298 days to go

With the sunshine finally out and some of our friends returning home from their tours in the next few weeks, counting down to the wedding feels as important right now as counting down to MM"s eventual fall return. So I'm setting aside the doldrums this week and rejoicing in the fact that I'm engaged, and to a wonderful Military Man.

Lately everywhere I look I find new inspirations. Yesterday it was flowers, in a local grocery store's floral arrangements, where I found lovely mini orchids that looked strikingly like this gorgeous instant-love of a mystery flower I saw last month in the farmer's market in Cannes, France:


Not sure how easy these might be to get here in Canada in May, but I'm definitely going to ask.

And I'm seeing a lot of women coming into the bookstore where I work, wearing the prettiest bright sundresses. I'm noticing that many of these women are not stick figure types, yet they look fabulous in big 1950s-inspired full-skirted dresses or 1960s inspired fitted sheaths in raw silk or cotton. I'm also noticing a lot of asymmetrical details, be it a hem that is higher in the front then in the back, or a triangular bodice that goes over only one shoulder. Sort of like this Jim Hjelm number that I'm loving right now but definitely not in black


Speaking of dresses, I guess that's my next big thing. Glancing over the wedding planning list, I realize we've made some real progress lately. Ceremony and event venues? Booked, with deposits paid. We're using a pretty waterfront city park for our outdoor ceremony (note: This was an extremely economical choice as well.... $25 for the permit and that's it!). The reception is the Chateau Laurier, so MM gets his castle.

Officiant? Booked (and loving the fact that it will be a local woman with a fantastic voice who happens to also be a college professor).

Photographer? Booked. Some of you may remember earlier this year my post here on our engagement session with Irina Fortey of Irina Photography and Susan's subsequent interview with her. Well, that session cinched it for us, so we're happy to say that Irina and her hubby Mihkel will be capturing the beautiful fleeting moments of our Day.

Florist? There is a florist that has been putting weekly arrangements into my fave Starbucks cafe with their business card and I'd been admiring their work over the last year. When Susan was here for our whirlwind planning session and scoping-out tour in May, we dropped into their shop and were pleased with their work, their personalities and their pricing. So I'm happy to say that they are on the shortlist and I hope to book them soon.

DJ? Originally we weren't going to have one, but the room at the Chateau includes a dance floor so what the heck? I have a lead on a great DJ that our military family resource centre uses often. I'm meeting the president this week and it is looking promising.

Cake? Oddly enough, for a hotel of Chateau Laurier's caliber, they do not have an onsite pastry chef. So we will indeed need to outsource this, But, as I posted here, MM and I found a company online whose work he likes the looks of (and hopefully the taste...we'll find that out when he's back). They are my front runners, so with any luck, that's chosen too.

Tux company? Chosen. Got a deal at a wedding show this winter so we have booked with a nationwide chain, which should make it easier since our stand-up guys and dads are scattered across this huge country.

Susan will be doing our invites (that should be rockin' fun to do!) and I've got a strong idea of what I want, with her guidance.

That doesn't leave much to be decided. Dresses? Yep that's almost pretty much it. Ok true there is decor for the ceremony and the reception, but that can wait quite a while yet. Short of keeping my eye open at garden centres now for those deep discount end of summer sales, for things to help make the public park pretty and private, I can turn my attention to some serious dress shopping and badger my stand-up gals into doing the same. I would like it all chosen by the end of September, so that it gives the 4-6 months I'm told it takes these days.

Steaming right along.. 298 days to go and counting!

Keep Reading ...

All the miles that separated disappear when I’m dreaming of your face

When I sat down tonight to write this post, I thought I’d talk about the stuff I saw in Europe that has inspired me, or share the news of what has happened in our wedding planning process. Things have moved along, decisions been made, deposits paid, checklist items marked off as done. But the words for talking about those things won’t come. I can’t write them, not right now.

Instead, what I feel inside of me tonight is the hole in my life caused by that goodbye in Heathrow a few weeks back. It is the bittersweet joy/pain of counting down not to the wedding, but to that day on the sometime-horizon when MM comes back home again.

When will it be? Right now, we’re not sure. The military has extended his tour by an undisclosed number of days and weeks. We think he will be home for Christmas, and for my graduation. But, like so much of living within military life, we are not sure.

It seems like every song I hear on the radio that speaks of love, of the joy of finding yourself in the eyes of someone else, or of rediscovering the meaning of home in someone’s arms makes me think of my man. Same goes for every song of separation, of longing, of commitment despite situations, miles and people. And I know that over there in the desert, despite the 8 ½ hours that separate us in timespace, MM feels the same, but amplified. For while I’m comfortable here in Canada, in the house that we’ve put together and the home we’ve made here, my man is hundreds of kilometers away. Living in 50 degree Celsius heat, surrounded by sand and scrub and makeshift buildings, my guy works and eats and sleeps, while also aching and dreaming and yearning of me and of home.

They say that deployment separations like this, with their demands and tensions, details and uncertainties, longing and loving from afar, they test a relationship. More than a few break on the crucible that is a tour. I’ve already watched a few military friend couples, engaged or even married, find their own relationships on rockier footing then they thought possible. And each morning or evening, when I talk to MM and I hear the weariness in his voice, or see the loneliness in his words on my instant messenger screen, I know firsthand how hard it is to live with all of this, and to be supportive and caring and upbeat for him, when I have many a day where I feel anything but those things.

Yet I made a commitment to him. When he first told me he was a military man, and when I accepted him and fell in love with him as my military man, I made a commitment to accept the hardships that came with this all encompassing vocation of his. And then once again, just over a year ago, when I proposed to him in that rumpled bed at 2 am on a Wednesday morning, I did it with a more defined awareness of what it would mean to be his Mrs.

Now, a year later and a little more than halfway into his tour, despite the loneliness and pain of having him so far away, I feel a renewed commitment to accept him with everything he is and an even deeper longing to be his Mrs. Even though I know even better now how hard it will be at times in our future life to be his wife and to share him with the military.

Thing is, he’s worth it. For his smiles and his dimples, his sparkling blue eyes and the sound of his unguarded laughter, the feeling of his abiding love and dedication to both me and to his calling as a military man… All of this and a thousand reasons more is why he is worth it.

As I've listened to these songs in the last few weeks, and again tonight, and yet again probably tomorrow and next week, I remind myself of all of this. It's worth it. He is worth it. When I’m planning the wedding, our wedding, I have tried and will continue to try to keep that one certainty firmly fixed in my heart and mind and dreams. Our wedding will be a public joining of us and a private celebration of the determination that got us through the days we’re in now to get to that Big Day.

Next year, when we are there, and the DJ plays the love songs I’m listening to now and MM and I dance together, I expect that the tears in my eyes and his will be not just be simple tears of happiness. Coming as they will then after two long years of being together, yet separated by military life, those songs will remind us of the days that have come before that Big One. The songs will whisper to him and to me of the deeper complexities of everything that has gone into getting us to our day, beyond the picking of the hall and the dress and the DJ and the flowers. The tears that flow then will be happiness, yet, but also a kind of cleansing of all this, as we join our newly married hands and walk out into the world together, side by side.

As the song says:

Everything I know, and anywhere I go
it gets hard but it won't take away my love
And when the last one falls, when it's all said and done
it gets hard but it won't take away my love

While right now, then, I might not be sure of much, the one thing I am sure of is that I miss my military man. I love him, I am committed to him and I can’t wait to be his Mrs.

Keep Reading ...

Carried away by the wind

I'm back in Canada after a lovely yet bittersweet three weeks in Europe with MM. We met in the airport in Rome, spent a few quiet days in a little Italian port city then boarded a cruise. 15 days and a dozen beautiful European city-ports later, we disembarked in the east of England and spent a few days in London before saying tearful goodbyes at Heathrow last weekend.

(a house on the canals in Bruges, Belgium)

Looking back at the pictures of the trip, and remembering the whole thing over again, I'm struck by how many of our pictures are of architectural details. Whether it was the fantastically highly wrought churches in Florence, the beautiful balconies of Barcelona, the steeply pitched roofs of Bruges (Belgium) or the limestone buildings in London, our pictures seem to be about the grand and little details of each of the places we experienced.

(the Duomo in Florence, Italy)

Granted we have a decent number of pictures of each other, usually of MM with a beer in his hand (he enjoyed sampling the various local varieties) or of me with my fun and silly custom made hat courtesy of a fabulous Etsy crafter, WorthyGoods.

(me on an open-topped tour bus in Barcelona)

And we have pictures of food, things we ate that seemed distinctive, like the gigantic and silly sundaes we ate in London's iconic Harrods department store.


They were straight of the Mad Hatter's Tea Party! (Sidenote: Imagine something like this instead of a wedding cake? Talk about wow factor!)

But overall, the pictures we took seem to act as memory boxes of the unique character of each city or town or country area. The markets, the streetscapes, the buildings, the statuary, these are what we wanted captured on film. And hopefully, too, some of the joy we felt at being together after a three month absence, and yes the poignancy of having to part again in London.

(MM & I near the port in Cadiz, Spain)


So now that the wind under the plane's wings has parted us both, me back here to Ottawa, MM back to Afghanistan, we will be able to use those photos over the next few months to remember the feeling and flavour and unique nature of each place and of the simple and profound joy of being hand in hand again, walking a city's streets, basking in togetherness.

Keep Reading ...

Just before *the* big humanities conference of the year started here in Ottawa a week and a bit ago, I got the chance to meet up with Susan and spend the day doing, what else? wedding planning.


It was a fabu day that went by way too fast!


Susan has blogged about it already so I won't bore you by going over the same details. I should point out that I could have crammed more into the day, but I know I can be a bit overpowering at times, so I tried to just relax and let it all flow; something Susan has been coaching me on, for weddings of course, but I'm trying to make it flow into other aspects too. Susan was fantastic... even when I got us hopelessly lost in Carleton Place trying to find one of Ottawa's main dress stores, Sinders Bridal. I'll have to make sure that I know which way is south and which is north on our next dress hunting excursion. Susan? I Promise!

I'm so happy to have finally gotten to meet Susan in the flesh and I'm stoked about the wedding again thanks to deciding on the Chateau Laurier. It is nice to have the reception venue picked. As Susan mentioned, it doesn't tick four out of the five boxes I've have originally put on a search form.


Yes it's a huge hotel, smack dab in the centre of a big Canadian city. It doesn't offer an outdoor space for us for the ceremony. But it is a castle of sorts, and MM has a thing for castles (do all guys share that? they seem to). And with both of us being proudly Canadian, it certainly offers up dollops of patriotism and history. Heck it's right next door our nation's Parliament Buildings... you can't get much more historic than that!

So with that chosen, other things fell into place. We've booked Irina Photography for the wedding. You may remember them from our engagement shoot earlier this year. I've got my eye on a baker and a florist. Big things to find next? The ceremony spot and The Dress. Again, prospects for both, but all will have to wait while I meet MM in Europe for a few weeks for his army leave.



I'll try to take a few pics of us while I'm there and see if I can spot anything interesting on the ship that relates to weddings, marriages and couple bliss. The first few might be hard.. the last one should be easy. I will only have to look in the mirror!

Keep Reading ...

While I Was Dangling From The Chandelier I Thought The Little Looked So Big From Up Here

As mentioned earlier, late last week (actually one week ago ... time flies!), I headed up to Ottawa to meet this year's blog winner, Tarriell ... or is she last year's winner?! Through a series of circumstances her date was postponed so the planning hadn't kicked into full gear until now. And boy, did we ever accomplish a lot!

Our first stop was the Chateau Laurier. While not *really* wanting to get married in a hotel, T decided to check it out. And I could honestly see the excitement starting to creep in to her as she started to imagine the day being held there. The room for the reception is a great size (not too big or too small like many others) and an interesting shape!



A bonus with the Chateau? Apparently they distinguish the bride and groom by giving them throne-like chairs. I think T kind of enjoyed it ;)


Another great thing about the Chateau is the abundance of places to take photos. While my picture taking skills didn't turn out well (I was trying to be discreet), these will give Irina an idea or two.



Irina? Who's Irina? I'm happy to announce .: Irina Photography :. is now officially the photographer for T&T ... yayyy!

We weren't finished after the Chateau though. From there we went dress shopping. We ended up at a great little shop out of the way of everything (didn't get lost too many times on our way ;)). T will likely tell more about the dress she's looking for. All I'll say is they didn't have it. She did try on some that would be good back-ups though ... but you can't see the whole thing ;)


And from there we decided to go to a florist that T has had her eye on for months. They were actually getting ready for a wedding for the next day so it was perfect timing to see them in action. T is drawn to purple big time so you can only imagine how she loved this arrangement hanging from the wall ...


From there I was taken to a spectacular Italian restaurant where I ate far too much but it was totally worth it. T is a joy to get to know and I was thrilled to spend an entire day with her!!!

Keep Reading ...

Nothing more than feelings

I haven't been to many weddings in my life. Not sure why, but it means that I'm not influenced too much by family traditions or reciprocal relationships with friends.

These days then when I'm looking for inspirations for our wedding, I find myself looking at photos of 'real' weddings on various websites and in bridal magazines. And what strikes me as the most important aspect of any wedding isn't tradition, or theme, or colour. It's feeling.

Specifically, how personal and meaningful do the various elements seem for who the bride and groom are, separately and as a couple? I've seen a lot of photos of beautiful weddings, but what comes off in some of those photos for some of those weddings (not all, of course!) is this hollow feeling, as if it was more important how the wedding looked than how it felt.

We don't want to be one of those.

Though the wedding is getting closer and closer (less 13 months away now!) there are a lot of things that have yet to be decided or finalized. We have that luxury, I think, because we're not going for anything huge or even particularly showy. When I take time out of my week nowadays to think about our wedding, that is the question preoccupying me. How can I make our wedding personal and meaningful?

But more important, I think, is that we're both coming to understand that we don't want our wedding to come off as a performance or a show. Yes, it's a social event, but it's also deeply meaningful day for both of us.
Thus, the way we have the evening flow should feel right for us. This means we'll be jettisoning anything "traditional" or "usual" to weddings that doesn't feel right for us. A big part of this is the fact that we want our guests, all close friends and immediate family, to feel completely part of our first day together as a married couple. Not sure yet how we'll accomplish this, but that's where Susan's expertise will come in.

We probably know more about what we don't want right now than what we do want. No kitcsh, no favours, no peronalized napkins or fussy chair bows, no dancing, no one present that at least one of us doesn't know quite well by first name.

What do we want? The answer to that question is still emerging and evoloving, but it seems to lay in a variety of elements. Some of them are obvious things. Colour is one, of course, Purple is my favourite colour, followed closely by green and (oddly?) brown. So our palette will play in and around those (I think I want to wear amethyst and peridot gemstone jewellery, rather than the traditional colourless pearl or crystal). We'll probably try to have wines that reflect our favourites from our first trip through the wineries of Niagara, as MM was learning that he loves wine, so long as it is "the right kind of wine" (his words). We're both inveterate meat-eaters, as are most (all?) of our guests, so red meat of some kind will be our star in the entree. We'll be custom writing our vows, mixing in traditional elements with snippets of things we say to each other daily, so that it really carries an emotional punch for us both. (Heck if MM doesn't cry after saying his, I'll be surprised!). And, if the budget can be stretched to accommodate it, we'll have live music that includes at least one bass or cello, since MM loves that instrument.

As we pick the options and elements in the next few months to come, with each choice will come the need for us to answer the question: how does the choice make us feel about this big day? I think that as long as choice can be answered byone of four words ("happy/comfortable/silly/fun) then we'll have a day that we feel reflects us and our commitment to one another, and that will be remembered happily and fondly by us and our guests for months to come.

Keep Reading ...

Missing you from down low

By now, MM should have finally left Canada and is who knows how many feet up in the air, flying towards his new desert home. This means I won't be able to talk to him for a few days, as he settles into his desert cubby. :-/

What better way to distract my wistful self than some retail therapy, you say? I agree! Here are some today's finds from mTs' fave site, Etsy.

Spring is in the air here in Ontario. I feel it, despite today's dark and cloudy aspect. So I'm thinking about t-shirts and loving the idea of a few screen printed numbers. And I heart anything with trees on it. Like this one from Ellembee:



I also start thinking purses in the spring. School ends for me this week (barring a bit of grading) so I start thinking about ditching my backpack and snagging a few bright and girly purses. This one from Chicago Fine Threads isn't bright, but it is girly.


It could even work as my wedding day purse, hmmm....

And finally, I've been thinking of an original way to send out Save the Date cards. it will happen too early to have nailed down our actual wedding invite look, so I was thinking of sending out photo style cards. But that seemed a bit narcissistic to me. Then I found Unless' illustration shop on Etsy that makes custom line drawing portraits from your photos. Check it!



Now THAT would make for an original and memorable Save the Date card hmm? Love love this idea!

Keep Reading ...

Let it be chocolate and vanilla

Quick post from me today, on the eve of a big day tomorrow. MM ships out tomorrow, so we are spending the evening hanging out and doing everything possible to distract ourselves. Not sure how it happened, but web browsing and wedding stuff ensued.

And once again he surprises me by falling head over heels for something.

In this case it is cake. Specifically, the cakes from a small Ottawa vendor, The Girl with the Most Cake.



"those are awesome! Can we have one of those?"

When I reminded him of the cost of a fancy cool cake, he just shrugged and said...

"Ok guess we'll have to use cheaper liquor to make up for it."

That's my man. I love you and will miss you these next six months.

Keep Reading ...

Pretty as a peacock

When discussing our wedding with various women, I’ve been interested in how many times I get asked about dresses. Not just my dress (“THE dress” as some have put it) but the bridesmaids’ dresses as well. I’m asked what colour, what style, etc.

Thing is, I don’t have much of an opinion. I really just want the three ladies standing up with me to look good. I figured that I would just pick a couple of colours and let them go out and find something that looks good on them, in that same fabric and colour.

But nope, it isn’t that simple. Yet another part of wedding planning that ends up being less about planning and more about making it up as we go along.

The first question that got asked by the bridesmaids themselves was about neckline and sleeves. Did it have to be strapless, in order to coordinate with mine, which probably will be strapless? My answer was that I don’t care either way. Ok that one was easy.

Along with the strapless question came the question of tattoos. Yes, ink. Both my adult bridesmaids are inked on arms and back and they wanted to know if I wanted it covered. In particular, my maid of honour has a rather prominent upper half sleeve tattoo. But it seems fake to say they can’t be shown. Her tattoos are part of who she is and I love her for that. So I basically decided that if she doesn’t want to cover it up, she doesn’t have to.

The next question was colour. Initially I wanted brown dresses with a decorative sash. However, seeing one of my bridesmaid hold up a piece of brown fabric to herself and hearing her declare “see? I look like a big freckle!” and agreeing that yes brown was not her most flattering colour, I’ve changed my mind. So the decision now is that they decide on a specific shade of green or purple that they all like and flatters all of them as much as possible and they go with that. Or do it in a rainbow… from light lilac on the maid of honour to dark purple on the junior bridesmaid. Whichever. It will be up to them to decide.

Then there was the question of fabric. Did it have to be taffeta? I’m partial to the sheen and depth of colour that comes with taffeta. However, one of the girls has an issue with it that is tied to a childhood experience. She finds taffeta shudder-inducing as a result. So… no taffeta. I’m now hoping for satin and lace, but will happily take them in whatever fabric they choose that is reasonably dressy and looks good on them.

Finally, there was a question about pockets. My maid of honour has fond memories of her rockabilly days when her 50s style dresses all had pockets in the big skirts and she spied a dress in a bridal magazine that had pockets and fell in love. Problem? The dress isn’t easily available in Canada and the price started (!!) at $300 (!!) . Ok, so that specific dress is out, but could we find another with pockets? This started a search on the net for bridesmaid dresses that have pockets. Surprisingly, this is a developing trend. Some of the very latest wedding dresses are starting to show pockets (that’s my MOH, always ahead of the curve). This one might be doable.

So what started out as my desire to have bridesmaids outfitted in rich cocoa brown taffeta full length tank style dresses with a lace overlay or sash, paired with slingback shoes, has evolved into a peacock array of cocktail length purple satin dresses with peter pan collars, bubbley-looking skirts and ballet flats.

Lesson learned? As long as my peacocks in satin feel good in whatever they choose, they’ll shine and relax and have fun. And that is what is important.



Though their request to wear actual peacock feathers in their hair as fascinators (like this one) has yet to be resolved.

Keep Reading ...

Flowing into spring

The old adage about time and flight seems apt for me lately. The month of January seemed to melt away and February is also already half over. Time is indeed flying, right into spring and right up until the time that MM leaves for overseas duty in April. Then it will probably crawl. I'll just have to make sure that wedding planning doesn't crawl. So time to get into it!

He and I are trying to get a lot done before he leaves. Not all of it is wedding stuff of course: even in a rental, there is always little fix up housework waiting to be done. But some of it is indeed wedding stuff. Some examples: how many people on his side of the family does he want to allow to show up to our day? Does he feel that a traditional tiered wedding cake is an integral part of the wedding ceremony, or can we skip it in favour of other kinds of dessert (e.g. sundae bar)? Does he have the right style personality to pull off a pale purple shirt?

For me at the moment, the latter is my preoccupation. Put simply, I'm wondering about colour. Originally, when the date was in October, then November, colour was easy for me. I love deep saturated rich shades, colour that has a strong punch and mood to it. So it was going to be all about eggplant purple, burnt orange and chocolate brown, with strong warm metallics (copper, bronze and hits of mellowed gold). Now that the wedding date is in May, though, I'm been trying to find a less autumnal palette that still speaks to me and of me. That means it can't be pastel or sweet or airy and it can't include the colour pink in any form. It still has to be part of spring though.

Then I found this wedding bouquet at TheKnot.com:



And bam! I was inspired.

Many wedding magazines and paint strips later, I've decided. I'm sticking with my all time favourite colour, purple, in two intensities: lilac and eggplant. I'm thinking of layering with chocolate brown and dulled silver, and then punching it up here and there with both bright and light green (think celadon and tiny bits of lime). The idea would be that light green and silvered brown is the colour of nature herself at that time of year, and purple is the colour of one of my favourite flowers, lilacs.



I can see this flowing out into lilacs and tulips and violets (or crocuses , if possible... as homage to my Manitoba roots), mixed up eccentrically with orchids, simply because I love them. We're hoping to be outdoors for the day so it will be a bonus if the venue (wherever it ends up being) happens to have lilac bushes on site. It isn't much of a stretch to hope for, given how abundantly they tend to grow in Ontario. And the smell is divine!


I can see this palette lending itself to all kinds of interpretations. For example, for invitations, I can see dark brown paper with lilac and silver writing. The girls' dresses would be eggplant with lilac sashes, and the guys suits would be either dark brown or charcoal grey with silvered lilac shirts and green/purple ties. Accessories around the venue would be clear glass and silver (making them easy to find and hopefully purchase on sale!).

Ok now I'm excited again!

Keep Reading ...

In The Name Of Love

As Tarriell described below, her engagement session with .: Irina Photography :. was this past December. Since we got the story from the bride-to-be's point of view, I wanted to get the experience from Irina and Mihkel, too. They were kind enough to sit down and go over a lot of things with us!

Susan says:
Thanks for taking the time out to sit down with me, Irina & Mihkel! After seeing Tarriell & MM's photos, I had to get the vendor point-of-view and give you both a shout-out, too!
First question, for those who don't know or who are maybe on the fence about it, what typically happens during an engagement session and who should get them?

Mihkel says:
An engagement session is simply a portrait photo session for a couple soon to be married. Nowadays these sessions reflect the lifestyle of the couple (locations, habits, activities) and the emotions between the couple (romance, love, excitement). Irina and I would meet with the couple at a location that means something to them, it can be a coffee shop that they enjoy together, or the grounds of the University they attend or a nearby park. Sometimes we are lucky to photograph the couple in THE location where the proposal happened! Our goal is to capture the real moments, whether they be lovely or quirky. We ask the couple to be themselves, pretend we are not there and for them to 'go about their business' ; this allows for an honest interaction between photographer and the couple. The goal is to create a collection that reflects the true spirit of the couple's engagement, something they can take away with them for years to come.

Irina says:
These sessions are for couples who desire a collection of images that showcase them in a natural and fun way. Most couples plan to use the images during their reception, either in a custom guest book or display their collection in a slide show during the reception dinner.



Susan says:
Take us through Tarriell and MM's session. How did you come up with the locales? Was it really as cold as Tarriell says? ;) How long was their session?

Mihkel says:
The weather was miserable the night before(it rained all night) and the morning offered us bleak glimpses into the possibilities for a workable afternoon. Ottawa's 3 feet of snow had begun to melt from the rain, overloading all drains and leaving large puddles to contend with. When we arrived at 1pm, the sun made brief appearances however the wind began to pick up. Yes it was cold! The clouds persevered even while the wind picked up sending chills down my spine. We carpooled from Tarriell and MM's home to Carleton U since the location has many buildings and covers a vast landscape; we thought it would make for a great starter location. If a location doesn't work then we discuss other options, we never force our clients to stick to a maximum number of spots, that would ruin the experience for both of us. We always consider the client's expectations while also ensuring that we produce work worthy for their collection. Irina braved the cold to capture some wonderful images along side the water and then inside Carleton's many hallways . I focused purely on some candids and then decided to 'keep an eye on the car'. After trying a few other locations we headed to Starbuck's for some coffee and relaxed for a bit. One last location, in the car ride back we said we would capture them in their most common and comfortable place - their living room sofa in front of the TV. Good for the clients, good for the photographer - anything to produce real images. By this time we had gone over our typical 2 hour session almost surpassing a 3rd. Their dog barked a few times to announce it was our time to leave, ending an afternoon of fun and craziness.

Susan says:
What stood out to the both of you about this couple?


Mihkel says:
It is common for shy or nervous individuals to become goofy with our instructions. Or maybe they just like to play rough. At times it seemed as though they were acting in front of the camera yet after behaving the whole session like young crazy lovers, it became clear that true love influences the mind in ways we cannot control.

Susan says:
Can you tell us something we may not know about Tarriell?

Irina says:
Those types of secrets are for us to keep!

Susan says:
It's been a little while since the session. How long does it typically take for your clients to receive digital files and then any photos they've ordered?

Irina says:
After each session, we typically show teaser images on our blog {www.irinaphotography.squarespace.com}. Once we have completed the final image selections for the session collection, images are posted in an online gallery for the client to view; this is approximately 2 weeks after the session. Our engagement sessions include a credit for studio products, to which they have unlimited options to decide how to use! Print orders typically take 2 weeks to process.

Susan says:
I have to ask ... you serve both the GTA and Ottawa ... are you two nuts for travel? ;)

Mihkel says:
I like to travel so any excuse to get out of town is great for me :)

Irina says:
I grew up in Ottawa and my family is still there. We have the luxury of being in both places quite often and enjoy every minute of it!

Keep Reading ...

Stars of the Show

Recently, I got my first taste of wedding stardom. It was a blast of reality on just how not “real” or comfortable that stardom can be.

That taste came one sleety, dark and gloomy day in late December, when MM and I had an engagement photo shoot here in Ottawa with the fantabulous team from Irina Photography.

And while the photos themselves don’t show it, the whole shoot was one of the stranger, more surreal experiences of my life.

It all sounded good in theory. Do a professional photojournalistic shoot of the two of us together just being us. The resulting photos would be reminders to one another of each other that woud would help to assuage the long loneliness of being separated from one another for six months by MM’s overseas military tour. Setting aside our self-acknowledged and often-demonstrated lack of ability to be photogenic, for one day we would be be the stars of the show, the focus of attention. We actually thought of it as a kind of practice for the Big Day, when all kinds of people would be watching with all kinds of recording devices.

Well, if that is practice, I cannot say I’m looking forward to that aspect of the reality of being the stars of our own wedding show. It is one thing to snap a few photos of yourselves while on vacation, or on a special event in your life. It is quite another to have two people following you around with cameras blazing on a cold nasty day, coaxing you to “act natural”. So you do your best to ignore the cameras, and you walk hand in hand, smile, kiss, whisper sweet nothings and cuddle up to your beloved on a park bench as if it were any other day.

But if it were any other day, you’d be at home together cuddled under a blanket on your comfy couch with a favourite DVD playing on the flatscreen. You would not be outside in the freezing rain of a December afternoon in your best coat and jeans, walking next to the frozen Rideau canal, with your hands freezing cold, your feet soaking wet, the wind whipping the hair in your face and your eyes tearing up so bad from said wind that you can barely see the man you love standing in front of you. You would not be sitting on a freezing cold and wet slab of concrete, wondering if you should have worn your waterproof ski coat and earmuffs instead of your new pretty photogenic coat and scarf, with a bare head and hands. On any ordinary day, MM would not set foot on my university campus, let alone trudge through mounds of melting snow and freezing ice to go into one of the buildings for ten minutes and pretend, with me, to admire the mosaic artwork of the walls that, normally, from him, would elicit only perplexed stares and slightly catty comments. You most definitely would not be out playing in one of the childrens’ playgrounds on base, calf-deep in wet snow, trying not to fall flat on your butt while you nevertheless frolic in the snow as requested and try to show to the world and the cameras how much you love each other while dreaming of your flannel pajamas, your warm duvet and a good strong hot coffee.



I can’t tell you the number of times MM remarked to me during our three and a half hour shoot “this is soooo frickin’ weird!”. I’d have to agree. While the end result was definitely worth it, and Irina and Mihkel showed that even MM and I can be photogenic if shot by the right people, I would not want to have to repeat that more than once in a lifetime.

But, luckily, with MM being the star of my life show, I don’t expect to ever have to repeat it again.

Keep Reading ...

Oh the weather outside is frightful

But the fire of my stove is delightful. So in light of the impending transit strike in my city and the desire to cocoon at home with good food since it's all snowy and wintery out there at the moment, I thought I'd share a few of my favourite recipes with you. Maybe I'll make this a regular thing for me in this space, if Susan doesn't mind? since I'm as much a cook as she is an Etsy shopper.

And let's face it ... food is a huge part of a wedding.

MM loves to eat and is very happy about his lot in life as my future husband, since I enjoy cooking but am not fussy about it. Must be the former farm girl in me - my favourite meal is still a good rare roast beef, with mashed potatoes, green beans with butter and almonds and an apple cobbler/crisp for dessert.

Speaking of Apple Cobbler, my grandma's recipe is the one I make and I've had it up on Recipezaar for ages. It always gets good reviews and I love that darn appley-cinnamony-oatmeal goodness so darn much!

My favourite cooking blog is over at 101 Cookbooks.com. What I like about this blogger is that she's vegetarian, offers vegan options, but isn't preachy about, and her recipes feel homey, almost vintage. Like this week's post about Caramelized Onion Dip. She's updated the classic dip that my mom served to people made from Lipton Soup Mix.

I could see serving this at the wedding. Heck I had originally thought about using my own recipes for the wedding. serving classic roast beef and a fancier version of my own cobbler (with vanilla bean baked in and freshly grated cinnamon). But that was back when it was a fall event. Now I'll have to think about what I want for a spring shindig. Yummy!

Keep Reading ...

You are where now?

As I was saying last week, our circle of people that we want at our wedding comes out to a smallish 45. Quite a manageable number we though and we expect that the vast majority of those on our guest list would want to actually show up on our Day. So we started working with Susan to find a venue for our wedding that would nicely accommodate 40 people or so.

Seems easy? Not so much.

Apparently, the wedding industry does not see 40-45 people as a “valid” number for a wedding. We’ve looked at restaurants, hotels, golf clubs, wedding factory places, and in all cases, we’ve pretty much struck out. We’re too big for the smaller venues like B&Bs and most country inns, and we’re too small for hotels, country clubs and yes even the wedding factories. Our wedding group apparently exists in a black hole between “small” (which is translated to be under 30 people) and “medium” which is 50-65 people.

Granted, if we’re willing to pay $200+ per person, we can find a few beautiful spots, but even then they would take us grudgingly due to our “small” size.

Who knew?

Now what was also throwing it off was the time of year. You have probably heard the same thing we did about the traditional wedding season being May to September, perhaps creeping into October. So we figured that our 2nd time revised date in November would make it easy. Again, not so much. Because we couldn’t have an outdoor ceremony at that time of year, it made it quite problematic to find a venue that would host both ceremony and reception. Churches are out for us and that doesn’t leave much else in terms of ceremony locales.

So here we are, not much closer to a wedding venue than we were when we first started looking in July.

There is a light at the end of this tunnel of darkness though. We found out a month ago that most of MM’s friends would be deploying while he is away or just after he gets back. Because it is very important to both of us to have them there, we’ve chosen to delay. Again.

New date? May 15, 2010.

So now we can go back and relook at places that would be mainly outdoors. At least for the ceremony.

Stay tuned! :-)

Keep Reading ...

Our Circle of Life

As a graduate student, my specialty is sociology. I study people in groups... their behaviour, their expectations, their relationships with others. And given this choice of field, you’d probably jump to the easy conclusion that I love people, have an active social life and I have a ton of people who would want to attend my wedding.


You’d be mostly wrong.

MM and I discovered this when we started making out a guest list for the wedding. Even by stretching the numbers a bit and hoping that most of who we included on the list would actually attend… we ended up with 45 names.

45. That’s it. The sum total of who he and I know.

First of all, I should point out that I’m an orphan (by choice, but that’s a whole other story). Because of this, I don’t have siblings or parents to consider or include in our plans, let alone their family and friends. All those great-uncles, distant third cousins and dad’s former boss that get put on other people’s guest lists? Absent on ours.

On MM’s side, he has divorced parents and a brother. His brother is the best man, and his parents will be invited (along with their current significant others).

Add to that lives that have had both of us move around a fair deal around Canada, him because of army life and me because of… well.. life.. and it means that ties to friends are often tenuous and those people have a tendency of slipping away from us.

So between the two of us, our combined circle of friends and family who would want to attend our wedding comes out to 45 people.



This seemed to be a good number though. Smallish, true, but still enough to have a rocking party.

Or so I thought. Until we started actually working with Susan to find a place to hold our nuptial shindig. Then the problems cropped up.

...(to be continued next week)

.

Keep Reading ...

Round, Round, Round, Round, I Get Around

Actually, Tarriell does.

It seems one of her posts caught the eye of a researcher ...
Take a look .: over here :.

Keep Reading ...

I'm going to let her shine!

I just want to congratulate Autumn Bride. Hurray! You're a Mrs!
May your forever together be happy and healthy!So it's done? no more planning? no more stressing or dreaming about it, the big day happened! Woot! Congratulations to you and your new hubby.

As for my own stuff, well... it seems appropriate to just leave this post as a celebration of this honeymoon week for Autumn Bride. This is her time

My fiance and I are taking a bit of a break from wedding planning, after having made the tough decision to move the wedding date back (again!) to accomodate friends who are deploying overseas after MM gets back.

So I'm now a May 2010 bride.

I'm still going to be here though, no worries. I still love all things wedding and I'll be back in full force quite soon.

Hip Hip Hooray for brides, new and old, newly married and those like me dreaming and scheming about The Big Day in a somewhat distant future

Keep Reading ...

Reindeer games?

A-line, trumpet, mermaid, empire. Full skirt or figure hugging skirt? Chiffon or taffeta, satin or silk? And do I want beads? Lace? Embroidery? Appliques? Sweetheart? V-neck? Strapless? Halter? A train? How long?

The dress shopping has begun.

Now I knew there were lots of options out there. The wedding biz is big biz after all. I’ve seen the magazines and their ads, drooled over various designers’ websites, checked out the real brides’ dresses on various websites, and boned up on the lingo and prices.

I figured I knew what I wanted… the colour had to look good against my fair skin and as a backdrop for my crazy curly red hair. The cut and shape had to make my stocky Scotch/Irish frame look as hourglass as possible. The bodice had to lock and load my generous bust, keeping it firmly under wraps and hidden. Ideally I wanted a corset back to accommodate weight fluctuations and possible overeating on The Day. The skirt had to be full length and not at all ballerina-esque and needed a small train if any at all. I’m not a fan of chiffon so I knew I wanted satin or soft taffeta. Finally, I didn’t want the whole thing to look too plain but nor did I want to look like I’d stepped out of an 80s wedding. Elegant, glamourous, sexy, distinctive yet still me.

Seemed obvious and doable.

So, armed with that knowledge and an apparently respectable budget, I made appointments during this last week with a few salons that are nearish to my home town. I say nearish because apparently my town is the city that weddings forgot and there are very very few boutiques actually in the city itself. I resigned myself to driving up to two hours for one store that was doing a trunk show for Maggie Sottero gowns.

Upon departing said trunk show, I must humbly report that I don’t think anything quite prepared me for the sheer quantity of options overall however or incredulous attitude I’d meet upon politely informing the store attendant of my wishes and hopes.

Nor did all the advance research prepare me for the continuous crushing disappointment of being told that the 6 pretty dresses I wanted to try on did not come in Madame’s necessary size, or in fact in any size close enough to allow me to get it anywhere past one thick thigh. Apparently, a trunk show is industry lingo for “you must be Kate Moss to try these on”. I am not a size 0 (size 4 in wedding dresses) so I could not try on the trunk show samples.

I felt a little like poor Rudolph, who couldn’t join in the reindeer games.

I kept at it though and after 5 stores, I’ve found 5 decent possible dresses that bear little resemblance to one another other than the fact that they’re strapless and have ruching on the front.

None has jumped out at me though as The Dress. There have been no tears, no glow, no fast-beating heart or happy smile. All five would work for me, in five different ways.

But none has me saying “That’s it. That’s My Dress”.

So the search continues.
.

Keep Reading ...

Belles, bubbles and...ballet?

As I said last week, guys can surprise you. They will have opinions on things that you’d never expect and then be completely unconcerned about other issues.

The wedding dress is one of those things. I never expected MM to care much about what I’d wear, short of seeing me in some sort of dress on The Day. Being a typical Canadian guy, I didn’t think MM would really have many opinions one way or another of how I should look.

Yet again, I was wrong.

He caught a glimpse of my computer screen the day after our wedding planning chat. I was browsing a few of the big Internet bridal dress retailers, and had one dress in particular zoomed up on my browser window.

MM: “what IS that?”

Me: “Um.. it’s a wedding dress?”

MM: “What? Really? Where is the rest of it?”

Me: “Rest of it? What do you mean?”

MM: “There is no top on it!”

Now, this dress I was looking at was no Vegas-themed cut-down-to-there and slit-up-to-there sexy backless and short number. By today’s bridal dress standards, it was pretty normal. Done in pale gold silk taffeta, it had a strapless sweetheart beaded bodice, shirred waist, trumpet skirt with swirls of embroidery at one hip and along the hem and a lace-up corset back with chapel length train.

Somehow though, this fairly standard and current wedding dress style bothered MM. His “no top” comment was my key to understanding this newly perplexed man.

Me: “No top? Oh… you mean it’s strapless?”

MM: “Yeah. Strapless is slutty. Whatever happened to modesty at weddings?”

MM then looked directly at my face, down to my chest, then back to my face, ending up staring once again at the dress on my computer screen.

I got the confusion. Given that I’m busty, I too have worried about how I’d keep the girls “locked and loaded” as they say on one of my fave TV shows, What Not To Wear) in a strapless gown. But I’d seen plenty of wedding pics online by then to know that somehow women manage. I’d also read the stats in the wedding magazines that said something around 80% of gowns made today for brides were strapless. But, while I, too, found it a bit odd, I don’t think I found it as scandalous as MM apparently did.

Since then, he’s looked at dozens of dresses with me, online and in magazines. He’s commented on many of them, in very vocal terms, and he apparently has a whole repertoire of ways to describe female bridal fashion.

For a silky slinky charmeuse number:
“Too nightgown-y”.

For a full skirt confection made of multiple layers of tulle:
“Wow! ballet princess”.

Upon assessing a gown with gathered pickups all over the skirt:
“Why is the skirt torn up like that? Or … dented? Yeah, dented… it looks like iron kept getting caught in all that material. What is the deal with that?”

For a very lacey A-line with full crinolines underneath:
“Looks like a knitted toilet roll cover, like grandmas make”.

While I laughed at more than a few of these observations of his, they also stuck with me. Now, as I head out today to try on wedding dresses for the first time at a Maggie Sottero trunk show, I’m going to have a little MM devil on my shoulder, giving me a running guy commentary on each dress as they show it to me or try to coax me into it.

And I’m going to be worried about straplessness and whether anyone will notice the colour of my eyes or my earrings if I wear a strapless gown.

Thanks luv.

Photo credit: Toilet doll by Etsy seller lkscraftcreations

Keep Reading ...

What Men Want

Guys can really surprise you sometimes. You think you know them really well, almost inside out in fact, then they hit you with a new piece of information that has you going “whoooa! Never saw that coming”.

Or is it just wedding planning that does that to them?

This has happened quite a bit recently, in some surprising places. When MM and I sat down in a little village pub one evening a week after the proposal, we knew we’d be discussing wedding plans. When, who, how much and definitely what. We were able to quickly agree on our overall style and feel and a bunch of other details. Like a lot of guys, MM is pretty laid back about this stuff and tends to acquiesce to my vision of the way things should be. We both agreed that weddings can get stupid expensive if you aren’t careful and we wanted to have money left over from his deployment windfall to have a fab honeymoon and a nest egg for a house down the road. We agreed to cut corners where possible and not spend on un-necessary things.

But then the talk turned to clothing; specifically to how we and the wedding party should dress for the event.

And that’s where it happened...

Me: “I was thinking I’d go to a few consignment shops and check out their wedding dress section. You can get some really beautiful gowns cheap that way.”

MM: “Used? You were thinking of buying a used dress? Nuh huh, no way. Get a real dress”.

Me: “ A what?” … *lots of blinking as I scrambled to think of what to say* … “They are real dresses.”

MM: “ But they have been worn before right? So they’re used. Ick.” *scrunch face of disapproval*…. “No, You should buy a proper dress.”

While I was still reeling from this info and trying to figure out what it was about a worn-once wedding dress that caused him to balk so hard, the conversation turned to the male attire for the party.

Me: “What were you thinking of wearing? Your dress uniform”?

MM: “Gah! No, no way. *visible shudder* I’ll wear a suit, I guess. Or a tux, sure. And maybe my dress brogues from the uniform, because no civvie shoes can shine that hard. But no way I’m wearing my uniform”.

I suggested the dress uniform because I am proud of who he is and what he does for a living, and I wanted him to feel comfortable and be himself on our “big day”. Since he is a military man, I thought it logical he’d want to wear his uniform. The refusal and the shudder perplexed me.

Now, I’ve heard his take on being out in public in uniform before and I’ve seen it first hand while having coffee at a doughnut shop before work or grabbing groceries with him after work. The stares, the whispers, the frowns of disapproval, the weird people who pull their children away as if they’re afraid MM will go postal on them or something equally stupid. That is when he is in his “combats” as they’re called; the green camouflage-printed baggy pants tucked into dull black combat boots, the equally baggy jacket over a military green tshirt, all topped by a green felt beret with his regimental cap badge on the front crest area. However, I’ve never heard him react too much about his dress uniform. Granted, he rarely ever wears it. Being army, he gets to go to work in his combats (or “pajamas” as the guys laughingly refer to them, because of how comfortable they are). Other military branches have to wear their dress uniform daily.

So why not his dress uniform? Stares from non-military people at the wedding? They’re all family and close friends, it shouldn’t matter, right? Or was it that he figured he’d want to forget for one day the fact that he was a military man and just be a regular guy? Was he wanting to wear a kilt, since he is proudly Scottish?

All plausible possibilities. But as it turns out, none of these are the reason.


The reason? I asked.

Me: So why not your uniform?”

MM: “Have you seen the colour? That sickly pale green shirt? Ugly! And the jacket makes me look fat.”

And there you go. My colour blind and rather buff proud military man refuses to wear his dress uniform because the colour is ugly and he doesn’t like the way it makes his tummy look.

Yep, guys. They can definitely surprise you sometimes.

…more in this story about our wedding planning to come next week

Keep Reading ...