100 Days to Go!
That’s right, I can’t believe it, but we’re down to 100 days to go!
Huge update coming soon!
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In the middle
We have been going back and forth on centrepieces for months. We know that we want lots of candles everywhere, and few-to-no flowers, but other than that, we have had a really hard time making a decision. We’ve been to IKEA and played around with some ideas, but until this weekend, we just couldn’t get it quite right.
Then my mum had an idea, and tested it out while I was home for a visit this weekend.
Jellybeans actually have a role in the story of how Adam and I met, so it’s very “us” while adding a touch of whimsy. They’ll be on plain white table cloths, so the colour should really pop. We’re still debating whether we should use mixed jellybeans as my mum did here, or whether we should get a mix of purple, blue and white ones, to better fit our “colours.”
What do you think?
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My dress is in!
YAHOOOOO!
Bryan’s Bride just called to tell me that my dress is in! They had originally estimated it would arrive in mid-July, so this was a fantastic May Day surprise!
I’m not going to start alterations until August, I think, because I’m losing weight and don’t want to have to go for too many fittings. I might have to go visit it soon just for fun, though!
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Good thoughts
Jessica at the Budget Savvy Bride has been one of my favourite wedding bloggers since I first discovered the bridal blogging niche.
Her neighbourhood was hit by a tornado on Friday. She and her family are thankfully safe, but the devastation in their town is quite extensive.
Please keep Jess, her family and her neighbourhood in your prayers/thoughts as they recover from this scary experience!
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Our Top Two
Before we were even engaged, we each knew what our most important item was on our wedding day, other than family, friends and our vows.
For Adam, it’s all about good food. For me, it’s all about good photography. In each case, our most important thing has a family tie, as well as being a favourite thing outside of wedding-world.
Adam’s father is a chef – a really good chef. He’s cooked for a variety of amazing events and important people, but he’s also incredibly humble and appreciates a well-prepared, simple meal more than anyone else I know. He passed on an appreciation of good ingredients, strong technique, and careful preparation to Adam, and as a result, Adam does 90% of the cooking in our house. It also meant that not only does Adam want to eat a good meal at our wedding, he wants to be sure to share a good meal with our loved ones.
My paternal grandfather is one of the best people I’ve ever known. He was a doctor and coroner, and through his work as coroner, he developed a love for photography. Although he had many photos of crime scenes, his favourite and best work was always happier subjects, especially my nana’s garden. After he passed away in 1999, my family spent hours going through his thousands of negatives and slides, sorting out what should be kept. My dad and I packed up a big box of Granddad’s camera equipment and brought it home with us. I now own a mid1970s Minolta SLR with a slightly funny lens focus, and I feel my Granddad with me everytime I use it. Granddad instilled a real love of photography in me, so having a good photographer at our wedding isn’t just about capturing happy memories, it’s also about honouring my granddad.
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Click!
After many months of research, emails and phone calls, and a few “first dates,” we’ve finally signed a contract and submitted a deposit to a photographer! You’ll remember that this was one of our most important items, so I am relieved to finally put a big check mark on this to-do item.
We thought we had found a photographer in March, but due to a gut feeling I had right before we signed the contract, that fell through. My gut is usually right, so I just had to trust it.
Last Sunday, after I spent the weekend at a Guiding camp, we drove out to Langley to meet Lorena and Danielle, the sisters behind Soltura Photography. I am SO excited to have booked them! I hadn’t come across them during my original search for a photographer, but saw their name pop up on WeddingBells. Once I loaded up their website, I was hooked – I love the feeling in their photos! Adam and I both felt really comfortable after we met them last week, so we signed the contract on the spot. We’ll be arranging an engagement shoot with Lorena in a month or two, and I can’t wait!
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Flower power
We’ve known from the beginning that we don’t want a lot of flowers at our wedding. I have mild pollen allergies, but we also just don’t see the point in spending hundreds on flowers for one day. I do want a bouquet, though, and boutennieres and corsages for our closest loved ones.
Though I won a gift certificate to a local florist at the Wedding Fair in January, we’ve chosen not to go with them. I can use the gift certificate on a plant or something for our apartment, and I just didn’t get a good vibe from the store’s owner when I was there recently. We got talking about our vendors and budget, and he outright told me that I “couldn’t possibly” find a vendor I have yet to hire for the budget I have set, which would be rude enough if it wasn’t also inaccurate!
This weekend, I met up with K, part of my bridal posse, so we could share a shopping trip to check out florists and dresses. We wandered around a few shops, and after getting quotes at a couple of places, I stumbled across a small shop in the Granville Island Public Market.
The V&J Plant Shop has a remarkable selection, and their working area is tucked in among the buckets and buckets of flowers. They were the most welcoming, friendly and honest of all the florists I visited, as well as being patient with my laundry list of questions. In a month or two, I’ll head down to the Market to visit them and start planning out our flowers. We’ll make an “A” and “B” list of flowers, so that there is some flexibility depending on what is in season, looking good, and affordable around our wedding.
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My bridal posse
At the end of March, I asked three of my favourite women to be my bridesmaids, and luckily they all said yes!
Laura, my cousin, will be my maid of honour. We were born 6.5 months apart, and we’ve lived on opposite sides of the country our whole lives, but I couldn’t imagine getting married without her at my side! When we were little, we’d write letters back and forth, and now that’s progressed to MSN and long-distance phone calls. I called Laura to ask her to be my maid of honour, and she answered while driving on the highway. After I asked her, she said “ARE YOU SERIOUS?” followed by “I’m pulling over!!!!!” Love it!
The fact that Kristen and I survived sharing a 200sq ft dorm room together for 8 months in first year is a testament to the strength of our friendship! We lived together again for another year, and until last year, we hadn’t lived more than 5minutes away from each other for 4 years. Kris is a firecracker – hilarious, honest, and the most loyal person I know. She’s been rooting for Adam and me all along.
Lindsey and I are strikingly different and painfully similar. Adam knows not to expect me home for 2 or 3 hours when I say I’m meeting Linds for a “quick” coffee date, because she and I are chatterboxes together! Guaranteed to make me laugh or recommend me a new favourite book, Linds is adventurous and always up for a party.
For both Kristen and Lindsay, I wrote them a silly rhyming card, and paired it with a RingPop in gift bag. I gave them to the girls while we were out for dinner, and I was screamed at, hugged, and smacked on the arm.
My girls are all silly and serious, smart as hell, and I know they’ll have my back through anything that comes along in the future. I’m so lucky that they’ve agreed to stand up for Adam and I when we say our vows!
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A little bit of history
I got confirmation from the coordinator at our ceremony site today, so I can finally reveal where we’ll be saying our vows!
After we booked the Sequoia Grill, we were hoping to have our ceremony there too. There is a great public greenspace right outside the restaurant, but the City won’t allow tents or chairs there, and the weather in October is just too unpredictable to forego a tent! We couldn’t figure out a way to make the ceremony work indoors, so my Google-fu and other research skills got another chance to shine.
We needed room for about 75 people, indoors, and not at a church. Pretty simple, right? Once again, our simple requirements turned out to be exceedingly difficult to fulfill! The Celebration Pavilion was an early contender, until we found out that their prices had jumped drastically. We looked at hotels, theatres, community centres, art galleries, lounges, and heritage buildings. I emailed and phoned and Googled my little heart out. I asked everyone I knew for their suggestions.
Somehow, I came across the facilities rental page on the Vancouver Museum website. I got in touch with their rental coordinator, and we emailed back and forth all through February. After arranging a site visit, Adam and I knew we’d found a winner!
We’ll be having our ceremony in the Joyce Wally Learning Centre, a large room in the Museum, with 13ft windows looking out at a park, False Creek, Stanley Park, and the North Shore mountains. You can actually almost see our reception venue across the water, even! We’ll say our vows in front of the windows, with the view and the fall foliage behind us.
It’s going to be comfortable and casual, and the view will showcase some of the best of Vancouver in the fall. I’m so excited to have this confirmed!
Filed under: ceremony, locations, vancouver, wedding planning | 2 Comments
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