*Lo*

Haha thanks Kathy! It reminded me that we are always one step ahead!

Yay Yael! What a great planning thread! I love all the little details. Your wedding was beautiful and despite the swine flu cancellation, everything worked out so well! Congrats!!

I'm very excited to see them! Your rave review of them is pushing me to look into ordering some!

Wow that will be so amazing!! Congrats to your daughter, and you should definitely be able to find some info on save the date wording in order to get an idea of who will plan to join you!

I used wedding paper divas for my save the dates. They had a really cute design I loved and it was really easy and they just arrived yesterday and I am really happy with them! I ordered 60 and they were about $74 including envelopes. I thought it was a great price. Also I ordered them, then confirmed the order later that day, then they shipped the next day I think it was. I was going to diy for the invites but I will probably just order from them again!

Jo your site looks great so far! I agree it's hard to take things slowly when you just want to jump in because you have great ideas! I have done quite a bit so far and now there's just over a year to go and I really want to finalize everything. I just want all the planning to be done! My save the dates arrived yesterday I was very excited! But we still have to go over the guest list again. And obtaining addresses will be a nightmare. Also FI is supposed to be putting the web site together but really nothing has happened so now he's asking me to write all the pages.

Flowers was the one thing where negotiations were very successful. What I did was tell them what I wanted, and they would give me a quote. If it was what I wanted but the price was too high, I simply said, wow this looks great but my flower budget is only $X. And they said ok we can take out this one tiny thing, like ribbons on the centerpiece vases, and then give you the price you are asking. So it worked out well since I didn't ask for ribbons on the vases in the first place, and they went down in price a lot.

He's 6'2 and I'm 5'7 and I normally wear 3 inch heels and feel really comfortable in them so I think that is what I will do! We are getting married at a gazebo not right on the beach though.

We did a wire transfer to Dreams for our deposit. I don't think I would wire a ton of funds though, I'd prefer to use paypal and have it go on my credit card for the insurance in case it was some type of scam. But for the $500 deposit I wasn't too worried about it. Also if it had turned out to be a scam, there are so many brides who get married at Dreams and they would all definitely have heard about it from me should something have gone wrong! I think things to look for are: Where is the account located? If it is in Africa and you are not getting married in Africa chances are it is a scam. Just make sure you have all of the info before transferring and you should be fine!

Wow looks amazing! I have been excited for your photos ever since I read you were getting married at a castle in France. Congrats!!!!

I plan to have my brother be in charge of the microphone and control speeches. I actually don't care if drunk people make speeches as long as they are short. Cause I know most people will be drunk by then and probably I will too. I am weird I hope people make hilarious drunk speeches. And I hope it's captured on video. So for me, the key is short.

I'm doing October as well. I didn't realize it was one of the rainier months but the summer months are just too hot in my opinion.

They are all super funny!

Wow those turned out fantastic! I can't wait to see them in action!

Hmm ya it's hard to just outright ask. We have the same thing, my parents are paying for my brother's trip since he just started work out of school and has no money saved and then they offered $6,000 towards our wedding which i think is not a ton but it's still so helpful and it's to pay for half of whatever we were quoted for ceremony and reception so i think it's so completely fair. my mom is also paying $3200 for my wedding dress so its more than I would ever ask for. FI's parents also have money but haven't said anything. But we don't want to outright ask. So we are expecting to just cover the rest and I have a feeling his mom will write us a cheque for a wedding gift. She wrote us a cheque for $14,000 when we bought our condo as a gift and to help out with the downpayment which we didn't ask for. So I dunno. I just anticipate the same type of thing but I also am not going to count on it. We even flew out to calgary to discuss it in person but FI couldn't bring it up. I have a different relationship with my parents I seriously just emailed and was like, hey our ceremony and reception costs $12,000, how much are you going to chip in? hehe and my mom said half. So awesome. I guess plan on paying for it yourself and anything else is bonus! that's my advice as someone in the same situation.

Arg that is frustrating. It's frustrating when anyone complains about anything to do with your wedding because of all the work we've put into making it so awesome!! I'd say if he wants to fly out of whereever then let him! Who cares how he gets there. Maybe he will then shut up about it if he travels to a different city for his flight or just flies out of Montreal. Goodluck!!!

I think as long as you are understanding and realize that some people may not attend and you are ok with it, then don't be upset!! We made the decision, didn't worry about it and haven't looked back. Most people know about it and tell us they are excited. We are sending save the dates in the next month and so over the next little while we expect people who said they'd definitely be there, to probably bail out. And that's cool. I would rather have a super fun wedding of my dreams with people close to me who will definitely make the trip, than a wedding with tons of people in a boring banquet hall eating crappy food just so more people can afford it. Also if you give people plenty of notice and time to save I think most people could do it. Some still may not, but if even going to local weddings can be expensive. Your MOH would have to get a dress, shoes, hair done, wedding gift, possibly a hotel for a night. MOH's tell me they spend close to $800/900 for a local wedding so if they can do that they can go to your DW. In my opinion!

bahahahahaha they CAN be trained though I've seen it happen. But it takes effort. Although maybe not every man can but I've definitely made progress with my FI. He even understands now that if he invites friends over for dinner, and he is doing the inviting, he must be hella sure he's put all his shit away that's all over the place and that it is HIS responsibility to do so. He also double checks when he flushes the toilet EVERYTIME to ensure he has completely flushed. This was a difficult one though it took over a year. Ana has some good insight as well she has her DH trained to do everything she says pretty much. It's pretty awesome. He even went to a sex shop to pick up our devil costumes for a bachelorette party we were going to in vegas. I would've NEVER gotten my FI to do that in a million years! She's my hero!

I think it sounds great. You want your wedding to be fun and relaxed and your guests will get that impression and you will all party like rock stars and it will be fantastic!

ohmygosh. what about trying signs? with arrows like "put keys here". Seriously they act like they are 7 so treating them like they're 7 makes sense. I don't know why we have to train them. I think they just have other things on their mind like "who's playing in the game tonight?" and they aren't capable of keeping multiple thoughts in their heads at once so football trumps everything. It's sad. When I have kids and they are boys I will train them. So that way their FI's won't have to!!!!

Ya the same thing irritates me. He is always running around "Where's my watch, where are my keys" blah blah blah. It used to piss me off a lot but I guess I've gotten used to it. I also have taken steps to make it easier for his apparent slow brain at finding things. So I set up a container thing on this table that is very close to when you walk in, anytime we're together i make a point to put my phone, keys, etc in a compartment of this container. I then stand there and encourage him to unload his wallet, keys etc. he even has his own compartments for things. So he is now pretty good at it! I'd say like 4/5 times his stuff is in this container thing. And it's at least the first place he looks for things so even if they aren't there he thinks they should be! Something to try anyway but you do have to train them!!

I have moved to Boston and am only up in Toronto once a month usually at the ends of months. So hopefully one of these meetups I can make it to at some point! have fun!!!!!

I feel like Oct 2010 will never get here. But I just ordered save the dates! They are supposed to arrive at the end of the month. Have you guys started in on the planning yet?

Those are the cutest kittens ever!! ahhh I want one

Yay I'm so happy that it brightened your day a bit!! We were all seriously in shock when we heard what happened. Honestly I gasped and freaked out for a good 30 minutes. I'm glad you are feeling a bit better and I wish you a speedy recovery