And he was right. For our dance together I chose In My Life by The Beatles
Maybe you’re the type of person who has heard this song and thought – SAP-PY. (Kate I’m looking at you).
There are places I remember All my life, though some have changed Some forever not for better Some have gone and some remain
All these places had their moments With lovers and friends I still can recall Some are dead and some are living In my life I’ve loved them all
But of all these friends and lovers There is no one compares with you And these memories lose their meaning When I think of love as something new
Though I know I’ll never lose affection For people and things that went before I know I’ll often stop and think about them In my life I love you more
Though I know I’ll never lose affection For people and things that went before I know I’ll often stop and think about them In my life I love you more In my life I love you more
But when I hear this song I think of my Dad. It makes me think “There’s a Beatles song for everything,” and it makes me think, isn’t that what every kid should have, a parent who loves them more than anyone else in the world.
I think so.
Thanks for the dance Dad and all your love before and since!
I knew what song the Boy and I would dance to at our wedding for years. YEARS I tell you.
Dave Matthews Band – Stand Up album came out the summer my beautiful sista got sick. I listened to that album that summer and belted it out as I drove to visit the Boy on weekends in London. Just read the lyrics and you’ll know why I fell in love with it.
I walk half way around the world, Just to sit down by your side. And I would do most anything girl, To be the apple of your eye.
Troubles they may come and go, But good times they are the gold. And if this road gets rocky girl, Just steady as we go.
Any place you wanna go, Know I’ll be next to you. If it’s treasure baby you’re looking for, I’ll search the whole world through.
Know troubles they may come and go, But good times they’re the gold. So if the road gets rocky girl, Just steady as we go.
When the storm comes, You shelter me. And I don’t say a word, And you know exactly what I mean. In the darkest times, You shine on me. You set me free. And keep me steady as we go.
So if your heart rings dry my love, I will fill your cup. And if your load gets heavy girl, I will lift you up.
Troubles they may come and go, But good times be the gold. So if this road gets rocky girl, Just steady as we go.
Ah Hold me, Shine on me. Oh, shine, shine, Shine on me. Shine, shine Yeah shine on me. Hey shine.
Beautiful. Like I said – Decision made.
And then we went ahead wedding planning and The Boy was wonderful, basically he supported any decision I made. He gave input when asked. He took charge when I needed him to. And most important when the load got heavy, he lifted me up.
And then he offered an opinion.
About 2 weeks before W-day, we were driving home from London and my wedding mix was playing and a little country tune came off the iPod and into the Boy’s ears. And heart apparently.
And suddenly, he had an opinion.
Boy – “I really like this song.*” (* The Boy rarely pays attention to what is on the radio and only has strong feelings about songs by The Tragically Hip)
Me – “Yeah, me too.”
Boy – “It makes me think of us.*” (* It is even rarer for The Boy to actually attend to a song long enough to have thoughts about the lyrics)
Me – “Yeah, I know that’s why I like it too.”
Boy – “Have we chosen a first dance song?”
Me – silence* (*And in my head – “oh crap”)
Here are the lyrics if you’re not inclined or unable to YouTube
Brad Paisley – Then
I remember, trying not to stare the night that I first met you You had me mezmorized And three weeks later, in the front porch light taking forty-five minutes to kiss goodnight I hadn’t told you yet but I thought I loved you then
And now you’re my whole life now you’re my whole world I just can’t believe the way I feel about you, girl Like a river meets the sea, stronger than it’s ever been. We’ve come so far since that day And I thought I loved you then
And i remember, taking you back to right where I first met you, You were so surprised There were people around, but I didn’t care Got down on one knee right there once again, I thought I loved you then
And now you’re my whole life now you’re my whole world I just can’t believe the way I feel about you, girl Like a river meets the sea, stronger than it’s ever been. We’ve come so far since that day And I thought I loved you then
I could just see you, with a baby on the way And I could just see you, when your hair is turning gray What I can’t see is how I’m ever gonna love you more But I’ve said that before
And now you’re my whole life now you’re my whole world I just can’t believe the way I feel about you, girl We’ll look back someday, at this moment that we’re in And I’ll look at you and say And I thought I loved you then And I thought I loved you then
Sigh. I still wasn’t convinced. I ran it by a friend of mine – her question, “Will you feel like the day was missing something if you don’t dance to the song you always thought you would?”
I didn’t know the answer.
I ran it by Sista “Well, since you didn’t take dance lessons – an easy country song might be easier to dance too”
Good point.
I asked my mom. Mom always knows what to do. “Meaghan, The Boy hasn’t asked for much. They are both beautiful, and they both speak to the two of you. But if you do The Boy’s choice, then your first song reflects his feelings and your last song reflects yours.”
Brilliant. I knew Mom would know what to do.
So after years of envisioning our first dance one way – it was turned on its head. And it was awesome.
Bride recommendation – Listen to your Boy’s suggestions, they may be few and far between but when they come they’re probably important.
And make time for dance lessons. 😛
What was your first dance song? Did you choose or your Boy? What went into your decision?
Our flowers were done by two different vendors, one for bouquets and boutenierres as well as the large flower arrangements for the head table and church and a whole other person for the centrepieces.
Both were stunning.
The bouquets etc. were done by a local store Cassidy’s in Newmarket. They were exceited about my orange and gray vision but I had a few doubts. First, when we went to confirm everything what I thought was generating a brainstorm list turned out to be the actual list of all the different types of flowers that would be in each bouquet. So much for simple. Second, when I picked up the flowers for the cake they were arranged in really old-school traditional round toppers. To be honest I dropped them off with the cake lady and told her – feel free to pull them apart and use what you want… she did. It may have lead to a small panic attack on my end but to be honest, by that point – what was I going to do about it? Nothing. So I hoped for the best and moved on.
However, when they were delivered OMG stunning.
The church flowers were traditional and nothing to really write home about as far as blow your mind fantastic in a church but once they were brought to the venue and combined with the smaller arrangements that were there. Again, stunning. Really really pretty. And A LOT of flowers! Mom was sending them home with anyone who would take them!
The table centrepieces were a whole other story. They were the beautiful work of a new friend of my parents. Again, I was a little nervous because I really didn’t know what I wanted. I became almost completely overwhelmed when we went flower depot shopping but they ended up being another wonderful example of “trust the experts” – absolutely gorgeous. For the centrepieces I wanted to make sure that the people I wanted to take them home got them, so I included a note on the back of selected place cards with a special thank you for all of their help and support asking them to please accept the centrepiece as a small token of our appreciation. For the most part it worked, I think… but I know there were a few people that were supposed to get one that didn’t – sneaky non rule following guests!
The biggest pro of the centrepieces? They lasted. Jan told us they would. She made the trek to the flower depots and picked up flowers as fresh as they could possibly be.
Guests sat down to place cards that were colour coded by meal choice. It’s really likely that no one noticed that except for me, but it made me calmer. It likely didn’t help the catering staff any, since I had already provided them a spreadsheet with each person’s name, meal and location at the table. But like I said, it made me feel better.
In addition to their place card, at each guest found a box of two truffles with one of three tags on it,
And a personal and heartfelt thank you from The Boy and I. I saw this idea on a blog post over at Style Me Pretty and fell in love. Since as the bride and groom you don’t really get the chance to talk to everyone as much as you would like and you really don’t get to give a heart-felt thank you to each and every person, I loved that this gave me the opportunity to really think about why each person was there and what we wanted them to know about how we felt about them. We were genuinely so touched that so many people travelled from out-of-town and across the country to be with us on our wedding day. We wanted every person that was in the room, in the room – and were thrilled they were able to make it. So we told them.
I debated FOREVER how to put together all the information I wanted at the table and finally decided to go the SUPER easy route and print it all on a prefolded silvery/gray card. Done.
At each table the card held their table name and symbol on the outside, and inside the evening’s menu
And a description of what we were doing as a thank you.
Now you might be thinking, but wait – aren’t the truffles your thank you. Yes, they were. But our lovely friend Carley made all 300 truffles as a wedding gift to us, so were able to do both. We made a $175 donation to Kiva, so every other table had the story of a different woman entrepreneur – 7 in total. I’m also happy to report that as of last week we have reinvested in another 5 entrepreneurs and 3 of our original loans have been paid back in full. I love Kiva – it is an awesome concept.
The last little touch was custom-made M&Ms in orange and gray on each table. They had our initials, “I Do” 9-10-11 and various pictures. They were so sweet (and delicious) and were not only a fun addition, but a throw back to the M&M machine that lives in my parent’s basement that is always full when there is a party. It’s not a family party without M&Ms.
There was of course one more big touch that really made the room – and that of course, is the flowers…
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.
How do I capture this moment? What I was thinking? (try not to cry) What I was feeling? (nauseous)
I guess I’ll just start from the beginning. The music started.
Forrest Gump Suite. Do you know it? We love movies the Boy and I and this one is quite possibly one of the best. Plus, it’s such a great piece of music.
The girls went up and the last one to leave me was Sista, who wished me luck, and when she was at the front she gave the Boy a big hug (she said it just didn’t feel right to walk right passed him like she didn’t even know him) and then it was just me and my dad.
I stepped into the doorway and the tears started coming. But I looked straight ahead and focussed all my attention on the Boy and on not having makeup run down my face in the pictures.
Friends told me later they had never seen someone look like they were concentrating so hard and so focused. One goal. Get to the Boy. Get married.
We went through the beginning of the mass and as soon as the Boy and I were able to sit down – and listen the words we chose.
First up, Song of Songs we chose it because I love the line My Beloved is mine, and I am my Beloved’s. Love it. Why not open a wedding with a love poem?
Second up, Letter of St. Paul to the Romans 12:1-2, 9-18; LOVES the line Rejoice with those who rejoice, Weep with those who weep. It’s a list of high ideals to aspire to – but hey, there’s nothing wrong with lofty goals.
Gospel, Matthew 5:1-12a I love the Beatitudes. Love them. Life is a mix, good and bad and so is marriage, love and faith can get you through. Come on that’s just a good message to remember.
Side note here, while I had the more churchy upbringing the Boy knew what he wanted, or more specifically what he didn’t. Corinthians. Love IS patient and Love IS kind. But as the Boy says, “I hear the Bible has a lot of to say, I’m pretty sure we can find something that doesn’t make me think of Wedding Crashers” Well said Boy. Well said.
Post readings, the vows. The big show. We didn’t write our own, in the Catholic church, since marriage is a sacrament they discourage you from writing your own vows but give you several to choose from. We went traditional.
It didn’t take long. But in those few moments we did it.
Married.
Mr and Mrs.
And I felt… hungry.
We went through the remainder of the mass and while walking up to sign the register, I tripped. Seriously. Just a small one. And only fitting really. Coordinated? Not so much.
There we are signing away, I turned to our priest and said – “This is the wrong song” He smiled and laughed and said “We had to make an executive decision – I was hoping you wouldn’t notice!” I told him – “You’ve obviously never planned a wedding if you thought I wouldn’t notice!” The Luckiest isn’t Catholic enough (or at all) apparently.
So it got cut. Shoot.
So the song was wrong. I didn’t care. The right song would have been lovely. But the wrong song was nice too – and spoiler alert, that was the only thing that went wrong (besides the trip I guess). And that’s good enough for me. I was happy that I chose to write down the words to the right song in our program.
That’s it. We were married. We RAN back up the aisle – the Boy has LONG legs when he wants to and then we shared high fives, hugs and fist pumps all around.
Done and done. Married.
Let’s party.
But first… I’m starving someone find me some food!
(*Author’s note – I know, this was supposed to be posted last week. I waited trying to remember to take the pictures from The Boy’s phone into the post. But now it’s Wedding Wednesday again and The Boy is out on the town so wait no more… I guess what happens in Alliston, stays in Alliston.)
The night before for the Boy was slightly different than mine. He was a little stressed when I left him in the morning, but headed north for a round of golf with my dad, his dad, a groomsman, my brother, all of my uncles and a few of their wives. I think there were about 12 of them or so. He insists he was having a terrible round until about the 4th hole (coincidentally that is the hole my parent’s live on) when he chugged a beer and things got much better from there.
The biggest inconvenience for the Boy around the whole wedding deal was its effect on his golf game. It went in the crapper for about 2 weeks before and he was not happy about it. Much beer was enjoyed by all, as I understand it – apparently my brother was incoherent by the time they were off the course and the Boy was not far behind him.
Dad planned a delicious Man Feast of steak, potatoes and Caesar Salad, and then they broke out into games of poker. Most of the groomsmen were able to join in the festivities by dinner time, which the Boy really appreciated – he was getting pretty nervous and they all ensured that with the help of some Steamwhistle they would take his mind right off his nervousness… I believe they succeeded.
It’s difficult to tell who won the poker games since there seems to be prize presentation pictures with everyone that was there, but in the end, the Boy walked away with most if not all the money and both $50 gift cards to Golf Town – score!
By 1am my Dad took on the role of responsible adult and sent the boys to bed. I think a few heads were hurting in the morning.
The Boy wants everyone to know that he had an awesome day and night before. He was so appreciative to everyone that came to hang out with him. While he was excited to get married, he hates being in the spotlight especially in a church and he was really couldn’t wait for the whole thing to be over! His number one fear was that he was going to pass out at the front of the church (he didn’t).
Throughout the W-day planning process I had one goal in mind. Enjoy it. Enjoy everything, the planning, the craziness, but most importantly the day. To keep myself sane, my mantra became “at the end of the day we’ll be married – that’s all that matters.”
BFF Kate, Me, BFF Kristyn and still inside Baby Boy Logan!
A big part of enjoying not just W-day but the events that lead up to it was scheduling the rehearsal 1 week and 1 day before. I figured, I’m only doing this once, I want to enjoy every part of it and that includes the rehearsal and it means going to bed at a reasonable hour the night before (which of course didn’t happen but what can you do?)
The other part, almost our entire wedding party was from out of town, and HALF of them were teachers. That means having the rehearsal on the Friday night after the first week of school – not going to happen. Never mind their obvious exhaustion, they’d have to GET here first.
Nope. The week before was the way to go and if I were to do it again (not going to happen) I would DEFINITELY stick with that plan.
I worked until noon on Friday (bad decision – should have just taken Friday off), and went from work straight to my make-up trial, home, madly wrapped thank you gifts, off to get my nails done, RAN
Sista and Dad
home for a quick change and off to the church.
Needless to say I still did not learn that lesson I kept ignoring the whole way through – I didn’t eat. AGAIN! I’m such a good learner.
The Boy and his Mom
The church part was truly indicative of the real deal – completely relaxed. Fr. Joe made not only us but our whole w-party feel comfortable with the whole deal. We practiced some of our lines, but not everything we had to save that for the day zero.
Some things we didn’t practice – ushering. We didn’t really go over what the boys were supposed to do when they greeted people on the day. It’s not a huge deal, everyone got there afterall – but when we looked at the pictures later it became apparent that they didn’t actually seat anyone and the right side of the church looked super empty. Silly boys. So my rehearsal advice to any brides out there – practice even the things that you assume are a given. They are not.
Post church, we packed up and went to a Oakland Hall a local restaurant, for what we were told would be “plenty of appetizers” and drinks. It was not.
The food was delicious but there was by no means “plenty” of it – this did not help my lack of eating situation. There was plenty of wine – there always is!
Bride's Family
When we were booking the rehearsal dinner the owner told us, “Everyone says the best part of their wedding was the rehearsal dinner.” This I informed him was not actually helpful at 8ish weeks before w-day. A word to the wise – do not tell a bride that the part of the wedding that took all of 10 minutes to book is going to be the best part of the whole thing. Not only is it not helpful – it wasn’t true.
Groom's Family
We had a great time at our rehearsal but here are 5 reasons why the real deal was WAY better:
The food was way better and way more on w-day than at the rehearsal. We were told that most parties go home with doggy bags from their appetizer rehearsal dinners at Oakland Hall – we did not. Not even close.
W-day is already paid for come the actual day, which means you can enjoy the night without getting a bill at the end of the night. We were fortunate to not have to flip that bill but still – it’s nice to have it all taken care of before the actual event.
W-day is longer and therefore more fun
I know people say the rehearsal has the most important people, is more intimate and therefore better. I disagree. We genuinely wanted to celebrate with every single person that was invited to our wedding. We loved our VIPs but w-day trumps rehearsal by the sheer number of people involved
Dancing. Dancing. Dancing. There was a great live performer singing at Oakland Hall during our “dinner” he was great, kept inappropriately adding the Boy’s and my names into songs and invited us up to accompany him on tambourine. But there wasn’t a true dance floor.
W-day wins.
*Okay, I know Wedding Wednesdays and blogging in general has been a little lack luster lately. Three words. Thank You Cards. Two more words. New Job. Three more words. New Baby Knitting. But all of these things are almost done. So I’m committing again to being back on track. I’ve heard from my fans (read my mom and family) that I’ve been missed. Wedding Wednesdays are back on!
You may recall from my post from the night before that I was feeling a little unsure about what would be different once The Boy and I said “All the days of my life.” I decided we would officially become the F word. A family. To be honest I wasn’t exactly sure of the words as I was typing them. I mean, he’s been my family for a long time. Would I really feel any different?
I’m here to tell you friends the answer for me, and for The Boy is an emphatic, absolute, no doubt about it, bolded, underlined and italic YES!
It took only a few hours I think, adrenaline is a crazy thing and despite a distinct lack of sleep all week, terrible pillows at the hotel, and a really just a series of naps the night before I must say I rocked it all day. The nervous stomach subsided as soon as that ring was on my finger. My first words beyond “Thank you” to the 140 people congratulating us outside the church were to my beautiful Sista, “I’m starving! Can someone get me something to eat?!” Pictures, dinner, dancing, smiling, a small toe cramp situation, more dancing, clean up, a bus ride back to the hotel and finally a moment alone with my new husband. (hehe)
We were lying on the bed in the hotel, after exchanging our gifts and he asked, “Do you feel different?” I said, “Yes. I do. Do you?” He answered, “Yes. This feels different. I feel different.” and “I’ve never been so happy.”
We agreed, it’s more than a piece of paper. It’s definitely something worth celebrating. I’m someone’s wife. The Boy, he is my husband. The past few days we keep saying it to each other as if trying it on for size.
“Hello husband!”
“How was your day, my wife?”
Our day was perfect. Honestly, aside from a toe cramp on my end and a green finger on The Boy’s end (we’re visiting our jeweler on Sunday!) absolutely everything went off without an issue. Our venue was beautiful, our venders were awesome, our w-party was everything we needed them to be. We danced all night long, it really was a perfect day and a perfect wedding.
All of the work, and 10 months of planning, the stress the week or two before, all of it – totally worth it.
I am someone’s wife. The Boy, he is my husband. It feels different. It’s a feeling in my heart and in my gut. It matters. The piece of paper matters. It’s different. I’m different. We’re different.
It’s more than a piece of paper.
Housekeeping notes:
This is one of two sneak peek pictures I have from our second photographer, Brian Van der Pryt, if you have photography needs in the Windsor area – let me know I’ll hook you up! I’m so excited to see them all I can hardly stand it!
A full recap to come, but I think so as not to overwhelm I’ll stick with my plan and tell our story through Wedding Wednesdays. That should at least give me a few weeks to get more pictures from people!
The Ginger & The Giant 