even bother me anymore. A boy I could have dated, one of my best friends, told the world we were dating in high school, but never bothered to tell me. And then I got held hostage by the first guy I tried to get closer to in spite of my discomfort, but I escaped. I pursued snowboarding intensively and with that came its share of boys, but none of them were marriage-worthy. Not even close enough to get an idea in my head about it. I was on my own and I liked it that way so much that it never occurred to me to be any other way.

And yet, somehow, I found myself stuck in an six year abusive relationship and I followed that with a year and a half long abusive relationship. That one put it in my head that marriage was potentially a good thing, but his ending morality shattered any sort of optimism I had on the subject at that point. I think I was pretty well done. Terrible guy after terrible guy- how are you supposed to get any sort of inkling that one day, you will find a guy with whom exactly what they say happens- you just know? How are you supposed to know that that actually happens? And really, how are you supposed to plan for that?

My aunt once said she'd never date a man she couldn't see herself married to, but who are you supposed to date when you don't see yourself married at all, ever?

And then one fateful day in September, you finally meet the guy you agreed to meet in May and you follow through with your half-joking plan to lay out all your junk on the table and ask him if he's still in anyway, and somehow, he says yes. And he's been saying yes ever since, regardless of the giant mass of junk that has accumulated on that tiny wobbly table in the now defunct coffee shop where we once drank warm beverages together for the first time.

How do you plan for this?
How do you pinterest this?
And how do you do either years before you even know it exists?

I don't know, but the only thing I envy of them is how they got a bit of a head start with the planning and the coping... But even then, they don't even know what they're planning for. They don't know this.

Anyway.

All that matters in the end is that we have what we have, however we got here and whatever the future holds for us.

Ahhh! Rings!

I posted last night about how the wedding rings were in the mail (see this post) and how I was worried my ring wouldn't look nice because really, how are you supposed to make a ring look nice when it's fitted to such a wonky engagement ring?

Well, a hundred something dollars in taxes later, I was holding the package with the rings. I let the doggies out and sat on the top stair of the back porch in the sun and opened up the fedex package. And then the USPS package inside that fedex package. :D And inside that, there was a ring box and a card. I read the card first because that's the polite thing to do, and slowly opened the box, remembering right before the lid opened that there was a tiny bee inside too. I was told to be careful because the tiny legs are fragile.

And when I opened up that box and carefully moved the bee, inside were our matching wedding rings, and for the first time, I understood why Mike was so adamant about us getting the same ring. It was pretty fricken magical, I must say. To see them side by side, unique but the same, ah! So sweet.

So of course, I had to go on a photo spree. No photograph will ever adequately show how I feel about them. They are so, so pretty. (They were slightly prettier before I got them all grubby with my fingers...)

Look! We fit! YEY! :D

Even without my engagement ring, my ring is pretty. It's fricken mountains. Like, for serious. MOUNTAINS.

They fit together really nicely. The metals don't match (the new ring is much whiter than my engagement ring), but I kind of love it that way because it makes them entirely separate entities. And I like the white better than the less white. :D

AH! His ring is so pretty too. I'm kinda jealous of how the bigger flat parts on his reflect the light. :D

On my fingie.

Cropped so you can see them closer up.

And a video of me spinning his ring so you can see how the waterfall effect shimmers. It's so fricken beautiful.

I'll repost the paragraph from the below post, just to give Ravens' Refuge adequate credit, in case anybody finds this post and wants to use them for their wedding bands:

Ravens' Refuge have their etsy shop, a facebook page, a flickr and a blog (there's a good description of the types of hammering on there too and a few pictures of the bees).

Ok, have to go get Mike at the train. EEEEEE.

Eeeeeee.... Wedding rings!

If that clicks bigger, it's our tracking page for the wedding rings. Eee.

I thought I would have a few days to get ready once she shipped them, but no... tomorrow. Eee.

So I guess I should go through the ring story...

So we went to Birks, mainly because I figured they would be a good place to get Mike sized (I already know my size- 4 3/8) and to get him to try rings on to see what he liked best in terms of widths, metals, styles and whatnot. We went to the downtown location on Ste. Catherine Street because we figured they'd have the most selection. Man, the service was bad. Nobody had any interest in serving us at all. The salespeople were actively avoiding us when we were clearly standing by the wedding rings, waiting. When I asked about a wedding ring to fit my engagement ring, the salesguy we grabbed, who was riddled with the most gaudy of mismatched jewelry imaginable and who seemed so annoyed with having to serve us, looked at my ring from afar and said, "That's not from Birks? No, we can't accommodate that ring." So, being that I was already so annoyed, I probably looked at him like he was dumb (I have a really bad poker face) and probably said something sarcastic to which he replied, "Well, you could get one made, but that's with the designer, not my department." I asked where I find out about this designer and he gestured to customer service at the other end of the store and repeated that it wasn't his department. 

Oh, and to size Mike, he felt his finger, squeezing the sides of it and was all, "Yeah, I'd say a ten." Seriously, dude? That's your professionalism? We asked him about types of metal, and he clearly stereotyped Mike as a construction worker (wtf, he's a chef), and started giving us bad advice based on construction work because "clearly," he worked in construction. I honestly can't even remember what the advice was because at that point, between his sickening pavé diamond carpeted mixed metal over-jewelry and his bad attitude, there was nothing worth learning from this guy.

Anyway, so we went to the service counter, where the girl didn't speak a word of English but refused to admit it and told us the designer's last appointment slot was at 4:30PM. "Can you see if the designer is available now? We live pretty far away," I said. "No, it's after four thirty," she said. I looked at my watch. It was something like 4:20 and the designer's schedule in front of us was clearly empty. She begrudgingly called and nobody answered. She asked if I wanted to book an appointment and at that point, we just wanted to leave and never go back in there ever again, so I fakely took her card and said I'd call.

We left there angry and ranted about how cruddy the service was for at least the four blocks to the car and probably another twenty minutes once we were in the car. Holy crap, you know? Sure, we don't look like money, but we were ready to spend whatever we had to to get really good quality wedding rings. Everybody, regardless of demographic, buys wedding rings. Everybody intends for them to last. So really, when you see somebody shopping for a wedding ring, especially if there is already an engagement ring on the girl's finger, smarten up and serve them because more than anybody else in your store at any given moment, soon-to-be-marrieds are definitely making a ring purchase in the next few months. Two even!

Just pathetic.

When we got home, I ranted on twitter and facebook and the two of us vowed never to buy anything at Birks again. Instead, I searched ebay for vintage rings and found a few I liked and searched etsy too, and finally, after literally spending hours, if not fractions of several days, looking, I found a shop on etsy that seemed to make custom rings that were really, really pretty. The ad I found originally was this one. I researched a bit more and found that Ravens' Refuge uses recycled metals (bonus!) and their feedback (you should read it) is so, so awesome, and when I showed Mike, we were both in agreement that these were the people we wanted to make our rings. 

I sent them a few pictures of my ring, one of which had measurements all over it to give them an idea of the sizes we were working with and I waited and hoped they'd respond and say they could do it. A couple of days went by and I got the best email ever from Laura, the wifey of the guy (Dan) who makes the rings. 

After a million exchanges (almost not an exaggeration), we hammered out the details, she advised me on what metal to choose (so much easier than Birks and her explanations made sense- to the point where we got the rings in a completely different metal than we intended) and she put an ad up just for us so we could finalize the transaction. But the thing is, there were some things we never discussed but that she just somehow knew, which was so awesome. The finish in the ad I had asked about is closer to their pebbled hammering or cobblestone hammering (I can't tell which right now because I'm too sleepy), but in our final ad, she specified waterfall hammering, which is sort of strips of hammering instead of the tinier flat bits, and creates a waterfall illusion when it moves through the light. She totally nailed it somehow, even though I hadn't specified the finish and the waterfall one was actually exactly what we wanted. Here's an example of the waterfall finish if you want to see the difference. 

Get it though? He proposed by a waterfall and we're getting waterfall rings? And they're banged up, just like us, and they're perfect, just like us?

Teehee.

Anyway, after another billion exchanges about how exactly to do my ring, we decided maybe it'd be best if I sent them a mold of my ring. So they sent me the materials to do two molds and so I did those the night I received them after meticulously watching their online video tutorials and rushed them back to the mail the next day. They used those to make a cast or whatever to make a bronze ring to fit my wedding ring onto. We decided that instead of having my ring cut out of my engagement ring (so that it'd sit flat on top of it), the ring was going to be nubbly and wobbly and stay the same width all the way around, but follow the bizarre and overly complicated curves of my engagement ring. 

I honestly have no idea what it'll look like. I got a sketch a couple of months ago before we decided to do the molds, so I don't know if he stuck to the sketch or used some artistic freedom or license or whatever you call it, so we'll see. I'm kinda nervous about it because somehow, I think it would be hard to make a ring that fits my engagement ring and looks good. 

Regardless though, I know for sure that Mike's ring is beautiful (a ring similar to his is in pictures, basically this but in 14K X1 white gold) and they were really awesome to work with (I don't know how she didn't get impatient with me) and (!!) they're sending Mike a tiny copper bee too because they did a cast of a real bee (who died of natural causes) and created a whole bunch of bees for an artist's sculpture and I asked if we could get one too and they obliged (because they're awesome?!), so really, however my ring ended up, this experience was so, so much better than we could have hoped for. So yey.

I mean, hopefully I'll adore it too, but at this point, on the eve of getting it (hopefully), I'm trying not to worry about it. I have to trust people at some point, right? And they've been so awesome all along and they produce beautiful stuff, so seriously, Princess, shhh.

:D

So yeah. If you need a wedding ring, even if it's just a regular one, or even other rings because they do crazy stuff for engagement rings and whatnot too, I highly recommend them. The service, the price, the humble and patient communication, the ethics, the fact that they use recycled metals and the fact that never once did they sell me a thing even when it was so clear I had no idea what I was doing or what I really wanted, yeah, I so recommend them.

They have their etsy shop, a facebook page, a flickr and a blog (there's a better description of the types of hammering on there too and a few pictures of the bees).

So yeah. Hopefully, after all this, I do like my ring. Hehe. :D Obviously, I'll post pictures if we get them tomorrow. (Guaranteed! haha..)

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...

eta: Oh! I almost forgot. An added bonus for us, well, me in particular, is that Ravens' Refuge's logo is so pretty (native arty) and from what I've seen, they stamp the inside of the rings with it. So that's super awesome too.

UPDATE! New post here with pictures. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...

Hair clip and invites...

So with the help of Mike, Maxine and Annie, we collectively decided to get this hair clip:

Source: saragabriel.com via Prin on Pinterest

Originally, I wanted to get one of the Sara Gabriel veils, like this one or this one, but after having a look at similar ones (not sure which ones, but they seemed to be very close to the ones I was looking at online), and trying to envision them clipped into my hair (these had combs and there's just no way combs will stay in my short, fine hair), they just weren't me. This one is slightly sparkly, slightly textured and the feathers match the bouquets and boutonnieres. And the hair clip isn't as brutal as the one that is attached to the butterfly the bouquet lady sent as a bonus with the bouquets. I figure one of the bridesmaids can wear the butterfly (if they don't think it's too brutal of a hair clip).

Ok, and for the invites, we finally finished them... Don't scroll past here if you don't want to see them or want to be surprised or whatever (I hope nobody who isn't invited is reading this...)...

We just have to print them and get them out... asap.

But yeah, they look like this...

A few spaces in case you really don't want to see it yet...






Ready?

Haha.

Ok.

Here (edited for anonymity, of course; also, not sure if it clicks bigger or not... it should?):

So yeah. It's half a page big, and on the back will be lame, pointless maps and the RSVP info.

The drawing is a Barbara Tolloczko rendition of a drawing I found on the internet, the source of which I could not locate no matter how hard I tried. :-/ But she changed the teeth (she gave them more variety of expression rather than all scary), added the doggies and some tiny buttcheeks.

So that's it for updates.

Oh! And the wedding rings are shipping any minute now. Scaryscaryscaryscary. So I should get on that story before they come.... Eee.

Ok, that's it.

Registry...

It makes me feel dirty and whatnot, but here it is, my pinterest registry board thingy. Pinning things on there has been really hard actually. Maybe I'll get the hang of it in a while and figure out a way to have fun with it...

Maybe.

In the meantime, if anybody remembers anything I've ever said I wanted, can you maybe remind me? Because when I look at that thing, I can barely remember what charities I like.

Rambly update...

So things have been a little stagnant, probably because of my endo appointment, my guy being away and now my guy being sick (and me secluding myself from the universe in consequence).

Things I still have to do in the near (very near) future:
1. Invites.
- I have the final artwork and the basic layout of the invite, but I didn't join the two yet. I think that sort of thing will take all of three minutes, but I'm a lazy ass and I just haven't done it.
- We still have to get the addresses from his side and a few scragglers on my side.
- We.. um.. still have to decide who we're inviting but I think I'm pretty well settled, even if the number might give me a panic attack.
- Then we have to print them and mail them. And figure out an alternative for those who still have no access to the internet (I think there are two).

2. Veil.
- I have to get my ass to Crescent street to the one authorized retailer for Sara Gabriel in Quebec to see if I like the veils (in the headpieces section) as much in person as I do on their website, and to see if I can tolerate them without panicking. We'll see. Hopefully they'll have a good selection of them... If I get fed up and feel hopeless, I can always wear a teeny tiny top hat or an asymmetrical fedora, which, for some reason outside of my comfort zone, intrigues me greatly.

3. Radiation.
- We'll see. Hopefully it won't end up too close to the wedding and hopefully I won't gain a pajillion pounds after it when my thyroid dies. Too stressful to think about.

4. Paint.
- I figure I should paint the house a lot before people come here, namely the livingroom downstairs, my bedroom and the second bedroom downstairs. And maybe finish the deck.
- I hate painting.

5. More butterflies.
- I haven't made an origami butterfly in months. I have to get a move on!

6. Inquire about a campfire permit. And if we need a permit of some kind to host a wedding at our house.

7. Write a script maybe?

8. Registry.
- Mike doesn't want to register anywhere, and registering at one store seems... not us. So what I thought instead was I could set up a Pinterest board with stuff we want and people can buy the things on our Pinterest if they need to be told what to buy. Or it could serve as ideas, you know?
- (The first thing that comes to mind when I think about it is I am totally putting bags of dog food on there. Omg, and latex grunting piggies. Yes.)

9. Dress alterations.
- Probably in June, I guess. I'm thinking I'll have to get her to remove the flowers from under the belty part of it so I look thinner because right now, especially since the waist is too big, I look particularly puffed up in it. It's not terrible, but it could be better.

10. Officiant forms.
- Have to fill those out one of these days, just to make sure we have everything we need.

11. North Carolina.
- We're going in June and I figure it'll give us an opportunity to finalize things with our photographer. She does seem a little hesitant (if she is, it's probably because I'm difficult and she's an eighteen hour drive away), so maybe if we do a few test shots, she can see what we're like to work with (i.e. miserable photographically) and decide if we're outside her comfort zone. That's not to say she's not an amazing photographer (and a great person), but we both are really difficult, both to take nice pictures of us and to get us to not hate the whole thing.

Honestly, the photography portion of the day fills me with dread. I know how I am, and I know from being a bridesmaid that it doesn't take me long to feel (and appear!) completely irritable. And posing? Just naw. I think we want our wedding to be as genuine as possible and in keeping with that, we just can't have contrived pictures. I mean, if they're fun and goofy, maybe, but if they're stereotypical and fake, no. What I mean is I can totally picture me running around with my arms flailing and taking ridiculous pictures like that, but the one where we all jump, I'm totally staying planted on the ground. Totally. And I'm not doing things twice either. At a few weddings I've been to, they made the bride and groom cut the cake like six times. Do you really not remember when you look at those photographs that that's probably not the first cut? What's the point of having a picture of you posing for the sixth slice?

We're not slicing anyway. I think we'll just jab the pyramid of cake balls with a fork. Jointly. And most likely, we'll pierce the chocolatey outside and smoosh the shit out of it such that we can't possibly collect the cake ball we've forked.

But you know, that'll probably make a good picture. :D

I think that's it for now. I'm getting a little anxious about the rings; the last email in February after they'd gotten the molds of my engagement ring said it'd be a "few weeks" till they got to my ring. Waiting is brutal. I really want to know what it looks like. I kind of wish I was getting just a straight band, but I can't switch my engagement ring to my right hand (too fragile to be on my dominant hand), so I have no choice. Maybe one day, I'll get a straight band too, just to save for later if I ever decide not to wear my engagement ring for whatever reason (i.e. it's too fragile for whatever life I lead in the future). I still have to blog about the ring experience from start to finish... One of these days. It is a kind of long story, but I am really happy with the people we found to do them, so I have to tell it.

Oh, and the spare butterflies came a couple days ago, so I have those to fix my bouquet with later (too afraid to go near my bouquet till much closer to the wedding).

I think that's it.

Bouquets with earrings on the side... and a new slight obsession with hydrangeas...

Just to follow up, I got them last week. They were (are?) really pretty, but one of the big butterflies on my bouquet got pretty annihilated in shipping, which sucks. Another smaller butterfly on one of the bridesmaidy bouquets got tweaked too, but I think I can salvage it with tape.

I'd take a picture, but after seeing the two busted up butterflies, I didn't want to risk handling the bouquets too much, so I (panickedly) put them into two boxes (with tons of help from Mike) so they'd all be apart and not touching each other and put them up on the top shelf in my closet for safe keeping.

I don't think they'll be that fragile on the day, but they do tend to get snagged together and that's where the risk is in me handling them...

On the upside, with the two strands of butterflies, there are plenty to choose from if we have to replace some of the bouquet ones for whatever reason. Just need to borrow a hot glue gun from somewhere.

I'm kind of glad I got the fake flowers, honestly. Reading on the internet about real flowers and the hassle involved to get them cheaply just feels like a stress I don't need, snagglies aside.

Also, I've developed a new found affection for hydrangeas that I never knew I could have... And thus the lust for these hydrangea earrings was born:

Source: etsy.com via Prin on Pinterest

They're perfect in a thousand different ways, but here are three:

1. They're hydrangeas. Silvery whitey ones.
2. The topaz in the middle goes with the topaz in my engagement ring.
3. The pins (or whatever they're called) are 18k gold.

See, I've been wearing the same small hoop earrings since I was four. My dad got them for me after my ma dropped me off with freshly pierced and crazy infected ears (she did it without consulting him about it too). So he went out and got me these that I was told eons ago were 22k gold, but somehow I'm not sure they'd have held up this long being 22k. But still, they're very gold and I haven't had any ear infections since, except maybe for rare times when I'd take these out and put in other earrings for some lame reason. Being that the earrings above have 18k gold pins, I can wear them without worrying about infections and whatnot.

And really, the design is pretty awesome with the way it's looped so the hydrangeas move?

Magical.

Out of my price range considering all the money we've spent lately, but still, magical.

But even if I don't get them, I can still wear my hoop earrings as my "something really old". :D

(But, like, I feel like I will get them. Because I'm bratty that way, I guess. And things I seem to want for more than a few days I tend to end up obsessing about. So...)

And also, maybe, if there's money left in the budget, we could get some real hydrangeas for decorative purposes from Costco since I saw that they've got some in bulk.

Guess who came today?!!

They're even more perfect in real life. I'm so happy with them. I nearly cried when I opened the box up today when it came in the mail. She did an amazing job.

Lookit the feathering on the arm? So much detail. <3

Yey!

If you want to peruse her etsy shop for your own kokeshi dolls, here's the link.

Eeeeeeeee!!!

So then I was in the car with Mike and I was all, "Michael! We're really getting married?!" and he was all, "Yeah!"

:D

Online RSVP

After messing with Wordpress and Wordpress plugins (apparently, there's a difference between wordpress.com and wordpress.org and it is impossible to use plugins on the former and impossible to join the underworld of the latter if you aren't code-savvy, so forget it) until I nearly went insane, my bridesmaid Maxine, who is ever adept at everything bridesmaidey (and at everything else too!), found an article suggesting we use Google documents instead...

And it works!

To any future brideys looking for a free online RSVP form that you can totally customize, in your gmail (you should have gmail by now, right?), click on "Documents" at the top (or wherever they put it when they change it- I think under the rollover gmail thingy at the top left), and then hit "CREATE". When that menu drops down, you click "Form" and you create your form. I used the code it generated to embed mine in a blogger blog just by pasting it into a post in "html" mode instead of the "compose" mode. 

It was all pretty magical in the end. I'd post a link to my RSVP page, but I don't want scragglers who find this blog to invite themselves. :D If this blog still gets hits later on, after I'm done tallying results, then I'll come back and post it here.

In the meantime, here's a screenshot of the first page of the survey I created as it appears on the blog I created for it:

See?!?! It turned out awesome. If they hit "yes", they're brought to a page where they enter what they want to eat, if they have allergies or whatever and if they need help finding accommodation. The last question on that page is whether or not there will be other guests, and depending on the answer, you either get brought to further pages to give more information or to the last page (a "no" answer always brings you to the last page). On the last page, I left a big text box in case anybody (including the nays) wanted to say something.

You can choose the background of your survey too, although options are a little bit limited. And all the results are sent to a google spreadsheet and they even produce handy little pie charts for each question aside from the text ones. So yey.

It lets you have text box replies (short or long), drop down menus, multiple choice, check box choices and probably others too, but I didn't really need the rest, so I can't go into detail about them or anything. You also choose which questions are required and which bring you to a different page (if necessary). It really was awesome to use and the finished product is better than anything else I could have asked for. Free!

Done and done. Now all I need to do is get the invites finished and we're set.

YEY!

RSVP...

I still haven't posted about the rings... I intend to... It's just a long story, so I'm lethargic about it. :D

Meanwhile, what if instead of RSVPs, we do some sort of website questionnaire? It'd be drop down menus, like:

Attending/not:
If you pick attending, then these show up:
Number of people attending:
Food preference for each (beef, salmon, vegan): (this one probably has to be a different format to accommodate several different answers)
Help needed with accommodations (yes, no):
Comments/allergies:

Except I don't know how to do that. So... Um... I found html code online for a contact form, but I'd kind of prefer if it had the options too, not just a comment space.

Any ideas?

Cake toppers (final)...

YEY! My cake toppers are officially done and bought. She did the eyes so perfectly. I love them. <3

YEY!!


ETA: If you should happen to want your own customized kokeshi dolls, this is the store where I got mine. She's pretty amazing and was great to work with too.

Cake toppers... :D

Eeeeeeeeee! She sent me the pre-varnished wedding toppers. I feel like a bit of an ass, but I asked her to change Mike's eyes to grey-blue and make mine slightly darker.

But do you see the bouquet?!! (They probably click bigger...)

Ah! I'm so happy with them.

Eeeee!

(I'm all vowels right now. :D)

Bouquets - follow up...

The bouquets will hit the mail tomorrow. She accidentally did an extra boutonniere, which I guess is ok because if my bro (who I haven't really asked yet) does the ceremony, he can wear one too.

So yeah.

Done and done.

Wedding favors...

(Still trying to catch everything on the blog up to where we are right now...)

I'm a little on the fence about wedding favors. Most of the time, the bride and groom seem to spend wads of cash personalizing some sort of trinket and at the end of it, within a week, none of the guests still has it or even remembers what it was. T got personalized m&ms, which was cool (even if Littles ended up eating mine, lol), but since my entourage is so diet inflexible, I figured food wasn't a good option for us.

I shopped online, and everything seemed either tacky or ridiculously expensive. Like, really, spending $500 on wedding favors seemed like such a waste, especially considering the things I was finding.

And then I stumbled upon these magnets:

As one person on my facebook put it, "But... you're not cat people." Indeed.

Indeed.

But most people we know are cat people. And those who aren't cat people are cat-with-mustache people. Or cat-with-monocle people. And those who are none of those... well... you can't please everybody.

And so far, even the people who have ridiculed our choice of favor, when asked if they'd keep their mustache kitty magnet, replied that yes, in fact, they would definitely keep it.

I figure they'll be like Christmas ornaments. Ornaments are rarely personalized and rarely even all that directly personal (it's all about the stars, the Jesus, the snowmen, the Santas and the angels), but you always remember where you got them.

So there you go. All that's left is ironing out the kinks in the shipping because apparently, magnets qualify as "dangerous goods" and have rules about them. It wouldn't matter so much if we weren't buying so many.

Oh, and since they're so cheap, we figured we'd also donate a lump sum to a rescue here to balance it out.

So yey.

Bouquets...

The original plan for flowers was to get $200 worth of bulk flowers and make bouquets myself using a video guide I found online. I intended to get pink spray roses and/or white vendela roses, but neither of those seems to be sold in bulk here in Canada, so I asked a bunch of places online if they'd ship to Canada and I actually never got any responses from any of them (I forgot that till just now).

Anyhoo, after deciding that maybe Costco was my best bet, even if they only have generic white roses here in Canada (or blue hydrangeas, which I would have figured out how to use if I had to), it dawned on me that I could try my friend T's idea for her own wedding and I started cruising etsy for fake flowers. If I can get a bouquet I like, it would save the hassle of dealing with fresh flowers, I thought. 

To be honest, I didn't think I would find anything I liked. I found some bouquets I wasn't sure of and I favorited them and asked a few vendors how flexible they were with arranging things and stuff.... It would be hard to match a bouquet with my dress, especially when my dress changes colors... 

And then, by chance, off on a tangent, I found this:

At this store. And I've made probably about seventy or something (rough estimate) colorful origami butterflies for the wedding and I saw this and I had to have it. Something about how intricate and delicate the butterflies are.... 

There's something about butterflies for our wedding... I'm not usually a butterfly person- I mean, they're pretty, but I'm a penguin person through and through. But somehow, the symbolism of them and the lightness of them both seem to fit what I intend for this wedding (and Mike agrees).

So anyway, I perused her shop...

And I found my bouquet...

Another picture I stole from the etsy ad:

And another:

Last one, with Mike's boutonniere:

It was the middle of the night and it was all I could do not to just buy it immediately. Of course, as with everything else about this wedding, I needed a second opinion to make sure I'm not crazy (I don't know why I'm so adamant about that for this particular endeavor).

Morning came and T was the first one awake and she approved, and by then, I'd messaged the lady who made it to ask if she could make four others, but with three butterflies instead of all the ones mine has (because I have to be special, see?). I also asked if she could make the three other boutonnieres with hydrangeas only because Mike has to be special too (he's only got three groomsmen). She said she could. And I was filled with glee. I bought the string of butterflies and my bouquet as a deposit and today, she sent me pictures of the near-finished products to make sure I was happy with it all.

And I totally am!

YEY!

Here are the pics she sent (they do click bigger)...

The boutonnieres:

She asked if Mike wanted her to add some hydrangeas to his butterfly since next to them, it seemed so small, but Mike likes his butterfly as is, so that's how it will stay.

The prototype bridesmaids' bouquet.

Yey? Yey, I say.

The bridesmaids are supposed to wear white (I conceded that they would wear a bit of black since the guys will just be black and white, but no other colors unless they're sure they'll match my dress, which is difficult to match, but I guess blue would be ok? But I digress...), so hopefully this will provide enough texture that it'll still be set apart from their person and not blend. 

So yey! She's supposed to finish them today (which she doesn't have to because we still have tons of time). 

I think I totally do have to splurge on a textile storage box though. I'm overly prepared and between the dress sitting in a garment bag and these coming soon...? I have to make sure everything makes it to the wedding in August...

Anyway, so that's the bouquets. :D

ETA: Oh, right, and in the process of ordering all that, she said she had an extra string of butterflies too, so I'm getting that one also. Two strings of white butterflies. Two. Ok, that is all. :D