While perusing a charming used book store in Alameda, the bridal section caught my eye. Thinking, well, if there's something good and inexpensive, I might as well pick up a wedding planning book or two... well, there wasn't anything that I would have considered a serious helpful reference for weddings, but I came across something oh so much better.

Welcome to a bridal etiquette book from 1948.

I've only skimmed it so far, but it's pretty hysterical. I scanned the opening pages, handy maps of the man's heart and woman's heart, side by side, for the reader's reference. It includes such gems as "The Pyramids of Fashion" and "High Grounds of Matrimonial" for the woman's heart, and the "Land of the Love of Power" and "The Citadel of Self Love" on the man's side.

Look and laugh

Soooo many great photos! I'd link a bunch of my faves but there are too many, so I'll leave that to letting you flip around. Lotsa cute photos from Cuba too. *big sigh* Such an incredibly special day (and prep!).  EDIT: Ok, soooo many good ones starting around this page.

Awww, it's like we like each other or something.

Lots o' photos to follow :)

It is so great to see them in their own place. But my god, two people moving into a new apartment for their wedding day is exhausting! You know that feeling that lasts for a while after you move, when you just don't know where things are? Yeah, well imagine that + wedding. No wonder Jon managed to misplace (and eventually find, no worries) both his passport and the rings at midnight the night before the wedding. Not to mention a million extra things to do.

But they have an awesome new apartment in Mississauga, with a dedicated music room, a luxurious new king sized bed, and some lawn furniture in their living room. Priorities, after all...

The bachelor (guys + girls) and bachelorette parties were a blast. I had a serious game of Fluxx going as an alternative to the guys playing poker. I organized a private pole dancing class for the bachelorette, and then we took Meagan out and made her consume more alcohol than I've seen her consume in the rest of her life combined :P

Then it was a week of moving belongings, running wedding errands, making favours, a wide assortment of things at Meagan's mom's house (prep photos were being done there, so she was taking this opportunity to redo and spruce up most of the house), wrangling Jon away from WoW and dealing with minor car emergencies, cleaning (Meagan's room nearly required hazmat gear *cough*), packing and prepping for the honeymoon, plus Chris's birthday (yay!) and a family dinner amidst all this chaos.

Then the rehearsal/rehearsal dinner. Lookie, I get to practice signing the register. Such a beautiful (and very pregnant) priest! Jon gave all the groomsmen Airzookas, which was hilarious fun, particularly since we were in a restaurant. Meagan gave me a beautiful necklace as a thank you too :)

Ah, then the day of...

Nothing like a tall glass of alcohol in the morning.

I went over to Meagan's house early in the morning to get ready, and Chris stayed back at Jon's while the groomsmen congregated... which turned out to be a good thing since none of them knew how to work suspenders or cufflinks ;)

I zipped Meagan into her dress, and she turned around and I started crying. She literally took my breath away. I don't have any really good shots of her in the dress, but the photographer doing the prep photos took some absolutely stunning shots, so I'm sure those will make their way out eventually.

After getting into our own dresses/hair/makeup and doing the initial photos, we piled into her family's minivans decorated with pompoms and headed to the ceremony.

Looking at Jon, I could see that it was taking everything in him not to burst into tears when he first saw her. There was a great moment of humour when Jon grabbed the wrong ring at first, but the ceremony went off without any problems. I sang a solo ("There is love") during communion (over the accompanist's questionable playing throughout the ceremony, I have to say...) and the next thing I knew, they were married!

Attack of the killer bubbles!

It was so wonderful to see them radiating with happiness. They've been together for ten years, and it was the culmination of so many things.

Buster took some lovely shots at the reception, so I'm kind of lacking in images to share there... but I'll leave you with this one of the first dance (which was to Marry Me, by Amanda Marshall).

Now they are in Cuba for 12 glorious days! 

So, when your father asks you very seriously what you and your life partner would like as a special and meaningful wedding gift for your home and future, your answer is?

Cookware?  Nah.

Furnishings?  Meh.

Something towards a car?  Naw. 

2.25 TB Infrant NAS?  Hell yes!

I love my dad.

I love that I was able to explain it and he understands we put a lot of thought into this and suggested something that has more impact than any kitchen supplies or bedding could.  It's something that we both desperately wanted as a foundation piece for our home, especially as our little shared Dell box runs out of space...  Our life is digital.  What better gift than fast, spacious, RAID5 storage?

It's officially on its way to us  :) 

*bounces* 

Perhaps it's because friends are in the midst of wedding chaos, but we got thinking that hey, we should really figure out when we're going to do this whole wedding thing in Toronto  :)

I agreed to winter being out, since Chris's poor southern California family would probably freeze.  We're not really people of a spring/summer aesthetic, so fall was looking appealing.  And lo and behold, the anniversary date of our civil ceremony (November 15th) just happens to be a Saturday in 2008!  So I have a call in to Casa Loma (which is shockingly cheaper [$2300 CDN for a Saturday] than I'd think, considering many other castle/estate type places are $10k+!) to see if they have that date available.

So there's a very tentative date.  If not, another weekend in late October/early November would look good.  The good thing is that it's 20 months away, so it'll be a while before we have to worry about getting anything else in order.

And back to other important weddings, it looks like we'll be in Toronto at the end of March for Meagan's shower!  I can't believe I've been away from Canada for, what, 10 months?

It looks like Chris's house will be sold very soon, so that will be a much needed infusion of cash and a load off both of our minds.  We're still waiting on news for that one job. He followed up and they said the process was taking longer than expected, but I can't imagine we won't hear this week.  I'm juggling a huge assortment of contract work and having more fun with it than I remember having before I stopped doing web design for a while. 

Doing a wide variety of things at any given time is so very important to my sanity.

You know when something just feels right?

Well, we went to pick up the licence on Thursday, and decided to do the ceremony at city hall  :)

It went by in the blink of an eye but was simultaneously one of the longest moments of my entire life...  :)   There really are no words right now.  Knowing that the world officially recognizes at least a fraction of how we feel for each other...

 

Totally exhausted from a whirlwind weekend with the boys... resting up and catching up.

*tummy butterflies*

Other exciting stuff... I somehow managed to get an appointment for my immigration medical within a few days, so I've had my shots (*rubs arm*) and tests and stuff.  And the boys are coming for a visit next week!  Suzann's coming over to help finish painting today.  That's gonna feel so good to not have the stairs and living room covered in plastic.  We've been getting the space ready for the boys, which had previously been used as storage for boxes and other crap  :P  Setting up two more PCs for them (would you believe we have two 4-port routers and an 8-port switch full now?), cleaning, making things look pretty, making beds... man oh man it'll be so nice to have them here for a while.  We worked out a compromise with the cams and stuff, so things will be shuffled around a little on the sites for a few days, but still mostly up and running.

We've decided on having a "Christmas railing" this year.  I simply can't skip having at least *some* kind of tree, so I grabbed some green garlands, plus we already have a couple strands of mini lights, and we're going to wrap them around the large staircase's railing, and hang homemade ornaments and stockings from it  :)