wedding

so, as promised in the opening entry of this lovely little blog, i said that at some point i may discuss the upcoming wedding - this post is going to do exactly that.

lately, with the buying of the home (no one ever tells you how much work the actual buying process is, by the way), moving into the house, the ongoing renovations and the constant pile of homework i am slowly but surly being buried alive under, i have have been neglecting the wedding plans. to be honest, i find the whole thing overwhelming. there is so much to do and, especially in my case, so little time to do it in. everyone told me i had bitten off more than i could chew attempting to finish school and planning a wedding; i can only imagine what our friends and families were thinking when we told them we were buying a house on top of that. now i have to finish my last term of university, plan a wedding and deal with all the responsibilities that come with buying a new home all the while working +24 hours a week. well, somehow, i am doing it all... with a lot of help from jesse, of course.

so here is where i currently stand on the wedding front; i have booked my venue, purchased my dress, chosen the bridesmaid dresses, booked the caterer and looked into hotels. i have pretty much decided on the center pieces and wedding favors, but i am still debating on most the decor. i don't have a dj, but i do have a first dance song. i have not ordered the wedding cake, but i do have a cake decorator. we still have to book a commissioner (is that what you call the person who marries you? see... i am still clueless on many aspects of this whole wedding planning process). while i feel like i have a conquered most of the major aspects... i still have a ton of things to accomplish.

we have decided to get married at the Cochrane Ranche House and we are incredibly excited about the venue. to be honest, we did not think we were going to be lucky enough to get married here but, thankfully, another couple had booked two dates in september and cancelled one last minute, leaving it free for us to snatch up. we are really excited to get married so close to the mountains since the majority of our family is not from calgary and rarely get to experience how beautiful they are; we figured if they were going to be traveling all this way we may as well take advantage of the amazing scenery... if it is a nice day that is. We are planning on having the ceremony outside on a hill over looking a tree filled ravine, weather permitting of course. Thankfully, there is another room we can use for the ceremony if the weather is not cooperating, as it rarely does in calgary and the neighbouring areas; the room has floor to ceiling windows so even if its horrible weather we will be able to stay dry without sacrificing the view. Either way, the reception room is absolutely beautiful, so i will be happy regardless of whether or not the ceremony is inside or out.

Hall of Vision; our reception room

so... we booked that in august and honestly, since then, we haven't really accomplished much. i purchased my dress in october from Blissful Bridal; i would seriously recommend them to anyone looking for a good quality, reasonably priced wedding dress. i had looked at a few other places that people had recommended and was less than impressed with their customer service; all the previous places i look were 1) incredibly expensive considering the quality and 2) made you feel rushed and like you were waisting their time when in reality, you were just trying to find the perfect dress. blissful bridal was the exact opposite; all their dresses were under $1500 and they encouraged you to try on as many dresses as you wanted. i liked them so much i am actually going to get my bridesmaid dresses from their as well; you get 20% off your bridesmaid dresses if you purchase your dress there. i ordered it so early because they told me it took 6-8 months to come in then an additionally 2-3 months for alterations but it came in 6 weeks so now it is sitting in a closet at my moms place.

at that point, i felt pretty accomplished. i figured i have the place picked, the dress picked and the guy picked... really, what more do you need? apparently, a lot more. we were told we had to book a caterer about 6-8 months before. the ranche house only allows you to choose from four different caterer's and thankfully, we found one we liked: Gourmet 2 Go. They are a cochrane based catering company and we are really excited to work with them; their meals sound delicious and they are going to be doing a really neat, original dessert that plays off their famous local ice cream that will go really well with the wedding cake. i am getting really excited about the wedding cake. jesse's mom is a cake decorator so, luckily, we get to choose exactly what we want. it really means a lot to us that she will be making the cake.

at this point, i feel far from accomplished. we still have so much we have to do. i am still debating the wedding favors; we are for sure going to go with these really cute, hand made soaps that val, jesse's mom, found at a local farmers market but i am still debating whether or not we will also be doing custom shot glasses. neither of our parents were really sold on the idea of the shot glasses but it is something both jesse and i really want to do. i feel like, for the most part, we tend to be swayed very easily by both our parents opinions on almost everything, but for once, we are both standing a pretty firm ground on this one, which is why i think it is important to research it. at this point we think we may do both. i do agree with our parents that giving our grandmothers a shot glass in memory of our wedding is a little odd, which is why i like the idea of the hand made soap, but i am not willing to put a kibosh on the idea all together. i really want to do both so i am hoping that we can make it happen.

i am thinking something like this - obviously not in blue though.

lately, i have been looking into the table settings. i have decided that i want something fairly simple: elegant and rustic. a few months ago my mom and i purchased these really beautiful hurricane lamps that we are planning on filling with river rocks, to match the wall in the hall, then sticking a pillar candle in the centre and possibly wrapping some ribbon around it.

i really want to do my place settings all white. i may add a coloured sash to the chair covers, but i am not sure. if i did i would want it to be a sheer fabric either in purple or bronze since those are the colours i have decided on. i like the idea of plain white with the white candles and the natural, river rock. i think don't know why but i really love the simplicity of it all. i hate when people go over board on wedding decorations - the bride and grooms faces and names splattered all over the walls, bombarding the visitors with their overly enthusiastic love for each other; in my opinion, that's nauseating. if i invited you to my wedding i am assuming you know my name, i shouldn't have to write it on every surface possible for you... but to each their own i guess.




i know there is still so much i have to do... they say that making lists make people feel better; the process of writing things down creates a feeling of organization and crossing things off as you accomplish them provides satisfaction and alleviates stress. lets see if it works...



things to do for the wedding:
* hire a commissioner
* hire a dj
* order bridesmaid dresses
* order jesse's suit
* order the suits for the grooms party
* order wedding favors
* order bridal/grooms party gifts
* make centerpieces
* order our wedding cake
* write our vows
* make and send out invitations
* decide on a reserve hotel rooms for the wedding party, family and guests
* write various speeches
* organize the rehesal dinner
* purchase all the alcohol
* make place settings
* order the chair covers
* order flowers

that is all i can think of at the moment but i am sure there are some things i am forgetting and even more things i didn't even know you had to do. i think the next major project will be making and sending out the official invitations. i find this part to be the most stressful aspect of the entire thing. we purposely went with this venue since it was only able to hold 112 people; we have 12 people, including ourselves, in our bridal party so that leaves another 100 spots for guest. we knew when we got engaged that the guestlist would be an issue. i feel a constant, nagging pressure about the guestlist. it seems like the invitation requests are never ending... i know that 112 people is no even close to enough which is completely ridiculous. since we have two separate groups of friends, plus old friends, plus our massive families and their friends, 100 spots fill up very quickly. every time i go for coffee or dinner with an old friend i get the "i better be invited to your wedding" or "i am so excited to see your dress at the wedding" or "oh, the wedding is going to be so fun". its incredibly stressful. i hate having to decide who is "worthy" of coming and who is not. on top of that both of our parents have a lengthy list of people they would like to come. this is what i think is the most stressful. its hard because these people are important to them, so they want them to be there to share in the experience, but to us, they are not exactly on the top of our list, and in reality, it is our special day and we probably have people we would rather be there but we still want to make them happy. it has gotten to the point that i am so overwhelmed with the guest list that i have actually stopped looking at it - i have not looked at it since august. i just don't know what to do. either way, we will be disappointing people.

wow, i have successfully ranted the longest entry yet. i obviously need to blog about my wedding more often.