yay for Bridesmaid!--ceremony, venues, and dresses

Two posts in one day! Today was my big wedding planning day, in which I toured the town to find my outdoor venue, and set things up at the church. My cousin Tara, also one of my bridesmaids, ended up coming with me which was awesome.

I'd originally thought of doing our reception at Blair Park, because it has a covered area where we could set the food up. But we went there and decided that it was way too exposed and playgroundy feeling. It was too sculpted, I guess. Plus the playground area isn't really separated from the picnic area, which means we can't really have our reception separate from the locals, and the dike pathway is really close to the picnic area, so we'll have people walking by. I could make it work if I had to, but I don't want to!

The other place we went was Roger's Creek Park, and I fell in love with it as soon as we got out of the car! I'd never seen the group area before and I love it. It's really separated from the playground part of the park, and it's down a little hill on the sides that border the road so that we'd be really cut off from traffic. It's got big trees providing lots of shade and enough open space that we could set up croquet and bocce (and Tara says softball). Its covered area is a little more rustic (haha) than at Blair park, but it has nice ledges that we could put the food out on. The bonus for me, however, is that Roger's creek runs along one side and it's just beautiful and natural and woodsy and great!

I am going to drive out to Sproat Lake park tonight but I don't think we can have our own area there, so it probably won't work. But we'll see! It's nice to have backups in case those other parks are booked by the time we set a date.

The best part of all this is the price. The park rental fee is only $25! I will also need alternatives in case we need to move the wedding date to a non-summer month, in which case we're looking somewhere between $200-$500 and indoors and the costs of decorating on top of it. So I'm really hoping I can get time off for end of July/early August next summer! I took some pictures but they're on my brother's i-phone. I'm going to take more tonight when I go in to church so that I can post 'em online and show David and his mum.

We also stopped at the church and I got to tentatively reserve a date (YAY OMG!!!) and Tara knew all the right questions to ask so we ran through that with the office manager. Unforunately Fr Marek is away right now, but hopefully I'll be home in September and can talk to him then. We'll have a better idea of things by then.

I'm really looking forward to my trip downisland with mum at the end of this week. I did end up having to change one of the stores where I wanted to shop for a dress because the one salon wasn't answering their phone or email! So in changing stores I started looking at the designers at the new store, and I also fine-tuned and changed my dresses. I scrapped the two-tone dress idea and have been looking at ones that play with fabric a bit. It will certainly be interesting to see what I end up with!

I really like the skirt on this one.
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I love the way the bodice moves into the skirt, and I do like pickup skirts. But I wonder if the slightly wrinkled look would drive me nuts.
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I promise to forgive everyone who burst out laughing at this dress. I *think* I showed it to David a long time ago and he said it looked like a cake. But when I saw it yesterday I loved it--it's weird and different and I like the contrasting directions of ruffles. It's over budget and perhaps a little too fancy for a mid-morning wedding, but I really love the uniqueness off it! So we'll see what happens. In the end I'll go with what I feel comfortable in, even if it is totally bizarre.

random thoughts connected by wedding

I am heading home for a vacation on Saturday. I’m really looking forward to it. I know I’ve mentioned this numerous times, but!!! Having lived away from home has really made me closer to my family, more appreciative of seeing them because there is no longer that idea of them always being there. And my extended family on mum’s side is so close that I really miss being away from everyone, and see them a lot less.

David was very thoughtful and made sure that he proposed to me when we were home for Christmas so that I could share it with my family before leaving. But we only had a day or two to be excited about it, so I’m really looking forward to having a longer time to enjoy it with them. It’s also nice having a proper ring now that I can show off.

My dress shopping trip has its members adding up and it’s subsequently taking me out of my comfort zone but in a way that I’m really excited about. I’m not someone who is comfortable with people seeing me “as is”--I think one of the reasons that the internet is a chosen means of communication for me is because I can constantly edit and ’perfect’ what I’m saying. I know that on my wedding day I am going to be too full of joy in the face of the one who knows the real me (and loves her) to be anything but that person. My whole vision is just focused on making my vows to David before God.

Anyway, dress shopping. So the original plan was to go shopping with my mum, because it seemed to me like this is the sort of thing mothers and daughters should do together (and I think my mum is almost happier for me than I am). But then through various thought processes and people being around, I now have an entourage of my mum, David’s mum, and [probably] two of my bridesmaids. (Julia & Tara). Which is CRAZY, at least as far as I’m concerned, because I’m someone who does not do girly things like this at all, ever. I’m learning to change, to become a softer person, but it is still weird to me. I’m actually disappointed that Madeleine and Sarah won’t be there.

Having bridesmaids is weird. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with them, actually. We each live in a different city, which makes working on wedding DIY stuff hard to orchestrate. My original plan of slave-driving my MoH won’t work as well now that I’ll be living thousands of miles away from her.

Hmmm… internet research tells me that my bridesmaids are to be my MoH’s bitches. This could be fun, except I think Madeleine is too kind to exploit anyone. It also tells me that they have to help decorate. THAT is good news--they have much more flair than I do. Ah internet, where would I be without you!
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One thing I’ve been mulling over in regards to the wedding ceremony is the problem of communion. We’re having a Catholic mass, of course, which means that we will have communion…which is only open to practicing Catholics. This leaves about 75% of our guests out of receiving it. I’m thinking of putting a special invitation at the front of the wedding program to invite our guests to come up and receive a blessing on our special day. I’m also hoping I can convince the priest to phrase this nicely before the ceremony… I don’t want people to feel left out, and although I realize that a blessing may not be the same for my Christian family as receiving communion would, I hoping people get behind the idea. The question really is about how I can inspire everyone to see this as a beautiful way of participating in our ceremony, instead of seeing it as something they are being left out of.
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Finally, we are probably going to do silk flowers and make them ourselves. I’m going to go over ideas with Sue when I’m home, because she offered to help. These are ones I like:

I like the size of this one. I don`t want anything massive.

This one I love for the colour explosion.

It is so bright and cheerful, I love it. And it got me thinking about doing something with sunflowers.

Simple but bright.

This is maybe more traditional. It might be too large for my tastes...