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?