Setting the Stage

There was not a lot of DIY in our wedding but there were a lot of cool details that I was wishing I could blog about before, but didn’t want to ruin the experience for our guests. So I stayed silent.  Now I’m left with a whole bunch of detail information that seems silly to share but since I know there are those out there following along looking for detail help – I’m doing it.

I didn’t want to go crazy with the crafting. Which I don’t think I did.  But I did want those personal touches – of course, everyone does, that turn the wedding into our wedding.  It started with the colour scheme, Orange and Gray as picked by The Boy.  We got so many complements on that choice and I would like it to be on the record that I gave him full credit every time. I may not be big on the crafty crafty ideas but I do LOVE typography, so I included a lot of that, which I wasn’t sure people would notice, but apparently they did.

Again, trying to figure out the most logical way to present this, I think I’ll take you on a virtual tour of our venue.

The yarn balls – unfortunately in the 1000+ photos we have, I don’t have one of the front entrance where they were hung, but imagine them in two bunches flanking either side here.

As guests came in they were greeted by our two lovely bridesmaids, BFFs Kristyn and Kate, and encouraged to drop any cards in the orange bird cage, and “leaf” their print on the guest tree.  We had our bridal party and all those at our rehearsal dinner preprint using red for VIPs everyone else had their choice of orange, yellow or green.  I loved how this turned out btw, it is awesome! Instant art that we will love forever. I have visions of it hanging in a kids room one day – you know, kind of a product of all of this love kind of thing. I got it from Bleu de Toi on Etsy, Love love love. For now it hangs in our living room – the Boy says he likes that it will help him remember our anniversary.

Now, I had made the decision about the tree, and Sista and I decided that guests shouldn’t sign their print because if they did that’s all you would see when looking at it – black scribbles everywhere = boo. And while the Boy agreed, he was pretty adamant that guests have something to sign like a traditional guest book.  I hate traditional guestbooks. I don’t think you ever really look at them again and if he was going to insist I wanted something cool.

Enter The Lover’s Dictionary.  This was a book Sista found at Anthropologie that is a novel, but written as dictionary entries.  Each entry if read on it’s own is a quirky definition of love.  Awesome right?  Well, almost.  It turns out that because we bussed most people in from the hotel, having two things to do in the line was confusing and causing quite the backlog.  So most people skipped the book.  Some did sign it and we love the messages they left.  I’m considering carrying the book around with me for the next year and getting people to sign it as we see them.  Love the book in theory, and in practice the messages that we did get are really sweet.

While I stationed Kristyn and Kate at the guest book/tree table I knew that some might skip it and come back to it later, so I wrote a little poem about how the whole thing worked.  I don’t actually think that many people read it but nonetheless here it is.

From the front entrance people I presume made their way directly to the bar where they were greeted by our wonderful bar staff and a complete list of all that was available for their enjoyment.

And given the length of time they spent in line and the beautiful weather outside, many (I’m sure) headed directly to the bathroom to freshen up.  There they found baskets with various odds and sods to help them on their way, as well as more poetry.

Drink and appetizer (didn’t get any but heard they were delicious) in hand guests were encouraged to head on in and find their seats.  An alphabetical list of names and corresponding tables was at the end of the guest table, as well as a seating map, (Sorry no picture of the map – I was overzealous in my throwing away post-wedding and didn’t think to take a picture of it first!)

The tables were named after all things the Boy and I love (besides each other of course – barf). I may have stolen the idea from my cousin Stacey’s wedding but ours were less lovey, zen and peaceful (like her) and more alcohol, sports and knitting related (like us)!

Can you tell which tables belonged to whom?

• Kiki and Denba
• Lucky Cans
• Steamwhistle
• Toronto Maple Leafs
• Anthropologie
• Sugar Maple
• Richmill Farm
• Urban Farmers
• Western Mustangs
• The Twenties Roar
• Birdie
• The Color Purple
• Come Here Often?
• Hand Dyed Yarn
• Muscle Beach

Inside was a whole lot more orange and gray… we’ll get there, next week.

I is for Introvert… the long weekend continues

Do you know what sucks about getting older… you lose the ability to sleep in no matter what time you’ve gone to bed.  I’m not quite at the point of getting out of bed at 7 no matter what the day of the week, but I wake up without my alarm – WIDE AWAKE!  I am still able to force myself to go back to sleep for a couple hours, but by 9am it starts to be a losing battle.

Sunday, the Boy had planned a golf date with some other boys.  I was not invited, but instead given the task of feeding them upon their arrival.  At one point my thoughts were to stay home and be oober prepared for the week and make some not for boys food, but when my sister called and asked if I’d like to join her and my mom on a girls date – I reconsidered my options.  Before I left for the day though, I managed to chef up, a marinade for 3 pork tenderloin, a bowl of homemade Tzatziki, and all of the parts of potato salad, including homemade mayonnaise.  I did the dishes and put everything in the fridge.  The boy, who had a tee-off of 1:10pm claimed he felt bad for ditching me with the task of cleaning the apartment.  I say claimed because when he was ready to go and just waiting for his boys to pick him up I said, “You could clean the bathroom while you’re waiting.”  He promptly went to the living room and started practicing his putting.  I said, “I wasn’t kidding!”  A car pulls up.  “Oh, I can’t someone’s here.”  Convenient.

The boys golfed and the girls shopped! Well, not too much we went for specific things and I restrained myself to window shopping – very impressive.  We headed to The Shops at Don Mills and had lunch at Rose Reisman’s new restaurant Glow.  Quick review, food was good, all of us had salads both my sister and I found our dressings a bit sweet, but otherwise good.  Decor, lovely.  We sat outside to enjoy the beautiful day – the patio furniture is soft chairs and couches… lovely.  The service… horrible.  Simply awful.  My mom has since sent a strongly worded letter to the comments email address on the website.  It was that bad.  Bad enough to come home, find the website, and write a letter.  In short, there was a ton of staff – but no one seemed to be doing anything.  Certainly not getting us water, or getting our bill and letting us pay.  Hopefully they’ll heed the criticism and they’ll improve and be successful – but as of now… not good.

We also made a quick stop at my favourite store Anthropologie.  I repeat, I did not buy anything. Impressive.

Boys bonding over Loaded Questions… “get loaded ask questions”

Sister and I came home to my apartment and were quickly met by four starving boys.  We cooked, we drank, we played Loaded Questions, we had a great night.  Highlights – we have another friend getting married! We’re unfortunately not invited – they’re only inviting immediate family so we didn’t make the cut.  They have been dating for about 6 months and they’re getting married this fall.  I think it’s awesome.  When you know, you know.  Congratulations guys  – I’m so excited for you. Unfortunately I’ve “known” for coming up on 8 years… still nothin’.  But I appreciate all of our friends getting married – maybe it will put some pressure on! HA!

Monday. The holiday. The day that makes it a long weekend.  This is why I is for Introvert.  Both the Boy and I had a great time with all of the activities and excitement of the weekend.  But all of this social time was exhausting.  We are introverts.  We need down time, with books, or televised sports, or movies depending on which one of us you’re talking to.  The weekend was exhausting, and we could not have gone to work on Monday after such a busy weekend.  I would have been tearing my hair out and grumpy by Wednesday for sure.  The boy concurs… I would have been grumpy.

We are currently planning our next long weekend – in August.  We’re thinking a trip to Ottawa… and we’re thinking leave Friday and come home Sunday so we can have down time on Monday.  It’s super important to us to have time to chill out.  We both agree that this is one of the reasons we get along so well.  We love our friends.  We love having people over and feeding the masses.  But we require time alone.  Or at least alone together.  Saying nothing.  Doing nothing. I is for Introvert.