blah blah blog

Sorry. I totally forgot to post about my wedding day. I feel like such a slacker!

The extremely quick version? It was a perfect, emotional, wonderful day. G and I cried so much! It was lovely lovely lovely. Clare posted a hilarious run down with pictures of the entire day, and 2_cheeks posted lots of decor and food pics. That should tide you over for the next six weeks :)

Oh yeah, yesterday was my birthday. I'm 27 years old and have a husband - just like that. Nutso!

Well, it's now Thursday, 5:00AM, and I'm supposed to be up in 4 hours. We're flying away for our honeymoon today. I still don't know where we're going - I'll find out at the airport what our first destination is. Yay!

Okay, birds are up. I should sleep. My next post will be from a mystery location! ooooh!

Hello!

I'm officially posting on my wedding day. How funny is that? Don't ask me where I'm posting from, but I'll tell you that I'm at my own home, alone, in attempts to have some form of sleep tonight. We'll see about that. I thought it might be a good idea to record how I'm feeling right now.

This engagement thing has been really odd - such a weird form of commitment limbo, you know? I'm happy to finally be Greg's wife/spouse/married partner, and no longer a "girlfriend" or "fiancee". I was starting to get really sick of "fiancee". It's such a pretentious sounding word, don't you think?

I'm feeling really really really good. I haven't had any issues with nerves or cold feet (even though I'd mentally prepared for them - thanks to "The Conscious Bride" for the prep), or any weird feelings about getting married. I guess there's still 13 hours to do that. hehehe. But yeah, I think if anything, I feel so much BETTER about getting married, and eventhough I didn't know I could - I feel even better about marrying this boy. He is totally my lobster.

I didn't end up doing all the things I had originally planned to do to fix my appearance. I hadn't done any waxing or threading like I'd intended to. I started my teeth whitening program way late and not strong enough. My skin looks terrible (three large zits and lots of ugly areas) and dry (bad for makeup). I just did a little bit of maintenance tweezing about 30 seconds ago, so at least my armpits are okay and my eyebrows aren't all over the place. Anyhoo, so yeah, my point is that I haven't really put much special attention to my self-care in order to look my best. I did end up going for my spray tan to hide my tanlines a bit (it was fab!), and went for a manicure and pedicure today - so I'm not totally gross :P The really great thing about all this is that I really don't care. I figure my makeup artist can fix my face, and no one will notice any of the rest of it. I've got the dress and shoes and hair and make up covered - I'll already look 10 times better than I normally do.

I'm in this awesome zone of calm. Several people have told me that I'm really calm. I don't really know what to say to that. "Um, well, actually, I just killed a hobo to release some frustration." Probably not cool. But anyway - I AM really calm. If I was working with me as a planner, I'd be pretty pumped, if I do say so myself :) I guess tomorrow might be different, but I'm feeling really great right now. I am so very excited! I can't wait to get this show on the road!

I suppose this will be one of my last posts labeled "wedding" that will be about my own. Awesome.

good night all!

I just booked an appointment for next Thursday at this place. I was wooed by their "No Orange Guarantee"! hehehehe!

I've knocked a few things off the list today, my first full day off work. Still lots to be done, though.

less than 10 days!!!!!!!

I had my hair trial this morning. I was kind of anxious about it because this is the hairdresser who keeps forgetting who I am, and left a message for me saying she was cancelling my booking on the 19th because I never confirmed. I had confirmed about 130 times. Fun.

Surprisingly, she remembered me, as well as most of the stuff I had talked to her about when I met with her 1.5 months ago. We came up with a style that will work well for my dress(es), face shape, height, etc. It's not really what I envisioned, but I'm okay with that. I don't have long, fine, blonde hair like most of the photos I'd shown her, so that makes sense. :P Now, let's hope she shows up at my parents house on the wedding day....

Afterwards was Kaitlyn's wedding at Hycroft. I forgot my camera, so I don't have any pictures, but it was a lovely wedding. It rained a bit on us outside, but it was only for a minute, and it will be a funny story someday I'm sure. There were several people who I haven't seen since high school. There was one I really wanted to talk to, but she was hanging out with Crazy (w/psycho boyfriend), so we didn't end up talking to her. I normally hate running into people from high school, but it was surprisingly not terrible to catch up with the others.

I've never planned or attended a cocktail lunch reception and there wasn't much structure to the wedding, so we were kind of confused as to what we were supposed to be doing other than standing, eating, and meandering through Hycroft. Eventually we heard that there was nothing else to be done (appies consumed, cake cut, dance danced), so we left.

We headed out to North Van to try to find a shrug/bolero/wrap for the wedding. I bought a wrap because it was simple and would work if I can't find something else - but I'll keep looking for something more comfortable to wear during the ceremony. If I don't, I'll either just wear the wrap or not bother if it's a hot day. My priest wasn't adamant that I cover my shoulders, but said that he'd really prefer it. I will take that as "don't dress like a cheap hooker in my church", and not "if you show your shoulders, I will not marry you." Let's hope I'm right.

We got home around 5:30ish, took a nap, made dinner, bummed around...not super productive. I've been SO tired over the last little while, and I can't seem to catch up. I imagine it'll just get worse over the next two weeks, as the first wave of relatives arrive tomorrow.

Two weeks from right this moment, i will be getting ready to leave my wedding reception. :D

Hey, remember Crazy from a few posts ago? Well, she's still crazy. She's extra-tasty-crispy crazy. She's contacted Greg again, and, well...I'm pretty sure this is the end for her.

Crazy, I hope you and your psycho boyfriend move somewhere far, far away. Don't come crying to G when Psycho gambles all of your money away and leaves you. You are not worth our time. Buh. Bye.

No, seriously people - I will have a HUSBAND in 2 and a half WEEKS! I will be a WIFE! i will have a different name! ADHGASDASKDJAAHHHHHH!

I'm so excited I could shite my denim pencil skirt.

2.5 weeks to go!!! EEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

Instead of favours, I just bought a buffalo! Fun! We've named her Grasmine.

Logo - purchased! It's pretty simple, but it'll look great on our menus 'n shizz.

Thank you cards - almost ordered! Final proof on it's way.

Appointment with our priest tomorrow! Different priest than before, but he'll be fine. I've heard he's nice, he's just hard to understand. Think Princess Bride priest, but with a heavy Polish accent.

Accessories - purchased! I love all of it.

Cheongsam - acquired! In my closet right now! Woot!

Decor - all up to my boss now. I think she's come to grips with how "meh" I am with my decor, so she's just going to do whatever works in the space.

Engagement prints - ordered! YAY! We ordered the wide shot of us walking near Science World as big as we could afford. It'll be nearly 6' long. OMG! We also ordered three of our favourites as much more reasonable 11x14s.

In progress:

- itinerary. Geez, I've had a really hard time with this for somee reason. i can whip up a decent itinerary for strangers in like an hour, but mine is painfully difficult. Maybe it's because I know the people involved :P

- marriage license - getting tomorrow!

- songs - oh, we're so close. More later.

- readings. gah! So hard to choose!

- RSVPs and menu choices. Ugh.

- seating plan. ugh ugh.

- stationery for reception

- cleaning the condo for guests. ugh.

- paying people. UGH!

- gifts for remainder of bridal party, parents, others.

I'm awake after 3.5 hours of sleep. Apparently, Tess said I'm not allowed to sleep in if Greg is not home. I have a feeling that I will really want to take a nap around 1:30 - right before I have to go to my shower. This is going to be a long day.

I just got home from teardown. My love/hate relationship with satin and taffeta continues. I never want to see an ostrich feather again.

Bridal shower in 8 hours. I have about 12 zits on my face right now. My back, legs, and arms are super sore. I need to sleep.

Sleep in the bedroom? Tess likely won't settle in her crate, since she's just spent the last 6 hours in there. But, it will be darker (it's daylight now), so I'll sleep better....if Tess isn't whining. Sleep in the living room? Tess could wander around, but it's super sunny already. Also, birds are loud. meh, I could probably sleep standing up in the elevator right now.

zzzzz.

It's a lovely warm evening here. I worked on a wedding for most of the day (9-5), ran some errands, came home and hung out with the dog. Took a nap. I'm heading back to the wedding for teardown tonight, so the nap was imperative.

Golden Spike Days are on right now. They're a pretty big deal in our suburb. In fact, Greg and I always talk about going, every year, but never do. Maybe now that we LIVE in this town, and most of the shows are within a 10 minute walk, we actually will.

Anyhoo, I've had the window open all day (well, actually, it's been open for a week or so - we're on the top floor), and I could hear the live music from Rocky Point all evening long. It's nice - I like the sounds of people having fun (except of the random "woooooo!" variety, that gets annoying after the second "woooo!"). For the most part, it was just generic background festival sounds. I decided to take a walk with the dog to cool off a bit, as it's smokin' hot in our condo, and I could hear the music more clearly. It sounded like a great band - they played a lot of Odds covers. I love The Odds! I thought to myself: "hey, I wonder what happened to them?" then I thought..."I bet they're not doing much...I wonder if that's them, haha!". Then I realized that they were playing a lot of Odds songs. Sure enough, it is The Odds! hahahhahaa! I SO wish I'd realized it earlier - I would have taken Tess down there for the evening. That would have been fun. Oh well, at least I got to listen to it on my walk. Who needs an iPod when you have The Odds playing for you live? hahaha!

On a bit of an aside, I love living here. I love my little 'burb. I love being able to take Tess for nice walks in a variety of places with a range of settings (urban, neighbourhood, hike, water), and that there is such a nice community feel here. I love the mountains. I love the quiet. I am cool with the trains (though, I HATE shunting. I dont' think I'll ever get used to that). I like being able to leave my door unlocked and not having to worry about it (though we always lock it when neither one of us is here). Yeah, I'm feeling the PoMo love today.

An hour and twenty minutes until I have to leave for teardown. Ugh.

Since my brain is broken and I can't write anything these days, here's a pointform update:

- it's friday! yay!
- I have to work tomorrow. boo!
- it will be a wedding with fab-U-lous decor. yay!
- Greg is out of town this weekend. boo!
- ...at his stag, which will be super fun for him. yay!
- I couldn't find the infamous Ping Ping Video for his friends to play for him at the stag. boo!
- my shirt smells weird. boo!
- my house is messy and I should clean it. meh.
- life is so much better without Evile Coworker. yay!
- only a week and a half left of work before the W!!! YAY!
- only 22 more days until the W!!!!! YAAAAAAAAAY!
- 22 whole days until the wedding. boo!
- my (second) shower is on Sunday! yay!
- lots of money is due in the next week or so. boooo!
- I got a biiig discount on some A/V equip for the W. yay!
- my dress fitting went well. yay!
- but I need to do something about my reeeeeeally noticable tan lines. meh.
- my W jewellery looks great with The Dress! yay!
- my cheongsam is ready for pick up! yay!
- Tess needs a bath. meh.
- it's going to be sunny all weekend. yay!
- cheap sleep clothes! yay!
- today is Greg's last day of work until SEPTEMBER! yay!
- I'm going to miss this crew of coworkers. boo!
- ...except for CrazyPants. yay!


hahaha...this post makes me sound insane. I like it.

My brain is so broken these days. We've been SO busy over the past few weeks and my head is still spinning. I imagine that it'll get worse before it gets better, even though the week looks pretty clear so far. Greg and I are hoping to do nothing but clean tonight and tomorrow. Hopefully that will help my state of mind.

Here's my disjointed random update on my world:

I'm so ready to be married. Waiting sucks!

Dragonboat Festival was....interesting. The mood was terribly low on Saturday. We had a really terrible race, and The Bitch was being...well, a giant bitch. At one point, Greg and I took Tess and sadded it out for a while. It's really quite frustration to put so much effort into organizing a bunch of people that can't be organized. Anyhoo, we made it through Saturday's races (sort of), went home, showered, napped, ate, and slept.

While we were napping/eating/sleeping...shit was going down! A bunch of people went out for The Bitch's birthday, and it got messy! Several people confronted her on her terribleness. Long story short, she wasn't there on Sunday - and it was gooooood.

Sunday was awesome. Everyone started out pretty low (after a rough, rough night), but then things quickly got better. We felt more like a real team than we ever have before. It was so much fun that I didn't really want it to end. We're pretty terrible at paddling, but that's okay. We still beat some people :)

What else? Oh, I had my stag a few weekends ago. We (bridesmaids, moms, me) went up to Harrison for the weekend. It was really great, nice and relaxing. I was so zonked for the few days afterwards, though. A full day at the spa, many hours in hot spring fed pools, and eating - who wouldn't be exhausted? hehehe. It was nice to have my people around me. I'm lucky.

I had a pseudo-shower last weekend. It was a tea instead of a shower. It was lovely. I have to admit, I was a little worried about it, but it was nice.

Greg's stag is this weekend.

Dress fitting #2 on Thursday.

I officially have July 9th to September 2nd off work. Two weeks left to go! Eee!!!

So much wedding/home/random stuff to do. Ack.

Our engagement shoot!

We're fierce. :)

(login: jasgreg)
(password: tessie)

( Tess is in love with a rubber chicken. )

G and I had an engagement session with our photographers on Friday. It was awesome. They are awesome. Not only are they supremely talented (seriously talented, check out their site), but they're fun to be around. Also, they do cool stuff. At one point, I was leaning against a rusty sheet of metal. It sounds weird, but I know it will be great. I canNOT wait to see the shots!

Taking this round of engagement shots got me really excited about pictures on the wedding day. The wedding day will be lots of fun regardless, but it's nice to have wonderful vendors. I really, really love our photographers and videographers. They are such nice, fun, warm-hearted (and uber talented!) people.

I think it's really cool that we have a few vendors that are married couple teams. Photographer, videographer, caterer. It would be lovely to work with your spouse in a career you both feel so passionately about, as our vendors do. You can see it in their work. They feed off each other, and compliment each other so well.

53 days. That seems like no time and eternity all at once. I wanna be married to this boy already! sheesh.

He's great. He's not perfect, but he's certainly closer to perfect than I ever will be. I'm a very lucky gal. (ew, I hate the word "gal") He'll be a great dad someday. Someday.

I'm really interested to see how things change once we're married. Things changed the instant Greg asked me to marry him, and I imagine things will be different when we're heading back down that aisle. I know it will be good. Actually, scratch that - it will be awesome.

When the wedding gets me down, I think about walking down the aisle, and seeing him waiting for me at the end. I think about calling him my husband, and him calling me his wife. That makes me intensely happy.

Friday:
- dog swam for the first time
- at Ramen at Ramen place on Barnet
- worked on invitations

Saturday:
- so freaking hot
- was reminded that my whole family is completely insane
- went for extra long walk with Tess at Bert Flynn (just me and her)
- had some of G's friends over for a bbq
- fire alarm went off during BBQ, had to evacuate
- ate sausages
- had headache that put me to sleep

Sunday:
- woke up at 5:30 to another fire alarm, evacuated again
- couldn't go back to sleep until 7
- woke up for reals at 11:15 (ugh)
- still hot
- went to cousin's wedding shower
- was offered about 100 times to do shots of whiskey
- watched grandpa do shots of whiskey with aunts/cousins/cousin's friends
- talked about how weddings suck with cousin
- Greg and Tess almost got eaten by bears*
- watched Rent
- ate creamsicles

Tomorrow is another day off (yay Victoria Day!) so I will go the states to shop with my sister.

*okay, well not eaten by bears, but Greg did see a mama bear and two cubs while walking at Bert Flynn. They were blocking his path near the end of the trail, so they had to go allll the way back the same way they came, making really loud noises the whole way. I will buy Tess a bear bell collar very soon.

I'm dogsitting Ginger today. She only 6-7 months old, and she's already 50 lbs! She's so much fun. More pictures (and a couple videos of one-sided tug-o-war) on Flickr (click picture to view).

I came home from picking up dresses and hanging out with 4/5 bridesmaids on Thursday night to an empty condo and this...( attempt at an lj cut )

She gets so excited about her toys, she can't stand it. Also, that's the gremlin sound I always refer to. Funny dog.

edit: oh yeah, and she doesn't like to "give it up" (her command for "drop"), either. She usually lets it out of her mouth for a second, and then as soon as you try to grab it, she picks it up again. Stoopid girl. :)

edit again: yes, that's a fake bag of chips she's playing with. hahaha.

Another full weekend! I think that this is just the way things are going to be over the next couple of months. It's great, but I'm exhausted!

Friday:
- off work! yay!
- Dog park with Meg and Ginger.
- Returned a dress at Plum, bought a new one (bottom right, in yellow and black). It came in green/black, but resisted the urge to buy it because I already own a printed emerald green and black dress. It was hard, but the yellow one looked better on me anyway.
- Perogy night at the Ukrainian Church at Main and 10th with some clerks and clerk friends. OMGSOGOOD! We're SO doing that again!
- Drinks at Sigz. odd, small place. Good company (same perogy crew).

Saturday:
- Marriage Prep class, part 2 of 3. Less enjoyable than part 1, but not bad. Topics discussed: God in your marriage, getting married in the church (what to expect, what needs to be done, etc), what happens AFTER the wedding. The "getting married in the church" portion made me glad that we're not getting married at that particular church - the associate priest is quite, uh...jaded.
- quick stop at jewellery place in Kits. While parking, we had a run in with an absolutely idiotic cyclist (who was getting yelled at by mulitple people, it appeared). 99.99% chance she will be struck by a car within the next 12 months - I guarantee it.
- walk at an off-leash area at the top of Heritage Mountain. It was nice to find an entire off-leash trail to walk with Tess so we could get some exercise, too.
- Hon's take-out. Chicken wings in spicy salt, fried rice noodles with beef, chicken potsticker. mmmmmmmm.
- Poker tournament at Paul and Ashley's (friends of Meg and Dave). Tournament was weird and kinda disorganized, but it was nice to play with humans again. I really miss playing poker. I don't even play online anymore :( (G and I have chosen to spend time together, rather than play, but still...I miss it.) Greg got drunk off cheap beer.

Sunday:
- Greg made blueberry buttermilk pancakes that were SO GOOD. Seriously yum.
- first dragonboat practice (missing nearly half the team. ugh. this isn't going to be good). It was so nice to be on the water again. I really enjoyed DB back in the day, and rowing after that. I hope that getting back into it will motivate me to do this every year, even if we don't put together our own team. I'm pretty darn sore, though. I forgot how hard it is on my wrists, and didn't even think about my back. Oh well.
- walk at Vanier followed by the dog park. The dog park there is awesome. It's not quite as nice as Buntzen, but it had a lot of Tess-appropriate dogs (i.e. dogs of all sizes that are used to small, spunky dogs that think they're bigger than they are) who were willing to play with her.
- poutine (and a smokey for me) at Belgian Fries. mmmmmmmmm/uuuuuuuuuuuugh.
- naps (all of us, at different times)
- watched bits and pieces of the crazy Stars/Sharks game.

A very good weekend. The busy part was mostly self-made I suppose, and I like it. I like that we rarely sit around on weekends anymore. I think that Tess forces us to get off our asses and be more active.