If only....

A while back I stumbled upon this little gem on Frugal Bride while looking for a vendor. It burns my bread to read it because isn't eloping the most frugal option? For a site that wants to promote frugalness they sure seem to look down their noses at elopers. Thing is I actually like the site. There is a lot of useful information on there, especially for Canadians. So having something like this on there is really insulting. Maybe though I'm over reacting......

WHY DO PEOPLE ELOPE?
Parents don't like your choice of partner.
Just wanna get married and get it over with
Illness
Your fiancée is pregnant
You're going to jail
You're going to war
You're leaving the country
You want to become a citizen of a country
Spur of the moment thing, "What the heck, let's do it!"

Wow right? So I'm reading this and thinking "Wow too bad I'm not a sick ,jailed, pregnant, immigrant who is going off to war, whose parents hate my fiance" but then there's also the "Ugh we hate wedding lets get this over with" line and the "Oh my god we just met! We are soul mates! Let's get married!" line. Really those are all the reasons to elope? What about "We cannot afford a big wedding and don't want to go into debt to host one" or "We just want the two of us and our closest family there." or "Let's spend the money we were going to use on one day on XYZ instead"

It's really funny to me that the wedding world just assumes that every bride wants to have her Cinderella ball and that if you don't there must be something wrong with you..like perhaps your dying or in the country illegally.

What's a bride?

So you might have guessed that the September plan is going forward. I'll continue planning unless my neurologist(seriously when did I become the girl with a bunch of specialists?) tells me that those lesions on my brain are something gruesome...I mean more gruesome than lesions, seriously could that be a more ugly word? You could totally be all "Girl...did you see that dress? It's totally a lesion." maybe because for some reason it also makes me think of leprosy and leeches....anyhow. ON WITH THE SHOW!!!!

It's really odd how the wedding industry works it's magic. Somehow without me even knowing it sneakily seduced The Mister with the idea of what a wedding dress should be. When he saw the red dress he said it wasn't very "bridey" or "weddingy" (the fact that neither of these are actual words didn't matter to him." but couldn't really elaborate on what either of those words meant to him. More white? More lace? More train? What exactly? Isn't the fact that I'm wearing it make it "bridey" and the fact that I'm at a wedding make it "weddingy"?

He deemed this dress "Not bad"

and I agree, but who wants to wear a "not bad" dress to get married in? Would you want a "not bad hair cut"? I forget who made this dress but the material was meltable and it was around the same price as the lace dress. This dress he called "cute". CUTE!


I don't know about you but cute is not what I want to be called by my man on my wedding day! Words that I would like are: hot, stunning, gorgeous, beautiful, sexy, oh my god lets make babies! Things like that. Not cute.

So you've all seen the lace dress. So what do you think he said when he saw it? Any guesses?

Hint: it wasn't cute.

My mother's secret Vegas showgirl dream.

So my second weekend of wedding dress shopping I ventured to my home town for, which is just 40 minutes by train from my house. I didn't think I would find anything I really liked but I was pleasantly surprised. I had decided to go there and try on dresses so I could have the sister, a bff and my mother come out and watch me try various frocks on. It would have been hard to get all 3 in the same spot otherwise and well...honestly having my mother around tends to make me lose my mind rather fast. I love her but there are more issues there than Reader's Digest.
My first appointment was at 3pm.
We go to pick up my mother who, like me, does not drive or have a license(I do have my motorcycle license.) she looks perfectly fine in jeans and a top. Right before we go to leave she goes and changes into a clingy long dress that doesn't look that great on her. My dad asks why she changed and she tells him that she wanted something easy to get off if she decides to try on dresses.
See my mother has a habit of making anything and everything about her. Sometimes it's manageable but when she's going on about how she would give you some clothes she no longer wears but they wouldn't fit because they are size 4 and should she keep them just in case you do lose the weight?....well...my mind starts to melt. I could start a whole new blog just about her and I would be able to post every day for the rest of my life.
I'm blow off the comment because of course if she saw something she liked she should try it on, I wouldn't mind. It just seems that all she can think about is finding herself a dress. We get to the store and enter and there is a pile of shoes and a sign asking everyone to please remove their shoes. My mother balks at this several times standing there asking me if she has to. Which I find funny because she's wearing sandals so she's practically barefoot already. I start going through the gowns and she walks across the store still in her shoes! I tell her she has to remove them and she acts flabbergasted and states that she isn't trying on dresses. I explain to her that a lot of bridal stores ask you to remove your shoes, white dresses and dirt after all are not the best of combos. She finally takes them off. Phew. The store over all really only had one type of silhouette so I mostly tried on dresses for "fun" they had two suitable dresses that were shorter "destination" dresses but both of them were made of material that was awful. One of them felt like sleeping bag material, nylon maybe, and the other was 100% polyester. YUM!
She made some comments that were..well..embarrassing, about my boobs and my sisters boobs and completely making something up that apparently I used to always say but in actuality have never once uttered. But over all it wasn't too bad, she didn't seem too into the being there and kept showing my sister dresses she liked that were really, really, well....tacky. She told my sister that I had told her I wanted her to wear red, which I hadn't but my mom likes to wear red so she stands out and I could handle a red dress but all the ones she liked were suitable for a Vegas show girl and not my 54 year old mother.

The next morning I called her to tell her we'd be going to store number two at 11:30am.
She says "Ok we'll meet you there."
Me: "Uhhh who is we?"
Her: "My friend and I."
Now, I have met this person once, maybe twice. I honestly couldn't pick her out of a lineup if I had to. I totally pulled a Bridezilla and said "Um no, this is just for you, my sister and bff. No one else. I don't want someone I've met once there." she snippily said "fine, fine." and hung up.
I asked my sister and bff if I was being crazy and they assured me I wasn't. Seriously who does that? It's not like this friend is an old family friend, my mom has only known her for maybe 5 years or so. When we arrived and had to remove our shoes again she acted like she was being asked to walk around naked. Even though I'd already told her she would have to! Argh.

The second store had more dresses but was poorly laid out, the staff wasn't exactly helpful but they were nice. Since they didn't take appointments the staff was spread thin once the place started getting crowded. Again my mother started pulling out show girl dresses...now please remember that my wedding will be on a Friday afternoon followed by high tea. Here is something I think would be suitable....
Now here is something similar to the dresses that my mother was thinking she could wear.......




This is why I'm going with her to find her dress. Imagine if I was having a formal evening wedding?

Are you my dress?

Another weekend of trying on dresses. This time for fun I went to my home town and my sister, a bff and my mother came along for the ride(Oh man my mother..I'll have a whole post coming up on that!). I have a whole whack of photos of dresses that were beautiful but inappropriate for Friday afternoon nuptials. We were about to leave the second store when we went into a room that I thought held M.O.B dresses but actually was the clearance room. Usually clearance rooms are full of frocks from the 80's and 90's sad dresses that no one even wanted then and are now doomed to live out the rest of their lives at a fraction of their original price until someone needs a costume. Not this one! Sure it had some atrocities but most of the gowns were just from last seasons collections and were styles that just were not popular in my home town. I pawed through them (there is no gentle way to pull out a gown smooshed in with 30 others!) and there on the rack were three Pronovias/La Sposa dresses that were simply amazing, including one short one.
I tried them on and all of them were beautiful but the short one was the most the first dress I felt comfortable in. It was bridey but not too formal or bedazzled. You wanna see? Yes? Ok then....

The quality is stunning. Handmade lace? Yes please! Silk lining? Alright! 70% off? You don't say! The dress is by La Sposa, I cannot find a photo of it on line making me think it might be from a 2008 collection or a 2007. It's a bit tight but that should be easily fixed. One of my favorite things though is that I'll be able to wear a normal bra! Hooray. It's on hold while I thought about it and I think I love it. I had to go away and think because I'm a bit of a deal whore and wanted to make sure that I wasn't in love because it was a fraction of it's original price. I honestly don't think that I will find anything as lovely for the same price or even close. And since it is all natural fibres I can easily get it dyed and wear it again!

And yes pretty much every photo of me wearing a wedding dress is me posed like this. Freakin' mutton arms.

Double fives!

Seriously April is kicking my butt.

Yesterday I felt nauseous as I went into work by 11am I was laying on the floor of the office bathroom shivering and puking up my yogurt and berries.

(No, I'm not pregnant. Seems if a lady is puking that is the first question everyone asks!)

A co-worker drove me home where I was sick some more, took some Pepto pills(no way could I drink that stuff...ew.) and slept like I had been drugged for about 5 hours. I ate a banana, some toast and The Mister brought me apple juice.

I had a fever of 102 and could barely walk. My head was pounding. Over all it was horrific.

Then I woke up this morning and felt fine. 100% better.

Seriously what the heck?

Stomach bug? Another bout of food poisoning? Could April get anymore sickly?

Anyhoot...I weighed myself this morning because other than yesterday I have been pretty good this week, getting to the gym 3 times and eating pretty well. I'm willing to guess that half of this loss is from yesterday though.

Seriously though two 5's! I cannot remember the last time I saw two 5's in a row on a scale!

Let's play dress up!

So on Saturday we headed to an early appointment at White in Yorkville here in Toronto. I honestly don't think I will ever enter another store with such amazing customer service. It truly was perfection. Everything was organized by designer and we got our own HUGE room to try on dresses. It was grand! I did find out that mermaid dresses look horrid on me, if I ever want to show off all the worst parts of my body I will wear a mermaid dress. We took some photos of the ones we liked, to show my mother and sister who weren't able to make it.


This is one of the dresses I tried on, obviously that is not me, the Oscar De La Renta rack was full of dresses I wanted to marry. Seriously this picture just does not do the dress justice. It was breath taking...on the rack. On me...well, hello child bearing hips! Guess ten grand couldn't fix that!

Oh look it's my headless body! (The photos were all taken from a downward angle so I cut off my head to save everyone from the many chins of doom!)
This darling, wonderful, beauty is the handy work of Monique Lhuiller. The detail on the bodice was dreamy. On it made me feel like dancing! I joked that I was going to knock out the sales girl and make a run for it, yes...joked that's it...ha.ha. errrr. She was less than the Oscar, but more than say...a used car...at 5800. Sigh. You can sort of see my ring in the photo proving to all that I am actually engaged. Yes someone totally wants to marry me.


Now on to the infamous red dress.....


It had pockets! For my stuff! I still think it's a darling dress and the colour makes me realise that I need more red in my wardrobe! Those shoes were so comfy, Oscar De La Renta yet again! They cost more than the dress! Like double!

The Jenny Packham dresses were beautiful, this one had straps that formed triangles in the back that were incredibly beaded. The dress just floated and swooshed around. Again the angle makes me look like I'm preggers but I am grateful that my friend was able to take some photos! The boutique even fed them! Tiny lemon poppy scones, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate macaroons! I want to go there every week!

Thinking thoughts about things.

First off thank you ladies for A) all your comments, it's good to have people who are detached from the situation to offer level headed advice and B) for actually reading through that last posts numerous cluttered backwards sentences. Although a bar in the bathroom would have been nice there wasn't, but I'm assuming y'all knew that!

I honestly have not been the same since Sunday. I feel completely disconnected and out of sorts. It could be the horrid weather here in T.O, rain, rain, rain and oh look it's raining!
I just feel like I need to rethink everything. Like this plan was patched together because I compromised what I wanted to the very basics with the promises that there would be X, Y, Z if our wedding went this route. Z can only happen if Y does and right now I'm not confident that Y will happen. I need to think and then think some more and then when I'm think I'm done thinking I've got to think about it again. I need to know that what I'm doing is right.

Also I haven't talked about this because I didn't want to be a big downer, but I recently found out that I have lesions on my brain, a lot according to my neurologist. I don't know if a lot is 3 or if it's 100, when he told me I was too shocked to ask. Apparently lesions only occur on the brain through trauma or disease. I haven't suffered any trauma to the best of my knowledge. My next MRI is in May and they will be injecting me with some gadolinium which they didn't do last time. I keep telling myself it is nothing to worry about but every shooting pain in my head and every time something feels odd I can't help but wonder if it's because of that. In truth I am scared. If by some bizarre twist of fate I am actually sick I want to have the original wedding I had planned. I want to dance with my friends and eat amazing food. I want a night to remember. I know it sounds horrible but that's what I always wanted. I'm seriously one of the most glass half full people you will meet, at least I try to be, I don't take anything very seriously except health because without your health what do you have?

I've got so much on my plate right now and I'm just not hungry at all. I just keep pushing it all around and soon it's going to be one big gross mess of stuff.

You Say Tomato...

I'm just waiting for my friend to send me the photos she was able to take from the dress try outs until I tell you all about my day of being topless around strangers.

I will tell you that I tried on this Jenny Yoo but in red and instantly fell in love with it. I even was thinking about getting it in red because the colour just really looked that good on me.

I then mentioned it being red to The Mister who told me "You can't wear a red wedding dress!" Okay fine I could deal with that. Although to get the dress in white it costs 200 dollars more!! I kid you not!

Last night we were out with friends celebrating The Mister's birthday and I decided to show him the photos from the day. When it got to this one(in red) and said "I hate that one, it doesn't even look like a wedding dress." I hadn't told him that was the one I loved. I ended up in the bar of the bathroom crying and for the last 24 hours have been thinking about calling the whole thing off. Not just because he hates the one dress the fits the budget and looks amazing on me. But because I'm still(STILL!) planning this by myself and I'm just suppose to guess at what he thinks a wedding should be. Like today he again mentioned cake and I finally said "We are not having a cake and I am not wearing a real wedding dress, I want these things, but we are not having them."

So I'm sitting here thinking about what I'm going to do. I could still get my deposit back for the tea no problem and that's the only money that has been put out.

No one warned me!

Why didn't anyone tell me that trying on wedding dresses was incredibly exhausting?

New pants are needed.

One of my bff's got herself a sweet little job with Goodlife Fitness at one of their Platinum Plus Women Only gyms AND one of the benefits was she was able to give me a free 3 month membership! The other benefit is I get to see her practically every day and she's one of those people who is really able to motivate others and gets you all excited about how awesome it's going to be even when you know that really jumping up and down for an hour with weights is pretty much the opposite of awesome. Somehow though she makes it fun, she's got that magic!

So for the last two weeks I've been hitting the gym. I only went twice last week due to being sick and I've only gone three times this week(including today) and mostly I've done strength training with some light cardio and lots of walking.I didn't post a weigh in last week because A) I was sick B) I was bloated and C) There was no change from the week before. So I figured I'd just skip it.

This morning I stepped on the scale, got off it and stepped on it again and again. The numbers were the same all four times I stepped on that thing................ Just .8 from 10lbs lost since Feb.26! This also means that since my doctor weighed me back in November I've lost 15lbs! Whoop!

Seriously I did not believe it, mostly because when I finally got over the food poisoning last weekend I could only stomach pancakes and plain pasta. Not exactly the most nutritious foods on the planet!

Another perk of having an insider at the gym is she hooked me up with a fitness assessment which I'm going to on Monday. Should be fun to get all my fat readings and measurements! Hopefully the gym scale is as friendly as my home scale and I don't step on it and get told that I have actually only lost 3lbs and my home scale is a liar because it's tired of me repeatedly stepping on it.

There is a downside though. No it's not my incredibly desire to celebrate with a large chunk of cheese....cake, it's my clothes. Most of my pants are now too big. Yeah I know, poor me, wah, wah, wah. But I loathe shopping for pants. Yes this is great and I am looking forward to a whole new wardrobe BUT I don't want to spend money on these in between sizes while I get there. So I'm off to Joe Fresh to buy some inbetweener clothes to get me through the next 26lbs.

The cranks and gears.

Woot! Just got an email from Sephora for 15% off...guess where I'm heading at lunch?
I'm thinking I'll get a lip gloss or something for my skin. I heart Sephora!

AND this morning I won a donut(will get a muffin though because A) they seem healthier, although they are probably not and B) a muffin costs more than a donut and it makes it seem like I won MORE! HA!

AND I also won 6 dollars on a 3 dollar scratch ticket. I buy one a week and then if I win I get another and pocket any profit and so on until I lose. Last week I profited 12 dollars!

In wedding news..what?? you didn't come here to read about my petty addictions?...I am having a hard time getting an officiant to respond to me. Seriously I've contacted two and have heard nothing back. I know people are busy but come on! I just want to pay you a crazy amount of money for showing up and making it all legal! If someone called me up and said "Hi can you come out for an hour on a Friday afternoon, talk for 15 minutes and I'll pay you several hundred dollars?" I would be all over that. I'm sure there is some work beforehand, but I'd still be calling people back asap. I've got a couple of others on my list.

Also what does one wear to try on wedding dresses? Obviously not black fish nets but should I wear my Spanx and a strapless bra? Should I bring heels? I'm guessing that red lipstick is a no go as well. Not that I would because I would be so paranoid that I would trip and land lips first into the most expensive dress in the whole store and it would be ruined and they would make me pay for it, which wouldn't be so bad except it would also be the one dress that looked horrible on me. Yes, this is how the gears and cranks in my noggin work.
Oh come on you knew I was that neurotic!

No means no...ok it really means no need to worry.

I get incredibly nervous when calling up places to make appointments. For some bizarre reason I have this fear that when I ask to book something they will tell me "NO." I know it's crazy.
I have been staring at the list of four bridal salons here in the city and one in my home town for the last few days and finally today picked up the phone and called. To my complete and utter surprise all of them in town had openings this Saturday, of course because I value my sanity I booked only two for this week and the other two for May 2nd. I figured it would be a while until I could get in to any of them, especially on a Saturday! Guess not!
I then called the one place in my home town and had the following conversation....
Me - Hi I'd like to make an appointment to try on some dresses.
Lady(with heavy stern sounding accent) - No.
Me - Ummm no?
Lady - No dear we do not make appointments. You can just come in.
Me - Ohh! So I can just walk in? Ok thank you!

Seriously when she said "No." my heart literally leaped out of my chest it was my worst fear come true! Her accent (honestly a very serious stern sounding European one!) made it sound like she was saying no to me personally! After I got off the phone I laughed and told a coworker who I had just earlier today told of my irrational fear of being told NO!

Playing dress up.

Since my wedding is a Friday afternoon I obviously will not be wearing a giant ballgown or have a lengthy train...but what I am wondering is what is the line for dresses that if crossed I would look the other side of crazy. I've shown you the Jenny Yoo dresses that I adore and I know that they are daytime high tea appropriate. BUT...what if I wanted a dress that was slightly more formal would I look like a nutbar? Say a dress like this one:

or this one.....
Too fancy right? I'm mostly in love with the polka dot tulle at the bottom of the second one, seriously polka dots on anything = LOVE. I have a fear that I will try on a dress just like one of these and fall in love.

Oh how time flies.

Bleh..nothing like spending a long weekend dying from food poisoning. Fun times! I had such a bad headache that I was seeing flashing lights it was like a disco in my brain. My stomach still feels like it went several rounds with a boxer.

So here I am with just under five months until we get married. Oh. Ack. Err. Okay time to make a list and check it twice and then start making phone calls and getting things moving because....
OH MY GOSH THERE'S LESS THAN 5 MONTHS UNTIL I GET MARRIED!
I think I've just been slacking because it's such a small affair and it doesn't seem like there is much to do because it's a Friday afternoon high tea and that's all set. I was so looking forward to all the DIY projects to put my own personal stamp on a venue but in the end I'm not having any of that so I'm just left with the basics, none of which I have!

I also realised today that I haven't even looked at dresses. Other than the JCrew one that is hanging sadly in my closet I haven't bothered actually going into a shop and looking. Yeah I know I'm cutting it close, if not too late! Ack! I was dreaming of going dress shopping when I had lost more weight so I wouldn't hate it so much...looks like I'm going to be heading out next weekend if I can..or maybe during my lunch hour..who does that? Who looks at dresses during lunch hour?!?! Can I even do that? How long does it take? Also fascinator/veil, shoes, makeup, hair, jewellery...all that stuff. Oh.oh.oh.oh.

Officiant. yeah still have not dealt with this...bleh.

Ceremony site. Apparently The Mister was going to call some places but apparently he hasn't.

Vows and readings and all that. There's only 14 people attending 4 of them are in the wedding party! I want to get everyone involved and feeling like they are part of something special. Now I have to figure out readings...Little Prince? Velveteen Rabbit? Wizard of Oz? I have no clue what people read at weddings! Dang I've never wished more that I attended church before, those church people always have things planned!

Rings. It's going to be so fun trying to get The Mister to come out jewellery shopping with me. It won't be anything like pulling teeth at all. Oh and my ring was custom made so it should be super fun trying to find a band that fits it!

Flowers. I'm not freaked out about this. Doing my own from either my garden or if that fails hitting up the flower market the day before. Should probably do some trials before though. Just for fun.

Invites. Linocut prints...guess I should go buy some lino and dig out my cutting tools from their hiding place. Better start this soon because I know I'll make mistakes.

Favors...originally I was going to give out jam...but it was going to be The Misters mom's homemade jam but giving his parents and sister the jam, which would basically be giving the jam back to them, seems wrong. Do we give something different to our parents?

What am I forgetting? Something big I bet!
Ok I'm going to go write these things in my calendar and then pull The Mister away from his video game and explain that some things need doing or else I'm going to lose my mind.

It was Ravioli.

Sorry for lack of posts this week.
After finally kicking the head cold by Friday and having a good night with friends The Mister and I woke up this morning feeling all sorts of gross. We soon realised we had a nice little bout of food poisoning on our hands.
The only thing we can pinpoint eating that may have caused it was the ravioli we had for dinner last night.
blah.

Keys to my heart!

Have you seen the Tiffany keys?

My obsession with old fashioned keys started when I was very young, my Nanny moved into a house that had mysterious keys left behind. I imagined that they unlocked some sort of magical door that led to a secret room. A room untouched by time. Prices start at 130CDN for a simple silver key. This would be one key I would never misplace!

Sick,sick,sick.

Sooo sick. Be back when I don't feel like someone has filled my head with hot pudding.
I'd like to thank The Mister for bringing it home. Although I'm not acting half as sick as he was...what is it with men when they are sick? Do they all turn into two year olds?

It's been a good run but...

I think I'm over Martha Stewart Weddings magazine.

For the last ten years(oh who am I kidding? I've been buying it for much longer than that!) I have been a member of the cult of MS Weddings. Pouring over the pages and feeling my heart rate rise with each lovely image. I started to notice the effects wearing off some time last year, yes it was still incredible eye candy and yes it was still inspiring but something was missing. I just didn't know what. Had they changed? Had I changed? I just couldn't put my finger on it.

Yesterday I saw the new Spring issue and as I have for every issue I bought it without looking at the contents. I got it home and did my little ritual of pouring myself some wine before cracking it open. Something happened that had never happened before. I put it down without going cover to cover. Maybe it was because they are starting to recycle ideas, the cootie catcher? A flower made of tissue? Covered match boxes? I was starting to feel a bit like I was having deja vu. Then there was the sheer amount of things with outlandish prices.You know that MSWeddings isn't feeling the recession when they recommend 420 dollar face cream or acne skin treatments that cost 400-600 dollars per treatment! Yes it is all still incredibly lovely but it was a bit like an exercise in voyeurism into this land where money grows on trees and every gal has a 10 carat diamond and a 10 grand dress.

It suddenly dawned on me that wedding magazines are like late night informercials. They show you how amazing something is over and over until you start to think that you just couldn't possibly live without it.

I love Martha Stewart(lets face she's a sassy broad who'd I'd invite over to dinner in a heartbeat.) in general but perhaps because of the economic times were all facing, the excess that is the Weddings magazine just isn't a world I feel comfortable even peaking into at the moment.

So I'm going to break up with her. Sure I might has a quick fling with her in the Summer and Fall(my favorite issue) but I might have to contain them to reading in store, and there's always the internet if I feel lonely.
So farewell MS Weddings I know you will bring joy to many, many other girls hearts like you once did mine.
It's not you it's me.

Week six!

Sorry for being M.I.A this week. Work has been so busy, yesterday I stayed until 8pm! A couple of things happened this week one of them was I ate two fast food meals. I fully admit that while eating them I thought "oh this is heaven." but about 5 minutes after I was finished I felt incredibly sick which is obviously why I went back for more the next day you know just to make sure. Despite the delicious fries or maybe because of them I did get out daily for exercise. I took my dog for an hour and a half walk, climbed up about 80 stairs and saw a deer on someones front lawn! It's always so magical to see something like that in the city. I was fully prepared this morning to step on the scale and see that I'd either gained more weight or stayed the same.

So I was thrilled to bits when I saw the number appear.........

Ahh back on track!

Stuff so far.

I always said I worked best under a tight deadline. Every essay I wrote the day it was due always came back with at least a 90.

• So far I've got a photographer, verbally booked, just waiting for her to send over a contract.


• Our reception venue contract signed, dollars deposited.


• I've decided what I'm going to do for the few invitations we are sending out. I'm not sure how many people know what linocut prints are but it's one of the art mediums I can honestly brag about being somewhat good at. Limited edition prints as invitations!


• Made a short list of ceremony sites that we are interested in.


• Talked about favors.

Ok so we should probably book an officiant. That's probably the biggest thing that's missing right now. I mean we could get married in any old outfits but you need an officiant to make it all legal. How do you pick a stranger to perform a life changing ceremony? My number one choice would be a friend, but here in Ontario you cannot get a quick internet ordainment. Nope it has to be a recognized member of clergy or a justice of peace. At least that's my understanding from all the things I have read on government sites. Sure there's all sorts of people to choose from but it's all a bit like speed dating. It's easy to like someone based on a conversation where they are trying to sell themselves. I've heard horror stories of officiants not remembering names, showing up drunk, deviating from the script. I just want something simple, meaningful where we say our vows, exchange rings and kiss. I don't even understand why we need an officiant once we have a marriage license!