We Got Married!

We're off on our cozy Christmas honeymoon tomorrow, but I just wanted to stop by and give you a little preview of the Knitting wedding. It was a fantastic, personal, vintage, and very cozy wedding and I can't wait to share all the details with you.

Proof that we survived our (freezing) outdoor photo shoot with the incredible Josh Levinson:


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And here's a guest photo that I love so much I made it my Facebook profile pic:



I'll be back after our honeymoon with some posts I didn't get to before the wedding and then recaps! I can't wait and hope you can't either (even if that is a bit obnoxious and self centered of me!).

Oh and while we did get a lot of really lovely and generous wedding gifts, I thought you would all appreciate how much I love this one from my MOH:


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Matryoshka measuring cups! Perfect right?

Twas the morning of the Knitting wedding...

Like many brides before me, I'm still a bit in shock that this day is finally here, after planning for it for so long. We've spent the last week in a whirlwind of wedding activities concluding with a truly amazing yoga class last night with so many of our favourite people.

Here's us ready for yoga last night:



There's definitely a lot of emotions surrounding this week and this wedding, but what I feel most is grateful.

I am grateful to have had access to such a wonderful community of brides on this site. Your feedback, suggestions, and kind words have meant so much to me and without all of you this wedding would not be half as nice (or detailed!). I am deeply appreciative and feel honoured to be part of this community.

I am grateful to have such a supportive extended group of friends and family that are making this wedding possible. I really wanted this wedding to be a truly community centered event and it really is. Almost every part of it from our jam favours, to our ceremony music, to our dessert table has been made possible by our incredible group of family and friends.

I am grateful to my immediate family in ways I could never adequately express. I am insanely lucky to have been born into the family that I was. There are no words for how awesome my parents are. My sisters are two of the best people I know. They have all bent over backwards to give Mr. Knitting and myself an incredible wedding and I am so grateful.

Most of all, I am grateful to have found Mr. Knitting. He is the best person I know and I can not believe how fortunate I am to have him.

This is me signing off as a Miss!

Love always,

Knitting

What to Read?

I've been so focused on our wedding that I kind of forgot about our honeymoon. Okay, I didn't actually forget, I just didn't really think about the fact that soon the wedding will be over and I will get to be on my honeymoon with my new husband.

As you might recall from this post we're having a pretty relaxed cozy Christmasy honeymoon. I don't really need to do much of anything to prepare for it, but one thing I did want to do is put together a reading list. While we plan on doing lots of active things like snowshoeing and skating, I suspect we'll also have lots of cozy reading by the fire moments and I'd like to make sure I have lots of good things to read.

Here's a few books I'm considering at the moment:

Cleopatra, a Life by Stacey Schiff


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This book seems to be everywhere right now and I'm taking that as a good sign. Even Martha is recommending it!

Queen Elizabeth: the Queen Mother by William Shawcross


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Since the William and Kate engagement announcement, but I've reading a lot of British royal family biographies. I also just got it out of the library and it turns out it's the biggest book ever. I'm not kidding. It's hilariously huge.

The Postmistress by Sarah Blake


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I'm always on the lookout for amazing fiction and I've heard good things (that's code for it had was displayed prominently at Chapters and I'm easily influenced).

In an ideal world I would have never read any of the Harry Potter books before so I could read them all on our honeymoon. It seems like heaven to read them snuggled in some gorgeous cozy library with a fire going after a day of snowshoeing and skating. Although, if that was the case then there's probably a good chance that I would spend all of my honeymoon reading and completely ignoring my husband.

Do you have a really good fiction recommendation for me?

I (Mostly) Don't Care What You Wear to My Wedding

I know from reading an excessive amount of wedding blogs, that what guests wear to a wedding can be a sensitive issue. Wearing white is a huge no-no, tight and revealing clothes that draw attention seem to be problematic as well. I've even heard that wearing the same colour as the bridesmaids isn't the best idea.

I have to say, I really do not care what guests wear to my wedding. From my understanding, brides are often concerned about what others are wearing because they don't want attention to be drawn away from them or, in the case of the white dress, they don't want others to be mistaken for the bride. Here's the thing, I'm the bride, almost everyone at our wedding is very familiar with what I look like, and if not, they'll probably clue in during my walk down the aisle. I no matter what it's pretty take the attention away from a bride.

I also don't particularly mind if people's attention is drawn away from me every so often. Actually that sounds lovely. Basically unless everyone sits there loudly whispering about what someone else is wearing during the ceremony, I'm good. White dress, no problem. Cleavage, whatever. Belly-baring (hilarious!), but meh. Frankly, if someone arrived in a full on wedding dress, I think I'd find it very funny that that person was so clueless and self absorbed (and then I'd make fun of them later with all of you!).

Cleavage and belly-baring awesomeness:


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When I began writing this post I thought there wasn't really anything one could wear to my wedding that I'd be even slightly offended by, but it turns out that's not true. Show up to my wedding in a sweatshirt and while it certainly won't ruin my night, I will be a bit offended that you felt this was an occasion to wear a sweatshirt.

Not appropriate wedding attire:



All that being said, I personally would never wear white to someone's wedding because I know this is a very sensitive issue for others. I don't ever wear super revealing clothes, so that's not an issue. However, for me, at my wedding, I just don't care what people wear (unless it's a sweat shirt). Then I do care.

Where do you stand on this issue?

Reason #457 Why Mr. Knitting is Awesome

We're getting married next Saturday. Mr. Knitting has to write an exam next Wednesday. Yay, we're so good at planning. It's not an easy exam either. It's in something complicated like machine learning. At the moment he's pretty stressed and is studying all the time. He even missed yoga last night (that's a big deal for him). Still, despite all this stress, and the fact that he's not too concerned with wedding details, he finds time to help me make things like our programs, table numbers, family photo labels...etc. Tonight when he went back to his lab to study after dinner, he even asked if I needed him to do anything tonight.

This guy:



is awesome.

If anyone would like to send him good luck vibes for his exam they would be much appreciated by me!

Why is your guy awesome?

Way Beyond Above and Beyond

As you might recall, I have an amazing boss, JB. However, what she did for Mr. K and myself last week goes way beyond amazing. Very sadly JB's father passed away last week and she decided that despite her exhaustion and grief she would still throw the cocktail party she had been planning in our honour the very next day. To say that I was touched is a huge understatement.

The party was really wonderful. Jennifer hosted it in her gorgeous home which is decorated to perfection and full of art. I may or may not be very jealous of her home. She made it even more party ready by filling the ceiling with white and silver balloons and having lots of candlelight (which I heart big time).

Here's a look at the setting (keeping in mind these guest photos don't do it justice):









We were greeted at the door by this dashing man who would be serving as our bartender for the evening:



The food was of course amazing. JB made an effort to serve all the foods I love, which as a person who eats a mostly plant based diet with exceptions for salmon and dairy products on social occasions, is no mean feat! She served tons of sushi, smoked salmon, and lots of veggie treats. I sort of parked myself next to the buffet table and shovelled food into my mouth (because I'm classy like that).

Here's a look at the food table after we began attacking it:



I also have to give a special mention about the macarons which you can see at the middle back of the table. My co-worker Ike makes the most amazing macarons and I've been lucky enough to get to eat quite a few of his this last year, including the big batch he gave me for my birthday (best gift ever). They are such a delicious treat and the party would not have been complete without them. This particular batch was gingerbread. YUM. Let me know if you'd like me to try to get the recipe from him!

The party was very "me". Veggie food, a gorgeous elegant location and no games! While I'm happy to be a good sport and participate in games at other people's events, games are just not my thing. We had a lovely time just enjoying the delicious food, great wine, and each other's company.

Look at the fun:





Next JB gave a really lovely speech, followed by another speech by the head of our office. Their speeches were both really sweet and I am so grateful to have worked with these wonderful people for the past two years.

Okay, enough with the sappy. On to my present! Yay, things for me (okay, us)! In the next set of picutres you'll notice my face is bright red. That is how I look when I drink half a glass of wine. No blush for me on my wedding day!

Oh, lobster face...



Me having fun with the card:



Here's a look at our gift:


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Gorgeous right? It's a bread bowl from the One of a Kind Show. I had no clue what it was when I opened it because it comes as a flat piece of wood. Luckily Mr. K figured it out pretty fast:



I enjoy how it looks like I'm trying to give helpful suggestions when really my brain is really bad at figuring out how things work and I definitely had no helpful tips. Oh me...

Anyway, it was a really wonderful party, thrown for me by a really wonderful person. I have a nice picture of JB and me, but she hates being in photos, so I'm not going to post it. Rest assured she is an incredible lady.

How have people gone way beyond above and beyond for you and your wedding?

Yes, Raffi is Making an Appearance

Growing up, the month the December was spent sitting in our living room eating clementines, watching our Christmas tree lights flicker, while listening to Raffi's Christmas Album.


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I'm not sure how old I was when my parents bought this record (that's right, this was pre-cds) but it may have been around the time I was born. My sisters and I loved this album and used to dance around the living room to it when we were toddlers. As we got got older, the dancing lessened (a bit!), the record became a cd version, but we still loved this cd. This album really is Christmas for me.

Obviously, we needed to find some way to include it into our wedding. I didn't want to use all of it, because it is a kid's album (and it's shockingly not Mr. Knitting's favourite), but I definitely needed to include part of it. We decided to go with one of my favourite songs that has definitely featured heavily in dancing around the living room sessions:



There are more beautiful Christmas carols out there, but you can bet my sisters and I will be belting this out when it comes on. We know every word.

What songs really exemplify Christmas or your favourite winter holiday for you?

Curmudgeon No More

I used to be one those people that thought weddings were ridiculous overpriced affairs that were a big waste of money (I know you've come across a few in your planning adventures). I didn't have anything against weddings or marriage, I just thought that is was silly to spend a lot of money on something like that. My dad and I were shocked at the idea that anyone could spend something like $20,000 (or more!) on a wedding. Didn't these people have better things to do with their money? How did they possibly find $20,000 worth of stuff to spend money on? I wasn't super militant about this, and certainly didn't spend much time thinking about it, but when I did, this is what I thought.

After being with Mr. Knitting for a few years, I began on occasion to think about what I would want in a wedding. In my mind, a City Hall ceremony followed by a nice dinner for a few people sounded great. Our wedding could be a simple private ceremony that would be focused on us. Since my dad often encouraged elopement and my mom never mentioned anything to do with weddings, there was no family pressure to do anything differently.

My wedding role models:


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Now, a few years later, my ideas about this have changed pretty dramatically. While I still think a small City Hall wedding can of course be a lovely option, it's not the best option for us. What originally made me change my mind was the realization that Mr. Knitting's parents and my mom would be devastated if we did that (my dad would have supported us no matter what).

The mama likes to party:



My thoughts on the value of a bigger wedding have also changed. This isn't something I want to do simply because it's something our parents want. I no longer see weddings as a waste of money, but instead as a really valuable celebration that is worth spending money on (if there is money available for such a thing). There is something so wonderful about all your favourite people coming together to celebrate you as a couple. While I still don't want hundreds of strangers at our wedding, I do want our whole community there, which works out to about 100 people.

My conception of our wedding is no longer that it should be a completely private event. Instead, it should both reflect us as a couple, but also honour and take into consideration our guests. I know that they all think they're coming to celebrate us, but for us it's a two way street. We want to acknowledge how special they are to us by throwing this (hopefully!) great party. That's definitely something worth spending our time and money on.

I also think the ritual of a wedding ceremony is something that has really grown in importance to me. Mr. Knitting and I have been committed to each other for years and I definitely didn't need a ceremony or license to feel secure in this, but I do think there is something so moving about participating in a ceremony that our parents, grandparents, great grandparents...etc have all participated in. Okay, fine, none of them had old FGs or a wedding watch, but the idea of commiting to each other in front of all our favourite people is something that all our ancestors have done and there is something meaningful and powerful in doing the same.

My thoughts on an appropriate amount of time to spend on a wedding have changed. I still don't think it's a good idea to be completely consumed by one's wedding, but it can't be denied that I've spent a lot time on this wedding. This has been really great for me because it's been this wonderful creative project. The job I've had for the last 2 years has been a good job, but it's definitely not in a field I'm really passionate about, nor has it challenged me creatively. Planning my wedding has. I have had a wonderful time searching for ideas and then carrying out DIY projects. Yes, I could definitely have a wedding without all these details, but I have genuinely had a lot of fun doing these things. Oh and in case you're worried I've been consumed by wedding planning I've also spent the last year becoming a pretty great cook, volunteering at 2 museums, and have taken up a pretty intense yoga practice.

From a family point of view, I also think weddings are fabulous. My family is spread across Canada and it is weddings and funerals that bring us all together these days. Obviously we all prefer weddings! We are lucky enough to have a grandmother who finances all of us flying across the country to go to each other's weddings. It's fantastic.

Getting to spend some wedding time with my cousins:



Planning my wedding has also brought me closer to a number of my family members. Many of them are contributing so much to my wedding and I could not be more grateful. in addition, I've always been exceptionally close to both my sisters, but my wedding has really brought the three of us together as a unit, and I'd say that alone has made our wedding so worth it.

Knitting sisters (none of whom knit):



As for cost, that $20,000 doesn't seem at all as expensive as it once did. My dad and I now joke about how naive we were. If not for the fact that my dress and alterations came to $367.76, our photographer is free, there are no flowers at our wedding, my thank you cards were free, and a whole host of other things that one could spend money on at a wedding, my wedding would easily be over $20,000. Our wedding still is expensive, but I no longer see this as a ridiculous expense. For all the reasons listed above it's an incredibly worthwhile investment.

Oh, and my dad (the one that encouraged eloping) is one of my biggest wedding helpers. Some of the things he's done have included making jam for our favours, collecting mason jars for centrepieces, driving me to Michaels a lot (no I can't drive), encouraging every idea I've ever had, and solving pretty much every problem I've mentioned to him. He's pretty into this wedding. He's also a big Wedding Bee fan and reads lots of the other bees' posts. He's particularly partial to ones about money!

My Dad and me:



Have your feelings about weddings changed over the years?

We're the Kings of the Castle

Back in the summer I wrote about our dilemma as to who we should sit with at our wedding. Thanks to WB readers futuremominlaw and glitterashley23 (who pointed me in the direction of this post), we decided to go with a King's Table.

Here's a look at how the club will be set up:



Mr. Knitting and I will be sitting where those to Xs are and then our wedding party and their dates will sit on either side of the table. This image isn't quite to scale, since the King's Table will be quite a bit longer than shown, but it gives you a pretty good idea.

I'm really happy with this plan. They've never done a King's Table at the Faculty Club before, so we'll see how it works in the space. However, I'm really happy with this plan because it means we get to sit with all our favourite people, but they still get to sit with their dates, which was really important to me.

Who will you be sitting with at your reception? Did you struggle with this the same way I did?

Time for our Tasting

Today I got to have one of those lovely yay we're getting married moments! During lunchtime today, Mr. Knitting and I ducked out of work and headed to the Faculty Club for our tasting and to have a look at their Christmas decorations. The Faculty Club gets all decorated every year which means we barely have to do anything!

Were were greeted by these lovely garlands:



The always lovely club manager Leanne greeted us and sat us at a table that was located in a pretty similar location to where we'll be sitting for the wedding, so we could get a feel for what it will be like.

You'll notice I indulged my love of headbands and matched my headband to the Wedgwood walls:



We were then served some delicious chardonnay which Mr. K really loved:



You'll notice I used my excellent photography skills to match Mr. Knitting to the walls.

After that it was time to hit the buffet. Since we're serving turkey it made the most sense for Mr. Knitting and I to come to the holiday buffet at the club. This means we got to try all kinds of delicious foods.

Here's what Mr. K's plate looked like:



Obviously, this is not how the club plates dinner. This is how a hungry 24 year old tries to cram as much food as possible onto a plate. I tried to get a review of the food from him, but he kept saying it was "insipid." Not because it was bad, this was just his "hilarious" way of pretending to be a food critic. I gave up trying to get a real answer out of him after a while. He did go for seconds and said that it was the best stuffing he's ever had, so I think our guests can look forward to a pretty good meal.

Since I eat a mostly plant based diet with exceptions for salmon and dairy products on very rare social occasions (haha what a mouthful), I was not going to try the turkey, but instead had a sampling of the vegetarian and salmon options.

Here's a look at my plate:



We won't actually be serving any of the items that I ate at our wedding, but if what I had is any indication of the quality of the kitchen then I'm happy. Nothing insipid about my food! It was definitely a delicious lunch.

Lucky for us we got dessert too. Mr. K got some trifle which he calls splarf for some reason. Unfortunately we only remembered to take a picture once he was half finished:



I guess trifle does look a bit splarfy...I was assured it was highly delicious.

I couldn't decide on one thing and went with a little cake, half a mincemeat tart (which I was hoping was a butter tart), and a little nibble of blue and brie cheese:



Definitely all very delicious. We then decided to take a few photos around the club for fun. I'm a little obsessed with our venue. This isn't the first time I've taken a bunch of random photos of the club. It may or may not be the second time either...

Here's the view we had of the balcony that I'll be tossing my bouquet off of:



A sweet little tree by the buffet:



Look, it's our future dessert table:



Mr. Knitting decided to model how cozy the club will be (I think this is his attempt to look scholarly):



All in all, it was a really great tasting. The food was great and the staff and service were impeccable. For the servers at the Faculty Club this is their full-time well-paid job so they take their jobs really seriously, which means they are fantastic at what they do and could not be more nice and helpful. It was also really nice to spend some time in the club and the tiniest bit surreal to realize that the next time I'll be eating a meal in that dining room, I'll be sitting next to my husband.

I can't wait.

What was your tasting like?

Secret Life of Bees: Knitting Edition

My secret is pretty embarrassing, but secrets are only fun if they're juicy, so here goes. I love Sweet Valley books, particularly Sweet Valley High and Sweet Valley University. I think I read my first Sweet Valley book when I was in grade 1 or 2 and I was hooked. I started with Sweet Valley Kids, and then as I got older I moved on to Sweet Valley Twins, Sweet Valley High, and Sweet Valley University.

Jessica and Elizabeth = awesome:


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I was so excited every time I found a new book at the library that I hadn't read. Following along on the adventures of Jessica, Elizabeth, Todd, Enid, Lila, Bruce Patman...etc was fun. I knew at the time I was reading them that they were a bit silly and dramatic beyond words, but I liked them. I could suspend disbelief for a while. Plus they taught me things like to not do cocaine, date rape is bad, and that's it's totally reasonable to expect that you will fall passionately in love at least 15 times during high school.

I read these books longer than you might think. I'm not entirely sure when I stopped reading them, but it was definitely well into high school. I always knew they weren't exactly paragons of literature and hid my love of Sweet Valley books from my friends. I even did a book report on one in grade 6 and then pretended I thought the book was stupid when really I loved it. Oh me...

The book in question:


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Anyway, I had forgotten about them for a while, but this past summer my sister and I started reading them again and they are the most hilarious, ridiculous, bizarre books ever and I still love them, but in a different way. I love them partly because they remind me of my childhood, also just because they are so insane and crazy that it's hilarious. Jessica is clearly a sociopath, Elizabeth is annoying, and the story lines are INSANE.

Here's a pretty good example of the ridiculousness:

At prom Jessica is worried that Elizabeth (you know, her twin and best friend) will get to be prom queen so she spikes her sister's drink. Elizabeth then goes driving (because she is somehow unaware that she is super drunk) with Jessica's boyfriend, gets in an accident and kills Jessica's boyfriend. Jessica then blames Elizabeth for killing her boyfriend and proceeds to date Elizabeth's boyfriend in revenge, even though the boyfriend still likes Elizabeth. I think the story is resolved when an evil twin tries to kill Elizabeth.


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All is forgiven and the twins are still best friends. I have no clue how these two are possibly friends after all the stuff Jessica does.


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Apparently I'm not the only Sweet Valley fan out there and the books are slowly being updated for the Gossip Girl generation. I'm not really a fan of this in general because I think people should develop new ideas and not just remake old books. Recently I was browsing through one of the new books and was horrified to discover that the twins have shrunk! For those of you who don't know (although I be shocked if anyone who was not a Sweet Valley fan has gotten this far), pretty much every single book begins with the narrator announcing that Jessica and Elizabeth have matching gold lavalieres and perfect size six bodies. In the new books, they're now size fours, because I guess a size 6 is just way too big now and not perfect enough. What a great message to send to young girls.

Anyhow, while writing this post I've just discovered that a new Sweet Valley book is being published and it features the twins ten years later (they're probably perfect size 0s now).


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I'm so excited.

What are your favourite "embarrassing" books to read? Any other Sweet Valley fans out there?

Smooches or You Know You've Been Thinking About Weddings Too Much When...

Since my brain is a bit obsessed with wedding details at the moment I've recently been spending some time thinking about our first kiss. I suspect this is something most people don't actually plan (or, um, make their fiances rehearse. I may or may not be kidding.), but come on, I don't want us to have an awkward first kiss.

What not to do:


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Here's a few of our options:

The restrained yet lovely Mr. and Mrs. Taco:


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I saw this in Mrs. Taco's post thought this looked gorgeous. Restrained yet very elegant and sweet.

I love this one:


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It's so sweet and this particular picture reminds me 1940s war time romance. The problem is that Mr. Knitting is actually quite a bit taller than me so I'm not sure this would work for us. Also, if I put my hands anywhere near his face he's going to assume I'm going for the "Susan Lucci on Friends Kiss" and he'd probably do the same and then our kiss would just be silly (but hilarious!).

This is pretty much our normal kissing position so I suspect we'll end up with something like this:


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Something we will not be doing anything like is this:


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I love these kinds of kisses, but there's no way we could pull this off without looking ridiculous and/or me falling. I have a tendency to throw myself into a back bend and then be shocked when Mr. Knitting hasn't realized that he's supposed to be holding me up. Oops...Not so much what I have in mind.

All that being said, I don't think we'll actually plan out our first kiss. That seems like one moment that does not need to be scripted. It's just nice to have thought about it a bit so we don't freeze and do nothing or do something really awkward.

One thing we have decided on is that we don't want our officiant to tell Mr. Knitting he can kiss his bride. I don't have a huge issue with this more traditional wording, but it just doesn't feel like us. I'm the in charge go getter in our relationship, so for Mr. K to be told to kiss me just seemed odd. Instead our officiant will be saying "...I pronounce you husband and wife and invite you to kiss one another."

What was your first kiss like? Did you go with the more traditional wording or did you try something new?