Okay, SPOILER ALERT: The wedding was a huge success. I give you this spoiler now because I know you’re all dying for details, but I plan to start from the beginning of when I lost all blogging time: the week before the wedding. So before I tell you about our busy activities the week leading up to the big event, I want to assuage any fears you may have had: the day went off perfectly. The ceremony was breathtaking, the reception looked dynamite, the cake was to die for, my dress stayed clean all day, and we both said “I do” and used the right names. That’s all I’ll say for now, but if you’ll all be so good to listen to my account of the last week’s planning, I promise to fill you in on the intimate details and behind-the-scenes accounting of the wedding day itself very soon. But for those who just can’t wait, here’s a teaser video put together of the big day by our videographers, Bytown Productions:
We’ve just spent five days mostly alone since the wedding, mostly ignoring technology, and mostly relaxing. Frankly, it’s been a bit of a shock to the system; but the facetime with my new hubby was a must. My dad, a few days in, remarked that people would be looking for blog entries and shouldn’t we hurry up? I replied that there would be blog entries a-plenty, but they’d have to forgive us for a couple days while we focused on the being married part. He laughed and said, fair enough.
That being said, I’ve had a hard time keeping my fingers off the keyboard, as I do love writing and I do love blogging. I thought a good place to start, especially as we wait for more and more photos from our photogs to come in, was with a recounting of the day from our perspectives, with a little preamble first…
As the week before the wedding came upon us, with the BIG DAY looming ahead and scaring us both silly, we had some people provide moments of simple happiness along the way. Jen Winter of Koko Chocolates delivered a box of truffles to us as a wedding present. Fearing that they would spoil, we immediately set upon them. There’s nothing quite as awesome as losing yourself for a brief moment in the centre of a handmade chocolate, as every neuron in your brain is firing, trying to identify the myriad subtle flavours of the chocolate, the filling, the textures. So, a big thank you goes to Jen, who provided me several moments of zen-like ‘now time’ as I lost myself in the heaven of truffles.
Judy Ruggles, our consummate seamstress extraordinaire, also kept us sane through the last week, primarily by being a rockin’ awesome genius in her profession. Judy’s vests, seen on the boys in all the pictures, were stunning. One of the guys had mis-measured himself and Judy had to rebuild the vest from scratch, but it didn’t slow her down one bit. I found myself obsessing about a pleat in my dress that seamed to be sticking out, and Judy steamed that sucker to perfection. My crinoline was dramatically altered to fit the style and length of my dress, and overall, Judy just never let us down. I have determined that one of my first pieces of advice for anyone planning a wedding is this: no matter how tiny your budget, no matter what you have to trade, beg, or do to have this happen, you must have a killer seamstress on standby. Not the one at the bridal salon, who will often be too busy to help or who may work at a shop that’s not open 2 days out of 7. If you’re in Ottawa, go with Judy; if you’re in another city, ask around ‘til you find someone who can be super available, who is fast, friendly, patient, and creative. (Those of you out of town: good luck. Those of you in town: just go with Judy, save yourself the headache.)
We also received, though I failed to mention earlier, a lovely package from my friend Allison B in Newfoundland. Allison lives out there and writes a lovely blog talking a lot about cooking, and sometimes about her dog (that she is going to give to me one day, I know it), and once about wattles—not the turkey kind. Allison sent us a box of the coolest little pieces of nature from all over and around Newfoundland, for us to display on our In Spirit table. We did, and it was wonderful. I stopped and touched the worm-eaten wood at one point in the evening, and felt grounded despite all the colour and music and people around me. Allison, the arrival of this package was such a bright spot leading up to the big day. Thank you.
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| Photo by Adam Pap |
Big love, as well, to Jon H. Jon is Sir Tam’s (the matron of honor) husband, and he saved the day a dozen times leading up to the wedding. He took over the task of the graphic design work for our cool placemats-cum-placecards that everyone’s been photographing from the wedding…a task that I reluctantly delegated simply because it would have been fun to do, but we had to start sharing the load. Jon made us such a beautiful design, and I think that shows in how many people photographed such a simple thing! Jon also came to our rescue by finding a freaking ton of cool lawn games for the big day, which we’ll talk a bit more about later…but considering all I was looking for was a soccer ball and some lawn darts, the horseshoes, croquet set, and baci ball were amazing! Thank you, Jon. You know what a role you played, and we love you for it.
Probably my favourite part of the week leading up to the wedding was my day out with my mom. Mom wasn’t at my bachelorette party (and that was a good thing, as some of the games we got up to, I just couldn’t play in front of a parent), but I was sad not to have some special time with her. So we took Friday off before the wedding weekend (crazy, I know) and spent the day together. First we went to my mom’s friend’s studio to have our nails done. Joanne did our toes and fingers for us, and we all chatted away while I got to hold her incredibly adorable puppy (note: there should be more puppies in every type of daily activity). Joanne didn’t charge us for the service and sent us home with the bottles of orange polish we’d used, so a huge thanks also goes out to Joanne for being a wonderful lady and taking good care of us. We then went for some lunch at a place called Bottega in the Byward market, splitting a sandwich and salad big enough to take down even Brian. After that, a flurry of shopping occurred as I searched for (and eventually found) a robe I’d feel comfortable wearing at the Bed & Breakfast after the wedding…I also picked up a little charm that I’ve been eyeing for weeks. It’s a compass, and Mom helped me pick it out. We both felt it was a symbolism for this era in my life. The day ended almost too quickly, with our extremities painted, our bellies filled, and our pocketbooks a little lighter. That happy day sustained me through the rest of the stressful week that followed. So, Mom, thank you for spending the day with me; it’s one of my favourite memories from this whole ten months of planning.
I feel like I should fill you in one some last-minute catastrophes or mixups that must have occurred in that last week; but truly, it was pretty darn low-key. I think a huge part of that was the fact that I realized there was no time left to fix much of anything, so anything that fell apart now was simply a casualty of war and we’d have to move on without it. I felt very at peace with this, with the exceptions, of course, that nothing could happen to the wardrobe, the cake, or the centrepieces…all the things that I felt would be the ‘pillars’ of the look and feel. With six pages of meticulous instructions printed out for the setup crew to assemble the décor correctly (I’m not joking, I did that), there was little room for error. Really, the last week was the best week for just drinking it all in, loving on good people, and being grateful for last-minute helpers.
Next entry, we’ll chat about the morning of the big day, and the ceremony. Hopefully with lots of pictures. Stay tuned!
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