My Wedding Review April 29, 2006 Karyn & John, Thomas & Ryan: The New E Family! We had a truly Glorious Day and it was a Dream Come True!! Just like I knew-there were little things that didn’t work out/came up-but it didn’t really matter to myself or to FH. Well, even if they did matter, we didn’t let them ruin our Special Day. I will try to be brief-but will give you a run down of our past week and a bit. Mon April 24th: I picked up my relatives from New Brunswick at Pearson: My Grandmother, 78, Great Aunt, 85, Aunt and Cousin. My parents arrived from up north to stay at my place for a week and to help with getting ready. My Dad arrived with a bad back and they were late getting here. My NB relatives slept over night until this past Mon at my aunt’s home who lives 30 minutes from here. We enjoyed a great family dinner-ordered in pizza. My two stepsons were here and they were so happy about the wedding-so happy to meet more of their family. They loved my aunt and cousin immediately-it was their first time meeting them and they had huge hugs to greet them!! Tuesday April 25th: Went with my cousin to get my brows and chin waxed. I treated my cousin to getting her brows done-she’s on a fixed disability income, so DH and I wanted to treat her as much as we could. She ended up being a big help to me, to the extent that she was able to help. She came with me to florist to drop off my aisle runner, petals and monogrammed rhinestones for my bouquet. I dropped off an invite to my lady minister for the bride’s lunch at the church office and to my happiness, the garden guild was out working in the garden. There was about 15 people-and they meet weekly. I knew the garden at church was going to be amazing for our wedding! I did some last minute shopping (for me mostly) on Lakeshore Blvd, and then picked up the boys from school. I still had to be “mom”-get the homework done, laundry, and dinner. DH, my dad and my DSS’s picked up their tuxes. (Moore’s) DSS#2 grew so much that they had to let down his pants an inch-and unfortunately the shirt was too long for the jacket. Wednesday April 26th: My relatives came over quite early in the morning. My Dad and Uncle drove to Buffalo to pick up my sister. Sister’s flight was delayed by a few hours, but she got here!! Yay! I was so happy to see her. She’s still here-goes home next Tuesday. My Great Aunt, Mom and Grandmother all helped to clean our house spic and span clean! They also made my shortbreads favors (the other favors were homemade jam) My cousin and I did the running around: dropped off the welcome baskets at the hotel, took final seating plan to the hall, had lunch with FH. Picked up the boys again from school, more homework with the kids. We enjoyed another family dinner. Thursday April 27th: DH’s first day off! Thank Goodness for this! I sent him with my Dad for a day of errands. DH took my Dad to the chiropractor, picked up the organza overlays from the rental company, dropped final payment off to the caterer for our rehearsal dinner, took the overlays to our hall, went to the Beer and Liquor stores and he picked up the kids from school. John also got both of our cars washed and cleaned inside.I stayed home with my sister-cleaning, wrapping up the final thank you gifts, setting up for the rehearsal dinner, doing various last minute things. My BM arrived in the afternoon-she stayed until the wedding. She spent the wedding night at the guest hotel, but Thurs and Fri she spent with me. My sister and BM were such a huge help and a great calming force!! My mother and grandmother spent most of the day out-got their mani’s and pedi’s and picked up my other sister from the group home. Some family arrived at my home prior to DH and I going to the church rehearsal-and they stayed at our place to greet the caterer and set up for our rehearsal dinner. The rehearsal was soooo much fun! I wore my hat from my showers, plus my bouquet and garter that were made at one of the shower. I wore mostly white-as you’ll see in our pics (sorry haven’t been able to post them yet) Our minister was really organized and ran through everything efficiently. But he still kept it light. DH and I smiled throughout the whole rehearsal-and could hardly wait until the wedding day! Our rehearsal dinner went great! We had it catered by a local caterer who provided Chilean food. DH is Chilean-and we really enjoyed the food! So delicious! Empanandas, pastel de choclo (kind of like Shepherd’s pie but substitute corn for potatoes) and a great cabbage and avocado salad with olive oil and fresh lime juice. We gave out our thank you gifts to our WP, readers, parents and everyone else who helped in little and big ways. DH and I just ad lib’ed our speeches-but I did manage to talk for quite a while!! I had so much fun explaining my fun shopping adventures (online and retail) when buying the gifts . After I gave out all of our gifts, DH had a big surprise for me. He said “There’s one more gift here and it’s for you” and he was holding a blue Spence gift bag. I knew it was too big to be earrings-I opened it and found a gorgeous diamond bracelet-white gold (like our rings and my diamond necklace from our 1st Valentine’s Day), and it has 7 little diamonds making up a flower, and 11 flowers on the bracelet, each flower separated by a little link of white gold. It is truly gorgeous and went with my wedding gown just perfectly! Almost as if he had seen my dress to be able to pick it out so well-but he hadn’t seen it! Friday April 28th: My stepsons took today off of school. Just too much going on to have to them go to school. We packed up my van with all the stuff for the hall, plus the pew bows for the church. More last minute things around the house. FH went for a massage from 9-10 and paid the Spa bill for my app’t with the girls. Spa time was 11-1 with my two sisters (Matron and Maids of honor) and my BM and myself for mani’s and pedi’s. So much fun. We went to my regular Spa and they treated us so well! The Spa was followed by my Bride’s Lunch-held at a local Thai restaurant. This was great! I had done up little favors with candies in them in a silver organza bag. I also had made up menus with some Bridal clip art on them. I made sure to have everyone sign the menu for my scrapbook. My grandmother presented me with a gorgeous Christmas patterned teapot that had been her late sister’s. Apparently it’s never been used-it’s just gorgeous, and was totally unexpected. We then went home to finish getting the stuff in the van for the hall. DH was doing my taxes!! LOL-nothing like leaving it to the last minute. Anyways-we all made it up to the hall. I had lots of help-my parents, my two MOH’s, my BM, my 2 aunts, cousin and great aunt. Plus John (DH) and his two sons. It was so moving to see everything set up!! All of my months and months of planning were really paying off! I had tears in my eyes looking at everything after we had finished. My sister, BM and dad went to the church to put the pew bows out, while myself and the rest of my set up crew finished setting up. A funny thing happened-I made a reservation for dinner and when we got there it was closed! The restaurant had since been shut down and bought out by someone else. This was the only thing I didn’t confirm! Anyways-it wasn’t a big deal-it was kind of funny and we ended up eating at Tim Horton’s and running into my Aunt, Uncle and Cousin who had just gotten into town. John and I, my cousin and my two DSS’s went to Chuck E Cheese! This was shortly after 8 pm at night-the night before my wedding. How relaxed was I?!! Sooo unbelievably relaxed. And I took my Bride’s Book of Lists in with me-was checking off all of these many tasks I’d completed and then realized that I still had to have my E ring cleaned!! LOL-so I called Spence and yep, they were open until 9 pm. So I had 20 minutes to get there. It was my FIL’s bday and he and MIL arrived to celebrate with us with a quick visit. So we gave him his gifts, sang Happy Bday and I was off-driving to Spence. I walked in and calmly said “Hi I’m getting married tomorrow-can you clean my ring before you close?!!” So the ring was cleaned and I was back home shortly after 9. On my way home I called up to a good friend’s place who has been going thru some hard times-just wanted to make sure she was coming to the wedding. She wasn’t home and I spoke instead with her estranged spouse to find out that she’s in hospital with a depression. I was crushed-not for me, but for her. And I spoke with DH on the phone-he helped me focus right away and when I got home, he was just leaving so we had a few last minutes to talk and hug. (he forgot to bring the rings and Family Medallions to the hotel when he and his sons checked in earlier in the day) That night I fell much more in love with him than I already was-of course, this is like every day-I love him more and more! I finished cleaning up in my bedroom, cleaned the bathroom-packed my bridal emergency bag, first night away bag for DH and I, and finished up writing my speech. DH and his sons called me around 11 pm to say our prayers together (my stepsons couldn’t imagine being with their dad and not with me-so endearing!) We said our prayers and I tucked them in. I gave them a little note card with hugs and kisses with their p.j’s, so they opened those while we were on the phone. My heart was melting with love for my 3 boys!! I got to bed around 12:30 and then Saturday April 29th The Wedding Day I woke up to birds singing outside of my window-it sounded like a sweet love song. What a perfect way to wake up on my wedding day. My BM’s got up, we got organized and my mom, Grandmother and WP girls and I were at the Salon in Georgetown by 8 am. We brought muffins, bagels, cream cheese and fruit to share with the stylists. We had our hair done, and myself and two other girls had their make up done. I did my own liquid eye liner and mascara-I hadn’t like how these turned out in my trial. I was pleased with my makeup. My hair turned out pretty good-but not as good as the trial. I think that my hairdress of 10 years was so excited that it was hard for her to get-it-just-right. She almost forgot to put my veil in, and then she got flustered when I asked her to put it in-anyways, we got it done and nobody would have know that it wasn’t her “best” job. We drove back to my house, we arrived shortly before the photographer did at 11:30. We finished getting ready-put on my gown, my girls got dressed-my photographer got lots of pics!! I’m soooo looking forward to seeing them!! When we went to get the bouquets, wrist corsages and bout for my Dad, I realized that the florist delivered the wrong set of bouts/corsages to us and the sent ours to the church. Yikes!! I called DH on his cell (thank God he had it on) and told him-we tried to figure out what to do-I was cursing at the florist, but didn’t have the time or energy to call her. DH told me that the programs weren’t at the church and nor was his son’s reading. So I got everything together and sent them to the church with my neighbor’s parents (they were babysitting their grandkids so that our neighbors could go to the ceremony and reception) She saved our day!! As it turned out, our two readers didn’t get to wear a corsage-one ended up with my Great Aunt from N.B. and the other one wasn’t used. I was really disappointed about this. I was also disappointed with my bouquet-it looked nice from a distance but the edges of the roses were brown and by the end of the night there was not way I would be able to preserve it-and the hydgrangeas were drooping before I got to the church. Also, our head table arrangement had drooping hydrangeas on it. DH and I will be following up with the florist in person-with pictures, to express our disappointment. We spent $1500 on florals and they weren’t what they should have been. I think, that, at least I should get a new bouquet that I can have preserved. I was going to get the whole expensed freeze drying done with it in the box. When we left my house to get into the limo, there was about a dozen girls from the neighborhood and one of the Mom’s who I know and would call a “casual neighbor friend” out there waiting for us to come out of the house. The little girls were so sweet and all in awe. I took my time and talked to them-told them that one day this will be them, and that they will have to kiss a lot of frogs, just as I had, before they find their Prince. Then we got into the limo. Off to the church-and then I was soooo happy and excited to go and get married!!! DH’s cousin did some non-pro filming with our digivideocam, and he did a great job. I exclaimed as I was getting out of the limo “I’m getting married today” and “I can’t wait to get married”
The outside of the church look amazing-two silk heart-shaped wreaths (the only thing I was really pleased with from the florist) and DH’s best man and GM put white tulle and ivy with pink bows on the railings up to the church doors. It looked wonderful!
The inside of the church looked great too! I almost forgot to put my veil over my face-but I did remember just before going up the aisle. Walking up the aisle and the whole Wedding Mass was perfect-the choir sang like angels. I didn’t stop smiling the whole time, FH and his sons were so handsome! My fave part was our vows and of course, walking down the aisle after the ceremony. We gave my stepsons each a Family Medallion necklace and each of us made a pledge to them. The boys loved this part. We did a short receiving line outside of the church.
We did pics with family in the church garden. So many gorgeous flowers and flowering trees in bloom. We had a fun time. Then our parents left and the WP and photographer went downtown to Lakeshore Blvd. We went to Second Cup-had a drink and snacks, relaxed in their patio-and got some fun shots. Then we carried on down the Lakeshore. DH and I and the two boys love downtown Oakville so it was absolutely perfect! I leaned on a hot convertible car and had my pic taken. Too fun. And I stopped in to see the owner of one of my fave high end kids stores. She was so happy to see us all-especially the boys! Our limo came and picked us up right on the street. Then we went to laceName>GairlochlaceName> laceType>GardenslaceType> for the WP pics. We had arranged for snacks from the limo company for us and the WP. This was sooo well done-more than I had imagined. Our driver, (also named John), got out a table, assembled it and had two large glass dishes of food for the table:triangular cut sandwiches: egg and tuna..mmm they were good, and the other with fresh fruit: grapes, strawberries, melon and blackberries. Complete with soda pop. This was great and I’m sure the other WP in the park doing photos were jealous and impressed!
We finished up the pics (I found a great pair of pink sunglasses and took them home-someone left them by the shore) and then drove to the hall. We had bubbly in the limo-our BM and my two stepsons did some speeches. We were planning a beach trip for the summer. And then we got to the hall-cocktail hour, followed by dinner and then the reception/dancing. Everyone had said that the wedding day would go by fast-and the reception went by the fastest, but I had so much fun!! Everything was a hit and looked just gorgeous! I couldn’t have been happier! Our food was to-die-for, our speeches lots of fun (yep, I talked a lot again-hard to believe, eh? LOL.)The Kissing Die Game was a huge hit-I forgot my trivia questions at home-which actually worked out better, as then I could “customize” the trivia depending on which guest rolled trivia. Our WP was introduced individually with their own “theme song”, but the DJ (again, we weren’t really happy with him) played our First Dance song, instead of our New E Family Theme Song! We walked out, but when I got to the front I asked him if he had Our Song by the artist. He made up some excuse about his CD skipping, and played the right song. The four of us danced at the front and it was fun! At least he then got our first dance song right. At the last minute, I planned, with DH and our photographer to have a slide show during our speech. We rented a projector and screen and I emailed pics to my photographer days before the wedding to add to our photostory. It turned out wonderful-and everyone really liked it. It was a really special touch. I loved watching my stepsons watching it-they really liked it. I could share much much more-but I’m getting so tired of typing and still want to post some pics that I got from a friend (yay-my volunteer wedding day coordinator and her DH! Thanks so much again-you know who you are!!). I haven’t got our pics uploaded yet and of course I’m still waiting for our pro pics-as I get more pics I’ll post more. I will likely do a separate review of our MiniMoon aka Family Honeymoon-lol…long story, but lots of fun for all of us!
I am totally loving being Mrs E and so glad that I’ve finally married the love-of-my-life. I love it when DH calls me his wife-and I’m so thrilled that we’re TTC. We’d love a baby asap-so please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.
I did my speech of thanks for you CBer’s before our wedding, but again Thank You immensely! I couldn’t have planned our perfect day without your help, ideas, encouragement, support and friendship! Enjoy some of our pics! DH getting his youngest son ready at the hotel 
The two boys with one of our GM: 
Thomas-my oldest DSS (he looked so handsome!!) 
The two boys 
Guys & Their Shoes (too bad we didn't get a foot shot of my girls and I) 
The boys helping the Limo Driver Decorate the Limo 
Our BM (further to the right) and our two GM 
All the guys: 
I love this limo shot 
Arriving at the Church: 
The guys at the church steps before the decorated the railings: 
After the Ceremony: 
BM having a smoke: 
A Doctor's Work is Never Done?!! 
And apparently neither is a pharmacist's 
Ahh..now you've got it-they all want to be James Bond!! 
Putting on the Bout
 
Check on the sign on the above right pic-my DSS on the right happily threw silk petals as he walked up the aisle! And after the ceremony I was going to have our WP clean up the petals and everything else-but the choir girls happily took the petals home with them!! Too cute! 
Our Gift Table. To the left is my Memorial Candle and poem, which ended up getting moved onto the fireplace hearth as the gift table filled up.You can see here how great my card box (ebay find) looks! And I had my DSS's and DH spray paint the I Do letters the day before-they turned out great. 
A finished Guest Table: 
I was so happy that I decided at the last minute to rent the silver organza overlays-they really completed the look. My Head Table Arrangement-complete with the wilting hydrgangeas. What do you think? I wasn't impressed at all. 
Our Alter Urn that we put in front of our podium. Turn your head to the left. 
Hall shots 
My cake table before the rose petals were placed on: (got our monogram in Pottery Barn Kids) 
Close up of my Cake Topper 
My Grandmother (78), My Aunt and my Great Aunt (almost 85) from N.B. 
My Candy Buffet!! It rocked!! Everyone LOVED LOVED it!! I did fill up one baggie. There wasn't much leftover-I did spend a tonne of $$ On this. I'm guessing around 3-4 hundred on candy and 150 on dishes. DH and I loved antiquing for the dishes-and we'll be able to reuse them many times again. 
Getting Introduced at the New E Family: 
Head Table Sitting Down to Dinner: 
Making Sure that my Photographer has Eaten His Dinner 
Reception Glow 
My Bouquet-yep complete with brown edges on some of the roses 
Our First Dance-check out my hair. It held up pretty good-seeing as the wind kept blowing it out while we did our receiving line and the hairdresser almost forgot to put it in! 
Good Shot of my Corset Back and my new diamond bracelet: 
Dancing with My Dad: 
DH and his mom: 
The boys with our DJ: 
Getting Ready for the Bouquet Toss. I had one floral toss bouquet and then a chocolate bouquet that I gave my maid of honor/sister/aka GI Jane to some of you-she is the one that's disabled and was sooo disappointed that she didn't catch the bouquet at my sister's wedding last fall. She loved her special bouquet. Cutting our Cake-wholly boob shot!! (my photographer told me in the morning that he had never seen so many boobs at a bride's getting ready shoot before-LOL.guess my WP had the goods! LOL..j/k)We never planned on how we would cut the cake-but it was so great that the 4 of us did! 
Hope you've enjoyed! I will post more pics as I get them. Enjoy these ones and let me know what you think!! Thanks again for all your help and support! I truly had a Dream Come True Wedding!! I will try and do a vendor review in the next week.
Karyn- The New MrsE-Happily Married April 29/06, Proud Stepmom and New Mommy!!
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