Hitched

JUST back from our honeymoon in Turks in Caicos only a few hours ago.

I know some of you are about to kill me, so i'll leave you with a few pics taken by various members of my fam and friends.

I'm DESPERATELY waiting for the professional pics from these guys (i know, i know, it takes time to go through 3000 shots right???) and i promise to write a bit about the day very soon.

For now, please accept these....

And now i'm a Mrs.....

The story of the stamps.

aaaaannnd.....exhale........

Our biggest conference is finally over! It's been a long few months scrambling to get everything done for our conference in Quebec City but it's done. Finito.

I came home from a long 1.5 weeks in Quebec City. I love Quebec City, but man, were those days ever long. From 6 am to midnight every day. I'm zonked.

It's been tough planning the wedding and this huge conference at the same time, but for the next 6 weeks (SIX WEEKS!) i can focus on wrapping up the wedding stuff.

Did i mention the wedding is only 6 weeks away??!!

I never did tell you the story of the stamps, did i?

Well, if you didn't think i was a bridezilla before, this should change your mind.

So, i'm a bridezilla as my friends often tell me. But i'm not the mean kind of bridezilla. I don't boss my friends around and tell them they have to buy a certain shoe, or buy a certain dress or wear their hair a certain way. But i AM a bridezilla when it comes to the details of my wedding (which, by the way, i often don't think of as my wedding when i'm in planning mode, but just another event that i'm planning). I'm pretty detail-oriented.

So, yes, the stamps. One element of the invitations is of course the stamps on the outside envelope and on the reply card. I wanted to get stamps custom made which you can do through Canada post, but it works out to being about twice as much as buying a regular stamp. It doesn't seem like a lot, but if you normally put a 52 cent stamp on an envelope and that doubles to over a dollar and you need to send out about 70, that's of course, over $70 bucks.

On stamps.

To go one direction.

Of course, double that because you need the reply card to come back which brings you to over $140 (probably closer to $150). Add to the fact that your invitations are HEAVY and bulky and you can probably double that again so add another $70 and you're up to (gone to get the calculator) $220. And don't forget about the international guests so you're looking at about $300.

$300 bucks on stamps. And that doesn't include thank you notes.

NOT IN THE BUDGET.

Sooooo, i nixed the custom stamp idea right away.

However, you know i'm not going to put a crummy regular-old stamp on the invitations that i spent so many hours crafting and perfecting. For some reason the queen's face just doesn't go well with chocolatey autumn flowers.

So i scoured the internet and the canada post website for nicer stamps.

And i found them.

And they were PERFECT!

OH! i was SO HAPPY to find such lovely stamps that cost the same as a regular stamp.

They are commemorative stamps of Ottawa being the capital of Canada for 150 years. They had a gold background (um, perfect fall colour?!) with a beautiful picture of parliament (we live in Ottawa!). They cost 52 cents -------> IN THE BUDGET!

I count out how many i need taking into consideration the distance my invitations need to travel, the weight of my invitations and the reply cards. I enter in the quantity and click submit.

A message pops up: "unavailable"

hmm....maybe i've ordered too many. I try fewer. Still the message reads: "unavailable".

I try to order just one, because surely they have just one of these stamps. Message reads: "unavailable".

fak.

Now, i admit to being a pretty stubborn person and when i decide i want something, damnit, i WANT IT!

i drive to the nearest post office and describe the stamp i'm looking for. The girl says they came out a year ago and that they don't have any left.

I drive to the next post office. Same thing.

And the next one, and the next one. They are completely sold out.

Remember how i said i was stubborn? Still not convinced that i can't have what i want.

i call my mom and my dad who live in another city and tell each of them to scour every post office in the city for these stamps. i put a message on my facebook. i tell everyone i know to look for these stamps.

And then. My director comes to me and says she has a friend who works for Canada Post. Her friend is the executive assistant to the CEO.

She calls her friend.

Her friend calls THE DIRECTOR OF STAMP SERVICES.

I get a call from THE DIRECTOR OF STAMP SERVICES AT CANADA POST.

He wants to know how many of these stamps i need because he can get some for me and can have them RUSH DELIVERED.

*blink*

*blink*

I got my stamps the next day and i'm as happy as a clam.

All i had to do was ask the Director of Stamp Services at Canada Post. Who knew?

Invitations, Invitations...

Guess what i've been up to these last few weeks (or is it months??)

WEDDING STUFF! I have wedding stuff coming out of my ears.

The last few weeks have been getting these darn invitations ready. They have been a LOT of work. We wanted to go with a professional for our invitations, but our budget said no way jose. Well, at least what we wanted we couldn't afford to have done professionally. So, i decided to do them myself.

I spent weeks searching for pocket folders for the invitations. I finally found some in the US.

I found a graphic for the invitations from Istock, bought it and had my friend (a graphic designer) change the colour for me (it started off as a lime green).

The same (awesome!) friend designed the rest of the inserts. I told him what i wanted, and the fonts and the colours, and he spent countless hours putting it all together for me.

Another friend let me print the invitations at her work. I was able to print them in colour for FREEE. Although, we had no idea it would take 8 grueling hours to print. The damn printer would only print 2 per minute, and with all of the inserts, there were about 400 pieces to print.

Furthermore, the printer kept thinking that it was jammed (it was not) and so everytime it thought it was jammed, it restarted itself which took about 2 minutes each time.

Further still, the rollers kept getting dirty which meant i had to stop the machine, wipe down the rollers and then of course, it would restart itself.

GAHHHH.

In the end, everything turned ok. Most of the invitations had lines down the front (from the dirty rollers) which i later had to erase (it worked, just took hours). The invitations also turned out curly from the heat of the printer. I spent more time rolling them the other way and trying to flaten them.

Next came the assembly which i did all by myself. Rounding the corners, cutting the inserts to size, gluing the invitation to the background mat and then onto the pocket folder, putting all the inserts in order, putting stamps on the rsvp cards, putting stamps on the envelopes, printing the address and return labels, putting them all on, tying the yarn on each of them and on and on... here are the results:

Glad that's over and done with. I really dont' want to look at an invitation for a looooooooooong time!

old, new, borrowed, blue

Loves,

Soooo in case you've been keeping track, my WEDDING is coming up in just over 4 months.

FOUR MONTHS!!

woot woot!

things are getting done, yes, but things are also starting to stress me out.

Here's one small thing that i thought i had pretty much covered, but has now fallen apart.

I'm trying to find things for my "Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed and Something Blue". I have the something new and something blue covered (Hi! new dress! new shoes! new EVERYTHING) and i thought i had the something borrowed and something old figured out as well...until a few days ago.

Ok, so for my something old, i was going to wear a family veil. I truly wanted to wear it. It's vintage. It's gorgeous. It's somewhat sentimental. I tried it on with my dress and, they don't seem to like each other very much. In fact, they kinda clash. I knew that they weren't going to match and i was totally fine with that - or so i thought.

When i put the dress and the veil together, they compete with each other as they are both so ornate. On top of that, the veil is a completely different colour, so it really doesn't look right.

For my something borrowed, i thought i would borrow a pair of shoes from someone. Mind you i hadn't asked anyone yet, but i thought surely there was someone out there that would lend me a nice pair of shoes. And then i went and BOUGHT a pair of (gogeous, no less) shoes.

SOOOO i still need a something old and a something borrowed. The 2 most difficult of items to find, wouldn't you agree?

So i'm looking to you guys for suggestions - or handouts. Probably more the handouts than the suggestions, but i'll take me a few suggestions too.

Wedding update

Do i owe you an update?

yes, i think so - thanks to the 2 people left who might be checking this blog - a BIG thank you.

ok, so updates....

My dress came in (about a month ago - i know, i know...sorry!) i had a nightmare just once that my dress came in the day before my wedding, which didn't bother me, and thankfully it didn't need any alterations, and i wore all day on my wedding and then at the end of the night when it was just myself, Mat and my parents sitting in the empty restaurant after everyone else had gone home, did i notice that my dress was NOT the colour that i had ordered - and i balled, and everyone kept trying to convince me that it was fine because i didn't notice until NOW and it's all over anyway and that it looked great in the colour that it was, but that didn't help me because it was NOT MY DRESS. Dreams are so weird. Needless to say, my dress DID come in the colour that i ordered it in because i checked the tag and it said "platinum". Phew. You have no idea how badly i want to post a picture of the dress, but we'll both have to wait for another 6 months...

We have finalized so many details. We've got the church booked, we've taken our mandatory marriage prep course, we've booked the venue and paid our deposit, we've booked our photographers (yay!), we've got the favours picked out, we've finalized a budget, we've started the invitation design process, we've finalized our flowers (bah! so many flowers!), we've started the cake hunt and the DJ hunt...just a few more things to do and we're still 6 months out . I'm feeling good about this considering i am the world's biggest procrastinator.

So, any tips and advice from those of you who have gone through this? One of my favourite parts of Martha Stewart Weddings is the "One thing i learned" section. Did i mention that i've been collecting Martha Stewart Weddings magazines for 10 years? I have every issue which come out 4 times a year - i have about 40 Martha Stewart Weddings Magazines! It made getting ideas easy!

What are some of the things you're glad you did, or wish you had, or enjoyed at someone else's wedding?

I'll take it!!

Ok,

I've calmed down considerably since Saturday when it seemed as though i had rushed into a huge decision.

I should add that it seems to have been a weekend filled with quick and impulsive decisions.

I got my hair cut on Friday and i didn't expect to. I went in thinking i would get a trim, and the next thing i knew i walked out of there looking like victoria beckham.

i liked it initially, but then the fear set in that i wouldn't have "long enough" hair for my wedding and i've been stressing all weekend about it and how my hair is now "too short".

Update: today, monday morning, i like my hair again, and if i have to, i'll get extensions for my wedding...kidding!!

ok, so that was friday. Saturday, my mom and i had plans to see the Phantom of the Opera. It's her birthday and she's been staying with me for the past week to help with the gardening. I treated her to the Phantom for her birthday (and because i have this weird obsession with the Phantom of the Opera...)

I wanted to maximize my mommy and me time so i made appointments for us at a couple of bridal stores. We had one appointment last Tuesday, and it was ok. The woman had beautiful gowns, but for what i was looking for it was going to be crazy expensive (or at least, an amount that i would not be comfortable spending). Again, she was nice, and showed us some less expensive alternatives, but i knew they weren't what i was looking for.

On Saturday morning, my mom and i went to our second appointment before the Phantom. I really didn't know what to expect as i found this store on the internet after doing a google search for a designer dress i saw in Martha Stewart Weddings magazine. She is the only one in Ottawa who carries this designer. I called her to see if she had that particular dress (in the magazine) she said "no, because that line ranges from $15,000 - $20,000 and there really isn't the market for that kind of dress in Ottawa"

No shit.

She did add that she carried a lot of this designer in a much lower price range and invited me to come and see if there is anything else i liked.

I agreed, thinking it couldn't hurt.

On saturday, my mom and i drove downtown and parked the car. We started to walk towards the store and my mom asked why i wasn't bringing my wallet. I told her "well, i'm not going to buy anything today". I honestly thought i would be shopping for a dress for months. I had also planned to make a trip to Montreal and Toronto, as well as make several outings with my sister and bridesmaids.

In the end, i ran back to grab my wallet "just in case" but mumbled a few more times how i "really don't need it".

When we arrived in the store, we were greeted by the sweetest woman, Rena. She started off by pulling out the catalogue for the designer i said i liked. We flipped through it and i pointed out dresses that i thought i would like to try on. I chose maybe 8 dresses that i wanted to try on. As she was taking me back to the dressing room, i saw this dress on a mannequin and stopped to stare at it. I said "Rena, i LOVE this dress, i really want to try it on". She said "ok, but i'm surprised, because it's not what you said you wanted, and you didn't even make a peep when we flipped by it in the catalogue". I said "hmmmm" and said again, "i really want to try this one."

So into the change room i went. I tried on two full lace empire waist gowns. Both beautiful but not "IT". The next one i tried on was also full lace with an a-line skirt but didn't do anything for me. I was getting worried. These were all dresses that i knew i wanted and the were actually beautiful dresses but i wasn't getting that "This is it!!" feeling from any of them. When i put on the third one, my mom starting crying and telling me how beautiful the dress was and how perfect it was. i was Really getting worried at this point because i thought for sure if my mom was crying then it was supposed to be "the one" but i just didn't love it on me.

After standing around in that third dress for about 30 minutes while both my mom and Rena kept fiddling with it to try and convince me that this was the dress, i finally said "i would really like to get out of this dress now and try THAT one on (pointing to the one i saw on the mannequin). Rena obliged (although i knew she thought the one i currently had on was the best) and took it off the mannequin for me to try on.

As soon as i emerged from the change room and looked in the mirror, I. KNEW.

immediately i said "yup, this is the one".

My mom had her mouth on the floor and exclaimed how "stunning" it was and how it looked a thousand times better on me than on the mannequin (thanks mom).

She kept her mouth open and her eyes wide as she walked around me touching the dress exclaiming that it was "just perfect" and "exquisite". She couldn't say anything more than that.

I just stood there looking at myself in the mirror with a huge grin on my face and said "i'll take it"

(thank GOD it was well under my budget...how lucky??)

OMG

i bought my dress















my WEDDING dress













Today












i tried on 4 dresses and had to have this one













am i crazy????

Etiquette

Question for you folks:

As you know, i'm getting hitched next year (yay!).

My sister who's the maid of honour wants me to send her a list of people i would like to be invited to my bachelorette party.

My problem is....can i invite people to my bachelorette party if they're not invited to the wedding?

My first initial answer is no. It's rude to invite someone to one part of the wedding and not to the wedding itself. right?

But then i started thinking, and now i'm wondering if it's ok to invite them to one and not the other.

here's why:

1. We're trying to keep our guest numbers down as much as possible and i think most people can understand that
2. The bachelorette party isn't a cash or gift grab. It's a night out to drink and get silly with a bunch of girls
3. The bachelorette party is going to be in Vegas, so if someone wants to go, why not
4. It's not like me getting married is a secret so if they're not invited to the wedding they're still going to know about it anyway
5. I don't think i would be offended if i wasn't invited to a not-so-close-friend's wedding but someone invited me to their bachelorette party

What do you think? How would you feel if you were invited to an acquaintance's bachelorette party and not her wedding (keep in mind that obviously all close friends and family are invited to the wedding)

The Story of Mat and Roz: How Mat Proposed

I was having a really crappy day one Thursday because it was like my 3rd day at my new job, and some stuff was just not good that day. Anyway, I came home pretty upset and was talking to Mat about it and he was trying to make me feel better.

Mat: what would make you feel better? Would you like to get some Gelato?

Roz: No

Mat: Do you want to grab a pizza for dinner tonight?

Roz: No

Mat: well, there must be something I can do to make you feel better

Roz: No, nothing (note: typical Roz would usually say something to the effect of being engaged, or getting a ring or the like, but I didn’t want to feel any worse than I already did by being disappointed, so I just kept saying “no, nothing”)

Mat: oh, c’mon, there must be something…

Roz: No, Mat, actually I would just like to be left alone…ok??

Mat: c’mon, there must be something. If I were a genie and you had one wish, what would it be?

Roz: (getting annoyed) look Mat, you already know what I would say, but I’m in a shitty mood and I don’t want to be even more upset, ok? So I really don’t want to play this game right now…ok?!

Mat: c’mon, just one wish….

Roz: FINE! You know what I want??? I wish we were engaged, OK?? (now quite mad)

Mat: oh, ok…(goes to bedroom)

Mat: (comes back with a small box)

Roz: what is that??! You better not be teasing me, because that’s NOT funny.

Mat: (gets down on one knee…) Roz, I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and I’ve had this for a few weeks now, but there’s been so much going on lately with your family and you traveling, there was never the right time to give this to you, but I think now is a perfect time because I want you to know that whatever we go through, it’s always going to be ok, because we’ll have each other.

Roz: *sob* *sob*, is this for real???? Is this really happening??? Serious??? *laughs* (probably delirious right about now), ohmygod…*laughs* *sobs* YAY :D

So that’s it…very casual kind of like us…Mat mentioned that he thought of planning a getaway, but knew I would be suspicious and didn’t want me to know when he was going to do it so I guess it worked…I certainly didn’t wake up that day thinking I would get engaged...

Life is good

This is going to be short and sweet.

I love life right now. I have so many wonderful things going on that most days i'm over-stimulated with excitement.

Mat and i have spent that last 2 weekends packing up our apartment. Although i can't believe how much STUFF we have, it feels awesome to give a bunch of it away. Packing has also forced me to do things that i've been putting off like: going though bags of papers that were on the desk, as well as the file folders and shredding old bills. We bought a cute little shredder that cross-cuts and also destroys credit cards and media...it took a while to shred all of the stuff we had (3 garbage bags later) but it felt amazing not having to take all that crap to our new house.

We've also filled the trunk of Mat's car full of stuff to giveaway to goodwill. That also feels good. Not necessarily because we're "donating", but because it's clearing our space and our heads of stuff we don't use and certainly don't need.

My philosophy of sorts for moving into the new house is to keep it clean and simple. I think we felt we had to move because our space was too small (which it is, when you have 2 adults and 2 dogs living in a one-bedroom apartment), but now i think if we had gone through all of our stuff and thrown out and given away as much as we have, we wouldn't have felt so rushed to buy a house. The fact is, when you're not forced to do something, then you rarely do it, which is the case with us.

I'm so excited that i will be able to enjoy summer mornings, afternoons, evenings and nights in my backyard on my new patio set.

I'm thrilled that i will be able to have people over to my place and not send mat into the bedroom to watch tv.

I'm ecstatic that visitors will be able to stay over at our place in comfort with their own rooms and beds.

I can't wait to host people for bbq's, and dinner parties.

I'm just so happy that the doggies will have their own space and freedom in our large-for-a-townhouse backyard.

Furthermore, it seems as though love is in the air. Maybe i'm just imagining things, or maybe it's just the beautiful summer days making everyone feel all lovey-dovey, but it seems like a ton of people i know are in love and loving life as well. It's...great.

Lastly, i'm excited more and more each day about getting married. For those of you who know me, i can seee your eyes rolling into the back of your heads, but i am, ok? When Mat and i first got engaged, i was excited, but part of me was also very calm since the wedding is a year and a half away. Now we are approaching the one-year away mark which means i'll be able to start shopping for my dress and sending out save the date cards and all of the other wonderful, glorious things that wedding planning entails. AND...it's MY wedding...finally :)

Ok, a few more things to be happy for, and i'm done:

I can't wait to start some projects in our house like painting a few rooms, creating a dining room, putting down hardwood, installing a fireplace, creating a guest room and an office and a workout space and a sewing and knitting space.

I can't wait to start gardening and planning out the landscaping for both the front yard and the backyard.

I can't wait to buy potted plants for the entrance way and the walk way. I can't wait to buy hanging baskets for the porch and the garage and the side of the house.

I. just. can't. wait.

yay! life is good :)

(ok, sorry this wasn't "short" but it was sweet, don't you think :))