The White Dress Formula »

Guess what? Tomorrow is my birthday. I will be turning the precise age that I told myself I would be married by when I was a little girl. Its kind of crazy how that worked out.

I remember when the thought occurred to me actually. I had a favourite kindergarten teacher. Her name was Miss McCabe. She had big poofy hair, and loved to wear dresses with big shoulder pads in them. She was totally 80′s and I loved her. I remember we had a supply teacher for a while that I did not enjoy and when I asked why she was there (in my crazy spanish accent at the time) they told me it was because Miss McCabe had gotten married. I was very sad those 2 weeks.

When she came back she sat us all down in a circle on the floor, we all asked her where she had gone, if she had fun etc. Im not sure if someone asked her or if she just told us but at some point she said ” I’m 27″. That somehow made its way and found a home in my brain. Because ever since that day I have always thought that a good acceptable age to be married was 27, not too young, not too old and well if Miss McCabe thought it was good then it had to be.

So yes there it is, I will be the big 2 – 7

As much as I say how sad I am that I am getting older, I think I still have the same amount of excitement around my birthday that I always had. Maybe I’m not counting down a month before like I used to, just the week before now. Maybe 2 weeks depending on what else is going on around that time.

Anyway, I’m gonna leave you with this oldie, sorry about the quality.

This was me and my girlfriends about 10 years ago! (it really seems like just yesterday) …

no idea why the guys are there, fyi

Very Pretty

So one of my best friends  (and bridesmaids) Donna is also getting married this year, a couple of months before me. And one of the really awesome things about being engaged at the same time as your best friend is that you get to share all the same stuff at the same time, looking at magazines together, figuring out budgets and guest counts, deciding who to invite and who to leave out. Finding everything that would make our big day(s) perfect…And well pretty much you have someone that you can talk to about wedding stuff alllllllll the time and they wont get sick of you!

Donna is currently in the midst of trying to find the right hairstyle and hairdresser for that day, and that can be kind of scary because so much importance is placed on how you look, so trial runs are a MUST.

Personally (and any haridressers that wanna disagree with me feel free) I think that trial runs should be free of charge. I mean you are basically auditioning for the job. No one gets paid to audition. If that was the case Id be on every season of Canadian Idol.

If after the trial I feel you have done an amazing job, I may leave you a tip. But that’s all. So when Donna mentioned that her trial with one particular hairdresser was going to cost her, I felt that maybe this wasn’t a good idea …

But we’d heard good things, and had this woman personally recommended by someone. So Donna decided to give her a shot. We stopped by this womans home and she had a little corner set up with a chair a rather messy collection of product and magazines. She told us that she had been doing it for several years and she used to be a platform artist.

Side note- I’m still not sure what that means. What kind of platform is it? Do you put yourself on this platform or people vote you in? Are there prizes? Recognition? Awards?

Anyway, she was nice.

I use that term loosely.

Because actually I think she was a little vulgar. I’ve never heard anyone swear that many times in an audtion. And talk about too much info! I know things about this woman that I really shouldn’t. I had to fight every muscle in my face from reacting to her on several occasions.

But putting her slightly out-there personality aside, she seemed like she might know what she was doing.

This was the end result.

Speechless? yea me too

Enough said? I thought so.

So hugely exciting week last week; Peter and I got to choose all of our upgrades for our home! We had 2 appointments with Rose haven a week apart.  Our first appointment we met with our salesperson Lorraine. She was fantastic and funny and greatly helped us out with our choices. It was slightly overwhelming how many choices you actually have, and all the adjustments you are allowed to make, and in many cases we said yes to things that we probably didn’t need. But you really get caught up in at all and by the time you are done you have agreed to pay an extra $1000 to have the extra wide handrail, or the really big shiny faucet.

Rose Haven has a good system in place, see you don’t have to make all your decisions in your first appointment; they give you a week and a second appointment in which to finalize everything. And Thank GOD! Because boy did we need the week.

I mean we discussed our choices with everyone possible until we were blue in the face. We went back and forth on what we could do ourselves, and what we definitely needed. What we couldn’t live without and what was just an extra. We talked to his parents, my parents, friends and the lovely people at Rona.

We debated the cost of installing hardwood ourselves, and whether or not we would actually get our lazy butts in gear to do that. We were looking at prices for things I never thought I would care about, ask me about hood fans, I know stuff!

SOOO I know you’re all curious about what we picked, we ended up going with dark hardwood floors, granite countertops and a beautiful copper backsplash for our kitchen.  (we said no to the extra wide handrail and the super gourmet hood fan…but we took the faucet). Im sorry these pictures are such bad quality, they were taken with my trusty Blackberry.

This is our kitchen, the back splash is metallic and beautiful!

Bathroom colours. LOVE

On another note, It’s officially 5 months until my wedding!  I am super excited now, all of my deposits have been paid and contracts signed. I am currently in the process of trying to find invitations that won’t cost me a ridiculous amount.  I received a few different samples but I am actually in love with a set that I found at a local craft store! It includes everything from the invitation to the Thank you cards; I just have to print the info on them myself. It would cost me about a third of the cost of regular invites!

Lemme know what you think >>>

Too frilly?

Worst picture ever, but best concert :)

I have been HARRASSED to update my blog. Emailed, called and private messaged all to inform you about what’s been going on my life these days.

It’s nice to feel wanted.

It’s not that I don’t want to tell you every little detail, It’s just that sometimes and more often than not lately my brain feels like a snow storm when I sit in front of my computer screen. There I am ready to type, blankly staring at the screen annnddd Nothing. I take a sip of my coffee and then my brain becomes warm and fuzzy and I go back to the screen…and I think …

Have I mentioned how much I love Starbucks? I mean really how can you not? They have a million different types and combinations of coffee flavoured drinks, which on its own; ammmazing.

But it’s the mellowness too. They have this jazzy music playing which in normal circumstances would put me to sleep, but that’s why they have all the coffee.

There are always people in there with their laptops or their books. People like me probably updating a blog with random nothingness.  Or reading an amazing book which makes you feel all important and intelligent. (those non readers never understand)

It’s great for people watching too, yep. All kinds of odd and pretentious and unique people walk in, and when they order drinks that are just ridiculously long and irritating it makes my day…

Right, so flowers, corsages, bouquets … nothing interesting there. I know this blog is supposed to be about my wedding planning, little did I know how lazy I would be about the whole thing, I really just want to lie down and take a nap.

I still don’t have a church, I visited 2 others, but haven’t officially booked arguably the most important part of the whole shin-dig. I will, it just hurts to pay 900 dollars for it, but I do love it.

Have you ever watched “Say yes to the dress?” I cannot get over how much money some of these brides pay for their dresses. I mean 15,000.00!!! I’m all for splurging on yourself for such an important day but that’s just borderline crazy. I hope there is gold sown into that dress somewhere! Anyway …

I think Peter has done more than me lately. He found and booked a violinist to play. Random I know, but he heard him at a wedding he was shooting, and fell in love a little bit. All I heard after was about this amazing “Grenville Pinto”. We definitely could not afford him as every penny for the next six months is pretty much counted, so Peters mom offered to cover it for us! Yay.

He’s actually really cool. He plays all kinds of modern songs and artists like Lady Gaga and Britney. Maybe ill have him play Circus as we walk into the reception

“ I’m like the ring leader, I call the shots!” Ha ha kidding!

What the hell is going on with Britney anyway, She’s had like 3 albums in the last 2 years no? None of really amazing quality… It always seems like she’s out of shape, then back in shape, then out of shape again. Is she still crazy or normal Britney now?

Umm so I have ordered more samples from different places for invitations. I am looking for cute and cheap, just like most men. bazinga! Big Bang Theory anyone?

Peter was originally going to design the invitations and we would have them printed, however (just like I predicted) Peter got lazy about the whole thing too. So now we are really in trouble …

We discussed the favours as he was really set on having playing cards with a very cool picture of us on the back. But we decided that no one would really use or care about the cards, and it would probably be really expensive. SO we are probably going to go for something much simpler and more traditional. You guys like Jordan almonds yes?

So did you know that my favourite solo artist ever, Christina Aguilera got married on November 19^th? Yep. Did you know that she has a new album out that is going to be fantastic? I actually have some of the songs already, ahem. I LOVE it, now I know that I’m biased but I really do think that it’s her best work. I’m probably going to drive Peter nuts, but I figure its only fair since he has basically tortured me with non-stop Angels & Airwaves for 3 years now.

They did put on a good concert though …

So, what was I saying? Sometimes my brain is like a pinball machine you know? Anyway, I have nothing to say about anything really, thus my lack of posts…

Do you know what I’m talking about? That’s right. I have found a new activity that I am absolutely IN LOVE with. Its fun, and challenging and I feel like I just worked out for 5 hours when I’m done.

Fencing.

Me and my friend Louise, randomly discovered that we both had a secret desire to become dueling masters, (because all the cool people do) so we decided to check out a class. Friend/photgrapher Navy Nhum came along (supposedly to document our fencing, but i think she just wanted some blackmail material). She ended up joining in as well, and I think we all had a tonne of fun.

I knew we were in for a workout when the instructor had us doing jumping jacks within 5 minutes of meeting him. We learned about the different types of weapons and what they are used for, he taught us different positions, and blocking devices. It was very challenging, and I’m sure we all worked muscles we haven’t used in years. But I absolutely loved it.

Im the only one who had to wear that... sweet

Jazz Hands

Im embarrassed.

Navy, Louise, and Myself

P.S. – These photos were taken by my wedding photographer to be, the very talented. Navy Nhum.