Things that might go wrong at your wedding:

I’m not being negative I am being realistic.  If you are planning your own wedding; things will go wrong and you will know it.  If you have hired a planner or a friend; things will go wrong and you might not know it!

I spent just shy of twelve months planning our wedding.  I thought I had thought of EVERYTHING! I was wrong.  Ok Aaron, it’s in writing.  Yes I admit I was wrong about something.  Planning and executing a wedding takes a team of people to help with the most minute but incredibly important tasks.  If you are like me, many people will offer you help but you decline because “you’ve got it all covered” and you are a control freak so really deep down you don’t believe anyone will do it quite like you would.  Advice: let go of the reins!  I also had a few moments when people offered me help “anytime” but when you call on them for some reason they just can’t seem to get it together to get there and lend a hand.  Every bride has these people in their lives.  These will be the same people that call you friend but then seem to miss every important event like bachelorette parties, bridal showers, birthdays and other events. 

So these are the things that went wrong at our wedding that I was aware of but by no means affected how great our wedding was!  I think I really need to state that being aware of what went wrong by no means implies that our wedding was not the most amazing day of my life so far!  We put in a ton of work and had the help of so many people and it was a beautiful day and I have been the calmest and happiest since that moment forward.  I can’t say there aren’t things I would change if I could do it again but I also look at every moment as a learning experience.  So I hope you can learn from my flubs!

1.      It rained.  We had planned to have our ceremony in the most beautiful out door venue.  In a clearing of a walkway in a public park with a view of the inlet.  There were three trees that made a natural arch where we had planned to hang a beautiful chandelier.  We made white washed garden benches for our guests to sit on and we made our oun simple flower arrangements to line the “isle”.  But it rained and everything needed to be re-imagined.  My husband and our families did a fantastic job at re-locating the ceremony onto the deck that spanned the back of our hall and it was beautiful looking over the trees to the inlet behind.  It would have been nice if the daycare below us had brought the screaming children indoors for our 20 minute ceremony but at least it is a funny memory.  You can ask any one of my bridesmaids and they will swear to you they all thought I was going to have my bridezilla moment screaming at those children.  I was too happy I wouldn’t let anything ruin our moment.

2.      Because the ceremony was in the hall, it didn’t give my bartender the peace or privacy to set up cocktail hour or prepare his bar in time.  People began to pester him while he was still trying to stock.

3.      I/my helpers forgot to put the drink tickets on the tables.

4.      I forgot to give the bartender a float so my poor MC had to run out to the bank while we had our pictures taken.

5.      We ran out of Strongbow.  We had a huge selection of beer hard liquor and ciders so we weren’t concerned.  Apparently this would not do according to my family and I watched my brother walk in with a flat of Strongbow 40 minutes later.  Why?  Love him for it though!

6.      The cake was wrong.  The bakery put our decorations on someone elses cake and the flavours were all wrong.  We had a cake to cut as well as a slab cake and everything was wrong.  The first picture of us cutting cake is me telling my husband it was wrong.  It still tasted amazing but it was not what we ordered.

7.      My bridesmaid didn’t try on her dress when she had it altered and they had forgotten to take in the top of the straps so they had to pin it.  You can tell in every picture that her dress is not quite right.  It’s a good thing she is gorgeous because I am the only one that noticed because I knew what to look for. 

8.      The freezer in the kitchen broke so we had to send the dads out for more ice.  Good thing we had all those coolers and tubs to store al the booze!

So that’s it.  Not bad right.  Not even ten things.  The only reason I am aware that any of this happened is because I had a hand in planning everything.  If I had had a planner I would not have known anything had happened.  That being said almost every item that went wrong my good friend Jenny dealt with it all like a pro.  I wish she had been a bridesmaid but I am so glad she was my MC because I would not have trusted anyone else more than I did her to make sure everything was taken care of!  I have made some questionable decisions in my life but I will never regret choosing the man I married or the women who stood up with me on the most important day of my life. 

So to all those control freaks out there.  Be prepared!  Things might go wrong, but it ends up being perfect anyway!

What do you think this is? Charity??

Craigslist is a joke.  I prepare you this is going to get all ranty up in here.

When I am looking to buy used items on craigslist I am just astonished by how much colossal crap people are selling and then how much they think their crap is worth.  Over the past 12 months I have scoured craigslist for décor items for the wedding and at one point even did a search for cheap wedding dresses.  What I found was a whole lot of ugly junk!  Okay, I’m not being fair.  Some of it was reasonably priced and decent stuff….. but that stuff disappears very quickly!

So now I am on the other end of the craigslist ad.  I have become the seller.  Here is what I have discovered as a seller.  Even if you price your merchandise for less than what you paid, people are still going to come at you with some ridiculous offers.  I understand that as a seller I need to be prepared to come down on my prices and be able to bundle things together to save the seller some cash.  What I don’t understand is someone offering me $60 for three items totally $150.  Come on! 

I put the hard work in.  I searched for months!  I ordered things from the states, had them shipped to my parents American shipping address, paid to pick them up and then had to drive there and back to pick it all up.  I did the online research.  I found the best prices and then to re-sell these items I posted the prices minus the shipping minus the exchange rate minus the taxes and less than ticket price and I’m still being low balled!

Here’s the thing.  We didn’t go into debt to pay for our wedding.  We did everything on a budget and we stayed pretty darn close to that budget.  I made branch centre pieces. I made my own garters.  I killed myself for 12 months to make sure we didn’t spend a penny over what anything was worth.  Do you know how much it cost to buy tree branch centerpieces?  I did the research: $20-40 bucks a piece (just branches) and to rent them its cost around the same.  I made ours for $22 each including the vase and the filler stones.  That’s all the paint to coat them so they weren’t dirty, the sparkles, the plaster base to weigh them down in the vase.  All of it!  And some lazy bride thinks I’m just going ot give them all away for $3 a piece?!! This is not a charity! 

Here is my insight people.  Make me be the schmuck who paid full price.  Then buy my stuff at the discounted price and then sell it after your wedding for the same price you bought it for.  Wedding decor is the biggest rip off there is.  Women lose their minds when it comes to executing their vision for their wedding.  Let’s be honest.  This stuff is going to sit in my garage for a year until my husband puts it on craigslist again for 20% less than I posted it for!  Oh well.  It would be nice to just see all the stuff I collected go to good use. 

Hire a Coordinator!

Trust me!

BRIDES!! Are you listening?  If you have decided to get married on a budget and you are doing lots of DIY projects and you have your hand in everything going on in your wedding, and you’re not getting married at a hotel or a golf course but instead in a hall, barn, cabin etc where you have to book all the vendors yourself and do all of your own set up; HIRE A COORDINATOR!

Now that I have gotten that run on sentence out of my system I cannot put enough importance or emphasis on this one thing.  Even if you ask one of your close friends (who isn’t in the wedding party) or a relative to take over the day of coordinating, please for your own joy and peace of mind on the day of, delegate all of the day of responsibilities to someone else.

I planned everything and I had a very specific vision.  Very specific.  I thought I had everything covered and I was feeling pretty proud of myself until after the ceremony I was informed that all of the prep work I told the bartender would be done had gotten missed amongst all the other very important things that needed  to get done (that of course I insisted I do) the day before.  The float for the bartender apparently is an important thing to provide. Ooops.  I was lucky enough to have an amazing MC who took it upon herself to also be my on the spot in the moment wedding coordinator who handled all of the things I had forgotten.  

Chaos!

During your wedding you do not want to still be coordinating the event.  You want to be in the moment enjoying everything.  I can honestly say I didn’t relax until we had checked all of the “picture” moments off the list (cake, garter, bouquet, first dances).  Thank goodness for friends and family who take initiative because I don’t think I would have had nearly as good a time if many many responsibilities were not taken over by our loved ones.  

So, brides.  Loosen the reins and let someone else steer for that day because you will be thankful.  If you have $650-900 extra in your budget to hire a professional I can now see that they earn every dollar they charge. 

Another note from experience:  Decorating always takes twice as long as you think it is going to.  We were lucky and we were able to book our hall for a few hours the day before since we were married on a Friday.  It took us over 4 hours to decorate the whole hall, not including ceremony prep.  Granted we had a lot of assembly work to do.  Because I made all of our centre pieces they needed to be put together at the hall and all of the table numbers needed to be set up depending on if the centre piece was a flower arrangement or a branch setting since all of our picture frames were different sizes and would need to be arranged based on height; which meant the pictures and numbers couldn’t be put in until the tables were arranged and set up with centre pieces! Yikes! I’m glad I was getting my nails done at that point.  After my lovely friends and family finished setting up a couple of my girlfriends and I went back to clean up and make the bridal bouquets (that’s a whole other blog!).  The next morning I had to return to the hall to take the floral center pieces out of the fridge so the flowers would open in time for the ceremony.  The groomsmen and our fathers arrived early to set up the ceremony site which was an issue because it had rained all morning so we had to relocate the ceremony. 

Despite it all it turned out lovely!

So, like I said.  Hire someone!  Anyone! To help with set up and or coordinating. Whether you pay them or not, have someone in charge who isn’t you or your partner.  My words of wisdom passed on.

I love you more than...my former last name!

I am officially a married woman!  Can you believe it has come and gone already? To be honest I am just thankful it is over.  Don’t get me wrong, the marrying my best friend was the best part, but really truly if I knew a year ago what I know now, we would have either eloped or had a very, VERY small simple wedding. 

I figured I should make an appearance over here on the ‘ol blog since my friend Kim is putting me to shame.  Granted she hasn’t been consumed with the task of planning and executing the most stressful day of her life (yet) but she is a very busy gal who somehow still finds time to blog!  I envy her. 

I have made a list of blog topics I would like to concur this month since my hubby and I have successfully managed to make it through the past year and still love each other as much as when he proposed!  I would love to pass on some of the wisdom I have obtained on our journey and hopefully save all those naïve DIY brides out here from going through what I went through. 

Though DIY-ing saved us a lot of money in the long run, we still went over budget.  Expect to go over budget just control by how much.  Also, if you are thinking about DIY-ing and you’re not super crafty like me, make sure you have people to help you who are; it really makes a difference.  Lastly, if you are DIY-ing really consider, like really think long and hard if 1) you really need that in your wedding,  2) is having it or doing it yourself worth the time and stress and 3) do you have a contingency plan??

Here is a list of items I DIY’d:

Centre pieces: tree branches dried, painted, set in plaster

Flowers: I made all of the centre piece flower arrangements and all the bouquets

Lanterns for the trees: painted red (multiple coats), rhinestone string handles, crystal chandelier garland attachments

Garter: Ribbon, charms, lace and a sewing machine

Invites: drawn, scanned printed

Flower girl dress: Revamped and made a bit fancier with ribbon and buttons plus crinoline skirt

Table numbers: Designed, printed and added vintage pictures collected from family

Shoes: dyed and added brooch

Guest book: added individualized plaque

Card holder: Bird cage with DIY’d signage

I will gladly write tutorials on how I did all of my DIY’d decorations.  There was a lot of trial and error, trust me!  I will say that some of the things I DIY’d ended up costing just as much as if I had just bought something ie. my shoes; but I had a vision!

The first and most important piece of wisdom I can bestow upon all you future brides out there is to learn from my mistake.  I am a perfectionist and I planned down to every last detail and things still went wrong so in the long run I should have been more relaxed over the past 11 months.  I’m sure I drove my husband up the wall and he still married me.  If that’s not a testament for love concurring all I don’t know what is!  I vowed after the wedding that I would never allow another event or special occasion to consume me the way planning the wedding did.  I was an unrecognizable person.  My bridesmaids tell me they were surprised I didn’t go all bridezilla because I have the kind of personality where I really could have ripped a strip off of someone and I didn’t.  Maybe that’s because I was bridezilla-ing on my poor fiancé the whole year and particularly the week of the wedding.  There was a moment when I was speaking to the groom hands free whilst driving to pick up the flowers and I got so frustrated my MC who was accompanying me, had to commandeer the conversation so I wouldn’t get us into an accident.  All of that for one day!  ONE DAY! Yes it is one of the most important days in a young woman’s life but not so important you cause your FH to question why he chose you.  If he wasn’t questioning it I definitely was.  Thank goodness for true love cause if I were him I would have taken off in the eighth month!

It's the most wonderful time of the year.... unless you have to go anywhere, ever!

I love you more than... the feeling I get when I accomplish something (particularly on the wedding to do list!)

Goodness gracious, oh me oh my!  It is only just December and it is already CAH-RAZY out there.  My normally 20minute drive to work this evening took me 40mins!  WHY????!!!! Because it is gift buying season.  So everyone and their grandma is out behind the wheel of their vehicles driving 50 in the left hand lane getting in my way making me almost late for work! I'm telling you, if it were up to me (thank god it isn't) it would be a lot harder to get and keep your license.  I seriously want to know where some of these people got their licenses because I should have gone there!  New rule: stupid people are not allowed to drive.  Another new rule: If your not passing stay out of the effing left hand lane.  If it is evident the car behind you is going to go faster than you, get out of the effing left hand lane.  If cars are passing you on the right, get out of the effing left hand lane!!!

  Another driving note: if you are on your way somewhere and your route takes you past a mall, alter your route.  People on their way to the mall to buy presents are insane and will drive accordingly.  Also, apparently there are no rules in a mall parking lot.  For some reason the moment drivers enter a mall parking lot they completely forget the rules of the road misplace their common sense, go blind and drive like idiots.  This is my observation.

I love Christmas, but this time of year has gotten out of hand.  I actually would rather not give gifts at all.  Screw the consumerism.  The whole point of this holiday is to be with family and enjoy the season.  Somewhere along the lines it has become more about who bought who what and how much it costs.  I have never really bought into needing to have the new gadgets or the name brand jeans.  Maybe in high school it was important to me but once I got my first job and started being responsible for buying my own clothes it was about looking good on a budget not paying $200 for a pair of jeans (but they were on sale from $375).  I honestly dread Christmas shopping.  Dealing with the traffic and the mall parking lot and the rude people bumping into you in the stores and the craziness involved in finding the best gift for your friends and family, not to mention the ridiculous amount of money everyone spends (do people really get cars for Christmas??).  I am so over it!  We are suckers to think that if we buy our spouse just the right gift for Christmas it means we must really know them and love them.  I'm not deluded to into thinking anymore that if I get my dad just the right material possession he will love me more than my brothers or be more proud of me than he already is.  Why do we allow ourselves to be sucked into this extravagant gift giving.  i have requested of my family to consider a gift free Christmas.  I'm pretty sure they're not going to go for it but I had to try.  I want to rid myself of unnecessary stress this holiday season so i can trim my tree with my family, do a little baking, go out and enjoy all that Vancouver has to offer and spend my time with the ones I love instead of racing around crowded malls.  If not this year, maybe next year!