#postagefail

YA OKAY.  So I've been MIA on the blog the last little while.  It's tax season....back off!  Wait!  Don't go.  Please keep reading.....

The wedding is less than three months away, and while it's not too bad yet, I can feel the stress creeping up and ready to strike.  We're in the "three months before" category of our wedding checklist now and all of a sudden the number of items on the to-do list triples.  And inevitably, as soon as you feel like you've checked something off the list as done, it just reappears for you to "confirm" it again in another month or creates three more things you have to do.  Wedding planning is fun, don't get me wrong, but it can feel never ending at times!

I do have wonderful news in that we sent our wedding invitations out this past weekend.  Our stationer Ashley did such a wonderful, beautiful job, and I couldn't be happier with how they turned out.  Here's a peek!

Front...

Inside...

 

 

The whole beautiful set!

When I started addressing the invitations, I was filled with an overwhelming feeling of anxiety because first, handwriting on beautiful paper is nerve wracking because you want it to look perfect and second, I was deathly afraid we would miss someone on the list.  Thankfully my wonderful fiance put together a foolproof spreadsheet with all the addresses and guests and it was easy to double and triple check the list.  (Spreadsheet whiz....reason #6548 that I adore Eric!)

What I didn't anticipate was all the bloody problems we would have with postage!  (Seriously, who mails anything anymore.  Whatever.)  First of all, if you want to put a stamp on something and you go to a post office to buy a stamp, these are your choices:

1.  Gophers.

2.  The Queen of England.

3.  Winnipeg Jets logo.

Wow, really?  So I have to slap a rodent on our beautiful wedding invitations, fine, whatever, not a big deal.

Then Eric smartly realizes that the invitations, with their heavy cardstock, probably aren't going to be the same price as a normal letter being mailed due to their weight.  So after I've lovingly placed a gopher stamp on all the wedding invitiations, I take them to the post office and the girl working looks at me as if I'm just the dumbest human being on the planet and is like, "ya, they don't have near enough postage on them".  Wonderful.  So I go to buy 100 more gopher stamps (potentially bringing the total number of gopher stamps purchased to 200 more than I ever wanted to buy) and they are out of gophers.  What?  So now I WANT the gopher stamps and I can't even get them?!  This is what I've been reduced to?  At this point I don't even care anymore so ultimately, the invitations get sent out with the Queen of England mean-mugging three gophers on the upper right hand corner of the envelope.

So they all finally get mailed, and I start receiving text messages from our guests letting me know how nice they think the invitations are, and I start breathing a sigh of relief that my postage woes are over and everything has ended up where it should have.

 

Success.

Then Canada Post decides it's not quite through with me yet, and rears its ugly head again in the form of my reply cards.  Yes, reply cards.  You'd think with my views on mail as an old, antiquated form of exchanging information in this digital age, that we would have just went with email replies.  If not for one thing - I love getting mail.  And when the time came to make the decision to do mail replies, I just imagined myself sprinting to the mailbox like:

 

WE'VE GOT MAAAAAAAIL!!!!

So we include a return envelope stamped with a gopher with every invitation, and we find out that March 31, the price of stamps is going up from 63 to 85 cents.  WTF.  I don't know what bride checks to see if the price of stamps is going up anytime soon before she mails her invitations, but I sure as hell didn't.  So according to the dragon nice lady I spoke to at Canada Post, because our reply cards don't have a return address on them, if they don't have enough postage they won't be delivered and will be destroyed.  Destroyed!  Not even just, put into a pile somewhere at some mail processing center where I have a hope of actually recovering them.  Just straight up put in the shredder.  They open the envelopes, and if they don't have money in them, into the fire they go.  Greeeeeat.

So if you have received our invitation and you don't drop your reply card in the mail before Monday, I'm sorry to have to make you spend the extra 22 cents to send it.  I hate inconveniencing people so if you want to send us the news by Facebook, email or in person that's okay too! 

Oh and Canada Post?

Happy Wedding Wednesday!!!



~M

Change of A Dress

....I have a confession to make.

I wasn't really going to blog about this at all, because really who would know?  But in the spirit of being open about my bridal perspective on this grand adventure, here it goes.

I changed my dress. 

*collective gasp*

I know, I KNOW.  After I posted on the blog about how much I loved the one I chose, and then I posted AGAIN about how I didn't have any dress regret, I go and do this?  But before you start questioning my sanity, allow me to explain.

 

"This one?  Or this one?  Or thisoneorthisoneorthisoneorthisone...."

The original dress I chose was be-ea-au-tiful.  I loved it, I really did.  It had everything I wanted in a dress (which I would love to describe to you in excrutiating detail but I really want the whole thing to be a big surprise for my future husband!) and I was absolutely ready to commit.  In my mind, I already had committed.  I was in a common-law relationship with that dress, in the eyes of the wedding gods we were already bound, and buying it was simply a formality.

So when I returned to the store in early September to officially order and buy the dress, I put it back on to indulge in one last round of swishing and swaying before my dress search experience was over for good.  At first I was giddy as a schoolgirl, and then I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and there was one brief fleeting moment where I wondered aloud if the dress was perfectly flattering in all the right places.  After I said it out loud, and the bridal consultants and my MOB started looking at me critically and trying to assure me it was a good pick, my doubt grew a little.  Before I could try to even start discerning if I really was shying away from committing or if I just had a case of cold feet, the consultant said those taboo words, the words you NEVER say to a bride once she's picked a dress.  "Well we have a dress that just came in, from the designer's new line, if you'd like to see it."

 

"UM YEAH I WANNA SEE IT"

 

 

So then I broke the cardinal rule of wedding dress shopping, and tried on a dress after I had already made my choice.  And damn.  Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn.  New Dress blew Old Dress out of the water.  New Dress made Old Dress look like a stinking pile of garbage.  New Dress hugged me in all the right places.  Old Dress felt like wearing a potato sack.  Okay I might be exaggerating.  But it certainly wasn't that I didn't love Old Dress, it's just that I love New Dress more!  If possible, it was even more perfect and more gorgeous than the old one.  And then there was the whole "you're the first bride to ever try the dress on, I just took it out of the box yesterday, you'd be the first bride in Winnipeg to order this dress as we have exclusive rights to the line" thing that got me. 

 

 

 

"It's not you...it's me...."

 

 

So after trying on the new dress, it was pretty much a no-brainer.  I had to have it.  And I am happy to say that really, truly, honestly this time I've said Yes To The Dress and I'm 100% over the moon with my choice.  The dress is ordered, bought and paid for and just came in this past weekend, and it is every bit as gorgeous as I imagined!  I tried it on with the shoes and a lovely cathedral length veil and it was the perfect look.  So happy!!!

 

 

 

For real this time.

 

 

And that's that!

 

Eric and I met with our stationer a couple weeks ago and the invitations are picked and being finalized as I blog.  I will say, my fiance has great taste.  Anytime he gives his opinion on anything wedding related I always glow a little because he chooses so well!  And that's not even bride-speak for "he consistently chooses what I want him to choose", he really does give great input which is awesome.  :)

 

So to end this post here's a little sneak peek at what's cookin' over at Sweetness Stationery ....

 

 

 

AHHHHH I'M SO EXCITED!!!

 

 

Happy Wedding Wednesday!!!

 

 

 

~M

 

 

 

MC - Master of Coolness

Soooo, wedding planning has gotten a little crazy lately.  Our to-do list is a mile long and it seems like we have something to do every day!  It's fun, but my nerves are starting to get frazzled because it's hard not to feel like we've forgotten some giant detail.

Also, I plan on writing a very strongly worded letter to the makers of NyQuil for my emotional trauma that I have been subjected to due to the use of their product.  For some reason, NyQuil seems to give me nightmares.  Not just your average, being chased by a giant spider wearing clown makeup type of nightmares, where you wake up and laugh at their absurdity.  No, NyQuil seems to contain an ingredient that digs up your deepest, darkest fears and presents them to you in wave after wave of horrific nightmares, after which you wake up in a cold sweat and it takes serious time for you to realize that what just happened wasn't real.

 

NyQuil.  The nightime, sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, scare-you-so-much-you-shit-the-bed-and-forget-about-being-sick medicine.

 

 

Why am I blogging about this you ask?  Well, because last night I had a nightmare that I went to try on my wedding dress a week before the wedding, and it did not fit.  It was a real nightmare, at the real place where I bought my dress, with the real people that helped me try it on, and my MOB and MOH looking on sadly as three people had to try and pin a piece of cardboard covered in satin between the gaping wide zipper of the dress to hide my cascading rolls of back fat.  Okay, so maybe that last part wasn't realistic, but I still woke up hyperventilating and then pitifully begged Eric to tell me I'm pretty.  They should have a fricken warning on that bottle for brides!

 

ANYWAY. 

 

In happier news, we have chosen our MC!  This esteemed position requires a person who is funny, creative, affable, responsible, and classy.  There is nothing worse than that sinking, awkward feeling you get when someone up in front of a crowd is rambling drunkenly on the mike, saying things that are not remotely funny and all you can do is let out a shifty-eyed nervous laugh and pray that it's over soon.  Our wedding is going to be an elegant affair, so it was important we didn't select someone who was going to make us feel mortified beyond belief at their embarrassing behavior, but also important to select someone that will keep the evening moving smoothly and set the tone of the evening, so that nobody thinks its appropriate to end up puking off their triple rye and passing out under a table.  You know who you are.

 

 

"Soooooo I sayssss totheguy I ssssays...."

 

 

In my opinion, nobody epitomizes taste and class like my brother Justin.  When we were talking about choosing an MC, Eric and I agreed that he would be a great choice.  Justin is a sommelier and has worked at some of Canada's top restaurants in Toronto, Vancouver, and the Okanagan Valley.  In short: he's kind of a big deal.

 

 

Right?



 

We know that Justin will be an excellent host and make our evening wonderful, but we're also taking advantage of his skill set in a big way.  So in addition to being the MC, we are very excited to share that we've also asked Justin to host a wine tasting during our cocktail hour, where he will choose an array of fabulous wines and impart some of his extensive knowledge on our guests as they enjoy their hors d'oeuvres. 

 

 

 

"And...pinky UP...."

 

 

Justin will also be choosing the dinner wine (no Naked Grape for our wedding guests) and he will be performing the famous sommelier demonstration for our toast, which is sabering a bottle of champagne with a big sword.  I've always thought this was the coolest.  Not only are you lopping off the entire top of the champagne bottle (glass, cork and all) but if you turn the sword at the slightest wrong angle, the champagne bottle shatters all over the place. 

 

 

 

 

Right.

 

 

 

Wrong.

 

 

 

 

Deadly weapon.

 

 

 

So I owe a big thanks to my brother for agreeing to do all this at our wedding.  It's so exciting to see all the details of our day coming together.  I truly think it's going to be such a great experience for all our guests!

 

 

 

Do I have the coolest bro or what.

 

 

Happy Wedding Wednesday!!!

 

 

~M

 

 



 

 



Handle The Kids With Kid Gloves

Hey everyone!  We are now in Month Four of the Wedding Countdown.  I can't believe it's February already.  I also can't believe how the closer to the wedding it gets, the more the to-do list multiplies exponentially.  Honestly, that thing is like a wet gremlin.  And the nice, pre-packaged to-do list in my app?  Missing a lot of essentials.  Then there's all the extra things we've got planned for our wedding that need to be done, including the wicked idea Eric had for us to do instead of kissing after glass clinking.  (Oh, it's good.  Clinkers beware.)

Preach.

The time has come in the wedding planning process where we sit down with our stationer and design our wedding invitations.  Normally this is a very exciting time for a bride, but what comes before it is one of the most stressful parts of wedding planning, which is finalizing the guest list so we can figure out how many invitations to order.  Agh.  I have been putting off writing this post almost as long as I have been putting off finalizing the guest list.  If I could invite everyone I've ever met to my wedding, I would.  Unfortunately, trying to keep the budget under control prevents me from doing so.  

Deciding who makes the cut is agonizing.  But it's time to put the big girl panties on and make the tough decisions.  Still, I feel so bad when taking people off the list, this is all I can picture:

 

*whimper*

Another issue I have to face is trying to explain to the people we are inviting that we do not want children under 12 (save for Eric's two nephews and my niece and nephew) at the wedding.  I have thought of a million ways to say this politely, including the following:

"We respectfully request that you leave your children under 12 in the care of another for this evening."

"This will be an adult-only ceremony and reception."

"Unfortunately due to our venue we are unable to accommodate children under 12."

But of course, any parent who is told this only hears one thing:

"We don't want your filthy misbehaved spawns at our holier-than-thou event, so leave your damn wiener kids at home because WE HATE THEM AND WE ARE THE WORST PEOPLE ON EARTH."

At which point said parents turn from this:

 

 To this:

 I totally get it.  Every parent thinks their children are the most precious beings ever, and can't understand how a betrothed couple could possibly have their special day without the wonderful presence of their delightful little cherub.  And I'm sure that all those kids are as well-behaved and as funny and as cute as their proud parents say.  I'm not a child-hater.  I've taught dance classes for the last 15 years and I love kids.  I hope to have some of my own someday.  The reason that children under 12 are not allowed at the wedding is for one reason and one reason only.  Observe:

Riiiiiight.

We will not have spent 18 months of painstaking planning (and a small fortune from our bank account) to have the wedding of our dreams, only to have the most special moments of our day made awkward by a child's tantrum.  My wedding video will not be marred with muffled cries while I'm saying my vows to my husband.  My elegant, beautiful, sophisticated affair will not be interrupted by a tiny human rolling around on the dance floor during speeches while his/her parent looks on adoringly, thinking it's just the cutest thing anyone will have ever seen.  I just don't think a wedding is a place for a small child, and we will do our best to make sure that the parents we have invited will have a great time out sans their children, who are safe at home with their grandmother watching them.

I've had endless conversations and performed endless Google searches on this very topic.  It's incredibly sensitive, as the quickest way to offend someone and turn them into a mama-bear-angry-spider-monkey is to make them feel as though you've insulted their kids.  And that is truly not my intention.  So I went to my unofficial Difficult Wedding Decision Maker, the First Lady of Etiquette, Miss Martha Stewart.  

 

Oh Martha Stewart.  You're so wise.  Except for that whole insider trading thing.

From the Martha Stewart Weddings website:

"Is It Appropriate Not To Invite Children?"

MS:  Yes - especially if the wedding is in the evening or is very formal.

Thanks Martha!  Case closed.

So while we want to spend our wedding in the company of adults, I hope that all the parents out there understand that yes, your kids are adorable; yes, we love them very much; but no, we're not having kids at our wedding.  And we will be more than happy to come and visit and play with your kids after the honeymoon!  And maybe I'll bring Coney, just as a special treat.  ;)

Happy Wedding Wednesday!!!

~M

 

Put A Ring On It

What's up!  It's diamond time!  Obviously when it came to shopping for wedding bands I was giddy as a schoolgirl.  I love jewellery, sparkly things and spending time with Eric, so this was such a fun day. 

Eric and I went to go see our jeweller John at Roger Watson Jewellers, in Osborne Village.  I really love how knowledgeable and passionate John is about jewellery, and the fact that this is a family owned local business that has passed through generations.  They have such beautiful jewellery in their display cases, and John is also incredibly talented at custom jewellery, which is what we were looking for!

 

I AM fooled by the rocks that you got...

We walked into the store expecting that Eric would choose a ring from the display case and I would need a custom set put together.  Because of the knife edge of my original engagement ring, we were having no luck finding a band that would fit flush against it.  We started with Eric, and as he looked at the tungsten rings, the fact that tungsten is not resizable became more and more of a problem for him.  When I asked him why, he said it was because if he ever needed a different size ring, he wouldn't be able to adjust the original one, and he would have to get a completely new one.  And he's not okay with that, because he wants to wear the original ring that we exchange on our wedding day for the rest of his life.  All together now....

 

 

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwe!

Love that boy more every day. 

So he looked through many rings in the store and settled on a couple that were in white gold and platinum with interesting designs on the band.  He couldn't quite commit to one, so that was when John suggested a custom ring.  He was able to choose the design, style, metal, and thickness of his ring and John took all the details to make a model for Eric to approve before he starts making it.  So as soon as Eric is back from Liberia, he will be able to go down and see what his custom ring will look like!

 

OMG! 

 

 

As for me, I was working with another jeweller at the store while John was with Eric, and I was just trying on rings for fun.  I already knew exactly what I wanted, so I described it to John in extreme detail when he was done putting Eric's ring order together.  To my surprise, he went to his workstation and pulled out an engagement ring he was working on that had no center stone, along with a matching wedding band.  It was absolutely perfect and exactly what I had in mind, with the small, dainty stones on each side of the engagement ring matching the wedding band.  So within 8 seconds I was sold.  The set is absolutely beautiful! 

 

 

 

Without the center stone...



I was very very sad to part with my engagement ring so that they could work on resetting the diamond into the new ring.  But they promised to have it back to me within a week, and even delivered on their promise two days early!  I have the wedding band safely tucked away for the day of the wedding, and now I'm happily wearing my engagement ring again.  :D

 

Yayyyyy I love it so much!!!  I'm so spoiled ;)

 

 

After picking up my rings and having another look at the wedding band in its box, I got very reflective and emotional about our upcoming wedding.  Sure, I am very excited about our big day and very wrapped up in the flurry of activity that is wedding planning, but what I am truly looking forward to are the adventures ahead.  Moving out of the condo and into our first house, continuing to travel the world together, building a life and a family.  I am stupidly excited about all the little things too - for example, I can't wait to use the word "husband" when talking about Eric, or to hear him refer to me as "my wife".  I can't wait to sign my name Mickaela Maxwell (my NAME is changing in 5 months, that is so crazy).  I can't wait for when we can pull out our wedding album and look back on the day, instead of looking forward to it.

 

I came across a tip in a bridal magazine to read a lovely book called Wedding Cake For Breakfast: Essays On The Unforgettable First Year of Marriage.  I bought it off Kobo this weekend and could not put it (well, my iPad) down.  The book is filled with funny and poignant stories from women writers about their first year of marriage, and I would highly recommend it.  Not only did I laugh, but I also cried a river of tears, but that could just be because my fiancé is in Liberia right now and I miss him terribly.  Whether you're right in the thick of your first 365 days, or you're coming up to your big day (like me), or if you're neither of those things but you just want a really good read, you should pick up this book!  It was a soothing reminder that the wedding day isn't the end of the journey or the light at the end of the long tunnel of wedding planning, but it's the first day of a whole new life filled with events - planned, unexpected, heartbreaking, ordinary, and joyous. 

 

 

 

Awe, look at me.  All sappy.

 

 

 

Happy Wedding Wednesday!!!

 

 

~M

 





Hello, Lover...

Hey everyone!  It's so crazy that it's 2014!  I can't believe I'm getting married in just five short months!  It feels like this engagement flew by so fast.  Time does fly when you're having fun, and 2013 was certainly a whirlwind.  The wedding is coming up fast and now is the time that we're working on more of the little details. 

A lot of people have asked me if I am going to the Wonderful Wedding Show this weekend, and all I can say is, been there, done that, got the crappy bag of flyers.  You can read about my experience at last year's wedding show here - and back then I fully planned to go again this year to check it out, and especially to enter all the draws again.  But now that it's arrived, I can safely say no way.  I'd rather get in the ocean with the whale sharks 100 more times than swim the Estrogen Sea again.  Plus, we already have most of the wedding planned and the vendors booked, and I can find more than enough inspiration on Pinterest and in my wedding mags, so I'm gonna take a pass. 

 

Indeed...

 

But I know what you're thinking, how could I bury the lead?!?!  It's the post you've all been waiting for!  Haha, well maybe not.  But I know I was excited when I finally chose my wedding shoes and ordered them!

This has honestly been such an agonizing decision.  Believe me, I know how stupid that sounds, but it has.  Way harder than choosing a dress.  I have waffled back and forth on how to approach choosing a shoe.  I knew that I wanted to strass a pair, but they needed to be exactly the right pair.  I didn't want to pay $800 for a pair of unstrassed Louboutins only to slap crazy glue all over them (have mercy).  But I also didn't want to spend 40 hours gluing $400 worth of rhinestones onto a pair of $40 shoes.  I was looking for a peeptoe pump with a hidden platform and a 4" heel or higher, and they had to be either white or beige, because even when strassing carefully some of the color of the shoe peeks through.  I looked and looked and looked but it was impossible to find a pair of quality pumps that matched all my specifications.

 

These are actually called "Very Riche".  Because you have to be very riche to be able to afford them.

Then I saw Christina Aguilera at the AMA's, wearing the exact pair of Louboutins I was inspired by.  And to be honest, once I saw them on a body, wearing a white dress no less - let's just say, me no likey.  It's like a blinding flash of bling, all up in your face.  With my dress, I am going for the "floaty and romantic" look, not the "Real Housewives of New Jersey" look.  I don't want to end up looking like I'm wearing two tin cans on my feet.  So after I saw these photos, it was back to the drawing board.

 

She looks stunning!  The shoes though, I don't love them.  :(

 

So now what?  Back to more of the CL Daffodile Strass style, with a closed toe?  More of a Manolo style, with no platform and a pointed toe?  Should I just forget this all together?  I mean, I'm only going to be wearing the shoes for the ceremony, photos, and dinner, I won't be dancing in them for very long.  And they'll be covered by my dress, so who cares?  But it's shoes.  I love shoes, and on my wedding day shouldn't I be wearing the most spectacular pair I've ever owned?  Gah.  Waffle waffle. 

It's embarrassing the amount of hours I spent scouring the internet looking at shoes after this, so I'll spare you the details, but one glorious afternoon, lightning struck.  I came across a pair of glorious Badgley Mischka bridal shoes, and fell in love right away.  I have to say I surprised myself, because these are NOT AT ALL what I thought I would pick.  I thought for sure I would be wearing a pair of pumps.  But these little beauties totally embody the floaty and romantic look I'm going for, and they will match my dress perfectly.  May I present the Badgley Mischka "Adele":

 

 

 

 

 

Ahhhhhhh so excited!!!

I love these shoes for so many reasons, and I also love how much they remind me of one of my favorite shows of all time, Sex and the City.  Oh Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda, how I miss you and all your adventures.  (Except your second movie.  That was a train wreck.)  Anyway, Badgley Mischka was the designer of Charlotte's second wedding dress, when she married Harry:

 

"Oh gawd...you look like Audrey Hepburn......owitz"

 

 

And as soon as I saw the Adele, they reminded me of these Christian Louboutin cascade ruffle sandals that Carrie wears on her last date with Big before he moves to Napa:

 

 

 

 

 

"Hello, lover...."

 

 

I still want a pair of blingy shoes, so I feel like these are the perfect pair to strass.  I can strass the heel of them and put a few rhinestones in the petals, and feel sparkly while still feeling dainty and pretty.  Ooh yayyyyy!  I simply cannot WAIT until they arrive!!! 

 

Now I just have to figure out how to stop....

Speaking of bling, Eric and I ordered our wedding bands this past weekend!  This was a really special experience, so I will be sharing that with you next week!  I don't have my engagement ring right now (sad face) because our jeweller is working with it as we speak, so hopefully by next Wednesday I'll have it back in time for blogging!


Happy Wedding Wednesday!!!


~M

Bedazzling The Belt

I’m back!  I hope all of my blog readership (which consists of my best friend and my mom and dad) didn’t think I’d given up on this project.  The last month has been absolute insanity.  So here’s a quick recap before we get into today’s post:

First of all, our social was a fantastic success!  After all the stress, planning, gathering of prizes, selling of tickets, and working to ensure the night went off without a hitch, I am happy to report that everything went relatively smoothly.  Or at least I think it did.  The night went by so fast that I’m not sure what happened.  One minute I’m writing numbers on the prize bags, the next minute I’m pulling out large trays of meat, and the third minute I’m throwing out half empty drink cups and telling Guy We Haven’t Seen In Eight Years to stop hitting on my bridesmaid and to go the hell home so we can clean up.  I learned quickly that it certainly goes by a lot faster when it’s your social compared to someone else’s. 

Another thing we learned:  never underestimate the ferocity of hungry drunk chicks.  My mother worked to create the most amazing cupcake display known to man, with 18 different specialty flavors in gorgeous wrappers.  However, the problem with that, is you cannot set up a table filled with sweets in the middle of a hoard of woo girls and expect them to stand back nicely while you place your handmade, exquisitely delicate signage in front of each type of cupcake and then stand back to admire and take a picture of your excellent craftsmanship.  As soon as the first cupcake hit the table it was like...

 

FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!

And my MOH was having to throw elbows to try and keep my mother from being stampeded.  Thankfully, she made it out alive, and I received a million compliments on her delicious confections. 

We owe a huge thank you to our families and wedding party, who really stepped up and helped us immensely with this event, as well as to all the wonderful people in our lives to attended our social to support us.  We love you all! 

 

 

The one picture of us from before the night started...

Immediately after the social, I had 4 days to get ready to leave for Grey Cup with my cheer team.  Between tying up loose ends at work, laundry and packing, ensuring our routine was ready to go and not leaving the hair team behind (which almost happened) there was no time for blogging.  Grey Cup weekend was also a great success!  My feelings would best be described in a song:

 

 

 

And a photo:

 

No caption necessary.

Immediately after getting home from Grey Cup, I had 4 days to get ready for a two week trip to Germany for the World Tap Championships.  By this time, my life is in complete disarray.  I’ve been living out of a bag and in airports since September, and I haven’t even had time to think about my wedding much less blog about it.  But I returned home in one piece last weekend after many a delayed flight and missed connection and had a couple days at home with my love to relax, decompress and recover from jet lag.  And what’s the best way to do that?  Why, with wine and strassing!

I received my Swarovskis in the mail a while ago, as I mentioned last blog post, and they have just been sitting there, taunting me, ever since.  So when I sat down to work on Aislin’s belt, I thought it was a project that was going to be completed over a number of weeks, but I finished it in two days.  Turns out, strassing for small people?  Much faster.  Strassing on a flat surface?  Much easier.  Strassing with Clear Diamond Swarovskis?  Much SPARKLIER!  Is sparklier a word?  I don’t care.  It is now.

As I posted before, Aislin’s dress looks like this:

 

 

Look at that punnum.  Isn’t she adorable?  Squee.

But the front of it is much too plain for my taste.  So I started with a piece of plain white silk ribbon, and used an embroidery hoop to keep it taut and in place while I strassed.  I was also concerned the glue would seep through the ribbon and onto the table, so I wanted to keep it up off my work surface.  Turns out it held up well!  When I put the first row of crystals on, I felt that same overwhelming feeling when I started Meadow’s tap shoes, because it seems like such a big project with such little stones.  But I worked about one square inch at a time, and it went pretty fast!

 

 

You start with some ribbon....

 

 

 

 

...you pull it tight...

 

 

 

 

...and you get down to biz.

I measured Aislin a couple weeks back at dance class (dance!  Awe, she’s doing so good...) and she’s 10 inches from hip to hip, so I added a bit more for growth and worked on one half at a time, meeting in the middle.  I think I finished the whole thing in about 6-7 hours.  I’m getting pretty fast at strassing now, which is good because I have a giant pair of size 9 pumps to finish before the wedding. 

 

 

Progress...

 
 

 

Usually worked in square inches...

 

 

 

 

Almost halfway....

 

 

 

 

Just about done!

And voila, the finished product!  I feel sad that these photos don’t do the belt justice, because it is so sparkly and cute.  I tried it on her at dance last night and it looked so bloody adorable.  She’s going to be such a little doll.  :)  So now I’m excited to strass more things for her outfit!  Shoes!  Hairpiece!  Flower basket!  She will probably blind everyone walking down the aisle, hahaha...

 

 

Finished!

 

 

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas season and a Happy New Year!  I will be back after the holidays with lots of wedding planning fun!

 

Happy Wedding Wednesday!!!

 

~M