Brunch!

We will be having a post-wedding gift-(home!)-opening brunch pn Sunday, March 13 at 11am at Courtyard Restaurant (21 George street is the entrance), located in the courtyard behind Black Tomato Restaurant (11 George Street). We'll have a private room and will be able to order of this menu. The cost is $22/head but includes great mains, coffee, juice and luscious deserts. We will be asking for separate cheques. I hope you can join us.

Things come together

Everybody, we've been busy!

So, we've finally nailed down our menu, gotten accommodations under control, updated the info pages and maybe even steadied our nerves in the process.

We've arranged for all the food, with a big thank you going to Ottawa IWW who bravely tested a caterer for us. We have chosen to go with Middle Eastern starters like Hummus and Pita, Olives, cheese and other cold snacks so that people don't get too hungry while waiting. For mains, we are going with Rinag Foods for Indians classics including Malai Kofta. We bit the bullet and are going all vegetarian, but we will have a vegetarian option for picky children as well (probably mac'n'cheese, homestyle)

Accommodations have been messy with the hotel name change, but booking by email or by phone direct to Linda Thompson 613.688.6820 is working and bookings are being made. I advise anyone who has been waiting to book by phone as soon as possible. It is a nice place though and Linda has been great in working through the tech troubles.

The blog "pages" are up now, with one new addition, Timeline!, which lets you know what to expect time wise. I've always hated not knowing if I'm at the right place at the right time for a wedding and was working on the timeline anyhow, so I thought I'd post it for y'all to see as well. Don't forget to request music or take a look at our graphical down payment registry.

To be honest, by the time we got back to Alberta after a visit to Guelph, our nerves were starting to ratchet up a bit, with so much up in the air still. On the way back, we got to work on setting out a big task list and have been knocking them off, a few a week. I'm afraid to see my phone bill next week, as the 613 has been oft visited by my long distance dialing. In any case, we seem to have passed the halfway mark and are close to having the ceremony sorted and some other goodies too.

That's all for now! but I will update soon!

The Train is on Sale!

The Train is On Sale!

That is all.

It Suits Me!

No, really, it does. I bit the bullet and decided to have a suit bespoke tailored. As it happens, Raja Fashions of Hong Kong sends a two-man sales to team to stay at the hotel where I work every 3 months where they measure and photograph clients and then send the information back to head office. I had initially intended to buy consignment, but after searching a couple of shops, a couple of times, it was looking a bit grim - suits were either well worn in, or with only 10% of their price new, and considering they were typically designer brands, those prices were very high. I also considered local bespoke tailoring but talking to both shops here in town, it turned out that even for a simple design, they quoted me more than the price Erin's wedding dress.

I was a bit nervous about using Raja, even though I recognize the sales team from their previous stays, so I did some research. It turns out they are very well reviewed, by GQ and Esquire magazines, for instance, as well as by some sartorial bloggers whose eyes I respect. Though, I maintain my usual qualms about buying from places with poor labour standards, it turned out that any suit I can afford is Chinese-made. Either in the present, or a year or two ago for the last owner who is trying to recoup his investment at consignment. So I went for it. They made it a bit easier to get off the fence by cutting me a deal as a hotel staff member

Three months had passed, and I was starting to get curious. To make matters worse, they had no hotel booking at work for November as they had told me to expect. In fact, they had no future bookings at all! So I just decided to wait - maybe they had to delay because of the wild level of activity in Edmonton this November...

Well... my suit finally arrived at the hotel - but not with the Raja fellows - by UPS instead. But it did have a flyer attached explaining that they'd be at the Westin. Turns out they decided to stay in Edmonton during Grey Cup weekend and couldn't find a room with us. So I had to explain to my supervisors why my shopping was mailed to work and then wait all day long to go home to check out the suit in the box.

After the dinner dishes, I first tried on the custom shirt and it fit better than I could ever have imagined. Cuffs, collar, button holes, tails were all perfect and all in the right places - I've typically only ever had shirts where 2 out of 4 of these lined up. On the best, maybe 3 out of four. I'm still a little floored. Then I tried on the pants. Just as perfect as the shirt, though slightly wrinkled from their 10500km journey. Finally, I finished it off with the jacket, the item I was most skeptical about, since it is the most complicated of the garments and was the most travel-fuddled as well. It was great anyhow - the shoulders are perfect, the fit snug but not tight with no bulging or sagging (unlike my middle!) and it even catches the shirt collar just right without them fighting for supremacy, as my work suit does every day. Erin was super pleased and complimented me for some time afterward.

An odd note here is that I've realised that I am actually quite opinionated about suits and how they fit after 2 years in cheap work-uniform suits and that it was quite a relief and even a delight to have a suit that fits well. All in all I'm super pleased and may go back to them for for some pants for work and maybe a couple more shirts. Things are really starting to come together and Erin and I are starting to get excited. Stay tuned for a post from her about floral in the next week or two.

Info Pages and Invites!

You'll probably notice that the sidebar to the right ------------------>

has started sprouting links of late. The plan is to use that little menu to centralize information that is key to our guests - like transportation, accommodation, down payment registry info, music request sheet and things to do in Ottawa. Keep watching for new sections - I tend to write one and then let it simmer for a few days so before I edit and post, so they will be coming around weekly or bi-weekly.

In other awesome news, a trip to go out to look at invite ideas turned into ordering invitations this weekend as Erin and I were aesthetically pleased and pleasantly surprised financially by the offerings of Evergreen Stationers in the industrial south of Edmonton, a 70 minute bus trip from the house. Look for your invitation in the mail by mid January at the very latest. Yeehaw! (It's been Rodeo Week here, sorry)

Ottawa in August: Meeting our Officiant, Photographer and the Search for a Caterer

So an update is long overdue. In August, Brenden and I had a busy vacation in Ontario: Cambridge, Guelph, Elora, Grimsby, and Ottawa in about 10 days. I also headed to London for a night to reconnect with a dear friend I hadn't seen in a few years.

The Ceremony and our Officiant

When we were thinking of where to have our ceremony, I thought of the First Unitarian Congregation of Ottawa. When I lived in Ottawa, I was involved with the Ottawa Reconstructionist Havurah (ORH), which is now called Or Haneshamah. The ORH had rented the First Unitarian for High Holidays and I remembered the beautiful simplicity of the space. It also does not have any religious imagery, which works for our situation. With that in mind, I suggested the Unitarians to Brenden and we checked out their wedding services. It turns out that the Unitarians will marry pretty well anyone to anyone else.

Our first visit in Ottawa was with our officiant, Lay Chaplain Bob Armstrong. We met him at the Unitarian Worship Hall. This gave Brenden the opportunity to see the space for himself. Bob wanted a run down on our family tree and the wedding party. I thought I'd prepare him for the crowd and explained that our mothers are both lesbians and Bob was nonplussed, explaining that he married 2 women the previous week. So we are in good hands indeed! It was a comfortable meeting and Bob asked us good questions and was able to answer ours.


Our Photographer

I looked for a long time to find a wedding photographer, reviewing about a hundred portfolios. I narrowed down my search to a few contenders only to be surprised when some didn't even respond to my phone call or email. I made an appointment with Michel Gauthier. Michel is a gregarious bilingual man who lives on the extreme outskirts of Gatineau (as we found out busing back). We discussed our wedding and what we wanted: candid/photojournalistic style for most pictures and some traditional posted ones with our family. He has quite a mix in his portfolio and after a couple minutes, he could point out what we would hate and what we would love. I was also looking for someone who would include transfer of copyright for the photographs and this is standard for Michel's packages. We were thinking of having our wedding at 4pm. Due to the short days in March, Michel suggested that we take pictures before the ceremony or move up the ceremony. I wanted to take pictures beforehand but it turns out Brenden has gotten all traditional on me and will have none of it. So our ceremony will now be at 3pm.

Event Rental

Our reception venue provides the basic tables and chairs. The rest is up to us. Brenden and I had a couple of event rental companies that we wanted to check out. One company turned out to be quite sketchy considering that it didn't have a show room .After a bus ride to go the location of a mere post box for this rerenter (or mafia front, as the case may be), we eventually made it to the very real Party Time Rentals about as far away as geographically possible from the mail-box. Margie at Party Time Rentals was right on the money (that's wedding planning humour!) and we have a good idea of what we'll be ordering in March. I'm glad we visited because I would never have known that they're not open during weekends in March but we can just get early delivery without any trouble.

The Hunt for a Caterer

Considering that this seems to be becoming an Ottawa destination wedding, we wanted to go with Lebanese food. Ottawa is perhaps one of only three Canadian cities where you can order Lebanese food at 2am. We tried Garlic King. The food wasn't awful and one of their employees was a racist jerk, shouting at a Chinese patron that he was not ordering in English. Narrowly avoiding an antiracist meltdown, we slunk off, embittered. We also tried Shwarma King, one of Brenden's favourites. I like Shawarma King but I was concerned that the food might be a bit cold and they were clearly lacking some of my favourites (Baba Ganoush for example). We have another caterer in mind that has an extensive menu but we're waiting for an Ottawa taster response before we take the plunge.

Dress, Suit, Dinner & Honeymoon!

So, its been 7.5 months since we posted and to be honest, almost nothing happened that was worth updating until a week ago and since then - FIREWORKS!!

After a lot of deliberation, Erin and I decided to go to Bungalows Solecito in Barra de Potosi, Guerrero, Mexico about 15 minutes from Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo. We got confirmation of our booking today and are super excited. Its a great combination of quiet and an empty 12 km beach and a village a kilometre or so away. Not too many distractions, but things to do if we want to head out. We're heading there for 12 nights. Can it be March now?

Also after deliberation and many trips to the fitting room and much assistance from her great friends, Erin has chosen a dress. I only know the rough idea of the thing, but I'll let Erin post if she wants to give details. She has had shoes for months as well - mere mention of the name Fluevog will earn you a showing in my experience.

I have, at least conceptually, chosen a suit. I just need to work platonically from the Idea to it's less real image in our world. I'm looking for a black three-button suit with skinny black tie. Early 60s or late 50s bop Jazz man more or less sums it up. I have a lead, but my consignment store shopping accomplice did not approve. I may go back and get it anyhow. I'm thinking I have the flexibility of boutonniere or pocket puff. Shoes are up in the air for now.

Dinner will be middle-eastern. I would call it Lebanese, but a Syrian guest of ours would facetiously lecture me on the subject for some time. In any case, expect falafel, baba ghanouj, baclava and other delights. Any suggestions? I mean, if you're going to go all the way to Ottawa, you have to engage the local delicacies. I prefer the shawarma king, but would sample the delights of more out of the way locales in August if anyone suggests them. Poutine was suggested, but classier tastes (obviously not mine) pervailed. That's alright - we can still have a rehearsal dinner at Elgin Street Diner, right? (we'll see!) Tarte aux sucre and Unibroue's Trois-Pistoles beer are making the menu as an homage to our Quebec meeting. Wine is not decided - what goes with falafel?

The First Dance question, colours question and floral questions are still open. We'd love first dance ideas if you have them. We also need to set the ceremony particulars, but we'll need to meet with our officiant.

I'll be researching room blocks at union hotels in IHG chain (Indigo and Crown Plaza downtown). I know the business, but people's preferences would be awesome to know. I expect we'll be able to get it down to $89/night between wedding-related negotiations and the Friends and Family discount you all theoretically get through me. It's also a weekend in mid March in Ottawa, not exactly high season.

The ceremony will be at 4pm Saturday March 12, 2011, so this should give folks lots of travel time that day and we're thinking of doing an "opening" the next morning. We're re-orienting the gift ideas towards a down-payment registry (on different parts of the future house) which we'll announce here when its a more-fully-baked scheme.

Anyhow, that's all for now, though our fevered brains are feverish fevering with more ideas!