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.

FOUR!

In all my years of visiting Montreal it has never rained. Please go now and knock on wood. I'm looking at that forecast and thinking that Friday rain better stay put! I could deal with a bit few more degrees on the thermometer but 16 is pretty nice still. I'm praying (something I rarely do unless I really, really mean it.) that whatever system(a big L or H) moves swiftly through Montreal the rain is pushed off until Monday. Fingers crossed!

I figured out the dress issue. I spent all last night stuffed into Spanx and trying on every dress in my closet. I then flipped the original dress inside out and took a good look at the seam allowance. I stuffed it in a bag with my dry cleaning and decided if my seamstress could let it out by Thursday then it's sign. Really it only needs maybe an inch total not much.

So I went in and showed them the dress. We all stared at the seams and I held my breath.
It's doable! They can let it out, not by much, by about an inch!!!

I was worried that it would cost me an arm and a leg. It didn't even cost a pinky toe! I pick it up Thursday. Even though I said I wasn't freaking out having them say that it was doable felt like someone told me they could cure gray hair, just something I no longer have to worry about!

I wasn't freaking but I wasn't not freaking if you know what I mean.

Two good things in two days!

Right now I'm dying. Sick, sick, sick. My face is full of grossness and I'm cold and then hot and then cold and seeing bright lights due to the cold medicine I've taken. Weeeee!

Yesterday The Mister cheered me up by surprising me with a gift certificate for a very fancy lingerie store! I'm going to be rocking some fine french underpants on our wedding day!
Going there next week for a proper bra fitting. I've had it done before but it's been a while, should be interesting to see if theres a difference.

Today we went and picked out rings. At first it looked like we would have to have mine custom made which was going to cost $$$. The guy helping us was the owners younger brother(I think) and they were just opening when we went in. It looked like we were going to be dropping some large bills on my band(dang custom engagement ring!) then The Mister points into a box and goes "what about that one?" and of the little brother pulls it out for me and it fits perfectly and looks perfect with my ring! Hooray!

The Mister went with titanium. Small thin band. He decided on titanium due to it's strength and durability. It's plain and simple just like he wanted. My band is a white gold knife edge to match the band on my engagement ring. Both rings came in at.......240, the fact that I found something that was in stock and didn't have to be custom made just resized saved us about 400 bucks!

So thank goodness for The Misters eagle eye!

Twenty Four (it's a good show I hear.)

Twenty four days.

About this time 10 years ago I was writing sappy, love struck, melodramatic things in my journal. Something about his blond curls or blue eyes or his perfect lips. Oh and I was moving back home in a few weeks. We both knew this but it didn't stop us from hanging out all of the time. It was a feverish end of summer affair. I think at first we both thought that I would leave and that would be the end. Except by the time I did roll out of town I was praying to every God that would listen that he would call me soon. He called the next day.

My friends and my mother told me to forget about him, move on etc. But I knew. I knew already.

He asked me one night during one of our hours long phone calls if I'd be his girlfriend, something a guy hadn't done since...hmm maybe early high school? Heck it might have been even grade school! I giggled and said yes.

We declared our love about a month after that, the first time we saw each other since I'd moved.
We moved in together 5 months after that. We haven't been apart since.

Ten years. Not always perfect or easy but what relationship is? We have our problems and issues and we work through them because we love each other so very much.

Ten years and 5 days after he asked me to be his girlfriend he's going to promise to be my husband.

Let there be music!

On Friday we got a registered letter in the mail confirming that we are indeed getting married on September 19th. It had some useful information (seriously that's what it said!) like we should arrive 10 minutes before our ceremony, bring two witnesses and ID and that we could bring a cd of music to play! MUSIC! OF OUR CHOICE!!!


I already know what the first song on the cd is going to be.


A string version of Morrissey's "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want"


I love this song with the lyrics but they are a touch too....maudlin for a wedding. Without lyrics and with strings it becomes incredibly beautiful and perfect.


I'll also include "Time After Time" no, not that one from the 80's that we all know and love but the older jazz standard sung here by Chet Baker. We have a version of Dusty Springfield singing it that is phenomenal.


I remember being young and thinking the Beach Boys were a lame band. Of course this had to do with my limited knowledge of them and thinking all the songs were like Kokomo or Barbara Ann. The Mister opened my ears to Pet Sounds and Smile(put out by Brian Wilson.) if you have never heard either of these albums do yourself a favor and give them a whirl. The most heartbreaking of songs though has to be "Our Prayer" to think that this is the same band that later put out the schmaltz that it Kokomo is flabbergasting. (apologies if you happen to like Kokomo.) The Beach Boys also have the song "God Only Knows" how perfect is that for a first dance?


Then some classics from MGM musicals...


"Love Is Here To Stay" sung by Gene Kelly from An American in Paris...

"All Of You" sung by Fred Astaire from Silk Stockings...

"Moon River" sung by Audrey Hepburn(who else?!) oh and "He Loves, She Loves" from Funny Face of course!


Oh and then some Big Star "I'm In Love With a Girl"

I could go on and on and on but I'll save it for another post!

I'm not sure how long to make the cd, I think I'll only need about 30 minutes but just to be safe I'll probably put about an hours worth of music on there, then when we have our reception party next year I'll already have an hours worth of cocktail music!

Signed, Sealed, Delivered.

The form that the Montreal court sent back needed to be signed by a witness in front of a notary. The Mister called a few places and they were all in the 40-50 dollar range. Thank goodness for Google because I did a search for a notary near my work and found one that was close by AND only charged 12 dollars.

The forms were signed and stamped in about 3 minutes. Imagine paying 50 dollars for that? I'd feel robbed!

So it's official. We elope in Montreal in just over a month! EEEEP!

I have a confession though. I cannot stop looking at dresses. This Mori Lee on the right recently popped up on my screen and I kind of love it. It's plain as can be and floaty. As we all know I will be retrying on the dress I bought next week. If I love it again then HOORAY!!!!! But if I still want to cry then....well this Mori Lee might be getting get an owner.

Photo from Mori Lee

Got a letter in the mail...

This morning as I got off the subway my cell rang. The Mister is home this week installing our new wood floors(YAY!!!) and he was calling to tell me that we got some mail.
From Montreal.

Apparently we need to fill out one more form, one that when we called before they told us NOT to fill out. Sigh.

BUT...we have lots of time to get it back AND more importantly we have a date and time booked just for us!

September 19th at 1:30pm!

Only a half hour before 2pm, the time I dreamt we had! Ohhh!

We are going to call them tomorrow as I am also home and sort out this mystery form, but other than that slight(please, please let it be slight!) snag it's all a go!

Wow.

I'm getting married.

In 44 days.

Day by day.

Since not fitting in my dress a few weeks back I have been looking a backup. Just in case. Which led me to this dress. From BCBG. You cannot tell from this photo but it has polka dots. swoon.

I said I'd give my dress a month to fit. So I still have two weeks to go, but everything feels so urgent and well in my case it is!

We still haven't heard from Montreal. Every time I check my email or my phone rings I think "Please let it be someone french."

I'm getting increasingly anxious by the day!

Luckily Mother Nature has decided ease my nerves by springing into action in my garden. It's bursting with blooms! Did you know Chocolate Cosmos smell like chocolate? Brilliant! The dahlias are delectable! And it's all going to get better!

Waiting and waiting....

I'm sitting here compulsively checking my email and cellphone waiting for the folks up at the Montreal Bureau de Mariage to tell me if we are getting married and if so at what time!

I had a dream that they called me and asked if I wanted 9am or 2pm, I picked 2pm. Except they won't ask me what time I want they will just give us the slot that is open. Every day that passes makes me more anxious. We are at the mercy of a civil worker!

AAAAAH!

One of the things that I think is quite cute about getting married in Montreal is that the courthouse has a room called the Salle de Celebration! Literally the Celebration Room! Who wouldn't want to get married in a room called that?

September is tumbling towards us at breakneck speed. In fact if everything goes to plan I will be married in 53 days. Five Three! Woah. Funnily enough I didn't even realise how many 9's were in the date. 9/19/09!

I admit that I've had some jitters. As we all know I'm a bit of a flake sometimes, most of those times seem to happen after seeing a beautiful wedding on a blog with photos that are stunningly beautiful. Then I snap back to reality when I remember that a) those weddings cost pots of money and b) I'm still having a reception at some point(most likely next summer)

The fact that it's all in someone else's hands (for now) makes my shoulders fall back from my ears.

I do know some things that will be happening in Montreal. I will eat all my favorite things! I will be happy to be in my favorite city! I will drink many different beers! I will sleep in the same hotel that John and Yoko did so many years ago!

Two dreams...one comes true!

Last night I had my first wedding dream......

The Mister and I were in Montreal at a Marche shopping for cheese and suddenly I realise that we are suppose to get married that day! I ask for the time and it's 4pm and I know that the last civil ceremony of the day is at 4:30pm so I go "Well I guess were not getting married!"
Then suddenly I'm thinking "I don't even have a bra to wear! Oh well I just wear the one I'm wearing, even though it's dirty." I woke up and instantly thought "Oh yeah I have to buy a new bra!"

When I was a little girl I was obsessed with what is now known as the Fairmont chain of hotels. In Toronto it's the Royal York, Quebec City has the Chateau Frontenac and in Montreal the Queen Elizabeth. I don't remember who but someone told me that when Royalty comes to visit that is where they always stay! I was in awe of these hotels because they were giant beautiful old buildings that had balls for important people and in my mind were the fanciest hotels in the world. I desperately wanted to stay at them. I tried in vain to get my parents to stay in them for just one night, but we never did.

Where am I going with this? Well I have been looking for a hotel for the last week or so trying to find a good deal. For some reason Montreal is one of the more expensive cities for hotels. We got every year and every year I find a deal for a room for under a hundred dollars. We don't spend much time in the room so we don't really need to have much more than a bed and a washroom. Thing is we also tend to go during off season, so everything is cheaper.
Nothing was coming up. Or more correctly lots of horrid hotels were coming up. As much as I would love to stay in a one star hotel with reviews of dirty linens, mean staff and loud neighbours.

Then last night I was on hotels.ca and I organized my search from low to high in price and what should come up? The Fairmont Queen Elizabeth! For 95 dollars a night! It was some timed deal so we booked it right then and there!

So finally I get to stay where at one of my childhood dream hotels! Not to mention this is the hotel where John Lennon and Yoko Ono had their famous bed in! This is the hotel where they recorded "Give Peace a Chance"! Best of all were saving over 250 dollars on our stay!
That's 250 dollars I can spend on shoes!

And I exhaled and all was well...

Funny story....

I picked up my dress and saw it for the first time since the previous posts photo was taken.
For some reason in my head I had transformed it into a thickly crocheted lace dress, probably because The Mister mentioned a doily and I started thinking about how doilies look and how thick they were and how they were never white they were always off white and I transformed that dress in my head into a sort of ropey thick crocheted thing that I was sure was going to be off white. So I was actually surprised when I pulled back the garment bag and saw that it wasn't thick crochet lace but very thin delicate silk threads that made the lace and it was diamond white. I don't know how I could mutated it in my head so badly! Oddly enough I don't think it really looks like it does in that photo! I literally sighed with relief when I saw how beautiful it was! Phew!

As both The Canadian Bride and Always a Bridesmaid commented it doesn't need any embellishment, which I knew in my heart, but when you get on Etsy you suddenly become irrational and want practically everything! I doubt I'll wear the organza lab jacket or convert it into something else. I might pick up a nice light summer cashmere sweater because it could be chilly in the evening and my body temperature is always out of whack!

The only jewellery I'm going to be wearing is going to be my Nanny's charm bracelet. I'm not sure if I'll wear it on my wrist or wrap it around my bouquet but I need her with me. It makes a lot of noise but every charm on it has a story and it was my favorite thing in the world when I was small and I'd beg her to show me the charm bracelet and tell me the stories of each charm. She gave it to me the year she died and I've never actually worn it in public, I'm terrified I'll lose it but I always knew I'd wear it on my wedding day no matter what my outfit.

I don't really wear jewellery that much, even though I do have a really amazing pink pearl necklace that I got for Christmas one year. Which was really a surprise as I had seen it in a Birks ad in the Globe and Mail and just sort of randomly pointed at it(which I do a lot!) and said "Oh that's nice!" and then completely forgot about it! I also have a silver Tiffany's bracelet but I don't really wear that either.

I'm now on the hunt for shoes, definitely coloured shoes, that's something I always wanted no matter what! I'm also thinking I may need a pair of flats for walking Montreal in, I'm determined to wear my outfit all day!

I'm thinking of making my veil/fascinator but as I said Etsy lures me with it's Siren song!

I've got two months. Plenty of time right!

I feel like there may be some voting going on though because I like opinions and sometimes I'm easily led astray!

Game changer.

I've probably mentioned it before but I LOVE Montreal. From the very first time I ever went when I was 14/15 I was smitten and have visited about once a year since then. It's "our" city, a place that is close to home but also seems worlds away and over the years we have become Montreal connoisseurs, trekking all over the city to find what we are looking for which in most cases is something edible. We routinely return home with our bags full of beers, bagels, cheeses and anything we have never seen in Ontario.

Le Cheval Blanche brewpub. Photo by me.

We visit brew pubs, bakeries, markets, churches and generally wander around in bliss. When we first got engaged we wanted to get married there but the requirements and laws sort of made it hard. You had to go in for an interview with a clerk before getting married and then they would let you know if your date and time were accepted. You could not change the date, place or time the ceremony HAD to take place when and where you said it was going to be or else! It was a lot of stress that was unnecessary.

Then I started planning something else, which as we all know didn't work out either. In fact the anxiety and misery wedding planning caused me was greater than I've ever let on here. It wasn't that I didn't know what to do or what I wanted, in fact right now I could easily plan out about 20 weddings if someone asked me to. As long as they weren't mine, it distressed me that the Mister had no interest in our wedding and I was left to do it all by myself without any feedback. I admit I was crying at work and in public, it was not a very good time for me. So I cancelled everything.

I cancelled it all and was instantly happier. Just last night a good friend even said "You know I said to my husband, haven't you noticed how much happier she is?" and he had.

So...uh...what was I talking about? Oh Montreal! This year for the first time we are going with another couple, who are excited to come with us because of our extensive knowledge and love of the city. We decided to go in September, too many festivals during the summer and the weather in September is usually always perfect.

I jokingly said to The Mister "Too bad we can't just elope then. Silly laws!" Two days later he forwarded me an email which had a bunch of attachments I opened the first one. "Dear Future Spouses" it read, "We have recently changed the laws and no longer require an interview"

Game changer! Yes there are still a bunch of rules and laws that have to be followed. We are still unsure about what were going to do. I have visions in my head of what I would want our wedding to be but I also just want to get married and get on with life, there are houses to reno and babies to be had and careers to work on. There are things that I'm not willing to wait for and things I am.

Will we elope? Were not sure yet. But it's definitely in the cards now.

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.