snswedding2016

Bachelorette Weekend Reivew Ok ladies I survived my bachelorette trip - haha! It was an amazing weekend with my girls. I went with my two maids of honour and the one bridesmaid that is in Toronto. We left early Saturday morning and our first stop was "The Pie Plate" in Niagara on the Lake for brunch and dessert. It was really good especially because it was the first time I had sugar, gluten and dairy in almost a month! I've actually been wanting to try this place for a while now. Every time we go to Niagara on the Lake, I point it out but we've never gone in. Without knowing this one of my maids of honour picked it out on her own - perfect! We then drove to Niagara Falls and checked into our hotel. Stop #2 was spa treatments at the Double Tree Aveda Spa. So relaxing. I had a Baltic Body Mud Masque. We went back to our hotel and got ready for dinner. Stop #3 was dinner at the Keg at the Embassy Suites on the 9th floor, which has an amazing view of the falls. My girls told them that it was for a bachelorette party so they gave us a great table with a perfect view of the falls! Our "fun" straws...haha. My girls got me a disco ball cup! It was awesome! People kept asking me where I got it. A group of drunk women in their 50s wanted to steal it from me. lol! Stop #4 we went back to the hotel room to get ready for evening portion. They bought some games to play which involved drinking shots - ugh! Sugary shots at that....such a recipe for disaster. Luckily I brought this electrolyte booster to have while we were drinking and it really helped!! Several shots later we ventured out to Stop #5 (most of these stops were a surprise but had a feeling of where we were going for this one). They took me to "Peppermints" in Niagara Falls ...luckily you are not allowed to take photos in there. Lots and lots of embarrassment happened in this place. After my moment on stage (my friends paid for me to go up there...) we finished our round of drinks and we all looked at each other and said "I think we're done here" lol! Stop #6 was dancing at "Seven". I saw a couple who were married earlier that day and the groom came over to me and asked when I was getting married. He took the rose from his lapel and gave it to me. He said "This flower brought me good luck today and I hope it does for you too." It was really sweet! Stop #7 - late night fries at Denny's before we went to bed The next day we checked out of the hotel and drove back to Niagara on the Lake for our last stop (Stop #8) High Tea at the "Prince of Wales Hotel". It was a nice juxtaposition to peppermints the night before. haha!

@@calgarybride2015 @@ashhtayy @@Wafflesmom Thanks ladies! We're now excited about our legal ceremony plans. It was nice last night for the first time in weeks I felt really excited for the wedding and it started to feel real and close! These last couple of weeks have been so stressful that it was nice to have that feeling. I spent the last two days working from home. It is really starting to slow down at work (which I'm actually happy about for wedding planning). American Thanksgiving usually marks the start of the really slow period leading up to the holidays. I was able to still do my work from home but multi-task and get some wedding stuff taken care of. Besides organizing the legal ceremony, this week we managed to tackle a lot: -Started printing our printables for our welcome bags (I'm able to use my printer at work which is great) -printed the welcome letter, itineraries for everyone (general, groomsmen, bridesmaid, and maid of honour), rooming list & menu -still need to finish tips for the resort and I might do a game page or two for the kids -*I'll post pics when it is all completed -finally found a slip for my after party dress -finished legal ceremony and symbolic ceremony scripts -took inventory of all the stuff I have for the wedding and to see what's missing -started packaging some of the decor (tupperware works really well with the paper roses!) -almost finished playlist - just need a couple more songs for the pre-ceremony, cocktail hour and dinner music lists (emailed the partial list to my friend who is helping us put it all together) -started working on our "Azul Fives Setup" document - I'm putting all of our notes in one document with detailed instructions on how we would like it all to look, making note of what we're bringing from home and what we're ordering from Lomas -ordered another piece of luggage today with a black friday sale, on top of the discounted price I got 15% off for purchasing for the first time with them online and then I also qualified for free shipping! I feel like that is a black friday win! I feel like we should be good for luggage now but I'm waiting for the last two pieces to come in to take a look at it all -PAID THE RESORT BILL!!!! That was a big sigh of relief to get that done. Next things to tackle: -finish up the crafts!!! (magnets ...I literally have 4 to finish, somehow I keep procrastinating, love quotes - vellum is cut and ready to go, my "S&S" letters - just need to finish the back on one of them) -finish the printables -assemble welcome bags and distribute before Christmas to those in Toronto -find shoes and white shirt for Sean -finish off groomsmen gifts -create a zoom link for our streaming link of the wedding in Mexico and send it out to guests who are unable to come -get marriage license -book grooming appointments!!! -pick and plan a date with my bridesmaids and my mom just before we leave for Mexico -Christmas shopping....I have to include this here because I'm SO not thinking about that right now with everything else to do haha! -Settle up final numbers with our TA....with the 3 cancellations/refunds we need to see where we are with our numbers and transat credits. I think we may just be on the cusp but really that's ok...either way we're spending less than what we had planned. -Arrange transfer between Azul Fives and El Dorado for the honeymoon! -Send out gift to our amazing TA!! -Exchange money to pesos (and a little bit of US) -Try and stay on this detox I'm on until the wedding (but cheating around parties and Christmas)! We actually don't have a scale at home so I don't know how much I've lost (if any) but I think in a way that's a good thing. I'm loving how my clothes feel and how I'm feeling in general. Regardless of the numbers, I'm feeling better overall. I'm not going to lie this detox isn't easy (I'm off of alcohol, dairy, gluten and sugar )...needless to say I'm cheating this weekend on my bachelorette trip!

Legal Ceremony Updates It has all come together this week (more or less). Once we decided to cancel Sean's parents' trips, we started working on alternative dates that would work for my mom, his parents and our schedule. They are coming in Dec 7-10. - Location - originally we thought about having it downtown Toronto but my mom has some hotel credits at Casino Rama...I know it sounds like an odd choice but they actually have a beautiful hotel side with some great restaurants, a piano bar, spa and pool. We were able to get two adjoining rooms for 2 nights and only have to pay $150 total. We'll be getting married at the piano bar (before it opens) where there is a beautiful 3 sided fireplace beside the piano. -Food - there is a really nice restaurant called St. Germain there that has amazing food. Our meal for 6 is covered (my uncle is joining us for the day) we just have to pay for the alcohol - pretty great deal! -Officiant - our original officiant is unavailable for our new date but she recommended a colleague who is free and willing to drive to Orillia for the ceremony. He will honour our original officiant's fees, which is great! -Flowers - I decided after we cancelled my mom's trip to make this ceremony feel a little more special. Since I decided to go with real touch flowers for Mexico, I thought it would be nice to have fresh flowers for the legal ceremony. I'm getting a bridal bouquet and a boutonniere for Sean. Inspiration pics for the flowers: -Hair - I also decided to get my hair done, just another way to make it feel special and more like the real thing for our parents. We're trying to make it a slightly more glamorous affair without adding too much to the ceremony language itself (that we save for Mexico). Here are some inspiration pics for hair: The silver lining in all of this is that Sean and I realized that we would never have had 2 full days of uninterrupted time with just our parents in Mexico. There would be so much running around and trying to spend time with everyone, that actually this alternate plan will actually give us more time with them. I think in the end that will mean way more to them than a trip to Mexico (even though we would have loved for them to be there and experience it). More updates to come but I'll save that for another post. This weekend is my bachelorette in Niagara Falls - we leave Saturday!! I'm excited!

@@krystalball lol!!! amazing!

@ me too!

@ I was just thinking about this too! @@diadiamond you should totally join us if you're free...oh and @@veryvalentine too!!

@@krystalball thanks so much! haha I strive to be the anti-bridezilla so that means a lot...although when that groomsmen started making a fuss about the pants I felt some bridezilla emotions coming on! lol!

I think our group for the 4th is: @ @@Meandhim @@krystalball @@acw271011 Have I missed anyone?

@@Meandhim happy wedding day!!! can't wait to hear all about it!!

@ @@krystalball Yes! I have a reservation already and just checked with them this morning to confirm. It's for 5pm (easier to get an earlier reservatio). I'll be there at 5pm to hold the table and everyone can join when they can get there. It's called Bar Hop Brewco -137 Peter St (queen and Peter/SoHo) http://www.blogto.com/restaurants/bar-hop-brewco-toronto

@@Wafflesmom Thanks for the hugs!!! They are greatly appreciated!

Thanks Kim!! We will gladly take all the hugs...we need it! It really has been so stressful in the last month but I keep reminding myself that we are still so lucky. We get to celebrate with all of our loved ones...it may not be in the way we thought it would be but we still get to make it special.

@@JoannaBanana @@vancouverpetunia thanks ladies for your input on Hangouts! I'm going to give it a try for sure! @@calgarybride2015 from my understanding it is similar to what's app but you can also have group conversations (although maybe what's app does that too- I'm not too sure). Sean's sister recommended Hangouts as they used it when she took her students to Vienna in the summer. Mini Update If I thought this week was a hard week, today made it even tougher....we made the really hard decision of also cancelling Sean's parent's trips tonight. On top of the permanent resident card that we're waiting for, everyone in the family has started to get really concerned about the health of Sean's parents. Sean's dad has had Alzheimer's for several years now but is okay as long as someone is with him, particularly Sean's mom BUT this year Sean's mom has had some really bad injuries. She injured her leg in March and she went into the ER and they said it wasn't broken but to rest it. Well since then she's had some infections because of the injury and finally just this month they did another x-ray and realized that she had in fact broken a bone and she's been walking on it since MARCH! She's been in a cast and we weren't too worried as we were happy they figured out what was going on and it is healing now. Since then she's had a bad fall and injured her shoulder. With her being injured in multiple places and the care that Sean's dad needs everyone is worried about them travelling and being in a hotel room on their own in a new surrounding. It was really tough (particularly for Sean of course) to make the call of cancelling. We also found out the the earliest that the permanent resident card would come in is Jan 1 ....5 days before we leave. It was so hard to make this decision, I think this was almost harder for me to deal with than the news of my mom because I've never seen Sean this heartbroken and sad before. He is just devastated and so disappointed. We made the call to my TA and like the amazing TA that she is, she answered on a Sunday night. Today was the last day we could cancel and get a full refund (minus the deposit). I was worried it would be too late because of the weekend but she said that if she emailed tonight it would be fine. We're now changing our plans again for our legal ceremony as we are going to fly Sean's parents here for it as well. At least we can have our parents there and they can be a part of it. We're just trying to sort out the timing as our original date doesn't work for Sean's mom. I think our plans have changed 3 times this week....I'm really learning to just go with the flow. Back to the drawing board about venue, time, date, officiant etc. We've got two weeks to get it all organized but we are still keeping it simple so I think it will all come together. At least we are dealing with this now and not right before we leave....we still have time to make alt arrangements. Gotta stay positive! Keep you all posted...

@@vancouverpetunia I would love to know what you thought about Blue Bay as well. We have two guests staying there for our wedding but I have no info on the place and this will be their first time as well.

@@Jessim9 Congrats on your engagement! Just like @@calgarybride2015 mentioned this is one of the hardest parts about planning and one thing that many of us have struggled with. I stayed at the Barcelo Maya Colonial 2 years ago and really loved it. My fiancé and I almost got married there because we had already been and loved it. Unfortunately their packages didn't work for our budget but they do really nice weddings. You get access to a huge stretch of beach with so many Barcelo resorts side by side. We got a quote last Nov for Jan 2016 at the Barcelo and it was $1850 from Calgary and $1630 from Toronto. I hear the Grand Sunset Princess is nice. @@veryvalentine got married there last June, she may be able to give some more tips on the resort. Happy planning!

Updates Mom We decided to make the call this week to cancel my mom's trip to Mexico. As hard as it was to officially cancel, I do think it is for the best. We decided that we just didn't want to take any risks with her travelling. We had a tough couple of days getting used to the final decision but we're doing ok now and moving ahead with our new plans for our legal ceremony. Legal Ceremony We were originally planning on doing our legal ceremony at the end of December so my cousin (who was supposed to be a bridesmaid but got pregnant) can be there too. There is a slight possibility that my mom's surgery could be moved to December and I didn't want to risk her not being able to be at the legal ceremony either so we decided to move up the date to Dec 5th....which means we get legally married two weeks today!!!!! ahh!! That kind of hit us last night! So now we're having a really nice and quiet ceremony with just my mom and uncle and then going out for dinner. Since we just made the decision of when this week, I've been busy trying to make sure we have all the arrangements made as it's coming up really soon. - Dress is altered - Hair appointment booked - Flowers ordered - Need to make reservations today for dinner - Finish legal ceremony script this weekend - Still need to figure Sean's outfit for legal ceremony - Figure out decor for ceremony venue My uncle also really surprised me, he offered to pay for a family dinner for my side of the family here in Toronto to celebrate the wedding. He didn't want us to have to pay for the dinner after the legal ceremony with my mom and him and instead he wanted to host it and take everyone out. We were really surprised and touched but did have to tell him that we wanted to keep the legal ceremony small. We did tell him if he still wanted to host a dinner (although totally unnecessary) that we would love do it another day either leading up to the wedding in Mexico or after. He spoke to my mom about it a little more and he told her that he really wanted to do this because he felt that my cousins all had bigger weddings and he wanted to host something for us for our family. It's pretty sweet especially because this uncle is the most stoic and hard to read at times...who knew he was so sentimental. Sean and I feel pretty honoured. This weekend I'm working on printing some of my paper items and finishing up the decor. I've finally collected enough books for our centrepieces. The guy at the bookstore asked if it was for a wedding as I brought a huge stack to the counter that were all in various shades of blue....I guess he gets this a lot. I do still need to do a final count on our candles to make sure we have enough. Sean's brother is also going to be in town (the one who is our officiant). We'll be going over our script with him tomorrow! Sean's sister was asking if we'll be using the app "hangouts" - has anyone used it before? Apparently it's like a group chat that you can use over wifi. I'm curious to do more research My final fitting is in two weeks (Dec 2), that week we also have the GTA brides meet up and then our legal ceremony...busy first week of Dec!! More updates to come...

@@Wafflesmom I totally understand that feeling. We also had a lot of disappointments with people but also a lot of surprises. The people who you think least likely to confirm right away are the ones to pay in full way before the deadline...go figure! You're so right - just focus on you and Der and the amazing wedding you are going to have!

@@Wafflesmom sorry to hear it has been so stressful. I totally know what you mean. The days leading up to the final payment deadline is the worst but at least now you know your final numbers AND you get a little mini moon!!! That's going to be so great for you and Der to have after all the wedding craziness! Looking forward to seeing all the updates!

@@lesloo Congrats on your engagement! I'm not too familiar with off resort receptions but there are tons of ladies on this forum that I'm sure could help you out. I think that a wedding planner is probably worth considering if you're having your wedding off resort as they can help you pull all the details together. I've only heard amazing things about Joyce @@dreamweddings, she may be able to help answer some questions and steer you in the right direction. @@acw271011 also just recently came back from her wedding, where she had her reception off resort. Is your budget including travel costs and all the extras (dress, gifts etc) or is that number just what you plan on spending for the wedding in Mexico? How many guests do you plan on having? That will definitely help determine your budget.

@@hmsm I'm getting married at Azul Fives a sister resort to Azul Sensatori. My bridesmaids are paying $90 for hair and $90 for make up (prices in USD) + 10% service fee. Hope that helps! If you're planning on getting married at a Karisma resort I would recommend finding a TA who is GIVC certified and one of the perks they can get you is free hair and make up for the bride which includes a trial for both as well.

@@Vjohana where are you located? I have a great TA that I'm working with who is just outside of Toronto. All of our correspondence is via email and phone. She really has been the best decision I've made in planning our wedding. Let me know if you'd like me to give you her contact info. If you're from the US, Wright Travel through this site is great and I'm sure they would be a great asset to have.

LOL!! right?? He was dealing with a bad situation with his ex. We talked about our place being a home base but that he would stay at other friends as well (seeing as how we have a 1 bedroom apt). Yea...that happened maybe once or twice. His wardrobe too up WAY too much space!!! By the end of it I was tripping over all of his stuff. I was so happy to have him out of there. Don't get me wrong, I really did want to help him out but 9 months...really? My friend got pregnant and had her baby before he left lol! Now he wants to make a big deal about pants....sigh. I have bigger fish to fry than to worry about someone's pants!

@@Wafflesmom @@vancouverpetunia Thanks ladies! I know - he is being super annoying and a jerk quite frankly. He knows he's in the wrong but won't apologize and instead thinks he can fix it by saying "take it easy" or "relax will you, you know I love you" ....anyone who knows me knows that that is a sure way to get me fired up! haha. Seriously though he needs to just say sorry or at least not make it worse and also JUST BUY THE STUPID PANTS!!! I think he mentioned to Sean that he's might go this weekend, we'll see. Side note: I should also mention that this is the same guy who I let crash on our couch for 9 MONTHS!!! Update on Sean's Dad They heard back and it should be ready in time, although they won't guarantee a date or anything. They said if we were travelling within 3 weeks it would definitely not be ready but since we have longer than that it should be fine. Fingers crossed....although Sean's mom fell last week and injured her shoulder (which is a big deal especially because she's a violin teacher) so we'll see how it all pans out.

@ Thanks! I know, so frustrating right?!? I don't think you sound harsh at all...you sound like me...or maybe we both sound harsh haha! I just don't have the patience for people making it all about them and demanding all sorts of things, it really shows disrespect to the couple I think. If you're going to be disrespectful I feel like saying, don't even bother coming. I'm really hoping Sean's dad's paperwork comes through too. Our backup plan is to fly them here for a couple days for the legal ceremony if he can't go. The only problem is deciding when to make the call to cancel the trip.

So I had a bit of a rough weekend with wedding stress. A couple things came up at the end of last week that blew up over the weekend and I had a bit of a meltdown last night. Feeling better today but still feeling the stress and time ticking by. Issue #1 - Difficult groomsman So one of Sean's groomsman has been a bit difficult during the wedding planning this past year. When we first sent out the email about the wardrobe for the guys, he tried to convince me for a while to change the colour. All we are asking for is a pair of grey pants under our group name at Moores (that has a 40% discount) - simple right? Apparently not. He kept going on and on about how he thought getting a blue suit would look really nice. I put my foot down and said we wanted the guys in grey. After a while he dropped it. The next thing he brought up was how he really wants to get a full suit from Hugo Boss (because that's one of like 3 stores he'll shop at...) and match it to our pants. I told him that would only be ok if it matched exactly. He told me to get him a swatch from Moores so he could match it....umm why do I have to get you the swatch when you're blatantly going against what we've asked you to do. I gave all the guys a suggested deadline of when to buy their pants and left it at that. Over the last couple of weeks Sean and I have talked about it and decided we would rather have everyone dressed the same way. So I told him that we would rather he just get the same pants as everyone else but he never responded back to me and instead went straight to Sean to try and convince him otherwise. That made me pretty upset. It was like he asked "mom" for something and she said no so he's going to "dad" to get a different answer. I found it really childish. Sean talked to him and in the end he said he would get the pants that we wanted. I bit my tongue and didn't say anything to him about not responding to me but instead tried to take the higher road and keep on going. I had to ask him some other questions about the rehearsal dinner. He told me that he would prefer if the rehearsal dinner was between 7-8pm, no explanation of why. .....Who requests timing of events when it isn't even your wedding??? I told him it was at 6:30pm and that we would need him for a short rehearsal ceremony that afternoon as well and then he proceeded to complain about losing beach time. I was frustrated! The last straw was when he asked Sean again for a swatch of the fabric when I thought we had decided he was going to just get the stupid pants we already talked about. This simple thing has turned into such an ordeal and it is just becoming all about him. I asked Sean if he would ever make any of these demands as a groomsman. He saw how much of a jerk was being about everything and had another talk with him. The next day I get a text in the morning saying "Hey, I heard you were mad"...no apology just him trying to justify his actions. I told him that it's plain and simple, you go into the store give them the group number and style name and buy the pants. You don't need a swatch for anything. He told me to "calm down and not have a heart attack" and that set me over the edge. It made me so angry and I called him out for being childish by not responding to me and running to Sean when I didn't say what he wanted to hear. I told him if he didn't like what I was saying to at least grow a pair and say it to my face. I told him I was tired of making all sorts of accommodations for him for my own wedding. Of course he didn't respond to that! Gah! So frustrating that I have to deal with something as stupid as buying a pair of pants. There is one close friend who is coming to the wedding but we didn't include in the bridal party...we just had too many people. Now I'm wishing we chose him over this guy. Issue #2 Sean's dad passport and paperwork issue On our invitations we sent out over a year ago it had on there "If anyone is travelling on anything besides a Canadian passport please contact Karen immediately". No one said anything. We found out this week that Sean's dad is travelling on a British passport. I knew he was born in England but didn't even think about double checking his passport as he's been here since the 60s!! He British passport is valid so that's not an issue but you do need a Permanent Resident card to re-enter the country. This is what he is missing!! Normal processing takes 100 days for this card and I know some people who have had to wait even longer for it. There is an urgent processing route but it doesn't guarantee you any kind of timeline. We're hoping that Sean's mom who has some connections can pull some strings and expedite this process. Right now we can still get a full refund (minus deposit) until Nov 22, after that we lose 50% (and deposit). Unfortunately I don't know when we're supposed to make the call. The other thing is that we're flying them to Toronto first. I was about to book the flights when this came up. Now not only is my mom potentially not going to be there but Sean's dad may be in that same boat. I'm feeling really stressed and anxious about all of the issues coming up all at once. Sean and I are on a detox for the wedding but we broke it last night and had a glass of wine...I needed it!