snswedding2016

Thanks! @@krystalball and @veryvalentine It was a great night to walk around ...we needed it after our meal lol! That cake was to die for - soooo good! It was a mocha ice cream cake with cookie crumble crust and chocolate, caramel and almonds drizzled over top! I could go for another piece right now. haha.

@@Meandhim Happy 9th Anniversary!!!! I hope you and your fiance had a nice celebration! A honeymoon next April sounds like a perfect way to celebrate 10 years!

Took some time away from planning last night to celebrate our 4 year anniversary!

@@TinkerSofi I had the exact same questions. The kids can pick and choose (they do no all have to order the same thing) and they can choose at the reception. You have the option of selecting the meal ahead of time but it is not necessary. I decided to leave it up to the kids and the parents on the night of. I know how much my niece flip flops on what she wants depending on her mood so I think leaving it open is probably for the best.

@@TinkerSofi I think most kids will want to choose something from the kids menu. I showed my fiance the kid's menu and he half jokingly wanted to order off of it too. LOL! I think it offers a good variety for what kids like to eat. I also like that the meals come with a choice of fruit, veggies or fries as well as a choice of dessert. I'm doing a 3 course plated menu and having the kids order from the kid's menu. I posted the kid's menu on our private facebook group for the wedding and all of the parents are very excited about it. Hope that helps.

@@veryvalentine your flower crown is beautiful!!! Did you find any particular tutorials more helpful than others?

@@veryvalentine We have 45 adults, 4 children and 4 infants...we have lots of little ones at our wedding! I do like the look of a head table but I think it'll make it easier for those with children especially. I've also been to a couple of weddings where the "plus ones table" (all the partners of the bridal party) feel a little uncomfortable sitting with people they don't know. Although I feel like that would go away with a DW as people will have more time to get to know each other over the course of the vacation. The other thing about a head table that I don't love is that usually it is one long table facing all of the guests and you can't really talk to everyone at the table because you a side by side instead of facing each other. You end up only talking to the people directly beside you anyway. I think the ceremony where the bridal party is standing up with you will make them feel honoured and hopefully being able to sit with their partners and family will make them feel little more comfortable during dinner. We're not having too many speeches just the Maid of Honour and Best Man and maybe a speech from my fiance's parents (my mom is WAY too shy!).

My fiance and I are also doing a sweetheart table. Most of our bridal party have partners or children so we didn't want to separate them from their families. It will be nice to have that time just the two of us and I figure it is only for the dinner portion anyway. Once the dancing starts we'll all be up from our tables and partying!

@ thanks for the words of encouragement. I agree - these are the things that will make our day feel unique and special. I'll keep you posted on all the adventures and mishaps.

@ Thanks so much!! Everyone on here has really inspired me to try and be more creative...especially with the DIYs. I'll keep you posted on how those turn out, at the moment they scare me a little! LOL!

Your lashes look great!!!!

Photography This is one topic that my fiance and I went back and forth on. At my cousin's DW wedding that we went to two years ago, they used the resort photographer and had really great photos. I really didn't want to spend the $800 for the outside vendor fee but the more we looked at the two approved photographers for Azul Fives the more we wanted to look elsewhere. We didn't find the photos all that bad but one photographer's work just didn't stand out to us at all but they were the cheaper option and the other while the photos I found were decent, I also wasn't in love with them. We also found the other photographer to be quite pricey. I couldn't justify spending that amount on work I wasn't in love with. We started searching for other photographers and came across another bride from this forum who was also married at Azul Fives. I loved their work and started researching pricing. I found them to be very reasonable. We started thinking maybe we would just go for a smaller package (with less hours of coverage) for better quality photos. As I researched the vendor I found out that one of the photographers is originally from Toronto and used to work in the entertainment field as well. We started chatting and immediately hit it off. I felt comfortable and confident that this would be a great fit. He also offered to pay for half of our outside vendor fee, so that definitely made things better for our budget! Our decision: Photos in Cancun The bonus was that once we started chatting Derek from Photos in Cancun told me that he was coming 'home' (to Toronto) for a friend's wedding over the holiday and that maybe we could get together for coffee and chat. Sean and I felt so lucky to be able to meet our DW photographer in person AND he threw in engagement photos!! Very excited to be working with them! I also love the added Canadian element at our DW! Engagement shoot location: a short back story on the location...about 4 months into dating Sean got a big renovation job (I think I may have mentioned this earlier in the thread) to redo an entire bar/restaurant downtown. I would go after work to help him organize the books (remember I'm the planner haha) and he would renovate and design with the crew of guys. We often worked late into the evening and slept there on an air mattress. It was really intense time where we started to realize we knew we could also work well together. This is the place we fell in love - nothing glamorous or fancy, just us. Well the owner of the bar ran this place into the ground unfortunately (he still owes us money for the reno- but that's another story) BUT the good news is that a new business took over and they kept the design!! It's now a place called "Snakes and Lagers" a bar where you can play board games - it's a lot of fun actually! Part of the design was a concrete bar that Sean design - since we did it custom I had an idea to put all of our names into the bar (under the counter). I got letters from Michaels and we poured the concrete over them so now if you put a mirror underneath that bar you can see our names side by side. I love that it is still there now. For anyone interested here is what the bar looks like: http://www.blogto.com/restaurants/snakes-lagers-toronto(FYI - those grey bricks were put in one by one - so glad they kept them, I think I would have cried if they didn't so much time and effort) Some engagement pics:

Thanks! @@veryvalentine can't wait to see how they turn out!

My fiance really wants to learn how to salsa. He's a pretty good partner dancer - his mom taught him in their kitchen when he was a little boy (old school ballroom, jive etc). That story totally got me when we first met...actually he told me as he was spinning me on the dance floor. Such a charmer lol! Now I'm just trying to find a good place to take salsa lessons in the city.

@@veryvalentine @@tygrrlily where did get your extensions done in Toronto?

@@veryvalentine I'm using Ingrid Michaelson for my ceremony as well!! Love her!

I'll definitely check with Karisma - did you ask about it through your TA or through your WC? Our wedding isn't until Jan so they may not know yet but I agree I have a feeling they may want to release our cheaper room since I'm pretty sure they've either run out or are running out of deluxe rooms. Thanks for the info @@TinkerSofi!

@@TinkerSofi so you guys already know you have been upgraded? I thought it was based on when you checked in.

@@calgarybride2015 Thanks! We're going to using the paper roses as part of our table decor for centerpieces. They'll be scattered around the candles on the table. I'm loving the corsages too! I kinda want one for myself haha. All the bridesmaids will be carrying a clutch and my two maids of honour will wear the wrist corsages in addition to the clutch. I agree, thinking about it more I don't think the extra bouquet is worth the money if I get one through the resort. Knowing me I would just bring home the real touch one, look at it lovingly for a week remembering the trip and then stuff it in the closet and never see it again. LOL! Better to use that money somewhere else!

Jewellery/Accessories I went to a warehouse bridal sale back at the start of winter. They had crazy sales on dresses but I already had my dress but they did have lots of accessories on sale too! I picked up both my hair pin and bracelet. I'm still debating on the whole veil situation. Since my dress is all lace I thought it would be nice to add a little sparkle. I've also recently decided to add a half belt to my dress (I can't go all the way around due to the low back of the dress ). I emailed my designer this weekend and she said it would be no problem to add it to the dress when I come in for my final fitting. Maid(s) of Honour Although I'm not having traditional bouquets for my bridesmaids and they will all be in different shades of blue I wanted to distinguish my TWO maids of honour somehow. I started really liking the idea of wrist corsages. Here are my inspiration photos: I have chosen to go with Bloom Bridal - a company that makes real touch flowers. I got the contact from another bride on here. I will be ordering two double bloom wrist corsages for my maids of honour and two double bloom pin on corsages for our moms! Peonies for the Maids of Honour: Roses for our Moms: I've toyed with the idea of getting a bouquet for myself even though I have one through the resort. I thought this way I can get some flowers that wouldn't be in season and readily available in my bouquet and be able to take it home and keep it but I'm not sure if it is worth the extra expense. "Love Story" Reception Theme Early on in the design phase, I started researching the idea of adding elements of a "Love Story" theme to the reception. I starting gathering ideas and it kept growing and now I'm loving all the different elements coming together. Centrepieces I wanted to avoid bringing breakables and flowers through Lomas are crazy expensive so started thinking about other ways to have creative centrepieces that were non-floral and didn't require bringing any glass vases. I came up with doing a lot of candles (LEDs) wrapped in vellum with our favourite love quotes (from movies, books, poems) printed on them surrounded by paper flowers made from love stories. I ordered my candles from the Paper Lantern Store in votive and pillar sizes. They come with a remote control to dim them or set them to flicker or be still. Sean LOVES lighting (he's always complaining about the lack of ambiance in restaurants) so I knew he would be on board with this idea. Here are my inspiration pics: I still have to experiment with this DIY project - stay tuned! I ordered my paper roses from a great Etsy vendor in two different sizes. I asked if she could use a classic romantic novel to make the roses out of and she made them all from Jane Austen novels! They have already arrived and I LOVE them!! Table Numbers: I'm using scrabble tiles for the table numbers. I would also love to add books to our decor like in the photo but I'm worried about the weight for the amount of tables we have. If I have extra space and can convince some family and friends to bring a book or two for me, I might add that to it. Favours: We will be doing OOT bags (I'll get to that in a later post) but also wanted to do something small for favours at the wedding. To keep with our theme and since we have so much music being arranged by family and friends we're going to do a "Soundtrack to our Love Story" with the music that Sean's parents are recording for the ceremony and the two songs my friends are singing (recessional and first dance). I'm also thinking of attempting another DIY project here for book page bookmarks. I also got a custom made stamp from Stampanda with a groupon for 50% off the original price (it cost me $26 including shipping). I will be stamping the CD covers with this: "Guest Book" My boss is lending me the office video camera which I'm so thankful for. The idea is that we're going to set up a video "guest book" where we'll ask our guests to tell us their love stories or their favourite love stories sort of like "When Harry Met Sally" (my favourite movie!). I'm still trying to figure out the logistics of getting this set up but I really would like to make this happen. Since we're not doing a wedding video this would be a nice alternative for memories of the day. Other Decor In addition to the LED candles from the Paper Lantern Store I also bought a couple of strands of string lights (25 sockets) and blue paper lanterns to hang in the garden. Although we're having this "Love Story" theme at the reception I would like to maintain the blue elements from our ceremony decor and attire. My cousin's wife's sister in law (wow that's sort of confusing now that I see it typed out) runs a local wedding decor company in Toronto. She has offered to lend me samples for my table linens if I want (I'll only need about 6). I'm debating between table runners or sheer overlays for the table (all in shades of blue). I still need to go and see them in person to decide. Escort Cards - I'm using paint chips in our palette - hopefully it looks nice and not cheesy! lol! I plan on trimming the edges off so that the paint names aren't on them.

@@Everly my fiancé and are in a similar situation where we are paying for the wedding ourselves including our parents. Both of our families are pretty big - he's got a huge East Coast Canadian family just with siblings and nieces and nephews. While I'm an only child my cousins are like my siblings and my aunts and uncles like additional parents. We decided not to invite extended family. Ex. my mom's cousins, family friends. We did invite my colleagues since my fiancé and I met through work and then know both of us pretty well. We invited the whole office though knowing not everyone would be able to take off for a week in Mexico. We had to make some tough decisions in our friends department. There are some people I would have liked to include but we just couldn't invite the whole circle of friends and their plus ones. I would just be cautious of inviting from one cousin and not the next and I would definitely have a conversation with the cousin who gets invited to explain the situation so they don't go talking to others about it assuming they are all invited. Or worse having them invite others. My Aunt got into trouble with that with my cousins DW - she figured the travel info was like a mass email you could just forward to all your friends…they had to have a serious talk with her and awkwardly uninvite people. That one was easy though because my cousins had a family only wedding. Our invite list was pretty big considering what we were budgeting for but my TA reassured me that my expected decline rate was reasonable and not crazy. haha. We invited just over 150 people and we have 45 adults and 8 children confirmed. We were budgeting for 60 so we're right in that range. We do expect a couple of last minute bookers but we're in the ballpark.

Love the tags and that little owl is too cute!!! Nicely done!

@@veryvalentine I'm so sorry to hear about your week…I hope you're starting to feel better!! Just wanted to send some good vibes your way!

@@Meandhim - if people keep asking you about gifts, have you thought about starting a honeymoon registry? That is if you're planning on taking a honeymoon. It basically acts as cash to use towards your honeymoon but you can register for things like a room upgrade or spa packages. My fiancé and I did this even though we have said gifts are not necessary (mainly for family who has been asking about gifts and are not coming to the wedding but insist on giving a present anyway). We also have been living together for a while and don't really need anything, we thought this was a nice way to still have a registry. Saying "no gifts" doesn't seem to work for some family members.

Thanks @@calgarybride2015 that's great advice! It certainly makes things tougher to plan around. At least in the dress department we're ok - I'm letting my BM's choose their own dress as long as it is in the colour palette. I do want to start ordering gifts etc for the bridal party and I don't really want to waste money if she ends up not coming. I think you're right that I need to set a date for when I need an answer…just trying to figure out when to make that cut off date.