Day 603 - Feels like home

With 9 days left until our wedding it's down to those last minute details. The flower baskets, the seating charts, the garter, the boutineers, the wedding favors, the bubbles....the emotions!

A few days ago while in the shower, very suddenly and with no explainable reason I started to bawl. It wasn't happy tears, I was sobbing and confused all at once. Just as quickly as it washed over me it was gone and I was content again. I stepped out of the shower still looking confused. I have shrugged it off as being tired and my body just needing to get emotional for no reason.

The last person I expected to be excited is perhaps more excited than all of us. Our daughter! She has been running into our bed in the mornings squealing, "you're going to get MARRIED! We're going to go to your wedding and you'll have your wedding dress and I'm going to stand and be quiet and watch you get MARRIED!" she bounces up and down with her eyes wide and her hands clapping together and flapping around. Every time she hears a song that has become associated with our wedding in some way she will stop what she's doing to look at us and squeal, 'THAT'S YOUR WEDDING SONG!" or "THAT'S THE SONG FOR YOUR WEDDING!" She has even decided that at our wedding she wants to dance to a song she now calls "our song" with her mommy and daddy. So in addition to having our first dance we are going to follow with our first dance as family with our daughter.

She has watched us practice our dance together and has even insisted that I practice our dance together. This mostly consists of her sticking her arms out and spinning around. But I play along and the day of the wedding I will do the same if that makes her happy.

I asked David the other day how he knows he loves me. He responded that it was just a feeling. I asked, "And what does it feel like?"
"It feels like home." I laughed and began to sing the song for a second before he continued, "a longing, comfort. Feeling safe. Not being able to imagine life without you." He said more and has had variations on the same thing but to be completely frank I must cut this short as my seating chart is quietly waiting for me to complete it and Uncle Jer has taken our excited daughter out for a smoothie. I must take advantage of the toy free floor. :)

<3 9 days <3

<3 your hippie bride

Day 576 - Bottom done gone falled out!

As that number of days until our wedding gets smaller and smaller so does my brain! You hand me something, I'll lose it within a minute and where we find it will make very little sense. Our best man got to witness this foolishness first hand this weekend when he handed me his iphone for a moment. I was sitting on the sofa with it and stood up, I remembered specifically putting it on the coffee table and then going to the bathroom to help him with my daughter.
In the bathroom I used both hands to open the cupboard looking for a thermometer to take her temperature. Because of this when we later went looking for the iphone we knew it couldn't have been in my hands when I left the living room. We looked everywhere, even my bedroom. I had gotten up and went straight to the bathroom, he was here... he can verify that when we found it on my computer desk behind the dining room table his reaction was, "when were you over here?!" and my answer was, "I wasn't!!!" I swear, I have gremlins running around my house right now, that's my only explanation to where things are turning up lately.

I have tried to keep myself completely distracted and our kitchen counters have never seen this much attention. Between our abstaining and my flighty mind I have all this pent up energy to use and I have been bleaching the crazy out of my counters, stove, walls, you name it. That's not to say the house doesn't have the usual amount of chaos but it's super sanitized where it's clean and neat. I just keep looking at that number of days remaining and feeling as though I have just enough time to finish all necessary wedding tasks and that if I waste a single moment I will have to forgo something :(
This worries me so much that I use my distractions as best I can.

However, when the day comes to an end and I sit down to say goodnight to the world I always come back to that same beautiful fact. In 5 weeks I will marry (yes I'm saying it again) my best friend!

Years ago we made a video to tell the story of how we ended up together and now here we are taking that next big leap. I laugh sometimes when I think of how much life has changed in the past few years. I laugh and say, "Had someone told us we'd end up here 8 years ago....we'd have rolled our eyes."
Anyway, the video of our story has always been a pretty good summation of our union and to this day the blooper reel makes me snicker. We had so much fun making the video even though it took far longer than we expected and two different days. Now I make videos in a very different way and am currently completing our wedding video for the day of the wedding. Fun times. I can not wait to walk down the aisle towards David. To see him for the first time that day and then of course take out some of this pent up...erm... I'll end this entry here ;)

<3 your ..um... forgetful...um...what is it... oh yeah, hippie bride! 

Day 535 - Guest lists are for wussies

When I started the "engaged" chapter of my life I received many congrats and even more advice. The one piece of advice I received the most is the one piece of advice I scoffed at the most. Here are some statements I heard about guest lists over the past 535 days:

"Oh the guest list! What a pain! Try not to put too much of your heart into it because most people won't appreciate your consideration in the end."  

"About 90% will RSVP attending and about 60% of those will actually show up. What a waste of your money! I wish you luck." 

"My guest list caused me so much trouble I wish I had just eloped." 

"I don't regret my wedding or having gone through with it. I do wish I had had a potluck wedding and just put it out there that whoever the hell wanted to show could show. But I'm sure that would have pissed someone off too. You can't win with the guest list so don't try."

"Guest list? I threw out some names and hoped for the best. I ended up having mostly people neither me nor my husband knew there. I'd say of our guest list 30% were people we had invited and the rest were friends that those guests had invited without telling us!" 

"Oh what a headache! If you ever need proof that you can't please everyone you'd find it in the guest list at a wedding. In fact I am pretty sure you can displease most with a guest list. Everyone feels entitled or overlooked no matter what you do. Just don't expect anyone to show and thank everyone that does come, whether you invited them or not." 

"Guest lists and seating charts. They still haunt me and we've been married for 10 years now! I remember paying close attention to where I sat everyone because both our families were in year long fights. After all my painful efforts to ensure everyone got a seat next to someone they cared about it was horrible. People showed that we had not invited, the people who were to sit between those who hated each other ... they didn't show. And what's worse is that people stood around at the seating chart fighting rather than taking their seats away from each other. If I could do it over again I'd have just a simple ceremony, blow everyone a kiss and hop in a limo headed for the airport!" 

I never listened. I always said, "oh no... that won't happen to me. I'm going to make sure." I convinced myself that these brides just weren't as organized as me. I convinced myself that they had gone in with extra assumptions or hadn't stood firm on their desires for their wedding day. In some cases I may have been right. But when I offer advice for the next bride to be it's going to be this, "The moment you begin your guest list make sure you have a prescription for Valium because every time that phone rings you are going to look at the caller id in fear that it is his family or yours calling to tell you how you did them wrong, how you failed them, how they are far more important than anyone else on your guest list."

Perhaps the most surprising part for me is just how entitled a lot of guests can get. They all have some reason why they feel they are more important than anyone else on your guest list and because of that they should be allowed to:
RSVP at the last minute, invite 3 extra guests without telling you, change their mind 3 or 4 times, call you at midnight to insist you should have some other meal options or better yet tell you, "I know that you are offering fish or vegetarian but we've been friends for years, so I know you won't mind making mine a juicy steak!"
Yes... they are serious, they believe that above all others they are the most important person at your wedding. Maybe even more important than you!

The good news is this, I also heard plenty of drama stories about bridal parties being nasty and all about themselves. I have to say that although a handful of guests have made the whole experience interesting my bridal party have been strong and true through the entire 535 days and then some.

Better yet they each have their roles in keeping me from sending anthrax out with some extra invites to more snotty guests. I have to say I have the perfect balance of nice and firm with my bridal party.

Maid of honor - She's the super sweet one when it comes to family. Whenever a guest is a family member she is there to keep me soft when I need to be soft and feel like throwing daggers. But she is also willing to nod when the family member is being crazy and say, "nope, you are allowed to throw daggers at that one. Ax that invite!"

Bridesmaids - I have one bridesmaid who is family and she is the one who knows without any backstory what I grew up with. Therefore when I have a dilema that needs immediate advise without taking the time to explain a backstory it would be her I call. My other Bridesmaid has already been a bride and knows a bit about the planning fun and the wedding drama. Through her I channel my etiquette concerns through her and ask what she did in certain situations.

Best Man - He's not just David's best man he's both of our best man! Aside from David he's the only man that's been around since the beginning and still is. He's been around more than my own family (which isn't saying much but still) he's the one I call when I am frusterated with David and need an ear I know won't hold it against David. He's also the one I call when I need the opposite reaction from my Maid of Honor. My Maid of Honor is the softy with family and sometimes you need someone who is tough. He is less likely to soften for just anyone and so I know when he does that maybe I should loosen up on them a little bit.

As per my posts from the past, if it weren't for my bridal party I think there would be a few shallow graves or at the very least the guest list would be a fraction of what it is. I don't regret any of this, I just wish some of my guests would stop and realize this wedding is about us and that's not them! I guess my advice would not be for a future bride-to-be but instead to her guests. My advice is:

Dear Guest,
When you feel looked over, second-fiddle or unappreciated stop and ask yourself: "How big is her guest list? How many people is she trying to please right now?" And when you find yourself feeling upset that you have to spend $200 on a hotel just to go to her wedding and you feel she should pay for your accommodations or give you a steak instead of a haddock, ask yourself: "How much money did she put into this wedding so everyone could have a good time? Can I afford to go? Should I send a nice present instead of going and talk to her personally so she knows it's nothing personal but that I can't afford $200 plus travelling cost?" If you find yourself thinking, "they won't mind if I bring my best friend. After all I am their cousin/friend of 6 years/father/mother/sister/brother/uncle/aunt/ex-boyfriend and/or I am travelling a long distance to attend their wedding." perhaps you should ask yourself, "How many of their guests have they been friends with for a long time? How many of their guests are traveling a long distance? How many of their friends are family of some way or another? If all of us feel the same entitlement to bring uninvited guests how many uninvited guests will be at their wedding?"

As a bride-to-be all we ask is for a little patience, understanding and respect. Be patient if we don't get to you right away when you send us a message about our wedding. Understand that we can't give everyone everything they want and respect that in some cases we don't give everyone everything they want because it's not what we want for our wedding! Give us this and we will do our very best to do the same at your wedding if you invite us. We are sorry if your haddock is too dry on the wedding day, we didn't cook it, but we did pay for it so you could have something to eat. We are sorry you prefer red wine and we ordered white. We don't like wine at all but ordered something we thought our guests might enjoy or be grateful for. We are sorry we didn't get to give you a one-on-one dance, there was only time for 40 dances and we had 80 guests. Please, before you get upset, ask yourself if you are being singled out or if in fact you are expecting a tad too much from one person.


Thank you so much in advance,
<3 your hippie bride...she is trying.

Day 531 - Nightmares again?

Interestingly enough last nights wedding nightmare involved something I am not in charge of. Last night I had a terrible nightmare that David's stag night had not been planned at all and that the night before I threw together a quick event on facebook. Inviting all his male buddies and in some cases their wives figuring the wives could come hang out with me. Only one person was able to attend. He came, brought his wife (who is pregnant) and we all hung out drinking. David felt brokenhearted that few had shown and I woke shaking my head.
The good news is I am not having nightmares about things I'm directly involved with right now so perhaps my inner bride is feeling completely in control. :)

With 81 days left I am finalizing those last details and chasing down those few last RSVP's so we can finalize our guest list once and for all.

<3 your hippie bride

Day 309 - Party Rock was in the house last night!

The party went off wonderfully! :)
The theme, of course, was bridal fugly!

I had a fugly lace dress (old school) with homemade lace buttons that were so small and annoying it's amazing that this was legitimately someone's dress at some point! 



























One of my friend did my hair, it was supposed to be dreadful and dramatic but it ended up kind of nice just not my usual style :p

Wow can you see the size difference between the two of us here?! Oh my gentle giant! 

Terrible picture of me but I use it to show my over the top make up. I learned my lesson, when wearing a full body lace dress....don't wear metal chained beads 0_0 nearly killed myself on several occasions! Oh and David was trying to make our best man look at my ring which I had been attempting to have him notice. 

Everyone's costumes were awesome (I should know, I helped to pick them out and even sewed up a few of them ;p ) However, not everyone would want to be on a blog and so I will only show a few ;)

Our best man wore a red silk-like cowboy ... pj style top :p

Why do people insist on "eating pictures"? :p 

At one point he ended up wearing the beads apparently. Oh and taking pictures with two cameras :p

Not quite sure what we were doing here... oh yes, she was showing the multiple layers of her dress and I said, "I have multiple layers too!!! Then for whatever reason our multiple layers...erm...umm... humped each other? I'm not certain on this but take from it what you will. :p 

Also not sure what I'm doing here either.... I swear drinking was uninvolved in this party! Promise... my best guess is someone compared the color of her red hair to candy and I was implying she was tasty.... I do not remember this happening but it is my best guess

Even the beast got into play with her lovely "flower girl" ensemble. 

Beast getting ready for the party! 

Once everyone had noticed I'd received my ring back from being sized (after losing all my post-baby weight) I then showed it off to everyone. 

 Of course, as per usual in my line of work, the party was interrupted by some drunk (not my guest) who decided to jump a fence (not mine) and break his leg (also not mine :p ) and buzzed someone's apartment (not mine) and someone let him in (not me!) and as a result he became my bloody (literally bloody, bleeding) problem. Fortunately it was late in the night so we just bid our guests adieu and proceeded to get in our landlord scrubs. ;p Ignoring that, the party was so much fun. I should get engaged again so we can have another!!!

And the rest is history!

Day 299 - Gift registries galore

I have a love hate relationship with gift registries. I love that they give people ideas of what to buy you if they are wanting to get you something. I hate that they might make guests feel like they have to buy something or even have to buy something from that registry or that store. However, I am making a list because there are more people that want a list than there are people who might be offended, and those who are offended can either tell me they are offended or deal with it. Right?

I have resolved the issues with my gift registry. Thanks to my best man letting me know. Apparently the sources page was changed and I needed to adjust accordingly.

Of course David and I need to sit down and look at the other registry. Perhaps even go into the store for an official scanning of objects.

But until then, the gift registry is back up and operational.

Oh....and by the way... SPARKLE SPARKLE!!! Picked up my resized wedding set today. All ready for the engagment party, <3 your hippie bride.

Day 288 - Extreme Couponing Wedding style

All my couponing and sales watching has paid off. Today by paying the rest of my ring off and placing David's back on layaway plus combining my coupon for signing up for their e-mails I was able to save $232.5 off our rings! :) that's not including the original $300 I saved on them initially so all-in-all $532.5 saved.

Better yet, I will have my bridal set in time for the the engagement party. Had to get it resized down 2.5 sizes.

47% through our engagement! That day just keeps getting closer, as days typically do. Now if only my best man would hurry up and submit his RSVP. ;)

<3 your couponing hippie bride 

Day 212 - Heartbreak #2

After a panicked moment when I realized the website I was going to take my music from no longer existed I set all my nerd/geek friends on a mission to find it for me. I now have a hard copy and many back-up's of it.

With that trial over I started my research into local flourists. I thought my choice of Gerbera Daisies would save me a bundle. I was right, but it's still looking like I should have budgeted for $400 or more. I can't rationalize spending that much money on flowers.

I decided to switch gears and look into the details of our best man marrying us. Only to hit another roadblock. Today I learned that every province in Canada permits your friend to marry you with the disappointing exception of our province!!! I didn't want to end up living in this province in the first place and this only fueled my already flaming disgust with this province. I guess I will have to settle for a stranger marrying us.

<3 your disappointed hippie bride

Day 133 - To dress or not to dress

Seeing as they still needed to clean and patch parts of the dress, which I am buying off the rack to save money, I will be going in one more time tomorrow to see how they did. I'll take Niki and Jer and likely take a look at some bridesmaids dresses with them. Who knows, promises to be fun no matter what.

My day was made even better when basking on the sofa before Breakfast and my hubby-to-be was caught staring at me.
Me - "What?"
Him - "I just don't know what you're going to look like 20 lbs lighter."
Me - "What? Why?"
David - "Well ... you're just.... I don't know... I just... I don't see where you can lose 20 lbs more."

I will take that to the bank. I am happy where I am but not satisfied. I still see too much when I look in the mirror before my shower. Mostly in my thighs and butt so I suppose that could be why he doesn't see it. He is an ass man after all ;p 

Day 127 - Hippie says yes to the dress

Today was amazing. Those who know me know that I don't have family I have family drama. I have no parents (by choice) and only 1 sister. Although my family is biologically a 6 person gathering the actual family of mine is just two people. Myself and my sister (who is also a bridesmaid). It took many years for me to fully accept this and begin the healing process. In that time I have made some very dear friends. In the past 4 years I began saying, "Friends are the family you choose." Never has this felt more true than when planning my wedding.
Instead of a mother to brood over my decisions and hear me cry over small insignificant tiffs with my fiancé I have mama Jer (our best man) to listen to and offer a shoulder for my tears. Instead of a surrounding family of sisters excited for my wedding I have one bio sister and 3 others who I couldn't imagine life without. I have the logical one who lives in an organized chaos. I have the deep one who, like me, enjoys studying body language and different human behavior and I have the wild one who is as quiet as a mouse but as dangerous as a cheetah! ;p
Together they form my crazy family.
I gathered this family together today and went to the bridal shop. One bridesmaid had to work so although she wasn't there this time she had seen the dress and gave it her vote! Of the other 3 bridesmaids one had seen the dress in person and the other had seen it in photos. My best man had also seen it in photographs and so it was only my biological sister left to see it.
The plan was we would each select one dress and she would not know which one was the actual dress. She would know it wasn't the one she had picked of course but by picking one she would also be adding to the options she would then be picking from.
As I said before, I knew that a bride can get caught up in the moment and love the dress because it's in her budget and it's pretty but not because it's HER dress. Since I had already proven this before I was determined to ensure this was my dress beyond a shadow of a doubt.
We started by running around picking all our dresses. While we waited for the consultant to become available we paraded around picking out possible bridesmaids dresses. I wanted the same consultant that had initially picked out the dress for me. Once she (michelle) became available it was onward for the barrage of bridal. Everyone had cameras it seemed and before the dress trying began I laughed with two cameras in my face I said, "I feel like I'm on a TLC reality show." I enjoy editing together video of the important moments in life and so having the multiple angles to work with made it something special. I enjoyed not only being able to capture the dresses but also the people who were there to enjoy the day with me as well.

And although one of my bridesmaid couldn't make it, I later cropped in some photographs and made sure she was included in the video. Of course my fiancé wasn't there either so I had a few photos of him thus including my entire family. I have uploaded the video to my facebook page and for the first million times I watched it I teared up!
After all the dresses were tried on I put on and stood in THE dress and the discussion began. One dress was a close second but it was super heavy. Another I found had too many things going on and thus was shoved in the scarlett o'hara pile. Another, although gorgeous, was too blunt for my sister. Something that didn't even bother me while IN the dress but upon review of the video I see what she was speaking of and is an example of why others input is so important when you are surrounded by bridal glow.
There I stood, in the dress I felt best represented what I had always imagined for my wedding day next to another beautiful dress that is gorgeous on me but was more for a big church wedding than for what I have planned.
It was agreed by everyone quietly that the dress I was wearing was absolutely my dress. But it wasn't until one of my bridesmaid brought tears to my tired, stressed eyes that everyone knew for sure that this was my dress. She began talking about how long I'd been planning and all that I could think of was everything I'd gone through to get to this point in life. All the trials and tribulations I had endured to bring me to the safety of these friends. The people who had hurt me and made me who I was and how now I left only room for loving people such as these. Leaving me overwhelmed and wimpy I bawled like a baby without it's blankie.
And thus the dress was decidedly chosen. Now the concern left is that I have another 20 lbs to lose before I'm completely happy. I sure hope the dress still fits in a year.

Day 117 - Save the Date

It was a bit scary to do it but I've decided that we can make this work. So today I bundled up my wallet and shoved it to the bottom of my purse. Thus forcing inconvenient digging when spending is desired and saving me a dollar here and there. Well... my purse is actually about the same size as my wallet, so in reality I did this just in my head. However, I did send out my save the date video to all whom I intend to invite. 

It felt good to get it done and true to our style to send them out in youtube/video format. Done as a teaser I show all the dresses I have tried on up until now and end with a "to be continued" attitude. See the video above.

So success sandwich? I've had success with officially setting the date. No success in making Jer the marrying type...or at least the type to marry us. I discovered it is no longer permitted in our province to have a friend made officiant for the day. LAME!

However, I am now down 22.1 lbs! So... altogether not bad. Save the dates *check* Guest list tided up *check* wedding dress picked out *check* Down to last ten pounds *check* Solved first bridezilla crisis with rational and logical thinking *check* Saved money? *empties pockets and faints* lol

Seriously though, not bad overall. 

Day 70 - To be an efficient officiant

I've lost 18.4 lbs now, no longer overweight. Almost at my halfway point.
Wedding related I sent off an e-mail to find out what our best man has to do to be able to marry us. Not much else to put since money is still exactly the same. Paying off debt, setting stuff aside and hoping for the best.