30 days to go: stories of a licence, details, and a nerdfest called SoCap.

We’ve had lot of adventures lately and are eager to share them with you all! It’s been a real mix of meetings, deliveries, and pickups, and all of these items are towering on shelves and along the walls of the art room, threatening to topple and kill us both. (This is one of the inherent dangers with a DIY wedding: when you pay companies to provide you with day-of services, there’s less of a gathering process and thusly, fewer stacks of paper plates tucked around your house.) With thirty days to go, we’re both feeling a rush of excitement mixed with panic, as tasks we thought we’d finish months ago are carried over to yet another rewrite of the to-do list; various RSVP fiascos made up of family politics, postal strike aftermath, and last-minute mailers, have literally had me in tears several times…but in a way, that particular type of struggle at least feels a bit more like a ‘typical’ wedding experience, which is kind of nice when so much of what we’re doing is far outside the box, where it can get a little lonely and surreal.

We started off July with an attempt to get our wedding licence near the start of the month. We travelled out to a township bordering on Ottawa, because the licence is $60.00 cheaper out there, and we would get to explore some nearby antique shops (where I found bridesmaid gifts that are priceless but only cost me the change in my pocket—but they’re a surprise so that’s all the detail you get). We started out a little late, partly because we both felt the occasion called for us to dress up, and as a sign of how romantic it all felt, I even permitted us to have matching outfits—something that I loathe and never usually allow. We stopped to eat a sandwich before heading to the town hall, where we came in, explained our purpose in being there, and received a cold reception.

Well, no worries, I thought; we may be excited, but not necessarily everyone around us will be. We took the forms and filled them out, returned to the window, and gave the woman our money. She then looked over our writing to be sure we’d missed nothing, and informed us we could come back in a week for the licence.

Waiiiiit a minute. A week?

In Ontario, there’s no wait period for your licence. I reminded the woman of that, and asked why we had to wait. She said, I don’t have time to type up your papers today. I said, I don’t have time to drive all the way back out to this town to get my papers next week. She said, You’re going to have to come back because I’m not filling in the forms today. I said, What needs to be done in terms of paperwork? She said, I have to type up this whole [one page, legal-sized] form. I said, Can I fill it in by hand for you? She said, No, it’s a legal document. I didn’t say, Well, gee, lady, what did people do before typewriters?

Brian wasn’t silent during this; Brian made a fatal error and attempted to get me to back down. Instead of siding with me, he told the lady that it wasn’t so bad if we had to come back in a week. The lady jumped on that comment, took it as proof that I could wait, and then added that we should call ahead to be sure they had a notary on site that day. It seemed pointless to try to explain to her that we have jobs and can’t be taking time off on the off-chance they may be properly staffed—or not—next week. Feeling helpless, however, and like we had very little options available to us, we acquiesced and headed to our car, and I’ll note that on the way out, I heard the woman telling another staff that she thought she might place a stationary order this afternoon—seriously?! Your letterhead takes precedence over my marriage licence?!

Once we reached the car, we proceeded to have a yelling, crying, ultimatum-flinging throw-down of a fight. Brian pulled over about a kilometre down the road where we sat and yelled at each other for about twenty minutes. In a momentary lull, I noticed the upbeat oldies song humming away on the radio, and became aware of the stifling July heat that was now baking us, pie-like, in the horrible hotbox of the car. A voice in my head said, this is ridiculous; another voice piped in and said, too freakin’ bad ‘cuz I ain’t done yet. We continued to fight as Brian drove back to the town hall, where I was demanding that he go in and ask for the manager. We compromised, and Brian went in to retrieve our money and forms. We then returned to the same dusty clearing where we’d earlier been fighting, sat in silence, and then grudgingly admitted we’d have to spend the extra money to get our licence on time, in the city. Through giant tears I tried to explain that getting this licence today was supposed to be a special, romantic sort of thing, and Brian became determined to resuscitate the adventure.

We drove into Kanata, to the government offices there, and entered in stony silence. A man behind the counter asked us what we were looking for, and we said we were there for our marriage licence. The young man brightened visibly and congratulated us, and in a matter of minutes we had the entire office coming over to say hi and ask us questions about the big day. We both began to relax, laughing and sharing tidbits about the wedding with the staff. We filled out the paperwork and a woman typed it up—in no more than fifteen minutes, which was great but sure added to our loathing of the rural office worker who'd refused us. As we were completing the process, one of the office staff came over to us. “Excuse me,” she said, “I don’t mean to intrude, but I was watching you two waiting, and you’re just so adorable together. A lot of people come in here, and they’re fighting with each other, and they’re just miserable, and you think, why are you even here? But you two…I can just tell, you two really love each other, and you’re not fighting.” Ohhhh, how we laughed. Which, incidentally, alleviated the last of the tension between us. We left the office sixty dollars poorer, but with an experience (and time saved) that was well worth it.

Anyway, some updates on logistics and wedding items:

First off: wedding favours. We met with Jenny of Geek Sweets Treats for a tasting, and what a tasting it was. Jenny arrived at our meeting place with a little wooden treasure chest of the finest little macarons for our testing pleasure. Macarons, for those who don’t know yet, are the world’s most delicious cookie. It is not the traditional coconut mishmash our moms used to make (though I do love those, too), but something entirely different. Picture two almond flour puffed biscuits, flavoured with any number of wonderful sweet flavours, and a layer of flavourful ganache sandwiched in between. Macarons come in every conceivable flavour, and Geek Sweets will be making us a selection of three: key lime, chocolate chai, and rocket popsicle. We cannot wait for these and admittedly may eat them before the guests ever arrive.

I also had the pleasure of stopping by Rehash to see Karie, and collect our bunting for the big day. Karie’s workmanship is lovely, and we now have ourselves an adorable line of flags reading, ‘SIDEKICKS’ to hang at our special day. Karie is such a sweet lady, and we are so happy to have a token of her talent and kindness for our wedding.

We received a package last week in the mail that was a pleasure to open and peruse. the crew at the UsedEverywhere.com offices put together a package for our In Spirit table: a piece of driftwood from the pacific coast with ‘J+B’ carved into it, and a bunch of British Columbia postcards. A water bottle and pen were also included and have been immediately put into use. We’ve displayed the driftwood in the living room at present and every time I walk by and see our initials inscribed into the wood, I smile.

We met with Kim this week, as well: a good friend who is part of our ceremony. I can’t possibly do justice in a quick post like this to the special role that Kim plays in my life; suffice it to say, Kim has been a spiritual guide for me, a sort of totem in my life…a living cairn, that bears witness to many pivotal moments in my life by being my confidante in times of change. Kim and we share certain spiritual perspectives, and she has been kind enough to honor us by agreeing to call the corners for our ceremony, as well as read our favourite poem. We met with Kim, and this was Brian’s first interaction with her…and naturally they both enjoyed each other. We sat with Kim for about an hour, reviewing the ceremony plan and talking about all manner of things. At the end, I felt rejuvenated down to my very spirit, and when she later sent us some suggested wordings for our script, I was instantly in love with it all. There are many wonderful things about our wedding, but having Kim with us is definitely one of the most special.

Oh, and another wonderful delivery arrived! The bridesmaid dresses from So-Fine arrived, and they are adorable. Three perfect dresses, in reversible apple green and plummy purple, arrived and they are lovely. Like, I want one, too. You can actually get yourself one of these dresses, and a limited number of this season’s production line was made in our exact wedding colours, so you can even get the exact dress from our wedding…nerdy but cool. I promise if I see you in it, I’ll come say hi. (For those out there who bought the colour combo without knowing about our blog, I apologize in advance for the weirdness when I come greet you.)

Bonus: Social Capital Ottawa Conference

Today (Saturday) I attended the Social Capital learnathon here in Ottawa. A serious slew of social media fanatics gathered at the University of Ottawa, tweeting and blogging their way through a day of lectures, roundtables, and networking. On a rare day full of ‘face time’, I got to meet (or at least see from across the room) many tweeters, bloggers, and website owners that we follow with our own social media accounts. I learned about metrics, branding, the importance of values, and the importance of communities—excuse me, ‘channels’. I was a little nervous to be going, honestly; there’s something surreal about putting faces to names that you interact with regularly but have never actually met before. But I settled in pretty quickly and thoroughly enjoyed an environment where we were encouraged to tweet, text, and blog at will. Listening to super smart, marketing-savvy people helped me remember how much I freakin’ love marketing. I’ve made a decision recently that I’m going to start pursuing an actual career in this field, and this awesome day really drove that idea home for me. I left at the end of the day with my brain so full that I forgot which key opens my apartment (not my car key, turns out); after a bit of yoga with Brian and some dinner, I found myself a little sad not to be still immersed in the wondrous land of nerds. The San Diego Comicon is on this weekend, and that’s an event I’ve dreamed of attending for years…but I feel like SoCap provided me with a little taste of that nerdly comraderie this weekend. It was wonderful to talk about our blog, how we strategized for our project, and have people genuinely get it; someone heartily recommended we present next year, and I really hope we could.

Thirty days to go. We’re going to keep updating you as much as possible; this could mean some mini-posts in the next few weeks, but we’re going to keep you in the loop. This is the real home stretch, the last little bit that you all helped us reach. We’re excited, we’re nervous, and we’re way behind on crafting centrepieces. You all have the best seat in the house: the one where you get to watch but don’t have to interact with us crazy, emotional basketcases…though we do appreciate encouragement, so tweet us, facebook us, email us, and comment below!