Meechie - I love your invitations! you are so talented!
How was your marriage prep class? We have ours the first weekend in March...I'm not really sure what to expect...

Did anyone go to the Wed By Hand show on the weekend? I went and did the flower workshop, we made boutinnires and saw how to make a bouquet...the bouts were pretty easy, but I'm still glad I went with a professional - I could not make a bouquet! But not I know how to make cute coursages for bachlorettes!
The show was pretty good - I already have most of my vendors so it wasn't that useful - except I found a vendor to make some jewlery for my BMs.

Hi Meechie! We are using the same tux and hopefully the same colour BM dresses (going BM dress shopping this weekend). We decided to have the groomsmen wear the purple tie (to match the BM dresses) and my fianc is going to wear the silver one (to match the trim on the tux). Do you want the groom and best man to wear the same colour or would you be ok with different? If you're going to choose one, I'd say the purple. Hope that helps

I answered your post in that thread...but I like TnT's idea of having the groom and best man with different ties too!

what's all this about marriage prep you all are doing? Is it for a religous ceremony? I'm just curious and making sure i'm not missing the boat on a requirement to get married lol.

Our officiant just emailed us to touch base and sent me a list of the things we needed to do before we get married (paperwork etc..) and im lucky he did 'cause i had no clue!

Meechie- i'd probably do the groom and the groomsment in different ties myself! Love that purple too and everytime i see it it makes me reconsider our colors lol

JulesD44 same as Meechie, in order to get married in our Church we have to take a marriage preparation course, it's over a weekend

Meechie those bells are so cute! what a fantastic idea! and I love your tank top too! you are so talented!

I haven't been on here in a week or so - but thanks ladies for the comments on the dress

Meechie - what a neat idea about the bell wands! You're doing so much DIY, I <3 that! Your invitations look pretty labour intesive though, how many do you have to make?

I'm off to check out your post about the tux.

Meechie - Your invitations look great! It's amazing that you pulled all of that together yourself! You're so crafty.. love the shirt and bell wands too! I haven't put much thought yet into programs, or if we're going to give out bubbles or something, your bell idea is adorable and the total opposite of messy!

We're doing our marriage prep course March 2nd and 3rd, it's required by the church for us to get married there. I'm not religious, neither is FH, but his entire family has gotten married there, and it's about the only traditional thing we're sticking to. I've heard that the course brings up a lot of great topics that not all couples talk about with each other prior to getting married, so I'm kind of looking forward to it. FH's cousin gets married the month after us, so they'll be doing the course the same weekend, we'll at least have one couple we know there!

Also love your color scheme. FH was looking to grey suits as well, but nothing is settled yet. We went to Moores this past weekend, but I wasn't impressed with their selection of greens. We tried going to Morris, but they were closed. FH thinks he'd like to be in just black/white or grey/white, his boutonniere would be the only green, the groomsmen would likely have green vests/ties, or white vests/green ties.

Walkinthepark - Love your dress! The neckline is beautiful, and straps will probably keep you comfortable throughout the day. You won't have to worry about a strapless that feels like it's sliding!

This week, we saw some proofs for our invitations, booked our photobooth, and I mailed in the request for a recent copy of my baptismal certificate (blows my mind that I have to do this for the church when I still have the original). I called to book a block of hotel rooms, and stocked up on some vases for centerpieces (FH has been AMAZING for this, he went and bought out all of the Michaels stores in Ottawa).

I hope to settle on ceremony decor and start on a guestbook this week, if I'm lucky, I might get to start them too!

Life in nuts right now, just bought all new appliances yesterday as well as a couch and chair. We get our place March 1st, and it's definitely a big project. In two weeks, we'll be beating the crap out of the old kitchen with some sledgehammers! That should help release some frustration, or at least pull a few muscles!

We'll check them out for sure! The guy working at Moore's even told us to look at TipTop because they have been in the rental business so much longer. He said if we couldn't find the right green there, we wouldn't find it anywhere. I appreciated that he pointed us in the right direction even though he'll lose the business as a result.

Hello All!

FH and I celebrated our 1 year "anniversary" of being engaged last weekend, and it really hit me how close we are to our big days! Last year, I complained that time wasn't going to go quick enough, and now I'm hoping I have enough time left to do everything that I need!

January was definitely a GREAT wedding month! We got quite a bit done!

1) Bridesmaids started ordering their dresses!

2) Tuxedo's chosen! We went to Freeman/Tip Top Tailor and were very impressed with their knowledge and helpfulness! We ended up going with a black tuxedo with black pinstripes, black vest, hot pink tie and hot pink pocket square. Although our colours are brown and pink, the brown suit just didn't work with FH's skin tone, so we just went with the black.

3) Paid our half for the chair rental for our ceremony! Another bride is getting married at the same venue later on that day and we were able to "share" the chair rental - definitely a huge savings! Over $200.

4) Met with an independent florist and got a quote half the price of what a flower shop gave us!

Up next

1) Meeting with our invitation person Thursday this week to finalize the design and place my deposit! So excited to see a hard copy of the invites! We, too, have a heat embossed design on our invites, and I cannot wait to see the final product!

2) Book off blocks of hotel rooms for our guests. It's definitely been hard trying to do everything from 4 hours away!

3) Figure out accessories and shoes for my girls!

4) Figure out wedding bands - we both want custom made bands, so we really need to figure it out soon!

It's so exciting to hear all your stories and ideas. I feel like I am really not doing anything this month and all you guys are being so creative and inventive.

This month I booked a wedding singer for the ceremony and am trying to finalize the hotel for my guests. Since they are all coming out of town I find the hotel a little stressful because I just want my guests to have the best since they are coming all this way. As well the hotel keeps getting my details mixed up so I just hope it turns out okay.

Went home last weekend and my mom brought out bags of invitations that she has kept over the years for me to look over for wording ideas. That's when I found my same invitation that I am sending out was sent out by friends of the family two years ago. Now I don't know if I should get new ones or stick with these ones. I really like these ones and got them for such a great deal but a lot of my guests were invited to this previous wedding and would have already seen this invitation. As a bride you just want everything to have your touch you know. So i am not sure what to do.

Up Next I have the bridesmaids dresses to find in March and then we have our marriage prep course in April. They actually changed it so it is only one day which I am thankful for so I don't have to keep taking time off work. I keep traveling back and forth to Peterborough for wedding or family obligations. I'll be excited once March is over (I know, sad since it is still February)so that I can hopefully take a break

Whoa, so much to get caught up on!

walkinthepark, congratulations on finding your dress! So exciting! It's lovely, very elegant.

honeypie, what great news about your sister and her family! Congratulations! I bet she is a cutie!

Meechie, wow, your invitations are awesome! As are your other crafts. I know you asked about the formal wear a while back, but I agree with having patterned purple tie for the BM and the solid purple for the groom.

Jules, the marriage classes I have to do is a requirement for getting married in my church. It's definitely worth asking your officiant about. I still need to get in touch with the priest about it actually; if I remember it right the courses were supposed to be held in late February/early March. He's a close family friend, so I'm sure it's one of those "no news means no news" things, but I still wonder... We have 5 classes to attend that are... 1 hour(?) each. I'm looking forward to them actually, even though FH doesn't see the point in getting advice going into marriage from somebody that he's only met a couple times. I'm hoping he'll warm up to the idea more.

Updates for me:
FH and I took about an hour over the weekend to look at Cards & Pockets website. We ordered some samples in the colours that we're thinking of. The website confused us a bit, but he was such a trooper and constantly brought me back down to earth with my frequent distractions. I feel so good about it, it makes me feel like we're a good team and even when we get frustrated, we're able to work through a challenge.

We got an email back from asking about our cake inquiries, long story short it's just adding to the confusion. I'm going to call them tomorrow to get this whole thing sorted out. And I'm going to ask for ONE contact about the cake, no more getting handed off to different people who don't know the entirety of our order. It's getting me miffed. Still, the more and more time goes on the more I realize that I'm not comfortable with having a cake that would only feed 2/3 of the guests. 66% of the people getting cake? I'd feel better with 80%, I think. I don't know. I'm used to Greek weddings where there's always WAY more desserts and things that can possibly be eaten and everybody is given take-home containers to bring as much dessert home as they wanted. I don't know that I want THAT much dessert, but it's tricky trying to balance the "Canadian" way of doing things vs. the "Greek" way of doing things. Is that strange? :S

We also finally got in touch with our videographer and put down the deposit. YAY! Huge check off the list! We're also waiting for a call today or tomorrow to set up an appointment with a florist. One of FH's neighbors actually started up a business out of her home and now has a family-run storefront in the north end of Toronto. How cool is that? The only big thing left to get cracking on is the DJ. I still need to get in touch with the hall for recommendations for it.

All of the talk about tuxedos has me feeling like we're late in thinking about them. :S We had a good conversation with the Moores sales-folk at the wedding shows we went to, and where I am the Moores is 3x the size of Tip Top Tailors, so we figured we'd be getting the tuxes from there. FH has an appointment for the first weekend of March, I hadn't put too much thought into it. And every time it comes up in conversation, FH jokes about how he's getting a green and gold tux (you know, "green is for the money and gold is for the honey!"). Like, I kid you not, every time. So that's gotten me even further discouraged from trying to talk about it with him. *Sigh* Here's a question: did you accompany your guys in tux searching? Did the other guys in the bridal party go with you as well? FH is only having his brother stand with him as best man, I wonder what he'd want to wear...

Oh dear, something tells me they won't really be taking it seriously.

Browntown-Our wedding colors are green too and im having a hard time finding the right one for the men. We're going with the color clover for the bridesmaids dresses in an alfred angelo style, but im finding it's hard to match the men too.


Im having a minor freak out and i'd love your opinions!


So, my dress is "soft white" aka ivory, and im using white flowers. Is this going to look ridiculous??? I just thought of this now...haha. Oh boy.

I've heard really great things about renting from Tip Top!
Have you checked out buying ties instead of renting? If it's a colour they could use again it might be worth it. We got nice ones at Mexx for $60 (we didn't go with rentals for the suits, so I don't know if this is way more than renting...but it's a thought). They also have really nice ties at Harry Rosen, but we found they were a little more than we wanted to spend...

I agree about the white flowers and ivory dresses - I don't think there's an issue...when I was picking mine I'm sure I saw some white bouquets against ivory dresses in the million pictures I looked at (I tried to find some on theknot but their site's not working - you can search by colour)...they looked nice

Do any of you know how far in advance you should send out the invitations?

I can't believe I'm almost in the under six-month category!

Auntieli: Typically you should send invites out 2 months in advance. If they are coming from out of town and therefore need to book hotel and such it is becoming more common to send out 3 months in advance. For my wedding which is end of September I am sending them out for middle of June due to the fact that all my guests are coming out of town. Hope this helps

We're getting married in the beginning of Sept and we're going to send out the invitations in the end of May. We have to have all of our numbers in to the resort for food by Aug 1 so i want to be sure everyone responds!

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Jules - Yay for green! I checked out the clover, looks nice! Since you've already picked bridesmaid dresses, at least you have something to match to use when matching up pieces for the guys. We're doing more of an apple green, but the girls are going to wear black dresses of their choice, so anything is really open for the guys.

I think we might look into buying ties, and having the guys in white vests or something, FH would really like to wear a white vest and white tie in a grey suit. I'm so glad that he wants to keep things simple.

Also, like the others mentioned, I don't think that white flowers with the soft white dress will be a problem. White flowers aren't always the brightest white anyways, a lot of them have yellowy tones.

Auntieli - We're sending out invites out in early-June, because we do have a bunch of guests coming from out of town. With that said, though, we did send out Save the Dates, so we could probably get away with sending them later if we wanted to. It's nice to give your guests enough time to arrange their travel/accommodations, but not so early that the invitation gets tucked away and forgotten about.

Meechie - You're so crafty it HURTS! I love all of the little touches you're putting into your wedding, especially that sign for your son, too cute!


Last night, FH and I drove to our insurance office 1/2 hour outside of the city to sign some paperwork for home insurance. The roads we crappy, but I'm always comfortable behind the wheel regardless of weather, and always drive with the road conditions in mind. We drove out to the office, drove back to the Home Depot in Kanata, and headed home from there. About 3 streets away from home, we got in a head on collision! A young guy coming in the opposite direction lost control coming around a bend in the road, and slid into my lane. We're all okay, but my car is definitely not. The hood and radiator are crushed, the bumper is gone, headlight is gone, windshield is cracked, my airbag deployed.. it's a mess, and that's just what we can see! I have no idea what the repairs will cost, I have to wait until at least Wednesday to hear back from the auto body shop.

FH and I are a little bruised, sore, and shaken up, but we're grateful that it wasn't more serious. If the same collision happened on a day when roads were clear, we both would have been traveling faster, and the outcome might not have been as good as it was. I've never been in any kind of accident, so it scared the crap out of me!

I hope that all of you ladies are having a better weekend that I am!

Browntown: So sorry about your accident. Hope you and your fiancee are doing okay. We were out last night and the roads were definitely slippery in areas. Hopefully the damage on your car isn't to extensive.:) Feel Better

Browntown- i'm glad you were okay! That sounds so scary! Take it easy for a while!


Meechie-okay, i think i have to steal your idea with those socks. I LOVE IT!!!

Browntown - YIKES! about the accident - hopefully you're both still feeling OK Dealing with insurance companies & written off cars are no fun - I'm sure you didn't need that extra stress!!

For those of you who are having their FHs rent tuxes - how soon should we start looking into that? Is that something that can be done closer to the date?

Thanks for all the compliments on the dress everybody I stopped by my aunt's the other day (it's hanging in her closet) just to take a peak at it.

Yikes, so much to catch up on!

Jules, I agree with the others, I think white flowers against an ivory dress would be just fine. I don't think the flowers would be big large enough compared to the dress to make much difference, whether you have relatively large flowers or not.

auntieli, we (well, I, I don't think I've talked about it with FH yet) are thinking about sending the invitations out end of June/early July. We don't need our final numbers/meal choice until 2 weeks before the wedding, and even with most folks who are out of town we talk to them semi-regularly so they already know the date that we're getting married and to expect an invite. Plus we're getting married in the tail-end of September, so I think we'd be ok with that timeline. I think...

Meechie, once again I am in awe of your craftiness. Holy moly! I'm a little jealous of the kids, I want to wave something around like that! The bird cage is so cute too, I haven't thought about what to do for the cards yet. FH has a tendency to "d'aww" with me over something he finds particularly cute, maybe he'd like a cute "love bird" cage idea? And, HA, I love the idea of sneaking some boudoir photos in to make sure he REALLY doesn't get cold feet! Sneaky sneaky!

browntown, holy crap I am so sorry to hear about your accident! I'm glad you and FH are mostly OK! I don't blame you for being shaken up, I would be too! Scary! Take it easy for a little while!

walkinthepark, my FH has an appointment at Moores for the middle of March, we don't know if he's going to buy or rent yet. We made the appointment at a wedding show in September (or was it January?), they figured that would be a good time to start looking. I'm kind of clueless about it too, so I hope that helps!

As for me, the sample invites from Cards & Pockets came in the mail yesterday. That was fast! I'm liking the colours that we picked, mostly. They have a few different red swatches, and we wanted to have our invites in a red paper, but I'd prefer a shiny paper for the invite itself and the shiny paper closest to the matte one we love has a pink tinge to it. I doubt FH would notice/care, but it would nag at me I think. Hmm... BUT! It's a great option. And my mom loved them, which was great.

And we're having our first marriage seminar tonight! Hooray! Right now I'm most worried about getting there; I have to book it to the GO-Train station right after work and hope I get there on time, and figure out where to meet FH. Whee, should be fun. :S

WOW - crazy when you think of how close it is!!

wow - Browntown, I hope you're feeling better!!
thank you all for the advice on when to send the invites out!

Meechie - that sign for your son is great! what a fabulous idea!
I like earrings number 4

I cannot believe we're getting so close!
My bridesmaids just ordered their dresses

I've been sidelined with a cold this week, so I haven't done anything wedding-related....we have our marriage course this weekend - that might be the only wedding stuff that gets done this week...

Meechie- I agree with auntieli on earring number 4. Quick question for you. I am pretty sure you said that you have used heat embossing for a couple of your DIY projects. Where did you get the tools for this and can you tell me what I need for it? I am doing a candy bar and want to do white paper bags with a stamp with our names on it and was going to use heat embossing as well but can`t find where to get the tools for it. If you can let me know that would be great. Thanks

Thanks ladies! We're both on the mend, bruises are starting to disappear, and insurance stuff is pretty much settled. I was super impressed with how fast they worked... The accident happened at 6 last Friday, they had a cheque ready for me at 10 this past Friday, and I picked up my new car at 5:30 Friday night. I have to go for a follow up doctor's appointment one Tuesday afternoon, the impact caused some ovarian cysts (that I didn't even know I had) to rupture. One of my knees and one of my hips still hurt a fair bit, so I'm going to have that looked at too!

Here's a pic of the damage:

My poor car

(I can't get the image link to work)

Meechie - Love the sock idea, pretty funny, and the cootie catcher, so cool! Also, the earrings you picked are beautiful.

Auntieli - Where did you do your marriage course? We had ours this weekend too at St. Anthonys!

Geez, Browntown, that's terrible.

I don't have a ton of stuff to do for our wedding yet, since it's so small. But we do have our engagement photos this Friday!! Plus, I'm enjoying hearing what everyone else is doing.

Holy HOT stuff!! You're gorgeous Meechie!! Your FH is going to think that marrying you is the best idea ever after he gets a look at these Oh and good on you for having the guts (and the bod!) to do this.

If I had to pick a top 12, these would probably be my selections (ok, I threw an extra pick in there too )
1,3,4,17,27,28,33,38,39,42,43,45,47

browntown - we were at St. Anthony's too!!! Back table closest to the kitchen...you? what a small world

walkinthepark - have fun at your engagement shoot! where are you having yours done? I hope the weather is nice for you!

meechie- those cootie catchers are such a great idea!! your guests are going to love that!!
and your boudoir shots - so gorgeous! you're FH is going to LOVE them!!! If I had to pick 12 I'd pick these ones - 1,3,5,7,15,25,27,29,36,39,41,45

Meechie - Holy WOW! They turned out amazing! Here are my faves: 1, 5, 7, 9, 15, 20, 24, 27, 28, 29, 38, 41 (will likely knock your FH's socks off!), 44, 46

How are you going to pick just 12? I couldn't stop at 12!!!

You've inspired me.. I've been thinking about doing a boudoir shoot too, and the photographer that I got in touch with first is on mat leave and might not be able to do them until the summer. I got in touch with someone else, but I like the idea of the convenience of going to a "set", instead of booking a hotel room, or doing it at my own home. I'm going to email the photographers back!

Auntieli - TOO FUNNY! We were at the same table as you, such a small world! "We" are Jess and Paul. I wish we had gone to a different course than Paul's cousin, it made me feel pretty uncomfortable being there with them.

Meechie - LOVE the pics!! I honestly don't know how you're going to only choose 12 - they are rock! FH definitely will not get "cold feet" after those

I have also been thinking of a boudoir session - however, it is conditional upon some weight loss. Due to some digestive/stomach issues, I've gained weight, and although I'm sure FH would still think I looked beautiful, I am not that comfortable with my body anymore. I still have 4-5 months to make this happen!

FH and I bought all of our wedding party gifts yesterday! It is definitely an accomplishing feeling to have those out of the way. Pandora is having a promotion right now where if you purchase $150 in jewelery, you get a silver barrel-clasp bracelet for free. It just so happens that 2 of my girls have the bracelets already while the other 2 do not. We purchased 9 beads, a leather bracelet (for my MOH) and got 2 free bracelets!!

And to top it off, as we were walking to the store, we walked by a jewelery store that had a clearance on their skagen watches! 50% off! So we picked out 4 watches for the guys, and one for FH (that I picked up today!) Such a good feeling to get those out of the way!

If anyone else is thinking Pandora bracelets for gifts - their promotion is running March 8-11. Purchase $150 in jewelery and receive a silver barrel clasp bracelet free! (They say one per customer - I brought FH with me and we got 2!)

Other than that, I'm trying to figure out shoes for my bridesmaids! So many shades of pink! I am thinking we might end up going with a dyeable shoe as two want lower heels, and two want higher heels. Anyone using dyeable shoes?

Ive been thinking alot about the bm's gifts lately too and was thinking about steering away from the traditional jewelery thing and trying to do something a bit more personalized. All my girls are trendy fashionista type ladies so i was thinking getting them a reusable bag made with the first letter of their name embroidered on it with and then putting a few pampering products inside for them. I work for BBW so luckily i can get a fair bit for a decent price....

which leads me to my next question..


My future MIL was telling me that apparently according to tradition, you should be spending as mucnh on their gift as they did the BM dress. Has anyone heard this?

Ive been in a TON of weddings and i definitely know that they did not spend $ 150-200 + on EACH bm's gift. What are your thoughts?

Well I'm working this weekend but I did spend parts of yesterday getting engagement photos done. Within a few hours of taking them, a few were put on our photographer's blog!! She did such an awesome job!! I can't wait to see the rest of them Here's the link if any of you want to check them out: xoxo

Meechie - I am being tested for celiac disease (gluten-free) as well as lactose intolerance and hoping they will get that sorted out sooner rather than later! I am a nurse so I get the luxury of wearing loose fitting scrub pants so that definitely helps! haha.

walkinthepark - Great engagement photos! Such a unique venue for them, and I absolutely love the pucks with the date on them! So original!

Working this weekend too! However, this is my long week and I only have to work 2 12hr shifts next week, so I am excited to do more wedding stuff then!

In the works for next weeK:
- In the process of finalizing our guest list, and making a bridal shower list for my MOH and mother.
- Decide on shoes for the ladies
- Have FH call his guys re: tuxedos

Ps - Since everyone is sharing photos, and I don`t believe I`ve shown off any of our engagement photos (from October) check them out! Our engagement photos http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.746156490478.2203070.122701972&type=3&l=a71b41bfcc

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