Wednesday, July 20, 2011

The Days Leading Up to The Big Day - Friday

My day started with me sneaking into my office early to print some last minute things, specifically the programs that I didn't finish until the night before! I also had to grab the projector & screen as my BIL want it for his best man speech but of course someone had taken it to a meeting off site which left me calling in favors to have it dropped off at my house for him to pick up the next day.

Taking a lot longer then I planned...isn't that always the case...I finally made it to MOH K's to start packing up everything for the wedding and our overnight bags.

We had rented a camper trailer for the weekend from kijiji (as the RV companies have decided that rentals after June 15th are at the summer rate and have to be rented by the week, not just weekend) and my sister's husband was kind enough to pick it up early in the morning and drive it out to the venue's campsite and set it up.

After he got the camper he met up with my Mr to pick up the large supplies (alcohol, party supply rentals, the photo booth, centerpieces & other large props from our house) with my company's scrolling billboard truck.
(This isn't the actually truck but it looks alot like this one...Source )


Having this truck was a time saver for both picking up everything on Friday and bring stuff back from the venue on Sunday. I realize that most people don't work for a company that owns their own delivery truck but if its in your budget to rent a small moving truck or you know someone that will lend you one, you will save your self alot of trips back and forth from your venue. (This is also great for Manitoba brides for their social!)

Before MOH K and I left for the venue, which is 40 minutes from the city, we stopped at my house to grab the Out of Town bags I had made for our guests staying at the hotel in Beausejour.

(Here's a pictures of the OOT bags being prepared...after the recap of the wedding I'll go back to the DIY projects)

We had to make it out to the hotel before people started checking in so we left the city at noon and while we drove MOH K attempted to help me write my vows....yes that's right, the day before the wedding and still no vows. She had me start listing the things I love about him and then give an example of when he showed that characteristic...this seemed like a very productive way to flesh things out, unfortunately the only examples I could come up was ones like this "His sense of humor...like when he said he wanted to take a rain check on carrying me across the threshold until I lost some weight because he didn't want to hurt his back"...inappropriate to say in front of our friends and family.

At this point I was starting to stress out that I would never write my vows and would end up sounding like Larry David when he had to give his Anniversary Vows to Cheryl, which my Mr and a handful of friends might enjoy but most people won't get AT ALL.


Tuesday, July 19, 2011

The Days Leading Up to The Big Day - Thursday Evening

After our supplies were picked up we headed over to my MOH K's house, as she has a larger kitchen then I do and we had a lot to prepare.

MOH K and I had come up with the appetizer menu a few months before and finalized it the week before. I wanted an appetizer spread that wasn't just meat platters and buns but didn't require to much work to arrange the day of and no heating, as our servers who were Girl Guides, with an average age of 12, would be the ones responsible for setting it out while the ceremony was going on.

This is what we came up with and had to prep that night:



  • Cherry tomatoes stuffed with pesto cream cheese

  • Cheese straws

  • Three types of savory palmiers: roasted tomato pesto, olive tapenade, artichoke tapenade(apparently this is the only picture I have of any of the appetizers that we made)

  • Walnut Feta stuffed cucumbers

  • Crab salad on Endive leaves

  • And whipped butter & herb butter for the buns during dinner.
We also purchased a selection of pickled vegetables (onions, olives, mushrooms, asparagus & artichokes), Italian meats, specialty cheeses & fruit that we platter on the morning of the wedding.

(My sister, MOH M and my mother hollowing out cherry tomatoes and cucumbers)


We managed to prep everything for the 150 guests by 11pm, except the cheese straws that MOH K tackled Friday morning before I came to pick her up. As much as I enjoy entertaining and making food for others it was definitely intimidating trying to account for enough appetizers to feed 150 people but not fill them up since dinner would be server shortly after.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

The Days Leading Up to The Big Day - Thursday Morning

Thursday began with breakfast with my MOH K and then we met my sister, MOH M at our local tanning salon for our Mystic Tan spray tans. MOH K and I had already gone twice early in the month to test how the spray set on our skins and whether we needed all of the extra bells and whistles (you don't), so we came prepared.


When going for a spray tan, we found wearing loose clothing, like a sundress, worked best as the tighter pants/shirts seem to wear off the spray before it had a chance to set on the skins. Also wear your hair pulled back, little to no makeup, and dark underwear as the spray can stain your bra!


(See loose fitting dress...apparently I didn't get a lot of relevant pictures that morning because the best example I could find)

We had the brilliant idea to spray tan before going for our manicures and pedicures as we didn't want to spray to stain our nails...makes sense right? WRONG. After we got out off the tanning salon and were headed towards our manicurist it dawned on us that we aren't suppose to wash for at least 8 hours which means soaking your feet and hands in water while someone scrubs off dead skin and makes them nice and soft isn't the best thing immediately after a spray tan but our schedule didn't really allow for us to do them on Friday morning so we scrapped the idea of pretty feet (no one had open toed shoes so it was really only for our benefit) and decide to just do our hands. We didn't want it to look like we were wearing socks if the spray washed away on our feet and lower calves but since we were only doing gel nails we didn't have to soak our hands.


Even though I also had my eye brows waxed I was still done before my MOHs so I was waiting for them to finish up when I received a call from my MIL. I had asked my Mr to call and touch base with his parents about the rehearsal and to confirm a few things, apparently this was too much for him and when his mom started asking for clarification on things he suggested she call me. So I spent a few minutes saying yes to everything she repeated that her son told her...pretty much a pointless conversation...until we got to the last point.

One of the details at the wedding I had planned was to have s'mores in the evening during the dance as the venue has a fire pit just outside of the main building but I didn't think it was necessary to buy their over priced fire wood when my in laws have a wood burning furnace which means they have what I would consider a surplus of split wood. We had asked to have some for the evening bonfire.


*Please note that my parents ALSO have a wood burning furnace and I am completely aware that this wood is not free but I was only wanting enough for an evening for one fire pit. I also didn't ask my parents as they lived 6 hours away and were already bringing down a truck full of other supplies.

Regardless of the above disclaimer, I was surprised when this became a HUGE deal. Apparently my FIL works really hard for that wood and didn't really want to share, or so my MIL informed me. Now you need to understand that although I love my MIL, she has a tendency to make mountains out of mole hills and sadly it stresses me out on a good day, as I feel it necessary to calm her down.

So when she is going on about how this was too much to ask but then saying that her husband 'can't' say no to his son and she would talk to him again (which implies she is doing me a HUGE favor) I was beyond stressed. Not wanting to snap at her and cause tension for our wedding day I told her not to bother and that it was fine, we would just buy it at the venue. I quickly ended the conversation and wanted to scream. I held it in until we were in the vehicle again and then I started getting worked up. On the verge of crying my MOHs distracted me and we got on with our day.

*Sadly, its a month after the wedding and I am still bitter about this conversation, more on that later. I suppose if something needs to go wrong it could have been a lot worse though.

The remainder of our running around consisted of picking up the cake platter rentals to drop off at the bakers, last minute supplies from Michaels where we found flip flops on sale for 2/$3 and grab 12 pairs for the dance portion of the evening, meeting our make up artist who works at MAC as his day job to pick out our lipstick color and purchase our own so that we could do touch ups if necessary, and buying the last of the appetizer groceries.

Next up, making the appetizers for the Cocktail portion of the wedding, which I inevitably never ended up seeing and no one took pictures of but I am told they were a hit!

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

The Days Leading Up to The Big Day - Wednesday

I have put off blogging for almost a month because I honestly didn't know where to start. Should I keep posting about the preparation or just jump right into the recap? Something silly like this has actually been keeping me from posting. I used the excuse that I was on my honeymoon and then that I was adjusting to my workload again to perpetuate my procrastination but as I sit at my desk and the clock slowly makes its way to 5:00 pm and I realize that this is a PREFECT time to start telling everyone how it all went down because lets be honest weddings are ALWAYS more interesting then payroll or bank reconciliations ... although excel spreadsheets trump all, I'm sorry they just do.

So lets start our journey through recaps with the days before the wedding...

My last day of work had been the Tuesday, with the idea that Wednesday I would spend grocery shopping, Thursday would be our beauty day with the afternoon/evening dedicated to prepping the appetizers for the wedding and Friday we would transport everything to the venue, have our rehearsal and meet & greet.

In the most loose of terms this was how the rest of the week went but not nearly as smoothly as I had hoped.

Wednesday morning started with me attempting to write my vows and finish up designing the signage for the wedding. Which then morphed into me spending way too long on vimeo looking for inspiration, translation...procrastinating, all because I had read a post on Weddingbee by Mrs. Jam about writing your vows (which on a side note was very informative and was all I needed to give my Mr. when explaining how I thought we should write ours) a few weeks earlier and had fallen in love with the vimeo video of her friends' wedding vows.

Here it is...I think I cried the first five times I watched it...






Jacqueline+Brandon Wedding Trailer from NoBox Films & NoBox Productions on Vimeo.



I wanted MY vows to be that awesome but I couldn't seem to put two words together that didn't seem to sound contrived. And sadly no other video did it for me. Basically my standards were set at Jacqueline & Brandon's vows or bust.



I started stressing "What DO I like about my Mr?!" and more importantly "OMG, my love is so lame because I can't think of anything cool or sappy to say"...yes I can be shallow enough to care more about what others will think when I read my vows then whether or not I just LOVE my Mr. I am a terrible person. In fact all I could think of was completely inappropriate things or nothing.



My Mr on the other hand had finished his vows in less then 2 hours a few weeks before when I had first given him the blog post by Mrs. Jam to read. Sometimes I think I hate him just a little.



Wednesday afternoon quickly approached and I had to give up hope of finishing the vows for the time being as I had to run to work and help my assistant process payroll, since I didn't have enough time to go through it before my holidays and I wanted to get paid, plus make it to my massage therapy appointment in time.



After all of that I spent an hour and a half in Costco by myself shopping for supplies to make the wedding appetizers. I had made the mistake of telling my Mr that I would also pick up a few household supplies while I was there, not taking into consideration that those few things consisted of toilet paper, paper towel and huge boxes of cereal. In the end my cart was overflowing with products, I hated the other shoppers that insisted on stopping in the middle of aisles to reminisce with their long lost friends that they bumped into while picking up groceries, my feet were getting blisters, and I wanted to kill myself. I wasn't able to find everything I needed but I decided the rest of the shopping could be put off until Thursday because I was D-O-N-E!



My parents had arrived that afternoon and were waiting at our house when I showed up with my purchases. For some reason my father chose to sit in the living room and enjoy a beer while my mother and I made multiple trips into the house to unload my CRV. To say that I was working hard not to say something bitchy was an understatement...there was a lot of mental counseling going on and I managed to restrain myself.



With everything in the house, I took my mother with me to my MOH K's house to work on last minute details like finish the photo booth props, tying the tags for the favors and cutting out the menus & welcome bag itineraries. With a few glasses of wine all was right in the world again and I felt like it was smooth sailing from here on out. Oh how naive...



Stay tuned for Thursday where my MIL finally makes me snap and I almost have a melt down.

Monday, July 11, 2011

Please stay tuned...

On June 18th 2011, my Mr and I were married and I can't wait to bring you up to date on everything we did to make our wedding so special!


{by Darren Hull Photography}