Books Books Books

I am a huge bookworm. I love reading a lot, and I would say that getting new books from the library is one of my favourite past times (yes, I’m a proud nerd). I’m also the kind of person who, if I’m interested in something, I will read about it obsessively. I’d say now that the Internet is, hands down, the best source for wedding information, but before I figured this out, I read quite a few wedding books. Even now, as a very internet savvy bride, I still like turning to books every so often. Here is a selection of my favourites.

All photos are from amazon.com

Offbeat Bride: Creative Alternatives for Independent Brides by Ariel Meadow Stallings. While the author Ariel and I have very different styles, it was wonderful to see how she made choices for her wedding that were right for her and her husband, without worrying about whether or not they were traditional “wedding choices”. Basically, she gave me the freedom to make my own choices. She also has a fantastic website called Offbeat Bride, which I love and has tons of great inspiration.


Emily Post's Wedding Etiquette by Peggy Post. I love etiquette books. I know it’s popular to think they are ridiculous, but I’m a big fan. This book really isn’t about place settings or rigid rules, it’s about creating a wedding that perfectly reflects you, but also allows consideration, respect, and courtesy for others. I especially love that Peggy begins the book by saying that she and her husband had a casual clambake reception and that Emily Post certainly would have approved.


Jo Gartin's Weddings: An Inspiring Guide for the Stylish Bride by Jo Gartin. I love this book. It’s full of gorgeous pictures and inspirations from some of Jo Gartin’s weddings. While books do become dated quickly, this book is full of ideas that will inspire you to push your creativity to the next level.


The Wedding Book: The Big Book for Your Big Day by Mindy Weiss and Lisbeth Levine. This one is just so jammed full of information, how could it not be helpful? Seriously, it's the most informative wedding book I've ever seen, with information and advice on everything from choosing a veil to wording your invitations to figuring out how to include cheeseburgers in your wedding menu.


One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding by Rebecca Mead. I know, it’s a strange book for someone so clearly in love with weddings to like, but I love reading this book to remind me that there is a business side to all of this and I need to be aware of my role as a consumer. It’s hard sometimes to remember that spending $1000+ on a dress you will wear once is outrageous, but this book helps me keep it all in perspective.



So those are a few of my favourite wedding resources. Do you have a favourite wedding book (or 5!)?

Favourite Places: St. Lawrence Market Antique Market

The St. Lawrence Market Sunday Antique Market is definitely one of my favourite places in the city. It starts at something like 5am, which is apparently when all the vintage clothing store owners and interior designers get there to snap up all the best deals. I am still always asleep in my bed at that point, but I've still managed to find some lovely stuff. I'm such a frequent visitor that I'm pretty sure I'll be finding many items for the wedding here.

Here are a few of my favourite finds (I apologize for my lack of photography skills):

A gorgeous little clutch I picked up for $5.


Another lovely clutch. This one was a bit expensive at $10.


I am completely in love with silhouettes and really want to figure out a way to work them into our wedding. I'm also trying to figure out where to put them in our apartment...I think Mr. Knitting is a bit annoyed that they appear to be living on our living room floor! I think I paid $12 for the both of these.


Broaches! I love bows (as long as they don't look too too precious!) and cameos. Each was less than $10.


Candle sticks for $5.

I didn't actually realize that I seem to lean towards items that are black, white, or silver until I saw all of these items together! Maybe I should think about that for a colour scheme...

Anyway, the market is really my go to place in Toronto for everything from jewelry and accessories to home decor and many many gifts. It's also just a really fun way to spend the morning (because, yes I am an old lady inside!).

What's your go to place in your city? Is it going to be incorporated in your wedding somehow?

Wedding Bling or My Very First 17 Diamonds

I am in love with my ring, which is a good thing since I picked it out. However, while it does have 17 diamonds, I’m not so sure one would describe it as bling. I'm generally pretty understated in terms of my style, and I think my ring is no exception. Choosing my ring was a relatively simple process since I did this before I learned about how many amazing wedding resources there are on the internet.

Anyway, I wasn’t exactly actively looking for a ring when I found this one (see I’m not totally nuts!), but I was aware I’d probably be in the market for an engagement ring soon. Hence, I was kind of keeping an eye out. Since I like lists, here’s a list of all the places I (sort of) looked.

1) St. Lawrence Market Antique Market. My go to place for everything and one of my favourite places in the city. I'll have a longer post on the market soon, since it's definitely going to figure strongly in my wedding planning process. I love the idea of a vintage ring. I would love to wear my mom or grandmother’s wedding ring, but as that’s not an option for me I was willing to settle for something vintage. Anyway, I kept an eye out for potential rings during a few of my visits, but didn’t see anything that would really work for me.

2) Tiffany. I have to admit I browsed on their website more than once. The store itself doesn’t really appeal to me, but I did like this ring quite a bit.


(Photo from the Tiffany and Co. Website)

Unfortunately, this ring was a lot more than we wanted to spend, so I moved on.

3) Birks. I was just, you know, casually browsing their website when I came across the perfect ring. Here it is:


(Photo from the Birks website)

Here's a photo of me wearing it:


(personal photo)

I loved the fact that’s it’s a bit different than a solitaire and slightly unusual but still beautiful and classic. I’m actually going to wear it as both my engagement and wedding ring. Keeps it simple for me!

I'm a bit sad it's not vintage, but ultimately I think it's better that way. This is a piece of jewelry I've become very emotionally attached to and I think it just gives me better peace of mind to know exactly where it came from (and who I can bring it to if something goes wrong!).

I'd love to hear from any of you ladies (or gents) with vintage or antique rings. Where it did you find your ring? What was the process like for you?

TV Land Inspiration

Shortly after telling my parents that Mr. Knitting and I were engaged, my father (one of my very best wedding co-conspirators) and I celebrated by watching the episode of Friends that featured Phoebe's wedding. While I will probably concede that Pam and Jim's wedding is the ultimate tv wedding (for now anyway!), I love Phoebe's wedding because it has so many elements about it that I love.



Firstly, it's a winter wedding. Yay! I didn't really realize that winter weddings were uncommon until I started planning my own. To me, it seems like such a great time of year, so it didn't occur to me that not everyone agrees. Anyway, it was nice to see some winter wedding inspiration.

Secondly, I love that it's so low key. Her wedding truly is a community event, and that fact is underscored by the fact that Joey married them. I'd love to have a friend marry us.

Finally, I love that she walked down the aisle to the Beatles song Here, There, and Everywhere, which I believe was played on steel drums. I have loved that song forever, and after seeing that I decided to use the same song for my processional. The fact that I was inspired by (read - am flat out copying) something from a tv show is my dirty wedding planning secret. I generally try to be a bit more original. I think it's the fact that I have loved this song since I was ten made the copying okay for me. Plus, it's not like I'm also using steel drums. Although that would be awesome...

Anyone else have a dirty wedding planning secret?

Before the Engagement (a little bit delayed)

I guess this post would have made a bit more sense coming before the post on getting engaged, but oh, well! I suspect you’ll manage to follow along. Anyway, the Mr. and I met when I transferred to his school in the middle of grade 11 (that's how you say it in Canada). It was fortunate we had a mutual friend, because otherwise it’s entirely possible we would have finished high school without speaking. I had just transferred from a school of 150 to a school of 2000 which was pretty overwhelming and I was pretty shy. Apparently, other people were equally shy of me and as a result I didn’t get too know too many people there right away. The Mr. was even more shy than I was and it probably would have never occurred to speak to me.

Luckily we had a mutual friend who introduced us. I don’t know that either of us had any kind of impression on the other. I’ve heard that often the people who have to biggest effects on our lives are the people who seem so insignificant at first. This was certainly true for us.



Anyway, this friend also got me to join the Reach Team in grade 12, of which the Mr. was a member. The Reach Team is a team that competes in trivia competitions. That’s right, no cheerleading or newspaper for me; I was on the trivia team! We're both quite nerdy and bookworm-ish and proud of it. You can see us having a blast at the Natural History Museum in the photo. Anyway, as we slowly (very very slowly) got to know each other over our grade 12 year we became friends and eventually began to date.

And now, 6 years later, after many late night walks, times reading together in bed, travelling to New York and Tobermory, doing Sudokus on the couch, meals of sushi or Indian food, moving in together, and lots lots more, we’re getting married!

Most Exciting Dramatic Proposal Story EVER!!!!

Just kidding. I do not have an exciting proposal story. We’re just not that kind of couple. Mr. Knitting and I have been together for six years and planned to eventually get married for probably about the last four. Actually taking the step of being officially engaged was a matter of me deciding that December would be a nice time to get married and since December 2009 was too close, it would be December 2010.

Why December? The month of December is probably my favourite time of year. I get this really cozy feeling and an intense desire to bake lots of treats for the whole month. Okay, to be honest I pretty much always want to bake lots of treats (see photo of my devilish looking baby sister and yummy peanut butter chunk cookies), but this is especially true during December. Anyway, since it’s my favourite time of year it seemed like an excellent time to get married. To me (and probably many people) it’s also very much a time of year that’s about family and what is more about family than a wedding?



I ran my plan by Mr. Knitting and being the easy going agreeable guy that he is, he agreed that that would be a lovely time to get married. We went out to buy the ring I’ve had picked out for months. That’s right, I already had a ring picked out months ahead of time. That’s actually one of the reasons that I figured we needed to get on with getting married. If you already live together (we do), know you intend to spend your life together (we did), and even have a ring picked out (check), then perhaps it’s time to get on with the wedding. I should also note that the fact that my father made it clear he and my mother would be able to help with the finances definitely was a factor as well.

After buying my ring we celebrated with take out from our favourite Indian food place and that’s about it! So that’s my ever so fascinating engagement story. No it’s not great story telling, but it is very us. Simple, straightforward, lacking in pretense, and planned pretty much entirely by me! However, I do sometimes feel a bit of pressure to explain to people that just because I don’t have a super traditionally romantic proposal doesn’t mean that I don’t have a loving and wonderful relationship. Even though I know logically that this proposal was absolutely what I wanted, it can be hard to explain to others sometimes. Anyway, I’ve decided not to be insecure or feel like I have to explain anything. I’m just going to be proud, happy, and excited!

Anyone else proud of their pretty pragmatic proposal story?

*I should note that I have nothing against more traditionally romantic proposals and think they can very lovely, they just aren’t for us.

Hello!

Hi everyone and welcome to my blog! I got engaged to the best man ever (I know, everyone says that), in October 2009 and we're planning our wedding for December 2010. Actually, I guess it would be more truthful to admit that like many couples we're a bit of a stereotype in terms of we're not really planning the wedding. Rather, I'm planning the wedding, and running my decisions by the Mr. The Mr. is a Neuroscience Phd candidate and for some reason (totally unfathomable) he's just not too concerned about what font goes on our invitations.

Anyway, we're planning a very cosy, Christmasy (I swear it's a word), detailed, family oriented wedding on a very limited budget in downtown Toronto. This means I have to be pretty creative with everything and that I also have to be pretty selective. It's also very important to me that this wedding be highly personal to who we are as a couple and on this blog I'll be highlighting all the ways we'll be doing this.

I hope you enjoy!