Mostly Music

Being overtired (I hate you, 6:30am mornings) and with nothing good on TV I seem to turn to wedding planning. So far I'm really pleased with how everything is coming together. Actually, I'm wary about how everything is coming together—am I just deceiving myself? No doubt mum will bring me a reality check when I need one.

So dress and shoes are pretty much out of the way, and my veil is sitting at home nicely wrapped and just needs some tweaking to update to 2010. Mum and I have ideas for decorating for the reception and she is already buy some Very Funky Plates and we just need to sit down and discuss our menu. I have my guest list back from both families and am just mulling back and forth over which friends to invite.

So all that said, this evenings project turned out to be music. Because the wedding will be a mass, there are a lot of opportunities for music. I need to pick a mass setting and make sure whoever does the music can play the setting. I want to have good musicians who can hold their own because I've been to too many regular masses with a congregation that barely sings and music that sounds half dead—NOT AT MY WEDDING. While I can't bank on people singing (although I know Madeleine, Hannah, & I will sing loud enough to compensate, haha) I at least want good music to fill up any empty space. I also want to put good thought into the hymns/songs used at the wedding. While I realize that it is near impossible to find songs about love and commitment that do not sound corny or mushy, if I am going to embarrass myself by having those things played at my wedding they are going to be chosen for the right reasons!

I thought about having Ave Maria somewhere in there. Not sure where—I read somewhere once that it could be sung during the blessing of the rings(?). I *may* also be able to have it as a recessional, but I'm not sure. One needs to be careful where they put Mary in the mass >;)

For the processional I am really, REALLY, hoping to be able to have The Wedding Song (Noel Peter Stookey). Not only is it beautiful, but Dad was the one who found it for me when I was home last. I think it's one of his little ways of being involved, and I just happened to really like the song. And I just picture it being set to some amazing guitar and piano, with the amazing vocalist I'm hoping to have and I melt a little. All that said I'm really hoping Fr Marek doesn't throw a fit like some priests (*cough*stmichael'scathedral*cough*) about me walking down the aisle with my dad (or parents) and meeting David at the front of the church. According to St Michael's this is a superstitious tradition and the bridge & groom are expected to process down the aisle together. I don't think it will be a problem, because i've been to Catholic weddings in Victoria that did it the normal way, and I really don't want David to see me until I'm coming down the aisle so that he will be even more blown away. I think it is much more romantic than seeing me in the narthex before the ceremony.

As for the reception, I've considered various ways of getting music at the park. The main issue is that it is a park, so there is no electricity. My brother is convinced that we can ask the caretaker if we can run an extension cord from the caretaker's cottage down to the picnic area, and I am convinced that my brother is nuts and this won't work. Instead I am really hoping that I can get certain Port Albernians who play classical guitar to provide background music. We are not planning to have a dance, but I have one special song that I would like to do a first dance to. And I don't see why I can't! So hopefully the musicians will know it, and if not I will have it provided via laptop or i-Tunes or something. And the song shall remain nameless but ya'll can guess what it is when you hear it at the wedding.

In non-music related news, it looks like our wedding is going to be dry. We're thinking about obtaining a liquor license so that we can have sparkling wine for toasts, but we're not sure. I don't mind a dry wedding—I've been to too many weddings that just turn into a bunch of people getting roaringly drunk and that is *not* what I want. I also don't want people coming just to take advantage of an excuse to get roaringly drunk. That said, I really don't care if my friends want to bring their own liquor and drink it, of course! It's more the "I'm only here for the alcohol" eventuality that I want to avoid. Besides, it's an afternoon reception!

my mother is awesome

I must take a moment to say just how awesome my mother is being about the whole wedding. So far she's been really supportive of every idea I've bounced off her, no matter how different it is from the norm. Only once has she commented on my wedding being somewhat offbeat but that was in a jokey sort of way. This post is mostly brought about because I sent her a picture of the shoes I'm thinking of getting for the day--royal blue "medieval moccasins". Instead of saying something negative about them looking weird, or unconventional, or being blue, she just exclaimed over how cool they looked and said I need to make sure I got a short dress for the reception to show them off. Even when we went dress shopping, both her AND my FMIL refrained from saying which dress they preferred so that I wouldn't get swayed by anyone else's opinion.

From the day I called mum to tell her that I was engaged she's been picking up things for the wedding. She's slowly getting cans of chickpeas in order to make hummus for the potluck buffet, she's been picking up these crazy blue & white patterned paper plates for us to use at the reception, and she's currently talking about making windchimes from seashells to hang in the trees of the park. My brother says she's also keeping an eye out for small butterflies because I want to hang strings of them from the trees. And instead of ever telling me what she thinks I should do, she just gives nice little suggestions and explanations of her own ideas--no pressure--which helps me figure things out and think about aspects I haven't considered.

I'm really happy to have a mother who is really into the whole DIY aspect of this wedding, and who is actually excited about our unconventional plans (although to me they seem perfectly normal, haha). So, here's to my mum!

budgets and such

I seem to be joined at the hip to the computer lately, mostly looking at wedding porn and discussion forums on OffBeatBride. Also had a nice chat with mum, again mostly wedding related. And I got the guest list back from David’s mum with their additions. Anyway, things are coming along swimmingly and I feel like I’m in a really good place to be this early. Still over a year away…with all this time on my hands I see how people can go overboard!

The best wedding related thing I did last week was to actually sit down and make a budget now that David and I have an idea of what we want. I accounted for us doing everything ourselves, no help from family, because I am trying to keep to a certain for more than just practicality. I really have a problem with how much weddings cost, with how “wedding _____” means costing ten times as much because of the W word in front. Don’t get me wrong—if you have the money and want a certain thing because it is an expression of who you & your fiancée are, that is great. It’s the whole idea of getting sucked into the wedding industry’s traps, guilt trips, and threats that should be avoided.

In my mind, having your life peak at the wedding is like peaking at high school. You know the people—“high school was the happiest time of my life”. No different than, “my wedding day was the happiest day of my life”, or “better be the happiest day of my life”! I’m not saying these times should be happy, I just think there’s always more good to come. I mean the day we got engaged was ONE of the happiest days of my life, but I really hope that when I’m 50 I’m not looking back on January 1^st, 2009 as the happiest day of my life. I’m hoping I have something more recent to top it!

The point in all this is that by keeping to a modest budget we’re forced to really consider what is important to us, and to make sure that we weigh each thing we have carefully. I’m hoping this will save me from bride-musthave-insanity down the road. Currently I’m over the budget for the day by $256. But I tend to overbudget, so I’m hoping I come in under. I also have a budget including what I’d like to spend on the honeymoon, because I don’t see the point of separating the two.

I am so excited and I’m really hoping we don’t need to postpone it for finances. But I refuse to go into debt for one day!

engagement party

Last night we had our engagement party and I must say that it was LOVELY. The day we announced our engagement David's family through us a lovely impromptu party, complete with champagne, and I loved it but that was just family and we hadn't had a chance to celebrate with our friends. I had put off the party until my brother's visit, and a few hours before everyone arrived David asked him to be one of his groomsmen and I thought it was a very touching guy moment, because they were both gruff and awkward. Melted my heart a little.

Anyway, the party was great--small and informal, just what I wanted, but I was extra touched that everyone dressed up in lovely party frocks (well, not the guys, but they all looked respectable). We'd spent the day cleaning and baking and I was pleased with how well our suite looked with all the spring cleaning done, and with how well all the desserts we made turned out (lemon squares, brownies, and Mennonite obtskuchen).

It was just sitting around and telling stories and eating food and being happy and laughing--exactly what I wanted. Kind of a miniature version of what I hope our wedding is! I was particularly touched that one of my friends proposed a toast to us when we opened a bottle of wine. I may have gotten a little teary eyed. Anyway, it was great. And Madeleine remembered to snap a few pics for me which is more than I remembered to do for myself. With everyone sitting in a circle and chatting there wasn't really anything that screamed PHOTO, but I'm very glad she snapped some because I'll want something for the scrapbook.

So that is that and I am so happy. It was exactly what I wanted and I just had this wonderful happy glow all night from having a good time with friends celebrating our engagement. My brother snapped some photos of us before everyone came:

Good Advice

This is a bit of advice I took from offbeatbride.com this morning. I think it's a very good reminder of what is actually going on:

My advice for other offbeat brides: Keep your cool baby! This is supposed to be fun! Do not go over your budget, do not get too wrapped up in what's going to make your guests happy or unhappy, do not forget why you are doing this. The people you care about sharing this with are going to love sharing it with you no matter what you serve them or what you wear or where you have it. Love is the most amazing thing in the world, celebrate that and you'll have no regrets.--Rhiannon

I find it particularly relevant to myself. I like to make people happy, even if it means sacrifice for myself. I don't think this is necessarily bad--one should compromise and not be selfish--but it can go from beyond just trying to consider others to worrying about what they think. I don't want to get caught in that trap, and I know I'm quite susceptible to it. So I copied the above text and put it onto my wedding planning brainstorming sheet, right at the top, so I can see it as a reminder every time I open the file. Mum keeps telling me to not worry about my guests, and if the internet agrees I guess I have to listen!

engagement things

I’m finally getting around to doing the engagement things that one is supposed to do—namely photos and a party. So I wandered over to Sears and priced our engagement photos. As I think I’ve said before, I wanted to go the traditional, portrait style look for those photos. I’m excited to see what they do, and hopefully they come up with something beautiful. If not I just won’t order anything...but I do like a lot of the available backgrounds and hope we can get something elegant and timeless. I also want to get a cd of our photo prints, so I’m hoping they don’t charge too much for that.

I’m really excited about getting the pictures done. I’m going to wear one of my gowns, and the only one I have in Toronto—it’s a floor length black gown with an empire waist, and it falls in pleats from the waist to the ground. For Christmas I got a silver shawl, so I’m going to tie that into a bolero style covering, and wear the silver jewellery that I also got at Christmas. David’s going to wear his charcoal suit with the burgundy shirt and burgundy & silver tie, so we’ll match with black and silver. And to further pick up his shirt colours I’ll probably wear my red-gem hair clips. I’m just waiting for my GST cheque to come in so that I have the money to pay for our pics!

Also, now that school is out and things are somewhat settled I can finally get around to throwing our engagement party! It’ll be almost 7 months by the time we have it, although I always find the time from January-September moves incredibly fast for me. One reason that I’ve waited to have it is because I want my brother to be here when we do, so we’re going to throw it during his visit.

I’m just doing something simple. I’ve only been to one other engagement party before—it was a lot of fun, and it was at a pub so that people could just come and go and order food or drinks as they liked. We talked about doing that, but as our friends had already done that a little while ago and as we’d done something similar for my birthday we thought we’d hold it at home. So we’re just going to have a relaxed evening of friends, dessert, coffee & tea. I think I’ll probably make Mennonite plum cake (obtskuchen. So good!), lemon squares, and brownies. I’m not too worried about leftovers as between John & David they will probably go super quickly.

The downside to this plan is that now I have to really clean the house in two weeks. I would’ve needed to clean anyway because we’re having people over before then, and John is coming to visit, but it is one thing to let a few close friends/family see the cluttered disaster area that is your office space and another thing to have up to 13 people in your place... alas. On that note I should go sweep the floors. Damn.

coupley afternoon

this afternoon David and I went way out to the edges of TTC territory to take in an art exhibit at Sherway Garden Mall. I love malls, and this one was airy and not crowded so we took our time window shopping as we walked around. I really love these little excursions of ours, because it's time when we sort of plan, or dream, the trappings of our future together.

The art exhibit we'd gone to see was alright, but I actually preferred a little art gallery we wandered into that was near the food court (it wouldn't be a mall date without mall Chinese food!). Unlike most mall galleries which boast prints, this was an actual art gallery with real paintings. There were some very lovely paintings, including a massive still life that on first glance appeared to be an ordinary fruit scene but on closer inspection was full of worm-eaten fruit, butterflies, and dragonflies. I loved it! It was a bit steep though, at $12,000... Anyway, we slowly wandered through the gallery, discussing the virtues of various pieces and discussing our own collection when we ran into a wall dedicated to Stuart Clifford Shaw.

The paintings were beautiful and we both fell in love. I think a little of this is due to his BC origin, because the scenes painted really did seem so familiar in a strange way. I particularly loved his Lake Jasper. Of course at $1200 it's beyond our means, but it is nice to plan!

We have a lovely little art collection in the works, some of it in prints and some of it in originals. Part of it is in Toronto, but the rest is split between Port & Victoria. I look forward to the day we [finally] have a place to settle and can start bringing it over!

One funny thing in the art gallery was the way the saleswoman we borrowed a pen from (to write down the artist's name) was being very friendly. David was wearing a nice shirt and tie, and I was wearing a usual "going out" outfit, and she clearly thought we had money to purchase. That said, we both wished we'd had money to purchase! One day...

Since we were in the mood to discuss our material future, we decided to head over to The Bay and get a sense of where we're going to take our gift registry. We also have a couple of friends/family members getting married this summer, and although we can't make the weddings we want to bring gifts back with us when we come home in September. So we had a good time strolling through the top floor of The Bay and discussing various items--glassware, linens, etc. It was fun to think about actually choosing a bed set for us (although that may cause a debate, as we both liked different ones) and other house related things. The biggest discussion ended up over cookware, of course.

It is no secret that David has been strongly won over by Chef Gordon Ramsey. And lo, we found his cookware set! So we had a serious discussion over whether or not it was a new level of decadence in cooking..and decided NO. We are super chefs! We deserve the best! So I think it is on our list of things to buy in the future... Were we wealthy, or were credit-card fraud not wrong, we could have easily spent $2000 today (or $14,000 if I really splurged and went for the giant still life...).

Money aside, it was really fun to think about our future in tangible material terms. We both have our ideas, of course, but we've moved so often and always "settle" knowing it's not permanent that it is nice to know that one day we will stop, and one day we will be settled enough to buy things for our home because they are beautiful and permanent, not because they are inexpensive and functional. It makes the whole thing seem more real, somehow.

Waiting for the subway. And dressed like a proper Cambridge Man.
*
Summery! And yes, my hat is very bright--it serves to bring cheer.