And now, the end is near......

So now that I'm married I find I have nothing to say(at least about weddings!)

Looking back it was a bumpy ride, totally worth the ride once we arrived at the destination but boy oh boy there were times I was basically thisclose to checking myself into a "health spa".

Do I have regrets? Not for a second. I enjoyed trying on dresses that cost more than a down payment on a house but would I have coughed up the dough for one? Heck no! For me, personally, as much as I fell repeatedly in love with the gloss and glitter of the wedding industry I just couldn't get on board with spending so much money on one day. What can I say I'm cheap!


Eloping is not for everyone BUT I highly recommend it for those who it clicks with! Not one person who might have been upset by the surprise was(at least they didn't tell me they were!). I happen to think that anyone in my life who would have been upset by our eloping would obviously not have really known us. We'd been together ten years so it wasn't like we ran off in the middle of the night and got hitched!

I avoided family drama, which when you have a million relatives is pretty unavoidable! I avoided my mom showing up in a sequined red dress. I avoided having my sister have a nervous breakdown because she has a severe anxiety over making speeches. I avoided drunken relatives picking fights with other drunken relatives(oh it's happened at family weddings.)

I avoided everything that would have caused me to turn into a ball of panic and anxiety. I wanted to get married to the man I loved, simple really, so I did. It was awesome.

This weekend my the parents will have their first meal together as inlaws...should be interesting.

Oh and last weekend my lady friends had a dinner for me. So I'll recap that once I get over the embarrassment of the photos and video(errrgh so drunk.) and then....well then I have something up my sleeve...

What's that smell?

This past weekend my worst nightmare came true.

Just as we were about to go out for the evening our dog made friends with a skunk, just outside our back door. It pretty much got only her face, it may have sprayed her directly in the mouth actually. YUM!

Apparently when you smell skunk outside that is it after it's blown around, pure skunk smells more like a big pile of burning tires. The dog didn't appreciate the bath or the dunking with tomato juice(which only sort of works but at 9pm on a Sunday before Thanksgiving it was the only option...lesson learned? Keep a bottle of skunk odor remover handy always.)

The house smells just from it wafting in through the back door! I've been busy spraying every surface with skunk odor remover. Before the skunking I already had a paranoia of things smelling bad, so now that seemingly everything smells slightly skunking I'm driving myself(and others) mad.

My sister gave me a Lampe Berger and I'm simply in love with it. Although the current scent is a bit too perfumey I plan to switch it up soon to something warm for the winter. It seems to be working a bit to get rid of the skunky smell. I'm so thankful that we only have carpet left in one room and it will soon be gone. If we still had the carpet in the living room I would have insisted that we move out!

Hows married feel?

I've been a bad, bad blogger, I haven't wrote or read any blogs in a week! Life happens right? That's what I've heard anyhow.
Last week I went to my first appointment with a geneticist. I'm being tested for something rare and scary called Cadasil Syndrome. The geneticist said it was highly unlikely that I did have it so I'm not wringing my hands raw or anything.

Being married (for me anyhow) is very much the same as before except with more jewellery and tax breaks. Not that I'm being glib about it but when your with someone for ten years, living with them for most of those well...it doesn't feel much different. I'm married and that's cool, but life altering changing? Well not really. Although I'm incredibly relieved we eloped in the end because if we would have spend $$$$ on a big wedding I might have some buyers remorse right about now. We are slowly starting to throw around ideas for our party. We recently went to a beer tasting and the food was catered by a bakery and it was soooooo good. It was The Mister who even suggested we keep the name of the place!

Waiting for the music to start.

Another oddball photo that I like. Although The Misters suit looks like an optical illusion it's a fine hounds tooth. In the cab over to the court house I nervously tugged at the sweet peas in my bouquet but they were stuck in there good so I ended up with stray flowers. I tucked them into the bouquet afterwards.

Because the ceremony was so short we only got through the first 3 songs of our cd....

1. Please, Please, Please(Let Me Get What I Want) String version of the Smiths song.
2. Northern Sky - Nick Drake
3. Time After Time - Dusty Springfield
4. I'm in Love With a Girl - Big Star
5. You Do Something To Me - Paul Weller
6. Never My Love - The Association (seriously check this song out for first dances.)
7. To The End(La Comedie) - Blur

Short and sweet.

The ceremony was short. As in I blinked back some tears and we were married short. She read some things about rights and houses, we held right hands(which was funny because it was like we were shaking on it.) He said "YES! I DO!!" and I replied "Thanks!!" I said the same back to him, we put our rings on and kissed. We signed more things, our witnesses signed things and BAM we were legally bound.
We took photos, we called our parents, we took more photos, we bought some pink champagne and cupcakes and hopped in a horse drawn carriage(something we've never done, too touristy.) and it was perfect. The horse tried to eat my flowers.
Here is one of my favorite photos. I like my photos like I like my men, a bit quirky.

Lets go to court (or my dad's middle name isn't Anne.)

We agreed to not see what the other was wearing. Which would have been easier if we had not been getting ready in the same room! We were going to meet at the court house at 1pm. I arrived back at the hotel at noon. I started my make up. I had brought my false eyelashes, something I'm a pro at putting on, but I hadn't been able to find the regular glue I use and had bought a different brand which was gummy so I decided to abandon them. I got everything else on and did one eye with liquid liner when I decided to look at the time. Some how it was 12:35, my witness was coming to my room at 12:45. Oh and did I mention that Mister was still getting dressed? Right then my body gave me a surge of adrenalin, which unfortunately for me causes me to shake uncontrollably until I work it out, which I couldn't since I couldn't really move from my chair! I wish it was a panic attack I can deal with those so much better!

Ever try putting on liquid liner when you are shaking like a leaf? Yeah, exactly.

My witness came and Mister left and finally I could finish getting ready. We left the room at 1:10.
Court house, up to the 3rd floor. I see the Mister for the first time and he looks amazing, like I knew he would. He always does though. He told me I looked really beautiful and hot.

Then we sat down with our Justice of the Peace, a woman named Nadia who had her two girls there with her that day. A sweet little girl around 6 years old and a girl who was maybe 13.

We looked over our information for mistakes. There was one. They had my dad's middle name down as Anne, the same as my mothers. After clearing that up they popped in our cd and the music started.

Flowers!

Photo by me, taken in front of the window in our hotel room. Sweet back lighting.

As I mentioned before I always knew I would do my own flowers. For a brief moment where I may have been temporarily insane I had a grand plan of waking up and going to Jean Talon or Atwater market at 7am and strolling around eating a croissant and picking out flowers. Luckily that notion passed and I realised that more than likely I would rather sleep in! Good thing too since we didn't go to bed until 3am the night before!

After taking stock of what was in perfect bloom in my garden I headed out the Friday morning to the local flower markets and bought about 35 dollars worth of flowers all in shades of purple. I got tiny white carnations that were streaked with purple, roses, pom pom dahlias, tiny kale, lisianthus and some filler. I went home cut some more dahlias and sweet peas.
Now if I was a good blogger I would have taken step by step photos...but alas I did not, so instead here is the play by play....

I stripped all the flowers of thorns and leaves, put aside any that were looking a bit sad and then starting with the kale I placed them in my left hand making X's with the stems and turning every now and then until I had what I wanted. Then holding it like a bouquet I decided if I needed to move things or add things and then about 15 minutes after I started I wrapped it in some floral tape, cut all the stems to one length under water and then set it in a vase with some water at the bottom for the trip. I picked tough flowers. Other than the lisianthus and sweet peas all the other flowers could take some beating. I also took along several extra flowers just in case and although I didn't need them I did remove one flower that got the droops during it's trip, since it was near the base it didn't even matter.

The day of the wedding I took them out of the vase, dried the stems with a towel and covered the floral tape with some ribbon that I just tied in a bow. I left the bouquet at the hotel taking only some roses to press at home. Also I'd like to point out that the 35 dollars I spent on flowers from the market gave me enough flowers that I could have easily made 2-3 smaller bouquets after making mine. Instead I threw them in a vase and left them in my kitchen.