Again, radio silence.

Sorry.

What has been going on in the wedding world?

• We paid off a few vendors.
• We're still searching for a florist - have a few great contenders!
• We decided on our centerpieces and started amassing all the crap stuff for them.
• We decided on more cost effective favour packaging.
• I went dress shopping.

Alright, paying off the vendors - easy-peasy. And every time we chip away at those bills, it feels SO GOOD!

We've seen four florists - and trust me, I'm done. I think we're almost ready to make a decision ... I'll post about our inspiration and such when we've made a decision. 

Our centerpieces have gotten me the most excited because when we decided what we wanted, good deals started magically falling into our laps (with a teeny tiny bit of work, if I'm being honest) and it's all coming together beautifully. But, again, I'll post more later.

Originally, I wanted spice jars filled with Jelly Belly jelly beans. The spice jars are $1.00 each. For everything, we're going on the estimate of 300 guests. So that would be $300.00 for the packaging alone. And then the jelly beans alone would be around $500.00. That is waywayway too much for me to spend on favours ... Especially since at the end of the night we'd probably just end up with hundreds of empty spice jars. To google I went! I found 2x2x2 clear boxes for 30 cents each (totals about $100ish with shipping) and they also hold 30g less jelly beans, which is about $350.00, but don't quote me on that. Either way, at least we'll be saving some money! Which is always great!

I'll discuss dress shopping in a later post. I went today, and my head is still spinning from all of the options. 

Until next time ... 

Today, I had booked two wedding-related appointments - a consultation with a florist and another consultation with a day-of coordinator/florist combination. But, it's an absolute white-out today. The beginning of Spring and it's a blizzard. So, based on road conditions, I cancelled.

Just goes to show that the world still spins even though you're planning your wedding.

Sexy STD

I was going to edit these for privacy, but I figured if you've read the blog, you know most of the details anyway. 

I'm on the lookout for wedding crashers! Design from Wedding Chicks.

The path to our Save the Dates was rather simple. My dad's family lives mostly in Ireland, with some cousins putting down roots around the world. Spencer has a cousin in Australia. We knew we'd have to give them some warning ... If it were up to Spencer, we would've just phoned or Facebooked them and that would be that. Now, I only plan on getting married once, so I want to do this right ... And without breaking the bank. So, I turned to Wedding Chicks. There were a few other mock-ups I did, but Spencer and I liked this one the best - it is a little old school looking, and Spencer thought it would look cool as an alcohol label. The other ones were just coloured fonts on white backgrounds, so I also felt that this design was a bit more interesting.

The back of the postcard had a little note:

"Mark your calendars!

We're tying the knot on 

February 15, 2014 in Edmonton,

Alberta and would love for you 

to join us!

With love,

Spencer and Jordanna"

And it also had our website listed. On those cards due for the people who had already sent us an engagement gift, I included a thank you note. 

In order to save money, we decided to only send them to people who had to travel across an ocean. That turned into roughly 17 postcards, so I ordered 20 off of Moo, and away they went!

For everyone else, we've decided word of mouth will be more than enough.

Did anyone else have restrictions on who they sent Save the Dates to?

Let's raise a drink!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Spencer and I celebrated the day by going out for sort-of traditional Irish fare, and some wobbly pops.

Hope everybody had a lovely green day!

Celebration

Spencer and I have what I like to call our "busy relationship time" ... I obviously do not have a very good title for it, but bear with me.

Between November 14 and February 21, all of the "important" things people celebrate happen.

We have our dating anniversary, Christmas, New Years, my birthday, Valentine's Day and Spencer's birthday. It's a very expensive time. Not that we celebrate in huge ways, but it does pile up ... Especially with Christmas in there, because Christmas is never just about two people, you have parties, presents, food, alcohol, etc.

This year, for good measure, I think we're going to throw in our engagement anniversary in there - which, my faithful readers, if you remember, is November 30.

We toyed with the idea of getting married in the summer just to spread it out for a bit and have something to look forward to the other 75% of the year, but then we had a better idea! Trade in some celebrations for our wedding anniversary.

This year will most likely be the only time we actually celebrate our engage-iversary, other than that, we'll probably just mark it with a, "Hey, remember when that happened? Good times."

After our wedding, our "busy relationship time" will probably look more like this: Christmas, New Years, my birthday, our wedding anniversary, Spencer's birthday.

Now, I know it's not mandatory to celebrate everything, but I love any good excuse to celebrate! It's just the sheer volume of celebration that gets a tad overwhelming (and it hurts the wallet). And I'll probably get nostalgic and want to celebrate our dating anniversary because I'm a sap like that, but only time will tell.

Have you streamlined your relationship celebrations? And how many times did I say celebration/celebrate in this post (12, including the title)? Did the word lose it's meaning for you too?

For lack of a better ...

The theme for our wedding is ... Wait for it ... Wedding!! 

As of right now, I don't have the time or imagination to think of an actual theme for our wedding, nor do I think that is has to have a theme. Is love or starting our lives together not enough? I'm all for couples who have themed weddings - I think it's really awesome and (can be) unique, but it's just not for me. 

That being said, there are a few details that may be themed-oriented that I'm toying with. 

The first is travel. I think most people love to travel - to see and experience new things outside of their everyday world. I think I'll be incorporating this with our table numbers and our card box.

Taken from - where else? - Pinterest! I do love that garland on the bottom right.

The second is chalkboards. I love me some chalkboards. As a kid, I was super upset when my school made the transition from chalkboards to whiteboards. Allergies and convenience be damned! I wanted my blackboard  - a term I always found confusing because my school had green chalkboards - back! I'm thinking we'll be utilizing chalkboards for general signage, and it may also be incorporated into our favours as well! 

But not about a baby. Taken from Pinterest.

Other options I lovelovelove are mercury glass, scrabble letters and twine! But I'm not quite sure if I'll be utilizing them or not.

I also don't consider the idea of my wedding in my head overly trendy - I have a traditional, run-of-the-mill wedding on my hands. And I'm okay with that. Or I steal other people's creative ideas from Pinterest. I guess time will tell what the final vision will be!

Are you having/will you have a themed wedding? Or are you themeless like me?

Big Sparkle: An Unnecessarily Long Story About My Ring

It just dawned on me that I have yet to talk about my ring.

Warning: Extremely wordy post ahead!

I love my ring. Actually, that's an understatement - the first time I typed that, it was in all caps and I think there were about twenty O's. But, I figured that was a tad obnoxious. So I edited. You're welcome.

This is going to make me sound very superficial and whatnot, but in the interest of full disclosure - I used to (jokingly) tell Spencer "wrong ring, wrong guy." I guess he took it very seriously (truth is said in jest?) and was a little bit nervous about going ring shopping. But that's okay! I wanted him to take it seriously and put thought and effort into it. After all, it was a tangible symbol of our commitment to our future! Although, it still makes me feel bad that he actually took my joke to heart.

We actually went to browse rings at Spence Diamonds the first time about a year before we got engaged. The first visit was more for price - Spencer wanted to convince me that diamonds are expensive. Obviously, I knew that they were expensive, but I didn't appreciate it. If that makes any sense. We spent some time there, I got sized and pointed out a few styles I liked. 

After that visit, I wanted Spencer to know that although I appreciated the gesture, I was also very comfortable with a ringless engagement. I know a few couples who have decided on that, and it's not like it makes their commitment any less special. But, being the traditionalist he is, Spencer was adamant that he was going to buy me a ring. I just had to wait.

Again, in the interest of full disclosure, I was probably not the most patient girlfriend. There are a few reasons for this ... Spencer and I were and are very confident and secure in our relationship, however, we've endured a lot of off-hand and snide (probably not on purpose, but snide nonetheless) comments about how until we're married, our relationship is less important or "real" than others. Hearing that time and time again gets hard. Why am I less important because I have a different label? That doesn't make our relationship any less committed. I also come from a family with an unmarried mother. My parents were together for twelve years and have been apart since I was ten. Although my mom has had great relationships and I come from a very close family, I've always wanted the commitment of marriage. There's also the propaganda designed to make women feel insecure - an article I read once really stuck in my mind about how until you actually have a ring on your finger, everything else is meaningless. Which my logical brain knows is utter crap, but sometimes it's hard to ignore the nagging insecure voice.

Luckily, Spencer didn't get sick of me and toss me out to the curb.

A few months before we got engaged, we went back to Spence Diamonds. I chose three styles I liked and left the rest up to Spencer. 

  

Photos taken from Spence Diamonds

You might have noticed I have a thing for Princess Cut diamonds. The one of these three that I loved was the Halo ring. At the time, I knew Halo settings were very popular, but I hadn't seen many Princess Cut ones. I thought it was at least uniquely trendy. 

The guy from Spence Diamonds turned out to be really pushy and annoying. Bad for his commission, good for us. We ended up finding a better ring for a better price. 

In comes ... Costco!

I love Costco. Spencer loves Costco. We both come from major Costco-lovin' families. So. One shopping day in October 2012, we stopped at the jewelry case. And there. It. Was. THE ring. It was gorgeous and the minute I saw it, I couldn't get it out of my head. It was twice the ring for $1000 less than what Spence Diamonds was quoting us. And I've never heard anyone knock the value of Costco diamonds - in fact, a few ladies at work were bugging me to encourage Spencer to buy me a ring from there!

In November Spencer and I initiated a "spend-free" month. I thought it was just to save money for the holidays - everyone around me and their dog were convinced that I was getting a ring at the end of it. I thought they were all full of shit. They were right, I was wrong. 

Without further ado, my ring! 

Isn't it puuurdy?

It actually has diamonds on the front and back aspects, which is my favourite part of the ring because they're like my little secret diamonds. I called it Big Sparkle at first to be obnoxious and annoying. But only to Spencer. And now the Blogosphere. But I promise that I don't actually refer to my ring as anything other than "my ring."

Is your journey to the (one) ring (to rule them all) as long-winded as mine? Don't leave me hanging!

Play That Funky Music

We have a DJ!

Good music is super-duper important to us because you can't have a good party without a good dance, and you can't have a good dance without good music!

Booking Revolution DJ Services was a very easy decision. In the last year and a half, I've been to two different events where they've performed, and I haven't been disappointed. Their prices are right and their customer service has been awesome so far.

I didn't shop around much for the DJ. I got a few pamphlets from a bridal show I attended in January, but since I knew that Revolution put on a great show, I contacted them first. 

This particular company also offers other event services such as limos, videography/photography, photobooths, etc. If you book multiple services, you get a bit of a discount - win! But, cliffhanger, that's for another post.

On Priorities

Sorry for the radio silence, there's been a bit of a standstill on the wedding front. 

Once we had the venues secured, we took a bit of a break. To be honest, I don't remember seriously discussing wedding details for about three weeks. It was nice. 

So, what have we done instead? A lot of work ... I've been working more than I usually do (cold and flu season not for the win, but it allows me to make more money) and Spencer's been doing some overtime and side jobs. We've celebrated birthdays and adopted a new furry monster! His name is Gizmo, and he's the perfect companion to our other dog Stout. On top of that, we've been focusing on self-improvement. Mostly physically, because there's nothing like the threat of having multiple cameras pointed at you and tons of people staring at you motivate you to get healthy!

That being said, I'm not totally vain, this is also about building a foundation of being healthy for our future family. 

So, what does this do with priorities? My priority is my life, not the wedding. The wedding is a fun (most of the time) puzzle slowly falling together, but it's not without it's stresses! So it's very important to me not to drive myself, or anyone around me, crazy with wedding business. In the end, no one will care about mine and Spencer's wedding more than us, and I don't expect them to drop everything for it. Therefore, I'm trying my best to focus on me, Spencer, our friends and family and work (and play!), and not let the wedding get in the way of that.

All this being said, this is just my opinion and how I'm trying to process all the changes coming up. Not meant to offend.

Does anyone else feel the same way that I do? Or is your wedding the be-all-and-end-all?

Will you be my ...

Spencer and I had different experiences choosing our bridal parties. I'm not going to speak for him, but, in my humble opinion, he had a definite easier time than I did.

After some discussion, we decided on four attendants on either side. He wanted three, but I have a thing about symmetry. Let me just paint you a picture - when I'm posing for pictures with my bridesmaids, I don't want there to be two bridesmaids on one side of me and one on the other. I want there to be an even number on either side. Call me crazy, because I know I am, but that's just what I want.

Let me be clear, I didn't just pick four ladies wily-nily to be symmetrical. In the end, I ended up with four ladies who are very, very important to me. 

But before I get to who I chose and how I chose them, let's back up for a second.

I'm the only girl in four kids. I have two older brothers and one younger brother. I love my brothers, and they have made me into the person I am today. They've given me strength and taught me how to laugh, love and of course, be patient. When I was thinking about who was most important to me and who I'd like to stand up next to me when I married Spencer, the first people I thought of were my brothers. Brosmaids. Of course, my fiance and my brothers are not as progressive as I am and very quickly shot my idea down. Sigh. Oh well. Just because I'm the bride doesn't mean I can have everything (WHAT!?).

Anyway, my oldest brother (Broseph A) is going to be our emcee, my middle brother (Broseph R) requested to just attend (which is absolutely fine by me!) and my little brother (Broseph B) is going to be a groomsman. 

So, the girls. Choosing these girls was not without it's drama - which I will address in a future post. I wanted to have fair representation of different parts of my life - family, friends, school, work. Without further ado - these are my ladies!

MOH Skydiver - My lovely friend from nursing school. We both work in pediatrics now and we've done some crazy things together ... She convinced me to go skydiving when we were in Hawaii a few years ago! Hence the name. So, it makes sense that she stands up next to me while I do another crazy thing in my life! She's really one of the nicest people I know. And she's super organized, so that helps too (haha - no, but, seriously ... It does). 

Bridesmaid Boobilicious - Another lovely friend from nursing school. We've been friends since our very first class in school, and have gone through a lot together. She would probably know me the best in my relationship (does that even make sense?). Anyway, she's so much fun and I have so many great memories with this girl, and I love her!

Bridesmaid Lady Luck - My cousin from my dad's side. My brothers and her and her brother used to be the "Canadian cousins" ... But now she's living across an ocean with the rest of the family! I love her lots and we've always had so much fun together. You just can't break the family bond, and since my dad's family is so much part of my identity, I couldn't imagine not having someone stand up with Spencer and I.

Bridesmaid Curls - My cousin from my mom's side. Although I don't have a sister, I'm lucky enough to have great cousins that are close to my age (both Lady Luck & Curls don't have sisters either - kismet). Curls lives in Edmonton with me, but I don't see her nearly as much as I should! Again, my family is so much a part of who I am, I couldn't imagine not having representation from either side with me!

And last but not least, my little Flowergirl J. My aunt's (who's always been like a big sister to me) daughter who I love to pieces! 

Like I said, on Spencer's side, my little brother is going to be one of his groomsmen. He's also going to have his two brothers and his childhood best friend. He chose not to have a ring bearer. His nephew will be just about four when we get married, but he didn't want to have to worry about who was going to watch him during pictures and such. So, his choice, whatever.

Another honourable mention will be one of our ushers, Flowergirl J's older brother A. He's too old to be a ring bearer ... Buuut he's one of the smartest and most out-going kids I know, so we thought handing out programs and such would be the perfect way to have him involved with the wedding!

Those are just a handful of our rockstars. 

Phew, that was a lot of typing. Sorry for the wordiness!

How did you choose your special people?

Who, what, when, where, why ...

Do you remember those writing exercises when you were in school when you had to answer those five important questions?

Well, Spencer and I are getting married, which answers the who, what and why!

As everyone knows, a wedding can't happen if there's no date set, or no place to hold the dang thing in! So, first things first, time to set the date.

Confession time: We pretty much had decided on a date a few months before we got engaged.

My family lives far away. Like, across a continent and ocean far. So, we wanted to make it as easy as possible time-wise for them to celebrate with us! Having a wedding in the summer would probably be easiest, but there were a few reasons why this didn't work. First, we wanted to keep our engagement as close to a year as possible. Six months would be too fast - I admit, I'm not the best with handling stress; and a year and a half to two years would be too long. Second, if we decided to wait a bit longer than a year, we would be in direct conflict with my cousin who's getting married in the summer of 2014. Third, my family has a week-long school break around Valentine's Day. Fourth, I'm a winter baby. I may hate the cold sometimes, but I love the beauty of a blanket of snow. And fifth, and the biggest influence on our decision - every year we can escape the cold and go to the beach for our anniversary!

In the end, we decided on February 2014. Please tell me someone else makes endless lists on why their date works for them? Or am I the only crazy one?

Now to choose the where. Spencer's brother got married at a beautiful church downtown - I believe it's the oldest Catholic church in Edmonton. Full of dark wood and candles and history ... Just gorgeous! They had our date open and we booked it easy-peasy.

Isn't it lovely? It's even better on the inside. Image taken from Google.

The reception venue was a tad harder. We sat down one day and made a "short" list of venues we were interested. This list had 10 venues on it. Mostly central - having (hopefully) a lot of out-of-town guests, we wanted to make transportation on the day as easy as possible - but we also had some outliers. And they were mostly hotels as that was one of my dad's requests - again, to make it easier for out-of-towners. I'm also a fan of one-stop-shops for this whole wedding planning process, and hotels definitely offer that option! Spencer and I narrowed down a few due to size or scheduling constraints, then went to view three venues.

The first venue we went to see was the Marriott Courtyard West Edmonton, a newer hotel on (obviously) the West side of Edmonton. We were very impressed by the hotel itself and the catering manager was so nice! However, the dominant colours of the hotel were gold and red - which wouldn't exactly going to go with our colour scheme (spoiler alert: it's navy blue and a green that lands sort of between emerald and lime - descriptive enough for ya?). There were also size issues ... Our lower limit guest list estimate was their upper limit occupancy. The location also had more to be desired. What if there was a blizzard on our wedding day? Driving would be horrible! So ... No. We crossed it off our list. But like I said, the hotel and staff were very nice, so I would definitely recommend a look to other couples who are looking for venues.

The second venue I didn't have the greatest experience with. For that reason, I won't name them - I don't want to make any enemies on the Internet nor colour anyone's opinions. The contact person to book site tours and such was great - prompt responses and she answered all of my questions. However, she was an assistant, and the woman who met us to give us the tour had absolutely no idea who we were and she kind of rushed us through it, which made us feel like we were a horrible inconvenience. Did I want to feel that way when I was considering dropping a bunch of cash on this place? Yeah, no ... The venue itself was okay - nice, but not what I was hoping for. It wasn't a one-stop shop either, with them, you just booked the venue and had to outsource everything else. Long story short (sorry, this was actually long story long), we didn't go with them.

The third (and final!) venue we went to see was the Westin downtown. I was very, very interested in this venue and let me say I was not disappointed! The catering manager is great and open to any question I may have. They take care of the tables, linens (except chair covers), food, beverage, etc. The hotel itself was recently renovated and it's modern with muted colours that will complement our colour scheme. Basically, I'm head-over-heels for our venue and very excited to work with them!

 

Again! Lovely ... Except, I don't forsee palm trees in our decor. 

Pictures taken from www.thewestinedmonton.com.

After we chose the venues, I felt so much better. I'm not a person that easily "rolls with the punches," so having a concrete idea about where our wedding was happening just took the world off of my shoulders. Now to focus on the fun, little details!

Engaged!

How's that for an inspired title?

"I asked him what kind of a wedding he wished for,

He said one that would make me his wife."

- Author Unknown

Honestly, there's not much to our engagement story. We've discussed marriage for a long time ... After the first year and a half of our relationship, it was just a given to both of us that this was where we were headed. We started looking at rings around the same time we moved in together, and just got engaged when the timing (and budget!) was right. 

On the night of our engagement, Spencer was acting so unbelievably weird. So, so, sooooo weird. It was a Friday and we had big plans to visit family - my mom because I'd been working a lot and hadn't had a chance to see her in a while and his brother because he and his wife had just had a baby. 

I had just gotten off a night shift, so I was sleeping when Spencer came home from work. He kissed me hello, asked me where the money I owed him (for the mortgage) was, and then told me he was going to go get gas. I said if he'd just wait five minutes, I'd wake up and go with him. He kept on telling me to sleep longer, he'd be right back, just keep sleeping, sleep in. So, I finally stopped fighting him and was lazy in bed for a while - not difficult for me, I love sleeping! 

Almost two hours later (!) he gets home and we go on with our business. After we were done visiting our people, he asked me if I wanted to go home or do something. As I had just finished a stretch of nights, I was itching to not sit at home, so we decided to go for a drive and see if the Christmas lights were up around the city yet. This was his idea, and I should've been suspicious - Spencer's not a big fan of Christmas. Anyway, three spots and no lights to be seen! He was getting weirder and weirder with each failed attempt at looking at lights. So, eventually he took me to a hill that overlooks the river valley and downtown skyline. We were sitting in the car, and I wasn't paying much attention to anything when he said "Hey." I turned around, and there was the ring in his hot little hand!

... And then I cried (tears of joy) and said yes!

Duh. If I didn't, we wouldn't be here.

Did your fiance act super weird before they proposed?

The History of Us

Playa Del Carmen, March 2012

Spencer and I "met" in high school. I was in Grade 10, he in Grade 11. We met doing the school play - West Side Story. I don't really remember talking to him at all - I have a vague memory of being around him at times. I definitely didn't know him and he didn't know me. We had mutual (distant) friends and I do remember thinking he was very cute and that was about it.

Fast forward to Halloween 2008. I was in Nursing school "enjoying" life (read: hating school), and my friend had invited me to go on this pub crawl with some of her friends. Long story short, Spencer and I wound up on the same pub crawl and, fueled by liquid courage (and possibly boredom, I was with a bunch of people I didn't know and we were at a bar I didn't like), I saw a guy I sorta knew and went up to talk to him! Of course, he didn't remember me - I soon learned that Spencer was a wiz with faces, but awful with names! Thankfully, we hit it off, and went on our first date a few weeks later.

Spencer and I the night we officially met, Halloween 2008.

We've seen each other through the most turbulent and rewarding times of our lives. Spencer received his journeyman ticket in Electrical in 2009, and I earned my Bachelor of Science in Nursing in 2010. Right around that time, Spencer herniated a disc and had to take a year off to recuperate. In that time, he decided on a complete career change and went back to school for Funeral Directing and Embalming. Finishing that, he decided that wasn't the best fit for him (loved the job, hated the hours) and went back to electrical. Throughout this all we've adopted a dog, travelled (both together and apart), decided to move in together (scary, but so worth it!) and experienced all the ups and downs that go along with life!

This all lead up to Spencer proposing on November 30, 2012. And now here we are!

And so it begins:

The blogging adventure of my wedding! 

Today marks one year until my fiance and I say "I do" in front of our family and friends. I want to start a record of what this planning is like - the good and the bad. I'd like to look back and remember this time of delightfully weird relationship limbo.

So, join me!

Love,

Jordanna