Time, Warped.

A fall day in 2018.

I sit drinking my coffee, listening to the guy playing the fiddle in the square below as the tourists pass him by. His repertoire is seemingly limited. Or maybe he only plays what "works" for his audience of vacationers. Whatever his reason, this guy plays non-stop traditional-Québéçois-sounding fiddle tunes. The next guy who will take over that corner after him plays piano. Last week, it was non-stop Pachebel's Canon. The fiddle stops, and a kid is screaming.

Eight floors above, I take another sip of my coffee and type, still somewhat drowsy. I woke up at 11:36 a.m. The bedroom is dark with the blackout curtain closed; it's easy to lose all sense of time.

Since July 4

Light bulbs that have blown: 4
Fuses that have blown: 1
Splinters received from walking barefoot on the wood floor: 2
Days that have passed without crying: 1
Movies watched: 0
Times I have made waffles: 2
Original vintage windows that have decided to no longer open: 1
Trips to the grocery store: 1
Birthdays: 1
Weddings attended: 1
Books read: 2
Favorite pens that have run out of ink: 2
Journals filled: 1
Times I have bought myself flowers: 1

Deux.

Photo credit: Martin Dallaire

Today is our second wedding anniversary.

And we are approximately 4589 miles apart (as the crow flies) with an ocean between us. S is scheduled to return tomorrow (unless, you know, transportation strikes in Greece prevent that), so we are going to celebrate after he is back home and after we decide what we want to do exactly. The only thing nailed down so far is the exchange of anniversary letters/notes, which is a tradition we started last year.

It's hard to believe it's been two years already. Sometimes the wedding just doesn't seem very long ago. I mean, we only recently got some wedding photos printed, put in frames, and hung because I finally became convinced that it needed to be done before our second anniversary rolled around. And I must say that I love wandering by and stopping to look at the photos. Unfortunately, the same determination did not carry over to the (still non-existent) wedding album. Maybe I can manage to do that before our third anniversary? Oh, and we still want to take a (belated) honeymoon sometime. (Though I wonder if we can still even call it that, this far into the game?) Now that I can come and go from Canada without the risk of being turned away at the border, we can start thinking towards this more concretely...

Twenty-five-and-a-half months ago, I was in Chicago, on the verge of moving to Québec and marrying S. It was an intense time of change. Since my move, we got engaged, got married, had a 10 month-long back-and-forth-between-two-cities living arrangement, did our first international travel together (Italy), made two more (in-country) moves resulting in us finally living in only one apartment together, established our combined home together, tried to potty-train our cat, prepared and submitted my immigration application, waited through seven months of unknowing which made for a challenging winter, and then received news of my approval for permanent residency while on our second international trip together in Paris this past May. That was monumental in that it removed the undercurrent of fear that I had felt when I would think about the possibility that we could be separated from each other. It also felt like I finally could begin putting down roots here outside of the walls of our apartment, and start integrating more with the community. I looked for work and then got two jobs, which I started this fall. When I think through the last 24-ish months that way, I realize that these first two years of our marriage have been chock full of change.


But despite that, it's felt somehow stable because we did it together. The best thing has been just living and doing normal day-to-day stuff with my love who is also my best friend. Sometimes I still just can't believe how fortunate I am to have found the person I want to share my life with—and we even get to live in the same place! (Maybe this never gets old for people that go through years of long-distance?) There are times when I can't get over how fun it is just to hang out together doing normal things, and it feels like being at summer camp.

Two years feels more substantial somehow. Kinda like being in my thirties feels different than my twenties, in a really good way.

Anniversary photos.

Photo credit: Alain Dignard

For our first anniversary last October, we hired a local photographer friend of ours to do a photo shoot of us. I wanted some outdoor-in-a-field-type photos that we choose not to do on the day of our wedding in October 2009. We just didn't have time then because of the heavy DIY aspect of the wedding, and the weather was rather cold anyways. We had intended to do some in the week or so after the wedding, but then the snow came and stuck around forever, so we decided to just wait until the snow melted. After spring came, we procrastinated and then it got too hot, so we decided to wait until around our anniversary. October came and we finally did it (because, you know, it was getting rather ridiculous.) We did photos in our normal clothes too, since I wanted the photos to reflect our marriage and day-to-day selves, not just some random shots I wanted of us-in-variations-of-our-wedding-clothes-in-a-field.

We surprised ourselves by how much fun we had in front of the camera, and we have discussed taking photos as an anniversary tradition. We will probably DIY it this coming year with a tripod and timer, but maybe get professional ones done every few years?

Merci, finally.

 

We FINALLY finished our wedding thank you notes in April. It feels good to be done, even if they were unbelievably late. But better late than never, right? 

Thankfully, despite my mortification at it all, we have gotten a number of sweet, moving comments of appreciation for our notes. I am so deeply relieved that we finally finished because this important, unfinished task was hanging over me for way too long. And as if the act of simply finishing wasn't enough of a relief, the positive feedback has been a grace-filled reminder that 1) our community is loving and doesn't keep score, 2) wedding thank you notes really are a meaningful way to express authentic gratitude and love, and 3) some people really appreciate getting them...even when wildly way off the time line of what is etiquette-appropriate.

PS. This year I am working on finishing up some major tasks and projects that have been on my long  "To-Do" list. This was one of the items that had been on the top of the list. (Deep sigh of relief.)

The Delayed Ring Story

The person who told me in the summer of 2009 that I should not be planning a wedding without a ring was wrong.

After the initial shock of the guy's statement wore off, I think I just politely ended the conversation and mentally dismissed it as a rude comment. But if I could go back now and re-do my reaction, I think that had I possessed the courage and good sense to claim my ring-less engagement experience as equally valid and valuable as his fiancée's ringed experience, I might have gained that needed boost of confidence to approach our non-traditional engagement more boldly. Looking back, I can see how I let that particular comment reinforce the power of the cultural narrative around The Way Engagement Should Be Done. 

In the few weeks before that unhelpful comment, S and I had taken the final steps from seriously-dating-for-a-year-and-a-half to we-both-know-now-that-we-want-to-spend-our-lives-together. Key to that transition was meeting with our fabulous pre-marital counselor for what I called "pre-engagement counseling." I wanted to work out those necessary pre-marital discussions BEFORE we even got engaged and made the commitment to marry. I am a planner like that, and I wanted to try to minimize the unknowns and try to figure out a "game plan" for dealing with our differences in advance. S is not a planner, but he joined me because it was important to me. (He's great like that.) We both ended up really liking our pre-engagement counselor, and this time was essential in me feeling "ready" to go to the next step of marriage. We also learned some things that have proven helpful in dealing with our personality differences and resolving conflict.

Anyhow, before I was reprimanded for planning our wedding, we had already met with our pre-engagement counselor, had decided we were both ready to get married, had begun planning the wedding, and had told our family and close friends. We had my dress, our shoes, the invitation design and all the necessary supplies to make those DIY invites. S told me that he had ordered my ring. We had set our wedding date for three and a half months later. We had not had any sort of official proposal experience, and I was in the process of trying to separate the concepts of "proposal" and "engagement" in my head.
 

So now as I think about it all, well over a year later, I know that I allowed a reprimanding comment and my own high regard of tradition and ritual to have power over my perception of the actuality of our engagement. I allowed myself to believe that our chronologically atypical engagement was somehow less valid than one that begins within the framework of a traditional proposal experience. S was wise enough to know we were engaged without that, while I kept thinking that although, yes, we were actively in the planning process to get married in the near future, we would really be engaged after some sort of official proposal. I was stuck in the traditional narrative of my (American) culture (of a Southern variety) that I had heard over and over since I was a little girl. The schema of The Proposal As The Beginning Of The Engagement, and the lack of an official proposal question threw me off so much I didn't allow myself to feel enough of the giddy enthusiasm of being engaged. By telling myself I was planning-the-wedding but not actually engaged, I cheated myself out of some of this life experience.

Interestingly, S was also operating outside his cultural narrative by even deciding to getting married, since he comes from Québec where marriage in uncommon. Perhaps S's unfamiliarity with proposals, engagement, weddings, and marriage gave him a clearer ability to see the process of engagement for what it is actually about, and to separate the essential from the cultural clutter. About six weeks into our short planning-a-wedding-ment, when I offered my usual faltering explanation to someone of how-we-were-getting-married-soon-and-he-had-bought-the-ring-but-he-was-in-Canada-at-the-moment-and-so-we-weren't-really-officially-engaged-yet, this wise person in my community said, "Marriage is not a commitment held together by a physical ring, so why should a ring be necessary for engagement?" 

These empowering words replaced the previous negative statement and something "clicked" in my head. During those last two months before the wedding, I finally began to let go of my traditional ideas of engagement and accept our process, different though it was. I wish I had been confident enough to boldly embrace our engagement from its gradual beginning instead of letting the blurred line between "pre-engagement" and "engagement" prevent me from changing my Facebook status to "engaged", or using the word "fiancé" more than a few times. At the time when we were planning the wedding, I had not yet heard any unconventional engagement stories, so I had a hard time processing our own. Thankfully, over the last year, I have noticed some smart women speaking up about their atypical experiences of engagement, and lots of smart women sharing stories of how they choose to carve out their own non-traditional paths through life in various ways.*

And shortly before the wedding I realized that I might, in fact, not see my engagement ring until sometime after we were married. And it was mostly okay because I was just ready to be married and move on to the next stage of our life together. But S surprised me. During the week of our wedding, S took me to a nearby waterfall for a short time of quiet and hot cocoa before all the out of town people began arriving later that day. As we were stopped on the suspended bridge overlooking the powerful rush of water speeding to the edge of the cliff to meet its free-fall fate, I suddenly felt the bridge bouncing. Gripping the rail much more tightly, I began to look around and saw people running on the bridge with balloons and flowers. Only when they stopped right by us did I realize that those people were running towards us and that those people were six of our friends. Each one had red and white balloons and a bouquet of daisies. In complete shock, I turned back to S only to see that he was down on one knee and holding a ring. He said, "Will you marry me on Saturday?" It was funny, sweet, and perfectly us. And then we went to eat poutines.

Because our proposal experience was three days before our wedding, it is linked together with my memories of our wedding. Instead of being the beginning of our engagement process, it felt more like the end of the difficult and exhausting planning-a-wedding stage and the beginning of the infinitely-more-fun state of being married. I'm a person who loves tradition, so I am completely thankful to have had the proposal experience, while the unconventional aspects of our entire process taught me some valuable lessons about commitment, and learning to be more confident even when I find myself on a road that diverges from The Way People Tell You Things Should Be Done.

*Meg and commenters over at A Practical Wedding have since talked about some atypical engagement experiences, and it's exciting and liberating to see how many different approaches there are to the decision to get married....and to other choices we make in life.

Recent Vintage Finds.

A couple weeks ago, S and I went to meet a friend for lunch in Montréal and discovered the street with the restaurant was shut down for a pedestrian-only weekend street festival. All the shops were having sidewalk sales, so S and I wandered a bit after lunch. I saw an adorable vintage dress at a second hand shop, but I looked at its tag and saw $125. Since I rarely spend over $10* on clothing, and since it was a cute, white dress and I am not in the market for a wedding dress, I sadly walked away. But I kept thinking about the dress, so later S and I went back to it, and I thought it couldn't hurt, you know, just to try it on. For fun. Since I was Not Going To Actually Buy It, of course. 

So, I was looking at it and trying to come up with a reason why I actually needed a cute (expensive, for me) vintage wedding-y dress, and the sales person comes up to me and said, "Those are two for 15." I said, "WHAT?" And she repeated herself and I quickly grabbed the adorable dress, and another cute off-white one I had noticed while racking my brain for good justifications for buying the first dress, and made an immediate decision to buy both. She asked if I wanted to try them on and I, at first, said no, because I was so confident they would fit.** Then I decided I might as well try them on, since I was there and there was a dressing room, after all.

And, as I had suspected, they fit just right. I might need to slightly shorten the straps on the first dress, but yeah...they both fit well. These were the most fun vintage finds I have had in a long while, and now I am brain-storming ways I can work wearing these little white dresses*** into my life in a non-bridal way.**** Any ideas would be appreciated!

The dress that caught my eye initially:

The second dress:

*Who am I kidding? Most of my clothes are about $3 or less a piece. I love (and am good at) finding cute/normal, unique/weird, vintage, or high-end designer clothes for cheap at thrift stores.*****

**After shopping for years at thrift stores that don't have dressing rooms, I have gotten wildly accurate at choosing clothes that fit well without even trying them on.

***For YEARS, I avoided white dresses (and white clothing in general!) like the plague. But once I fell in love and actually started planning a wedding, I discovered an urge to buy white clothes and actually wear them. Like, I bought 3 white tops at one go at a second-hand shop. All this, despite my previous fear of wearing white tops because of the dire consequences of spills. Oddly, the timing coincided with lots of white clothing appearing in clothing stores, so I guess fashion trends and my sudden obsession conveniently coincided to aid and abet each other.

****I have an idea for pairing the top dress with tall black flat boots and a black little bolero, both of which I already own. I am a little more clueless about how to make the second dress work. I could see how I could maybe pull it off by wearing it barefoot on a beach, but since I don't live anywhere near a beach, that look is a little problematic. Anyone else have ideas?

*****I can have quite eclectic taste at times. But I am an artist....that makes it okay, right? :)

Invitations in the approach of an Amish barn raising.

I realized that I never blogged about our DIY wedding invitation making experience last August, so I thought I would share in case somebody out there is considering DIY invitations.

When we started planning our wedding, one of the first things we started with was pricing how much having invitations printed would be. After realizing that they easily cost several dollars a piece, and even the very most basic (and often ugly) ones were about a dollar each, we decided maybe we should make our own. I enjoy making invitations and stationary, and we figured we could create something nicer than those cheap/ugly ones for slightly more than the least expensive cost we saw. So we priced out the supplies we would need. I think our estimate came down to $1.23 or so an invite. (This did not include the cost of a paper cutter, tape, and the punches we bought.)

Then we took a slight detour and decided to check out the kits you can buy at craft stores. We had seen some online that matched the look we were going for, and we thought this could be a low-maintenance solution. With half-off craft store coupons, it would have been cheaper too. So we bought the kit that matched our desired "look" from a craft store in the U.S., but after opening it, I was disappointed by the quality of the paper. Really disappointed. I love quality paper products and this kit was far from that. Parts of it looked like it needed ironing to be flat and some white paper had black random print smudges on the edges. After some evaluation of our situation and deciding that the invitations were very important to me, we decided to work hard and pay a little more to have invitations we would be proud of. And since we wanted to do bilingual invitations, we thought we could get what we wanted more easily if we had more control of the layout.

After deciding (for the second time) to embark on the full, "from scratch" DIY invite experience, S, my parents, and I came up with a design for the invitation. It was back in July and we were visiting my parents in the south. While we were there, and since my mom is an expert in craft-store shopping, we figured out what supplies we needed and bought it all with coupons at various craft stores. We bought a paper cutter too, since we were doing massive amounts of cutting and my dad said we needed something "professional" that could handle it. I don't know if our cutter is professional, but we did get one on the top of the spectrum available at normal craft stores. Thank goodness for all those 50% off coupons we used! We got most of the supplies we needed and took it back to Chicago.* We waited to get the black envelopes and the cards until we got back to Chicago, since I already knew where I wanted to purchase them.

Once back in Chicago, I started researching wedding invitation wording and creating drafts of the invitation, in French and in English. I started out trying to do this in Word, but then ended up teaching myself how to use Publisher because I realized I would not be able to do what I wanted in Word. Finally after many edits and the help of S's mom with the French grammar and etiquette of invitation wording, we got it down to the text wording we wanted.

Then there were some minor aesthetic disagreements about fonts. (I liked the two fonts look, but others thought that looked a little weird and wanted only one uniform font.) The initial two fonts I had thought of using were dramatically different, but I finally decided to compromise by finding two fonts that looked like close cousins of each other. A more elegant one just for our names (Freebooter) and a more standard pretty one for the other text (Monotype Corsiva, which comes normally with Microsoft Office). Because Freebooter looks like a dressed up Monotype Corsiva, I think everyone was pleased. I had the interest I wanted with two different fonts, but everything looked like it "belonged" together and did not have the jarring effect of my initial font combo proposal. I ended up really loving our font choices. Way more than my original idea...

Then I sent out an email to friends in the Chicago area asking (er, begging?) for help assembling our invites. (S was in Canada at this point.) To me, having friends help was necessary (I never-ever-ever could have finished in our short time frame otherwise), but also having those friends gather with me was unexpectedly calming. These friends kept me sane and kept the experience enjoyable. It felt like a communal effort, like what I imagine an Amish barn-raising to be, only not mandatory and with less physical labor and no expected gender roles. (Yes, two of my guy friends did help and put in HOURS of work, along with some female friends.) It did wonders to have those friends around me, successfully pushing back my feeling of being overwhelmed just by cutting, taping, sticking, and chatting.

The above pictures showed the part put together by my parents who, a week or so before, had spent a couple days cutting and assembling this external decorative strip that would eventually be wrapped around the invite. They cut the red strips and white strips; the red being slightly wider and longer than the white, so it would create a red border around the white piece. Then they attached the red and white strips together using double sided archival quality craft tape. After that, they punched out the two fleur-de-lys holes. Finally, they attached double sided tape to the ends of the strips so that they were ready to affix to the cards later in the process. As an added bonus, they divided the strips into groups of twenty-five so we could keep track of how many we had, and they wrapped up the little punched out fleur-de-lys holes in red and white for potential use in another project. Because of the massive amounts of punching they did, they went through two or three of the punches. Evidently those are made for more occasional punching and not repetitive and frequent use like this project.

I got the black envelopes and cards that would be the main "base" of the invite at Paper Source in the Chicago area. My friend L went with me on a lunch break one day, and we had a quick task of figuring out how many packages I needed and how many extra we would need to buy to get the bulk discount. Since our numbers were so close to the number needed for the discount, we bought a few extra to get the discount. (As a side note: weeks before my mom and I had briefly thought of making the cards ourselves by cutting them down from larger paper, but after one or two failed attempts to get a folded card with 90 degree corners and a clean fold and some frustrated, stressed tears by me, we all decided my sanity was worth the $20 or so difference in cost to buy the cards pre-made. And a huge plus was that the cards and envelopes matched exactly and looked great together.) These cards from Paper Source were great and I was very pleased with the quality and the customer service! I love that store.

At the first night where friends were coming to help for our invitation "barn-raising", I was having the font crisis mentioned above and had not yet printed the invites. So, just before they arrived, I finalized my font choice and started printing on my ink jet printer. As I printed and let the pages fully dry, my friends arrived and we established a kind of assembly line approach. I printed the white text pages for the inside, one friend cut the pages with the paper cutter to the proper size**, one friend attached the white invitation text parts (one French, one English) to the inside of the card, and the next friend attached the wrap-around strip. Broken down into parts like this, the process went pretty quickly, but if I had had to do this alone, it would have taken forever!

After they were all assembled, I had another friend who asked if she could take the invites and the envelopes home with her overnight and stuff them for me (while I was packing for my move and trying to get the addresses in the spreadsheet so we could print labels for the invites.)*** Meanwhile two other friends volunteered to help create a label design into which we could import the addresses and print. I had bought large labels already, with the thought that I wanted to use black envelopes and print the recipients' address, our return address, and some sort of wedding image/motif on the label we would attach. But I had no idea how to do that, and these friends stepped in to figure it out.****

On the way out of town, right before our vintage jewelry shopping adventure, we stopped at the post office to mail the invites. I was working myself up to the experience (because my then-neighborhood post office is notoriously mean and many people rant on Yelp about it) but it turned out to be a fine experience, other than a long time in line, and the clerks did not make me angry or cry out of frustration. (Which was often my experience there.) They were quite nice, actually, and went to the effort of finding enough pretty stamps for the envelopes, which ended up being the wedding ring ones. I didn't care what stamps went on there as long as they weren't ugly, so this was fine. We stamped them all then dropped our U.S. invites and some international ones in the mail, and saved all the Canadian ones to mail from Canada several days later.

All said and done, it was a LOT of work for me and a LOT of friends and family who donated hours and hours of time to help. It did end up being less expensive than ordering invites (well, invites that were anything more the very cheapest ones available), but what was most special to me was to be able to create an invite that was very "us", with the French and English, and with the colors and design we had chosen. It makes me smile to know that our invitation was truly was one of a kind, made just for us with people that love us. We got some good feedback on it, and I am kinda proud of the fact that our invitations looked a little unconventional as far as a normal wedding invite goes (at least where I come from), but still remained classy. I loved using our fun labels (S was great at applying the labels and stamps, and very precise at sticking them on straight, which was surprisingly difficult for me!) And I know it is standard to use calligraphy and black envelopes are probably a wedding "no-no" to some, but we didn't care and it felt just right for us!

 

*A fun benefit of making the invites is that there was some leftover supplies and I have been using them for business cards and have enough cards and envelopes to make some cool stationary later. And the paper cutter has totally come in handy many times. Who knew how useful they were?


**For some reason, the act of cutting the paper down into the proper size while keeping it centered (there were two on each page that had to be cut out) almost sent me over the edge. Thankfully, I was rescued by my (male) friends, M and D who manned the paper cutter and did a FABULOUS job cutting them down exactly right. 

***We skipped calligraphy, handwriting, RSVP cards, and inner envelopes and I am still so thankful we made each of those choices! It saved trees, expense, effort, and reduced stress.

****How did we end up with such amazing and giving friends? I feel so thankful. All these wedding-helping friends saved me from countless tears and from losing the little sanity I was holding on to at that point, less than two weeks before an international move and about seven weeks before the wedding. As did the many friends who about a week or two later helped me pack and move. And then the friends who helped with even more wedding stuff before and at the wedding. I can not say enough how much all that amazing help those few weeks carried me through one of the most stressful times I have experienced.

Eskimo kisses and wedding jewelry.

Photo credit: Martin Dallaire

I am not sure exactly what we were doing in this photo, but I like it because it captures a giddy-happy candid moment after the ceremony, right in the middle of all the group picture taking. I love how the background is all magical and out of focus, and I also must admit that I like that you can see my jewelry well. I think this might be the only photo we have that shows the earrings clearly. Which was not a surprise, since I wore my hair half-down, but I like the glimpse here. Especially since I put a lot of effort into my jewelry.

I realized the other day I didn't really talk much about my jewelry. I had searched and searched for something that I felt would look right with the dress and level of formality of the evening. I thought about pearls and decided against them because I wanted something atypical. I looked at all sorts of department stores, and was discouraged by the over-priced jewelry which all seemed to be going for the faux vintage look anyway. So I decided I could probably find actual vintage jewelry cheaper at a little antique shop. So I went over to an antique shop in Andersonville, in Chicago, and in about 15 minutes found a rhinestone necklace and pair of earrings that I liked. Simple enough for my taste (which was actually hard to find!) and authentic vintage; I think the owner said they were from the '30s or '40s? I liked them, but after trying them at home with my dress, they didn't exactly feel right and my mom was worried that the necklace wasn't special-looking enough. From the Tennesee, she went on a search to try to help me find something and started sending me pictures in emails of things I might like. And I kept searching too, mostly online. I scoured etsy, but most of the things I found that I liked were either out of my price range, or too casual/trendy for the look I was going for. Finally I went to Vintage Underground in Chicago. I had heard about this place from a google search back at the end of July and had an inexplicable feeling/hope that "my wedding jewelry" was there waiting for me. Weird, I know, but that's how I felt. Even so, I wanted to wait until S was in town so we could go together (because we like looking at vintage stuff) and things got busy with the move and all the DIY invitation making, so we found ourselves literally driving out of town on the way the Canada at the beginning of September, making a quick stop at Vintage Underground with my car packed full of all my belongings that weren't on the moving truck.

Boy, am I glad we did. They had some traditional looking wedding jewelry, but I described what I was going for and they pointed me in some other directions. Then the man went to the back room and came out with a necklace he had that was broken. When I saw it, I thought...I think this is it. It was gorgeous and incredibly unique. He said it was about 75 years old or so, and I could tell he really liked it and didn't really want to part with it. The only problem was that the chain was broken; the man was planning on repairing it and then charging an expensive price for it. We asked how much it would be "as is," and the price was do-able. Very reasonable for jewelry, just more than what I had anticipated spending, which was almost nothing! But my dress and shoes were both well under budget, so I got it and a pair of earrings that coordinated well. Both had the same tear-drop shape and the same kind of black stone sparklies in it. The earrings also had a dark red stone in them, which was perfect since we were both wearing dark red shoes. The earrings weren't vintage though; they told us that post backings are a relatively recent thing. So I bought the jewelry, then later took the necklace to our jeweler in Québec who also did my engagement ring and our wedding bands. He put on a new necklace chain that I picked, and aged it to match the vintage feel of the pendent. I have never for a moment regretting getting this jewelry. I love it and wear them regularly, and it is a fabulous feeling to wear it, knowing that this was the jewelry I wore at our wedding.

And I will add that while I was deciding on the jewelry, S managed to find a retro watch he liked and decided to get for kicks. He wore it for the wedding too, and now wears regularly. You press a button and the time lights up on the screen in red. It's pretty funky and interesting.

 

Photo credit: Martin Dallaire

Happy with our cool vintages purchases, we got dinner, took one more trip to Swirlz for some going-away cupcakes, then drove away from my sweet home Chicago.

Ah, the dreaded checklist.

This is what my to-do list looked like 14 days before the wedding. (And I had already removed all the dumb things I had no intention of doing, so the list was of one hundred and eighty-eight ACTUAL things to do.) No wonder I felt overwhelmed and semi-zombie-like.

And I logged in today to see what is lingering out there in cyberspace for me to do, and I kid you knot, this is my wedding to-do list today:

As you can see, I am still trying to wrap up things from the wedding.

Now, there is a lot that could be said about the to-do lists on The Knot. And a lot I am not going to say. But I will say that I joined excitedly, and optimistically began my to-do list so that I would not inadvertently skip some major things. And because I really like to-do lists. Well, lists in general. Immediately I was bombarded with about 134 items I was already behind on. I guess this is because the list must be geared to people with one year engagements or more? We only had a short planning period of about three and a half months, and thankfully, I found it hilarious to begin already so impossibly behind.

Though I also used some of the Knot photos for inspiration for flowers and hair, I did not venture to any forums or message boards because I quickly realized that our wedding was going to be more laid-back (and lower budget) than most other weddings out there being pictured. So I basically used The Knot for The Checklist and approached it for what it was: a list of things to do. And I am grateful  for it because I had nothing concrete before that and this great resource (no helpful books, no big sisters armed with the necessary spread sheets, etc) so it was a comprehensive starting place for a wedding beginner.* And after getting rid of the things that were unimportant to me (or were out of our budget), it was a pretty good working list. It even included some things I liked but probably would have not thought to do, like to practice walking in my wedding shoes. And there were the things that were impossible for us: mailing the invitations three months before the wedding. We had some trouble choosing a city/country for the wedding and finding an affordable venue was a huge challenge too, so we had our planned date but no confirmed venue until about two months before our planned date. We sent the Save-the-Dates right after the confirmation, and the invites about five or six weeks before the wedding. With some late stragglers for those with missing addresses. And this was for an international (Canada-US) wedding with invitations going to Europe too.**

The Knot list did surprise me with a few common things that weren't on there. Out of Town Bags, for example. I was shocked these didn't make the list as an optional item, like engagement photos, which they do include on the list. And of course their list is not geared to brides who are self-catering or doing DIY projects, so that is a whole slew of other additional things to do, if you take that on, like we did. So that means a whole other collection of lists. I had a main wedding to-do list (The Knot) and all sorts of spread sheets for DIY stuff (dessert reception food list, rental list, decor list, invite list, RSVP list, out-of-country guest list with travel/contact/hotel info, day-of schedule, thank you list, etc.)

Now I love lists and am a pretty good planner.*** But lists can also make me feel stressed about what is undone. So this overwhelmingly thorough Knot list, in particular, combined with my own collection of other lists and spread sheets, was a mixed blessing of focus and stress. Perhaps I would have been more relaxed without the lists, but knowing me, I would have worried infinitely more about all the gazillion things I would forget. And to be honest, I probably would have created a similarly thorough list if I had not had The Knot Checklist as a resource because that is just how I am. I would rather know and have it all in front of me, so I can then stress and figure out how to deal with it. Or so that I can make an intentional choice to ignore. (Maybe I can one day figure out how to eliminate the stress part. S is usually quite good at not stressing, maybe it will rub off on me one day?)

But at some point shortly before the wedding, sad events in real life happened and all my checklists were no longer important. So I decided I could only manage to accomplish the essentials (um...get married), and I would abandon some things (day-of schedule, tying or stapling programs, making cupcake toppers), and operate in survival mode. I realized I would just have to finish some stuff after the wedding (like half-finished wedding party gifts). Thankfully (and embarrassingly), I recently mailed the second part of thank you gifts to the wedding party. And while admitting embarrassing things...we are still writing thank you notes. (Eek. I KNOW. The Knot says you have two months, and I think old-school used to be one year. I wanted to finish by three months, but...that didn't happen. I am determined to have them all done by six months. And that thank-you note guilt has been following me since the wedding. As has my big blue Bag-O-Thank-You-Note-Supplies that I have been hauling back and forth from Montréal to Québec when we travel. And it is weird because I like writing letters and feel so, so incredibly thankful for our friends and family, but there are just so many letters to write at once that it is quite overwhelming. Anyhow...)

Thankfully, at least one of the things left to do is fun: post-wedding photos. We have a friend that was going to take some couple pictures of us sometime out in a fun location somewhere. We didn't want to do this on the day of the wedding for timing reasons, and hopefully now that the weather is getting better, maybe we can do that sometime. Maybe that will be my reward for finishing the more difficult tasks. Hmm, that is a motivating idea. Maybe I will go write some more thank you's now and stop procrastinating by blogging about to-do lists...

* Now Google Docs has a bunch of great already created wedding planning documents that I wish had existed last year. Some of these look FABULOUS.

**This was not ideal timing. Thankfully, our Save-the-Dates were emailed, so those were instant and most people (for whom we had email addresses) were able to plan from that point, not when they received the paper invite, which was more of a pretty formality for most of our guests. But I liked our fun, bilingual invitations, so I don't mind.


***I am a director and have even self-produced theatre. Yet, planning a wedding is definitely different than other events planning. There are just way more emotions and relationship dynamics involved in the process. Though having some planning skills certainly helps, to be sure.

Re-wearable wedding shoes.

So I found my fun red (wedding) shoes on clearance for $29 at an outlet in Indiana when S and I were driving through this summer and spontaneously decided to stop. I had said that every time I had driven by that outlet over the years, I had always thought about stopping but never had. S decided it was high time, especially since this was our last drive by before the big move to Canada. So we stopped and ended up finding our red wedding shoes.* I had anticipated buying something a little more like this, but had been unable to find anything in the real world in my price range (cheap!), at a height I could actually walk in (not very high), that would also be comfortable. Yeah, I know...I have crazy high expectations from shoes.

But in Indiana, I found these which made me feel good. Walking around in the store, I felt extra confident, like I could take on the world in those shoes. And they were comfortable too. So I let go of the "sexy shoe" idea and went for a funky/sassy version that I knew I would wear a lot and feel GOOD in. And I have no regrets. I loved wearing them that day and I have worn them multiple times since the wedding, although it has been rather limited because of it being snowy during the winter. But I am looking forward to warmer weather and stepping out in my wedding-shoes-turned-anytime-I-feel-like-rocking-red-shoes shoes. I even bought some funky printed tights to wear with them.

*We found my shoes in one store and went to the next store and they had Converse (which S was wanting to wear) in EXACTLY the same shade of red. So in about half an hour or less, we found perfectly matching red shoes in "our" shade of red, that yes, did match the red in the invites. Without trying to match anything with color swatches or anything of the kind. Amazing. Then we hopped back in the car and were on our way.

Next time we'll get it right.

I learned a lot from the whole Planning-a-Wedding process. I am pleased with most choices we made and remain thankfully happy about how things went overall (here and here), but there are also a few things I would change if I could. We won't have a chance to put what we learned into action, but perhaps someone else might benefit from some of these musings? So, here are six things (some big and significant, some not) that I would do differently if we could do it again:

1. Well, we had no control over this one, but there was just too much painful reality with us in our wedding experience. Right before the wedding, my best friend and matron-of-honor, K, and her family went through the death of her father. I knew her family was hurting deeply during this dark time of loss and I was not able to be as present with her through it all as I wanted. And I missed her. And S's best person's mom was in an accident on our wedding day and was in the hospital. Those are terrible things that hurt the heart.

2. A bit of reality I could have done something about if I had planned better (or if we had paid somebody else to do it): I did not enjoy staying late to clean up after our wedding. I had not really planned out the logistics of this, but I somehow did not expect to stay until 3:15 am cleaning up stuff after the reception. It was not the magical exit off to the honeymoon that I had imagined and seen in the weddings I had been to before. If I had hired a caterer and wedding planner, I guess they would have done this for us. But since we didn't, and we had a late evening wedding, we had to stay and take care of the nuts and bolts parts of it all. I guess if I had gone into the day expecting to do that, I would have handled it better. Instead, I found myself dumping a bucket of coffee into a water fountain and sorting silverware and hauling boxes of stuff out to the car in my wedding dress. In the cold. On the verge of tears. At 3 am. Not what I had imagined.

Thankfully we did have some people who helped, but it was a WAY bigger task than I had anticipated. And I was exhausted and hadn't realized that S and I would have to clean up the reception after everyone left that night. But as my long-distance matron-of-honor, K, said...maybe this was a better metaphor for marriage than the idea of the fairy tale wedding. Marriage has good times and challenging times, so maybe this was a more realistic start to what it is like to join your life with someone. She's probably right. But I tend to enjoy being an idealist.

3. Better event planning of the actual schedules and details of the wedding weekend...and sharing that information with the wedding party and families. I had started comprehensive spreadsheets with schedules and tasks that needed to be done and was going to be very organized about this, but I lost steam along the way. I think number 1 made me so sad that I just didn't care enough about the spreadsheets to follow through. Unfortunately, better planning would have minimized the stuff I mentioned in number 2.

4. Better personal organization and follow-thru with little details of the weekend. I didn't find the time to write the sweet notes I was going to write to the wedding party, so I had to give the gifts without notes. (Too bad I didn't write those notes in the week or two before the wedding instead of waiting to be "in the moment" of the actual weekend. I had waited so I could be more specific with my words and instead they just didn't get done.) I never got to do my DIY French Manicure, which somehow makes me feel pretty and pulled together. And I forgot my garter. Somehow, I didn't bring it to the hotel where I was staying. I mean, how often do you get to wear a garter on your wedding day? I had bought it in Belgium almost 10 years ago and had saved it in case I ever got married. White Belgian lace with a delicate blue ribbon. I kept it through four moves, two of which were international. Then I forgot it on The Day. Sigh. And I didn't really ever figure out the Something Borrowed thing.

Of course I know that these are certainly not things that matter, and I surely won't remember it in the long run, but on the day of, these little things combined to make me feel scattered and not as prepared as I had wanted to be. Like when dinner guests show up before you finish getting ready, and you are forced to accomplish only the essentials and abandon the rest of your plans of what you had hoped to do.

6. S and I now understand the need for an actual honeymoon. We only took two nights in a nice hotel because we are hoping to take a belated honeymoon trip later this year. Maybe to Norway? But we found ourselves launched back into day-to-day life too soon. So...I would say go on a honeymoon for more than 2 nights. Doesn't matter where, but I think it is the idea of getting away alone to enjoy each other and to escape daily life and laundry and work that is important.

*******************

Considering all this, I guess I would want to stress that a DIY wedding is hard. I had thought it would be very similar to self-producing theatre, but I didn't really take into account all the extra emotional stuff that is a part of the wedding planning process (and the fact that I was planning a wedding during an international move and all that goes with that!) I don't think I would change our choice to do it this way, but I would try to be more organized if I could do it over. Thankfully, we had many people step in and help carry us though, and all the important stuff got done.

But on a more fundamental level, I learned that profound joy and sadness can co-exist. K, my long distance matron-of-honor, told me she wanted us to celebrate love and life. Even in the middle of her pain, she wanted to give me permission to celebrate. And though I did not feel like celebrating, I came to realize the depth of her wisdom. We need to celebrate life and love BECAUSE of the reality of death and tragedy and loss.

Our wedding was not the fairy tale, "everything is perfect" kind of day one is made to expect and want, but rather a "there is real pain in the world, deep loss, and people you love who are far away, but we are making a choice to make the most of life, enjoy each day, fully love each other, and be thankful" kind of day. We were surrounded by love and support, both there at the wedding and also long distance, which was an amazing thing to experience. And we had a beautiful, incredible day full of laughter, love, immense joy, and tears of sadness too. And I know I somehow felt really present through it all, even with all the things that weren't perfect. Perhaps the thing to learn in life is how to be present enough to live and love in the middle of all the stuff that doesn't go how you planned.

10 Good Choices For Us: Part Two

6. Creative guest book
My mom made us a great guest book. We still need to put it all together, but I think this will be so meaningful to have in the years to come.

7. Welcome Dinner
I am so thankful we had a Welcome Dinner to spend time with family and out-of-town friends! We did this the night before the wedding, instead of the traditional smaller rehearsal dinner.

8. Our location
We spent a LOT of time trying to figure out WHERE to get married. This involved me making complex spreadsheets with names of potential guests and a rating system based on how likely they might be to travel to any of our three options (Tennessee, Illinois, or Québec). It involved many conversations with S, my parents, and friends, about the pros and cons of each location. It involved considerations of my various communities of the past and S's community, while trying to come to terms with the fact that NO place would have everyone we loved there since our communities are spread out in so many places around the world. It involved conversations and emails with immigration lawyers, research into Québec marriage laws, and inquiring about costs of potential venues in three cities.

It involved tears.

As this choice became more and more exhausting, we realized that the most practical thing would be to plan the wedding in Québec, where we would be living at the time. And despite the fact that it was so difficult and sad because I knew this would eliminate many of the people I really wanted to come, it felt right in many ways since this is where we met. So...we had it here. And surprisingly, this particular location opened up all sorts of things that would have never been possible with our budget anywhere else, including having a band at the reception. So having it in Québec turned out to be one of the things that made the wedding most unique and most "us." And we were surprised and deeply thankful for all the people who were able to travel to come. Such a beautiful thing.

9. Staying at a nice hotel for our two night mini-moon
We did not have time or money to go on a traditional honeymoon, so we stayed for two nights at The Grand Times Hotel, a hotel here in town that fits our taste. This hotel is amazing and was completely worth the money. I want to go back because it is just that cool. And I think it is really important to get away from your normal surroundings after a wedding.

10. Wishpot Registry
In the US, people do registries. I am not sure it is really a thing in Québec. (Kind of like Save-the-Dates, which caused some confusion on the Québec side about that being the actual invitation. Oh well.) Because I had an international move right after invitations went out, and because we needed things to be shipped to us in Canada, registries were complicated. We almost skipped the whole process because it was that much of a hassle. But married friends told us that we should indeed register. These friends were thinking big-picture-forest for us when all I could see was all the annoying-registry-trees that don't ship to Canada. We had registered online at one place that we thought shipped to Canada, but then we found out: they do ship to Canada...but not for registries. While talking to the customer service rep that explained this to me, I ended up crying. While at work. (On a break.) In a stairway. Sigh. That is what wedding planning during an international move will do to you. What eventually ended up being our best option was Wishpot. Wishpot is great because you can create one registry and choose things from ANY online store to put on it. It simplifies things. People can reserve items on your Wishpot list and then they take care of buying the item on their own. Wishpot did not make me cry.

*******

So, that sums up 10 choices we were really glad we made.

10 Good Choices For Us: Part One

1. Digital Save The Dates
We used Publisher to create our own 4x6 digital postcard which we emailed as an attachment to everyone on our guest list that we had email addresses for. The body of the email was bilingual and explained that we were getting married and provided information about the location and accommodations. Our digital save-the-dates were easy, eco-friendly, original, and of course, budget-friendly because they were completely free! It just took some time to design a classy digital postcard, but that was time well spent, because we liked that motif so much that we repeated it throughout the wedding process! Plus, an unforeseen benefit was that it provided immediate results; people got them quickly and were able to follow the link to our website. Some even went ahead and RSVPed right then!


2. Our Wedding Website
S set up a wedding website for us. His friend, A, helped with the programming of the online RSVP form, which was a little complicated because of what we wanted it to do. We included the link to the website on the save-the-date email and on the actual wedding invitation. The site included our design image, online RSVP, venue location map, Québec City weather forecast in F and C, hotel accommodation information, information on the band, photos of us, and registry info.

I loved the non-cheesy style (black and grey and pretty minimalist), and it had useful information on there. The photos were particularly nice for those guests who only knew one of us before the wedding. And another fun thing was that the online RSVP had a text box where people could write us a note; we enjoyed reading the personal messages that came in with the RSVPs. S did a fabulous job with this huge project and we so appreciate A's help!

3. DIT Wedding Invitations (Do-It-Together)
a. After researching the cost of nice looking traditional wedding invitations and DIY kits from crafts stores, we decided to go with the much more economic DIY kit. We bought one box to see what they looked like, and I was extremely disappointed with the quality of the paper. After some thought, we decided to spend a little more to buy quality paper and supplies and DIT our own invitations sans kit to get exactly what we wanted (which was an elegant, non-boring bilingual invitation). This ended up being a lot of work, with countless hours for designing, printing, cutting, and assembling. My parents and many friends gave hours to help cut/tape/attach.

b. We decided to forgo the handwriting/calligraphy tradition for the envelopes. The idea behind the tradition is that supposedly handwriting adds that personal touch and lets people know that we really do want them to come to the wedding. This concept provoked two thoughts in me. One, shouldn't the invitation let people know we really want them to come? And two, would my less-than-pretty handwriting send the opposite message? Then I discovered that some people pay someone else to do the calligraphy on their envelopes (at $2 an envelope) for "that personal touch." I also discovered the bridal concern about hand-canceling the stamps. So I researched what that was about then I actually considered trying to do that. But at some point, I made a choice to get off that crazy-train, and we decided we were just going to print our labels in a beautiful font, using our logo. And we would not hand-cancel anything. Our envelopes were black anyways and we were already breaking all kinds of traditions, so why not break a few more?

So that was the address label plan, but by the end of August, it had not happened and we were in the middle of my move. So some friends stepped in and took over the label designing (with the "to" and "from" addresses with the motif) and the stuffing of the invites into the envelopes. I do not think I could have survived this last stage without their help. LOTS of people helped me move and pack and do wedding stuff. I was carried through by our community. Amazing.

c. We did not use an inner envelope and had no RSVP card. (A green and budget friendly choice!) We included the website and asked people to RSVP there or by phone. This method worked pretty well for us. I am confident it was AT LEAST as effective as paper RSVPs. Possibly more effective.

All that to say...we made some non- conventional choices and were completely happy with (and proud of) the resulting invitations that felt like "us." Maybe I should do a post later with pics?

4. Our "Dessert soirée" reception
I love desserts and I thought the idea of a reception with coffee and dessert buffet sounded infinitely more interesting than a normal sit-down meal and traditional wedding cake. And thankfully, this vision was in line with our desire to not spend tons of money on a wedding. Serving only dessert did impact the timing of the wedding though; we chose to get married at 8 pm largely because we were not serving dinner and we wanted that night-time excitement energy for our soirée. Like how it feels on opening night of a play. And I am so glad we did fun cupcakes, instead of a traditional cake. I meant to have little toppers for two of the cupcakes for us, but that got abandoned when time ran out at the end. But yeah, a dessert reception can be elegant and fun!

5. How we chose to spend money
We tried to find the most economic way to do what we wanted and still have quality results. As one would guess, this took a lot of work and creativity. We chose to avoid some of the standard things like a traditional wedding cake or going to a salon for hair and make-up, and instead found alternative solutions. I tried to use things I already owned instead of buying new wedding-specific things. For example, instead of renting lots of white wedding tablecloths at $12 each, I used some black tablecloths and sheets I already owned, bought 3 new black sheets (for $15 each) that we can use on our bed later, and borrowed two black tablecloths. The sheets were great and even upon inspection, Bridemaid M was surprised it was a sheet and not a tablecloth. And, even better, using black for the tablecloths was a much more subtle choice in our darkened venue than white would have been. And the white and stainless servingware really popped against the black. We re-used my grandmother's mason jars and vintage antique bottles (thanks L and M!) for flower vases, used some of my serving dishes and borrowed some. We also had ceremony and reception music gifted to us by our amazingly talented musician friends. Friends and family helped in all sorts of ways- alterations, ironing, hair, make-up, officiating, video, helping with serving food, cleaning up, etc.

When we did spend money, we tried to support businesses we believed in. S got my engagement ring and our wedding bands at Joaillerie Zimm's. We hired Marie-Ève Laforte and Martin Dallaire, to do our flowers and photography, respectively. They are just starting out and were wonderful to work with! We chose to rent dishes from a local business recommended by a friend. Instead of throwing money away with a tux rental, we bought S a black suit, which he has already worn again (surprisingly!). And I chose non-wedding-specific jewelry and shoes that I have worn multiple times in the two months since the wedding. It took a lot of searching to find the right jewelry though, since I did not want traditional "wedding jewelry." We found it at Vintage Underground in Chicago.

Our maple cookie beginning.

Two years ago today, I offered S a maple cookie. Non-verbally, I might add. And he accepted, non-verbally. Then I crossed the rehearsal room to give him the cookie, and we started talking. This was our first real conversation, since I don't really count a quick name introduction two and half weeks before that.

Now two years later, I am posting a picture of the maple cookies that were our favors at the wedding. My parents made the paper toppers and assembled them with Bridesmaid M, and the use of the hotel's stapler.

The power of maple is an amazing thing.

PS. Good thing we like them, because there were lots of leftovers. We keep a stash in the car in case of an emergency, and have discovered that maple cookies are also good frozen! Lesson for others...you don't need that many favors. Or maybe you don't need any at all. I was attached to the maple cookie idea because it brought us together, but if I hadn't been that special to our relationship, I probably would have just skipped favors.

Our Guestbook

We skipped the traditional guest book because I wanted something more than just a list of signatures of guests. After some research into the many creative ideas out there today and many talks with my mom, my mom made us this wonderful guest book. She punched all the white tags that our guests wrote us notes on, got us pretty red ribbon that will be tied on the tags, and made black envelopes to be mounted to hold the note tags in a digital printable photo album. So, when I get around to assembling it all, it will be a wonderful compilation of sweet notes from friends and family and photos from the wedding. I am very excited, but haven't yet summoned the energy to put it all together. Perhaps in January? :)

Blurry goodness.

Photo credit: Alain Dignard

Happy two months!

Our Fabulous, Fun Dessert Soirée

We had a unbelievable soirée to celebrate after the ceremony. We had a dessert buffet with cupcakes, cheesecake, cookies, gummy bears, tofu maple bars, and more. And yes, a dessert buffet was a blast and I loved it; after all, dessert is often the most enjoyable part of a meal. And nobody freaked out that we did not serve a whole dinner, but just in case, we also had fruit, brie and baguettes, and almonds to counter all the sweet deliciousness.

Anyhow, because we chose to have the wedding in Québec, and S has a TON of musician friends here, we were able to have an amazing band of his friends at our reception (for free!). One of his friends coordinated it all for us, and the result was an awesome band and loads of great music. Because S has so many musician friends, they switched out on instruments and vocals all night, and we had nonstop music until the wee hours of the morning! It was great- a fabulous band made up of tons of friends- who even thought to put in some U2 for me. It was SUCH an AMAZING gift, and everyone loved the music! And I think the band had a blast playing together too! :)

Photo credit: Alain Dignard
Photo credit: Martin Dallaire

Photo credit: Martin Dallaire

Photo credit: Alain Dignard


Photo credit: Martin Dallaire

Photo credit: Martin Dallaire

Photo credit: Alain Dignard

Photo credit: J. M

Photo credit: Alain Dignard

It was a fabulous party and we had a blast dancing and laughing and talking and eating! Just generally being giddy-happy with family and friends from all around the world gathered in one place. Completely joy-inducing...

The moments after the ceremony.

Photo credits: Michel Élie

The Ceremony

Photo credit: Michel Élie

Since we did not get married in the church here by a Canadian priest, we technically had a civil wedding. Our legal officiant was S's brother, J-G, who got certified to do our ceremony. But our ceremony was essentially a religious ceremony and our minister was my good friend, M, who I have been friends with since we were in 8th grade. M did most of the ceremony, and J-G did the legal vows and commitments necessary in here in Québec. So it was an interesting mix of a civil and religious ceremony. Minister M and I worked together to create the ceremony and choose what we would include.

Because we are a couple coming from two different language backgrounds, it was important to us to have a bilingual ceremony. I was very intent on surtitles (projected translations) for the language that was not being spoken at the moment, as I wanted everyone to understand what was going on in the ceremony. We had 2 scripture readings in French and one in English, some of the ceremony was led by M in English and some in French by J-G. S and I wrote our own personal vows, and we used the standard legal text for the official French vows. We made the choice not to do surtitles for our personal vows, as we said them in both languages so that we could both hear and receive them in our native language and in each other's language.

Photo credit: Martin Dallaire

We keep getting feedback, from people here in Québec especially, about how they enjoyed the ceremony and how they liked what Minister M chose to say. They found her approach refreshing and unlike what they had previous experienced in church or religious weddings. We have heard it called inspiring and moving, and several people have mentioned how they liked how during the communal blessing, she made a point of asking for the support and encouragement of family and friends, and not judgment. So far, I think three or more people have asked for written copies of the text of the ceremony. Several people have also commented on how they really appreciated hearing the legal description of marriage by J-G. The Québec law on marriage is very specific about equality in marriage and how each person in a marriage gives to the household in money and actions as they are able and each person shares responsibility in the decisions of the couple. Unfortunately, I forgot to include the legal description of marriage in the part to be translated, so the non-French speakers were a little in the dark while J-G read the articles of the law on marriage.

Despite the fact that the translation was a LOT of work for J-G and S (that I could not help with since it was mostly English being translated to French), it all got done. Their hard work was (and still is) so appreciated by me and I know the guests also appreciated it. S sat up a big screen and projector for the surtitles and set it up in a slide show that was pretty and elegant. Our friend D ran the surtitles during the ceremony.

Perhaps one of my favorite things about the ceremony is how personal it all felt. From our officiants, to the words in the ceremony, to the beautiful music, to the surtitles, to the stage manager, to the readings and prayers...it was all put together with our friends and family involved in every role. How wonderful it was to be in the middle of it all and realize all this was a gift from people who love us.

Being surrounded by friends and family from all over the world as we made this commitment was amazing. We included a communal blessing of marriage because I really wanted to involve our loved ones more actively in the commitment we were making. Minister M beautifully wove it into the ceremony. During this part, we had the chance to turn and look at our family and friends, and M asked them to stand and to respond with a commitment to offer us their love, support, and encouragement in our union.

It was moving to look out on these people who we love, who were all there to support us in this next step together, and feel surrounded by all their love and encouragement. To know they came all this way to support us (and some came from very far!), and to think about all the other loved ones who were supporting us long-distance because they were unable to come... It was mind-blowing to have that much love and support sent your way all at once. In a completely and inexplicably wonderful way.