Wedding Wishlist part 1: our hopes for some of the basics.

April 2011 note: We've modified, adapted, and rethought out some details, which we'll be posting as a new entry soon. (Come on, are you really surprised??? Here's the updated wishlist, theme, and colours:

http://projectpriceless.blogspot.com/2011/04/wishlist-update-4.html

. As it's the most frequently asked question, the colours are now: Granny Smith (chartreuse type) apple green; plum-eggplanty purple; fresh bright orange; and vanilla. If you have any questions, you can always comment or email.

We are getting to the point now of setting some guidelines on what we’d really like to have at the wedding. Brian is a very easy-going fellow, sometimes to a fault. It’s been tricky narrowing down what we want, because we don’t want to be too narrow, given the nature of the P:P experiment. However, the wedding manual (page 35 now) states that a couple should start with the ideal picture and then work backwards to keep within their means. Brian and I have always been ‘shoot for the moon’ -type people, so this makes a lot of sense to us. With this in mind, we want to remind people that if you have something to offer that doesn’t quite fit into the wishlist we provide, please don’t be afraid to offer, anyway. We’ll discuss the offer and see what can be done.

DATE AND TIME

-September or October. If September, the 23^rd or 24^th. If October, 9^th weekend or Hallowe’en weekend

-there is no way in Heck you are getting me dressed and walking down an aisle before 2pm. So, afternoon or evening ceremony is best.

LOCATION

This is something we’ve left quite flexible, as we’re hoping it’s free and we don’t want to be too picky. We have both, however, admitted to ourselves that we’d like to have the wedding somewhere kinda cool in itself, like an art gallery, an historical building, a cool blues club, or something else that will in itself be decorative, as we will not likely have the most ornate decorations in wedding history.

COLOURS/THEME

I looked through my bundles of paint chips, and we chose from Behr Paints the following:

-Primary colour: ‘herbal garden’ green (420D-5)

-Secondary colour: ‘melted chocolate’ brown (250F-7)

-Tertiary colour: ‘downy’ as a sort of ‘french vanilla’ white (350C-1)

-Splash of colour: ‘orange spice’ orange (250B-5)

You can check these out on Behr’s website in the ‘explore colour’ section: http://www.behr.com/Behr/home#channel=EXPLORE;view=26;vgnextoid=8328ea6621ca5110VgnVCM1000008119fea9RCRD

Bri and I are really into natural elements, fabric, and finishes—wool, cotton, linen, fur, metals, woods, etc—so the décor and clothing should mirror that, ideally. It’d be awesome if a tree theme could be the main focus of the wedding…and then I had a cute idea for the orange: there’s a style of folky design going around and you’ll often see little fat bird silhouettes. I’d like to have little fat orange birds as the splash of colour.

An example of the fat birds, which I see now are called 'love birds'. I like 'fat birds' better.

(image from: http://cdn4.wsstatic.com/images/products/medium/1032-01d3b9e56b4ab1bdc9ef00944c1a03040f.jpg )

Oh, and lights: we both want atypical lighting in the form of lots of twinkle lights (LOTS!) and candles. I have some killer ideas brewing for bridesmaids and bridal ‘bouquets’. Which brings us to:

FLOWERS

Flowers are a big deal for people in weddings. But, we’re not panicking about them. We have some ideas on using fallen branches to create centrepieces and décor, and we have a cool idea (we’ll tell you soon) for what the bridesmaids would be holding instead of flowers. But I’d like to have some flowers. I think birds of paradise, white lilies (or calla lilies), and some big flat-leafed greens would be awesome. I’d like a long bouquet instead of the usual round bundle. And that’s really all we need in terms of flowers; any more is just bonus!

CEREMONY

There are only two details here so far, but they’re probably the two we’re most adamant about:

1. We want a non-traditional minister. More on this later.

2. We want an altar in the middle of the room with four aisles. I walk up one (with my dad), Brian walks up one (with his mom), and the remaining parents walk up the others. North, South, East, and West.

DRESS

I’m going to cover this in the next entry. I have ideas, and it’s going to require some explanation, but suffice it to say, this will have to be made-to-measure, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that there’s a burdgeoning designer out there who wants the publicity of making this frock. Oh, and green—it will be green.

Brian is sitting beside me and urging me to remind you all that we know this is an ideal wishlist, and we’re realistic about the fact that it may not all play out exactly as we’ve written. But, he says, if we aim for the moon and miss, we'll land among the stars.

After he said that, I made gagging sounds while he snickered, because it sounded that clichéd.