I love you more than… red velvet cake with cream cheese icing!

Today, Monday August 12, 2013 marks the four year anniversary of mine and Aaron’s first date.  About a week ago I began to ponder, is it okay to celebrate your first date if you’re now married? 

So what is any girl to do when posed with such an important life altering question?  Why GOOGLE it of course!  There were many mixed reviews.  Some very opinionated ladies exclaimed “NO!” while others simply suggested each person do what is right for them.  The latter however, in my humble opinion opens the floodgates for crazies the world round to make a huge deal out of every single moment.  Next thing you know I am going to have to wade through the onslaught of facebook statuses proclaiming celebration of first kisses, first coitus, first family dinner, first toot in front of significant other, first time holding hands etc. etc.

What’s a girl to do with no many differing opinions and no black and white answer?  So in the end I conferred with the only other person who really mattered in this situation; my husband.  Initially, he answered with a  resounding no to the suggestion of a fourth year celebration, however with a tad bit of discussion, it was decided that our most important anniversary is our wedding day but we will acknowledge our first date-iversary with a low key date out to the movies.  If anything it is an excuse to go on a date because let’s be honest, life gets hectic and sometimes you forget to enjoy each other. 

Four years ago today, on a Wednesday my husband picked me up and took me to see “Funny People”.  It was not the best first date movie, but it didn’t matter because it was the first date that led to the rest of my life. 

Aaron, I love you more than I can express!  It’s been the best four years of my life and I am so thrilled to be your wife xoxo

I love you more than time alone!

I had one of those moments on Saturday where you immediately wish you could take back the words as they are spilling out of your mouth or in the very least have said them in a different way.   The problem is I meant some of the things I was saying, I probably just didn’t need to say them the way I did.

Let’s be honest.  I can be mean sometimes.  I think everyone can.  Sometimes I know I’m being mean and I do it anyway…. Then I feel really guilty about it.  Then other times I’m mean and I think I’m being conversational but really I’m just being hurtful.  Then there is the odd time I am just frustrated and I am trying to express that frustration but I just come of… yup you guessed it… mean. 

On Saturday I told my wonderful amazing future husband that there were times I wished he just wasn’t there.  WOW! I know harsh right.  Let me explain.  I used to be a server (waitress), and then I was/still am a youth worker.  Now I work full time as a recreation coordinator but I moonlight as a youth worker two nights a week.  I used to have the whole of the afternoon to myself to do as I pleased to sit in silence and just have me to contend with.  Now, the only moment I have alone is the hour I have in the morning to get myself ready, fed and out the door for work.  The evenings I am not working my second job someone is always home…ALWAYS!

This would not be so trying if I weren’t also planning our wedding.  And also if as a couple we were those people who reside in the same house but have our own spaces.  We live in a 750sq/ft basement suite and there is no private space.  Aaron often comes into the bathroom as I’m showering to ask me questions like “Babe, where did you put the remote?” or “can you come and make the potatoes? I don’t know what you put on them” and “Where does this dish go?”.  On the one hand I can’t complain because he asks questions for things he is helping with, like making dinner or doing the dishes.  The problem with that however is that it’s not really lessening my burden by making dinner if you are asking me how to do everything every 8 minutes!

So now I feel horrible because I have allowed my frustration to get the better of me. I love spending time with Aaron.  I get terribly blue when I go long periods of time without seeing him.  I have annoyed friends countless times by skipping events due to not seeing enough of my partner that week.  But then there are times when I urge him to go out with the boys.  Go tie one on, I’ll pick you up!  Go out and play poker with your friends, go snowboarding, go play racquetball! Just GO!! Every once and a while just to get some space.  I go out with the girls, I make plans without Aaron, but sometimes you want to be the one that gets to stay home in your PJ’s and watch bad movies all night.  It’s my turn gosh darn it!

To save-the-date or not to save-the-date

That was the question but now it seems a bit irrelevant.  In my last post I mentioned that our save the dates were and sometimes still are a topic of contention between me and the future husband.  I had a plan, and it was a pretty cute one too.  But now that plan is, well in the same place most of my plans end up.  Sometimes I’m resolved with the decision we made and sometimes I’m down right resentful.

You see I happen to be the proud sister of an immensely (IMO) talented artist.  Using my sweetest politest suck holing voice I was able to convince my bother to design a picture for our invitations.  Not only did he oblige us with what is exactly the dead on the vision I had in my head but he also provided us with a beautiful water colour picture to use for our save the dates!  This was perfect! Totally original art for both the save the date and the invitation.  My plan was to collect all of our addresses and have the save the dates printed on magnets and send them out in January followed by the invites in May… 

… Has anyone received our save the date?  NO???? Oh right that’s because my plan got scrapped.  Why? You ask.  Well I asked Aaron to email and call everyone on his side of the family in November for their addresses.  I reminded him again in January.  I begged him in February.  It is now March and he received the last of his addresses last week.  So needless to say it is a bit late to send out save the dates.  Aaron and I discussed it and we decided that the word of our wedding has already spread to all of his and my family and everyone knows the date of the wedding so we would save the money on printing and postage and just send out our invitations a month earlier.  

On the one hand I am sad about not using the beautiful art my brother created, but on the other hand I am okay with saving the money and putting it towards something else like the food or the booze.  It is getting a little tiresome being asked constantly when we are planning on sending out the invites but I guess that goes with the territory of planning a wedding.  It is actually a compliment since everyone is excited to receive our invitation.  

This is a screen shot of a mock up save-the-date from vistaprint.

I’m curious when it became so common place to send out a save the date.  I don’t remember it being so main stream.  I think it is just another “must have” item invented by the wedding retail industry to spend more unnecessary money on.  Well you can’t have my money cause my fiancé is a procrastinator, so there!

This is enough

Sometimes, more frequently than not, I reflect on my life and I think to myself that this is enough.  I take stock of all that I have and I am content with the blessings that have been bestowed upon me.  Yes it is true that there are days where I fret over what other people have or how little they struggled to have such gifts or privileges but then I shake the crazy out of my head and thank my lucky stars for what I do have.

It makes me wonder why we are placing this burden of a wedding on ourselves.  I have always said that I refuse to forfeit special moments for other advantages. ie. I refuse to not have a  beautiful wedding in order to buy a house tomorrow instead of six months down the line.  But when I reflect on my life I realize that what I have is enough to sustain my happiness.  It's fear that pushes me to want things for myself that are not necessarily as important as say, having a solid support network or finding your soul mate... twice.  I fear that if I don't give myself the things I have always really wanted, you know the important things like a wedding, a house, kids etc. not the things like a flat screen tv or an ipad, I will look back on life and have regrets.  I already have so many regrets that I don't want the really big ones to be part of that.

I have an amazing step-mom.  She CHOSE us.  She knew going in that she was marrying a guy coming straight out of a divorce with three kids.  One still in diapers.  But she jumped in.  She forfeited the big fancy expensive wedding because buying a house and starting a life was the priority.  They lived out of boxes because they sunk all of their money into a home and she forfeited having her own kids because she agreed having another mouth to feed meant reducing everyones quality of life.  Now I'm not saying she made the wrong choice and I'm not even saying she has regrets but she made choices in her life that I don't think I would ever be strong enough to make.  And trust me I am thankful she decided to tough it out and help raise a bunch of kids that weren't hers! 

I guess I'm a bit of a contradiction because I am content.  As I write this I am looking at my future husband sleeping on the couch and I am filled with a feeling of thankfulness.  I am thankful that he saw something in me that made him want to stick around.  I am thankful that I have someone in my life that accepts me for all of my annoying idiosyncrasies, controlling tenancies and unapologetic craziness.  It's times like this that I appreciate as grounding moments.  I get caught up with the whole "keeping up with the Jones" mentality and then I have nights like tonight where I feel like telling the Jones to keep their facebook updates to themselves and shut the eff up!

And then I realized time was slipping away

Where does the time go?  I was sure just last month I was agonizing over what venue to book and what date we were going to choose.  The wedding is four and a half months away and what used to feel like a well oiled and efficient machine is beginning to feel like an over worked, seizing nightmare. 

I now know the significance of the engagement ring.  It’s to remind a future bride of all the work there is still left to do.  Just when you forget for a moment about the mile long list of to- dos for the wedding and fall back into the relaxing weekend routine you were once acquainted with, you look down at the beautiful symbol of your love and commitment only to think “Shit!” I haven’t booked the florist yet!  This is where I am. 

I allowed myself to take a break since I was right on schedule with booking all of my vendors.  I started a new job in February so there was no possible way I was going to be able to balance everything and keep my cool.  As organized as I like to think I am, I am also an avoidant personality and if I feel overwhelmed something gets put on the back burner.  So I hit pause on the wedding plans.  Now that I am feeling a bit more comfortable and confident with my work situation (even though it is still chaos working two jobs) I am realizing I am so far behind on my wedding planning. 

I asked Aaron in December to collect his addresses so we could send out the save the dates and invites.  Yesterday he finally got all his addresses and we have decided to scrap the save the date and just send invites.  This was something I was not happy with but he did have a point.  Why are we going to spend over $100 on save the dates only to send the invites two months later?  So we are sending the invites out a little earlier than customary.  This may be the biggest mistake when it comes to ensuring people are going to be able to come, but this was what Aaron though would be the best for our budget and our timeline so I am putting it in his hands.  I was able to talk him out of printing our invites on our home printer so this seems like a pretty good compromise.

I started making a list today of all the things I half started but have not quite executed and the list is quite a bit longer than I had estimated.  Looks like it’s time to hitch up my stalking and get back to business. I have a dreadful suspicion something is going to give though and I’m not really willing to lose anything I have in motion right now.  This is why people hire coordinators.  If anyone would like to be my coordinator for free or gift one to me I would not turn away help!

Booking the Venue

As soon as Aaron and I got engaged my first concern was booking a venue so we could get a good weekend.  Since both Aaron and I have been to quite a few weddings in the last three years there were certain criteria we had in mind for booking our own wedding venue. 

I was adamant that we would not ask our friends and family to take a day off work or sacrifice a long weekend for our wedding.  Well, best laid plans and all of that! As much as you say I'm not going to do this and I'm not going to do that when it comes down to what your potential venue has to offer for available weekends you really have no control in the matter. 

It came down to three venues:
Glenbrook Park and Amenity Centre, New Westminster - http://www.glenbrookpark.com/ 
South Bonson Community Centre, Pitt Meadows - http://www.pittmeadows.bc.ca/EN/main/residents/742/8733/South-Bonson-Community-Centre---Photos.html
Old Orchard Hall, Port Moody - http://www.portmoody.ca/index.aspx?page=222

When Aaron and I decided to start ring shopping I knew we should have an idea of where we wanted to hold our ceremony and reception because these days venues book up a year and a half in advance.  I started researching venues that met our criteria: central for all guests to get to (in the lower mainland), hotels close for out of town guests, beautiful scenery, ceremony and reception site, and of course within our budget.

I originally fell in love with Glenbrook in June and looked at their calender and most Saturdays were already booked.  SHIT!  I inquired about their prices and was surprised to find they were reasonable: $1320 including insurance and SOCAN fees.  I thought that was doable.  Of course when I showed Aaron he was not in the mindset to book a venue before we were legitimately engaged.  Because we were doing everything else in perfect order (sarcasm).  This venue has amazing gardens, a duck pond and a stone bridge.  The location was perfect for a ceremony and reception in one place not to mention the convenience of having the photos done on site also.  The only downside this venue had was the availability was scarce and it was only available until 12midnight so drink and music had to end at 11.  As a night person and former haver of good times that seemed a bit early for me.  So.... we continued to look at other venues and didn't book Glenbrook.

The next venue I was informed about was close to home.  The South Bonson Community Centre.  I had been told that because we live in Pitt Meadows and I work for the district we could get discounts!! YES PLEASE!!!

This is where the excitement drains from my face.  Even with the discount, after insurance, the SOCAN fees and the mandatory security guard, SBCC would cost us over $2000.  Granted it is a beautiful fully sustainable facility and there were many features that were hard to pass up like the bride room, the patio, the availability to have the ceremony on the lawn right outside the centre as well as the brand new full AV system. 
Not to mention that Bonson had a Saturday not on a long weekend available.  Unfortunately it really came down to cost for us.  We are trying very hard to do our wedding between 10-15k and booking Bonson would have put us over our venue budget by a lot.  We hadnt made our final decision but we kept looking.

Then we (I) found the Old Orchard Hall in Port Moody.  The pictures I found online were nice simple kinda hipster weddings with little to no decorations and were still very lovely.  The part that sold me was the proximity to Rocky Point for wedding portraits.  We did our online research, but there wasn't a lot of information out there so thus began the correspondence with their event coordinator.  This should have been my first red flag.  The brochure that was emailed to me contained the price for the day: $956.55+HST SOCAN fees: $66.27, insurance fees: $60.00, liquor insurance: $100, time limit: 10:30am-1:30am) and maximum capacity for a seated event: 125.  After reviewing the price and capacity and seeing pictures online we decided we would go ahead and book the Old Orchard Hall knowing full well that booking a hall would mean twice as much work for us but probably half the price.

After we booked Old Orchard we started finding things out we weren't really prepared for.  Our venue doesn't have a sound system so we will have to hire a DJ or rent equipment.  There isn't a bride room to get ready which means we will probably rent a B&B close by (more $$).  the ceremony location we thought would be a sure thing actually has a lot of stipulations included (ceremony can only be 20mins, no decorations and only 5 chairs).  Commence with the freaking out!!! So now I'm having buyers remorse and going back to all the other venues and price comparing! I had originally had my heart set on a DJ but I am slowly being swayed into doing the ipod DJ thing.  Not having decorations at the ceremony is not the hugest deal since really the most important part is that we are getting married in the presence of our closest people.  So we did the math and thought about it for a week and came to the conclusion that even though we were annoyed that all this information was not provided in an easily accessible brochure, the math worked out in our benefit and it would be advantageous to stay at Old Orchard but have to do more work and separate vendor bookings to save money.

The moral of the story is get ALL the information before you jump into booking a venue because there are always hidden costs and things you forget you want in a venue until after your in the planning process.  That being said I know our wedding is going to be beautiful no matter what and we are going to stay on budget at all costs!! Oh and for those who don't know the date on which we will be joined in holy matrimony is a Friday August 2, 2013.  Yup that's a Friday on a long weekend.  Like I said, best laid plans and all of that!