Bakerella to the Rescue

I love vintage cake toppers. I think they're so charming and sweet. Here's a few examples of what I mean:


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However, no matter how many times I browsed through the St. Lawrence Antique Market and the vintage stores in Kensington Market, I couldn't find something appropriate. I only found things that looked like this:


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Not exactly what I had in mind. Now that we're less than 3 months out I was starting to get a bit concerned. Luckily I have WeddingBee to help me. I was looking through WeddingBee reader and board girl extraordinaire Bakerella's wedding pics and while I thought all her details were gorgeous, I was particularly jealous of her cake topper. Five seconds after I mentioned liking it, she offered it to me, and of course I said yes!

Here's the gorgeous couple (I love the bolero):


Photo Credit: Justin Demers of Stillmotion Photo and Cinema

and here's the adorable cake topper:


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I'm so happy about using this cake topper because (obviously) I really like it and because I love the fact that it was used in another WeddingBee reader's wedding. This community is so fantastic and while so much of my wedding is going to have been influenced and shaped by WeddingBee, it's nice to have a tangible reminder of how much WeddingBee has been a part of my wedding experience.

What's the story behind your cake topper?

Stuff We're Not Having

That's right, I got really creative with this blog title!

A little while ago I mentioned to another bride how we're probably not having a rehearsal and she was completely shocked. She couldn't fathom how someone wasn't having one and felt the need to go through the whole, "OMIGOD, I can't believe you're not having a rehearsal. How will the wedding possibly go right?" spiel.


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Apparently she's used to one specific type of wedding and was shocked to hear that different people do things different ways. Good thing I didn't tell her about my flower girls or Mr. Knitting's wedding watch! I think she realized a couple seconds after that that was a rude thing to say to me and kind of backpedaled on all of that, but it got me thinking.

There are lots of things people include in their weddings that I'm not a fan of. Similarly, there are lots of things I love and think are completely essential that other people aren't interested in. However, I would NEVER make a negative comment about someone's wedding to their faces. There's no need for that and that would just make me an annoying bitchy person. Similarly I don't care if someone else doesn't like the choices I've made for our wedding, but there is no need to say anything about it to me.

Not my role models:


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Anyway, I'm happy with and proud of all the choices we're making for our wedding so this individual's comment didn't really upset me, but it was rude and annoying. It was also surprising for me because I spend so much time on WeddingBee where we're all making our own choices and we all (usually!) respect the fact that other people make different choices than us. Anyway, for fun I thought I'd list some of the other things that the wedding police might come after me for, but that I'm personally very happy about:

A Rehearsal
We don't really need one. Our ceremony isn't the slightest bit complicated. We'll probably block it out about 10 minutes before the wedding. We do like eating food though, so we will have a dinner with our immediate families the night before. We also have something else pretty exciting in the works and I'll tell you all about it once it's finalized.

Save the Dates
We've told people when our wedding is and that they can expect an invitation. That's enough for us. This decision was made based on laziness, money, environmentalism, and the fact that I've never actually personally received an STD (that's what she said!).

Invitation Components
I'm ridiculously excited about our invites, but they are comprised of literally one piece. No maps, no directions, no RSVP cards...nothing. I'll explain more in a few weeks once we've actually sent them out.

Wedding Ring for Mr. K
I wrote about this here and here, but the short story is that he doesn't love rings and has bony knuckles so we bought him a watch instead.


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Garter Toss
No one is going under my dress in public. I would die of awkwardness, especially since my Ukrainian grandfather would probably make all kinds of really embarrasing comments. Once when I yawned in front of him he told me I was probably tired from being "busy" the night before, except he didn't use the word busy.

Tuxes
I got a bit bullied at a wedding show when I said that I didn't think our groom and groomsmen would be wearing tuxes that co-ordinated with our fathers. Mr. Knitting likes his suit so they're going to wear suits. Easy. I'm not sure how the suit company thought they'd get a sale out of me by bullying me.

Matching Bridesmaids Dresses
This would have also been difficult for me to coordinate because of a variety of body types and budgets. I also just prefer a not so matchy look, so that works out well.

Flower Girls
I wrote about this here, but basically my FGs are old (in a cute and adorable way!).



There's probably lots more, but again, I don't care. Our plan with the wedding is that everything is there because we want it to be and because we think it adds something to the wedding. My family is really not "traditional" and have no preconceived notions of what our wedding should be like, aside from the necessity of an open bar (That's my mom. Have you seen her wedding cake companion?)!

What are the wedding "essentials" that you aren't interested in? What's the most rude or annoying comment you've gotten about your wedding?

My Name is Miss Knitting and I'm a Crazy Person

My family and I traveled to Edmonton last weekend for my cousin's wedding. It was a beautiful wedding and we all had so much fun. If my wedding is half as full of love and fun as theirs, I'll be thrilled.

My sisters and I in action:





BUT, I kind of realized what a complete crazy person I am. I got so stressed on the day of the wedding because members of my family were slightly late. Not even late enough for us to actually arrive anywhere late, but slightly later than we had agreed on and it completely stressed me out and turned me into an unpleasant person. NOT COOL.

Now I'm terrified I'm going to behave like this at our wedding and I really don't want to. It's not a fun feeling for me and I'm pretty positive it makes me a huge pain to be around. If I allow insignificant things to bother me to such an extreme there is no way I'm going to enjoy the day.

I am now trying to think of good strategies to avoid becoming a complete crazy pants on our wedding day. I think my favourite so far is reminding myself that everyone will be so mad and annoyed with me if I act all mean and stressed out. I really don't want that to happen because that will mean a lot of my favourite people will not enjoy our wedding because they'll be stuck trying to deal with the Knitting Monster!

Are you worried about your stress levels at your wedding? How do you plan to deal?

Our Own Silhouettes

Look at what I got Mr. Knitting to make me:





Yay for silhouettes of us! I'm so excited. As you might remember from this post I am a huge fan of silhouettes. I've been toying with the idea of using them in our wedding almost since the beginning, but I still haven't completely worked out how I'd like to do that. My current #1 idea is to use them to make a guest book alternative. On a recent flight I treated myself to Martha Stewart Weddings (love!) and came across this idea:


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The picture is pretty small, but if you follow the link you can see the PDF really clearly. Basically it's a poster with your names and wedding date that all the wedding guests sign on nice neat lines (appeals to the control freak in me!). You can then frame it with an Ikea frame and display it on your wall.

I really like this idea, but the Martha design doesn't really appeal to me. I'm thinking instead of designing something similar using our silhouettes. And when I say designing I really mean making some vague mock up on the computer and then badgering Mr. K to fix it for me because I don't understand computers!

The thing is I'm not sure if I want to do this because I would genuinely like something like a guestbook, or if it's more because I'm having fun with paper projects (more about these once I'm actually done them) and "designing" things and want to make use of these silhouettes. Maybe it doesn't matter...

What's your favourite version of the guestbook?

Thinking About the Food

I (like many people) love food and have been very excited about choosing the food for our reception.

My love of food in action:



One of the reasons I loved the Faculty Club so much was that they offered such a huge selection of food options, where as a lot of other places I looked at had set menus with very limited options. Interestingly, since I booked with the Faculty Club, they've come out with these set wedding packages and I have to say I don't like them at all. I am very relieved that I am not stuck with one of those. The packages are good in that they're very afforadable, but they're really not what I had in mind.

My main goals with the menu were to make it delicious (obviously), simple, reflect our tastes and the season, and to have really good options for the vegans in my life. I really want our wedding to be one where the vegans can actually enjoy the food they're being served. Here's what we've come up with so far.

Before the Ceremony
Hot Apple Cider

I've unfortunately determined that the hot chocolate bar is simply too expensive for us. I also suspect that more of our friends and family will be interested in apple cider than they will be in a super adorable hot chocolate bar.

Cocktail Hour

Sweet Potato Fries
Vegetarian Samosas
Perogies
Crab and Brie in Phyllo Pastry
Mini Fish and Chips
Asian Spiced Salmon Skewers
Grilled pita (and gluten free chips of some kind) with hummus, babaganoush, olives, and sundried tomatoes

First Course
Borscht with dumplings

Main Course

Roast Turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce
Japanese Eggplant stuffed with Mediterranean vegetables, in a coconut milk
& curry sauce w/ fresh coriander (vegan option)


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Sides
Chef’s Choice Veggies
Garlic Whipped potatoes

Dessert
Our lovely dessert table

I waffled for a bit about whether or not to serve the turkey. I really wanted to serve it because it's a Christmas food, but at the same time I was worried that people would be annoyed that we are serving them their Christmas meal a week in advance. In the end, we decided that no one would be too annoyed with us for serving them turkey a week before Christmas and that we're the only ones worrying about a detail like that.

What's your favourite Christmas food?

I've Scheduled Relaxation for 4pm

I realized the other day that my wedding is about 3 months away. I then also realized that in the next 3 months I will be working my full time job, applying for grad school, planning a wedding, trying to find a new job (Did I mention my contract ends a week before my wedding? No? Well now you know), volunteering at two museums, writing for WeddingBee (which I love, but it does take time), and spending time with my friends and family. Sadly, spending time with friends and family is often the first thing to get cut. Unsurprisingly, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed and tired. Even little things like filling out forms so I can be put on Mr. Knitting's health insurance seem really difficult. Clearly I need to relax. Here's a few of my favourite ways.

Taking a hot bath and reading a book


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I do this pretty much every night and I love it. One of my requirements when Mr. Knitting and I moved in together was that I really wanted a deep bathtub with a "slanty back." Yes, that is a direct quote.

Exercise

This one is pretty straight forward. My exercise routine consists of either doing yoga or going to the gym in our building before work and using the bike or elliptical, doing a few stretches, and doing weights for about 5 minutes before I have to get ready for work. The exercise really calms me down and going in the morning helps to make me feel pretty productive.

Getting Things Done

I know for some people meditation and deep breathing work really well. Not for me.


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If I'm stressed and I try to clear my mind it doesn't work. I just spend the whole time thinking about all the things that need to be done. Instead, I find just jumping in and tackling a whole bunch of things on my to do list helps make me feel so much more productive and in control.

Watching Toronto Cop Shows and Playing Spider Solitaire


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Watching Rookie Blue and Flashpoint while playing Spider Solitaire is definitely one of my favourite ways to wind down after a long day. I particularly love how these shows are filmed and set in Toronto, because I get to spend most of every episode identifying where each scene was filmed.

Anyone else feeling a bit overwhelmed? What's your favourite way to relax?

I Have a Minor Obsession...

...with fonts. Who knew? I just spent the last half hour (okay more like hour and a half!) going through most of dafont.com and I am now officially font obsessed. Look how fun some of these are:

I love this one quite a bit because of the fact that it looks so vintage and elegant, but isn't too formal. It's a bit tricky to read a lot of it altogether, but it's definitely going to show up in one of our smaller paper projects for the wedding:


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I may have gotten slightly ridiculously excited when I found out that various typewriter fonts exist. We'll be using this one for our menus:


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This one wouldn't work for our wedding, but I love it and now want to host an Art Nouveau themed party so I can have a chance to use it:


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Another pretty script I like:


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There were also lots of Christmas fonts that I thought were a lot of fun, although I did pass on the one made of candy canes!


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These are really a tiny of selection of all the fonts I spent this evening drooling over (I'm very productive when I'm not at yoga class!). When you're a bit of a DIY dummy with bad handwriting, being able to make something pretty with a click of a button is ridiculously exciting!

What's your favourite font?

Making It Ours: The Vows

Figuring these out took us a while. As I wrote about here, we're pretty uncomfortable with public displays of emotion, so we won't be writing our own vows. However, figuring out what we did want to say took a while, because while Mr. K was very vague about what he did want to say, he seemed to find lots of vows "lame".

I, on the other hand, became very fixated on the idea of saying the wedding vows of the United Church because my paternal grandparents were married in a United Church and they had an incredible, happy, and long lasting marriage. I thought it would be so sweet to say the same vows they did over 60 years ago. However, Mr. K wasn't fan because he thought the language was too old fashioned, so we moved on.

A pretty remarkable couple and two fantastic role models:



At this point I figured we'd just wait until we met with our officiant to see what he might recommend. However, then I came across Mrs. Ribbons' post about their wedding and loved their vows.

“I, Ribbons, take you, Ribs, for my lawful husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and health, until death do us part.”

I had subconsciously written these vows off years ago because they're so basic and traditional. While I never grew up dreaming about my wedding (that's a pretty recent obsession!), I think younger me just thought nobody actually used these vows because they were "boring". However, as soon as I read her post I knew that these simple and traditional vows would be perfect for us. Clearly 20 year old me was a moron!

I then copied and pasted the vows in an email to Mr. K and asked if he like them. Here is the entirety of his reply:

"ya"

Later at home he confirmed he was happy with these, but was confused about why we would be calling each other Ribs and Ribbons. Oh boys/people not obsessed with WB!

How did you decide on your wedding vows?

Making It Ours: The Readings

One of the other (unsurprising) ways we'll be personalizing our ceremony is by choosing readings that really suit us. I love the idea of readings, but it was really hard to find ones we both liked because we're not gushingly romantic people and we're not religious, so that took out a pretty big number of possibilities. I also wanted to find something relatively unique, which I think we all know is pretty tricky in the world of weddings today! Here's what we came up with.

With the help of Indiebride and in particular this amazing thread I found this excerpt from Miss Manners Guide to the Turn of the Millennium by Judith Martin.


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"While exclusionary interest in one other human being, which is what we call courtship, is all very exciting in the stages of discovery, there is not enough substance in it for a lifetime, no matter how fascinating the people or passionate the romance. The world, on the other hand, is chock full of interesting and curious things. The point of the courtship — marriage — is to secure someone with whom you wish to go hand in hand through this source of entertainment, each making discoveries, and then sharing some and merely reporting others. Anyone who tries to compete with the entire world, demanding to be someone's sole source of interest and attention, is asking to be classified as a bore. "Why don't you ever want to talk to me?" will probably never start a satisfactory marital conversation. "Guess what?" will probably never fail."

I love this reading because:

1) I love etiquette books so this reading reflects that. I know that's pretty weird of me, but I like them!
2)It's not sappy
3) I like the fact that the language is a bit formal and dated, because I think it fits in well with the vintage feeling of our wedding.
4) It actually reflects how we both feel about marriage. We love the idea that we're partners, but that it's still up to us to remain actively engaged in our own pursuits, since that will ultimately make us better and more interesting people and spouses to each other.

As for our second reading I actually can't give you too much information on that because I have no clue what it's going to be like. My baby sister is a fabulous writer so we've asked her to write something for the ceremony. Knowing her it could be anything from a poem, to a story, to a full scale musical theatre production (I'm not kidding. She performed some of a potential wedding musical on one of our walks last summer!), or anything else in between.

My zany little sis about to go bungee jumping in New Zealand:



and here's an example of her, um, dancing skills (she's the one of the purple):



She was a bit nervous at first because I didn't really give her any guidelines and she was scared we wouldn't like what she came up with. I pointed out that the special part for us is that she is taking the time to write something for our wedding ceremony and no matter what we're going to love it. I can't wait to hear what she comes up with.

What have you chosen for your ceremony readings?

Making it Ours: The Music

I was inspired by Miss Cardigan's posts last week about how she and Mr. Cardy were personalizing their ceremony and I wanted to share some of the ways we'll be doing this.

One of the ways we'll be personalizing our ceremony is by choosing music that is uniquely us. Keeping with our goal of making our wedding as family centered as possible we asked one of my lovely aunts to play the piano for the ceremony. Here's what she'll be playing.

Prelude:

After guests get themselves some apple cider or hot chocolate they'll make their way upstairs to the lovely candlelit room where the ceremony will be held. My aunt will be playing a selection of Christmas carols at this point. I've given her free rein on those, so we'll see what she comes up with.

Processional:

I wrote about this here, but my lovely ladies and myself will be entering to Here, There, and Everywhere by the Beatles.



Interlude:

I'm not actually sure if our ceremony will include a place for this as the ceremony hasn't actually been written yet, but if there is my aunt will be playing "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini" by Rachmaninoff. I love this piece of music and used to listen to it over and over again when I was living away from home in high school and would get really homesick. I realize that being homesick doesn't have anything to do with our wedding, but basically it's a piece of music that I've loved for a long time, so that makes it special enough to be a part of our wedding.



Recessional:

I actually love Mendelssohn's Wedding March and would have been happy to have this very traditional piece of music at our not-so-traditional wedding.



However, Mr. K and I are both huge Glee fans and after we saw them perform Kelly Clarkson's "My Life Would Suck Without You" we knew that's what we had to go for. Our lives would suck without each other (in a totally not pathetic and co-dependent way!).



And yes, there's probably going to be a lot of Glee songs at our reception! We may or may not have had a conversation the other day about how many Glee songs is too many...

What are your music choices for your ceremony? Any other big Glee fans out there?

When You Aren't From the Same Place as Your Parents

As I've mentioned before, Mr. Knitting moved here from Poland when he was four. While he is proud of his heritage, he is really much more Canadian than Polish and this is definitely reflected in our wedding. Pretty much anything Polish in our wedding is there because I pushed for it (except for the mushroom dumplings).

However, his parents are still very Polish and haven't been assimilated in the same way, which is understandable as they were a lot older when they came to Canada. At first, they seemed to expect that we'd be having a very traditional Polish wedding complete with a Catholic church ceremony. I think our heathen Christmas wedding complete with grown up FGs, a groomswoman, and a first look (we haven't mentioned any of this to them yet!) is very much outside of their understanding of what a wedding should be.

I think our wedding is also somewhat difficult for them because we will be doing things that are a bit socially awkward for them. For example, we limited our guest list at 100 people which means they aren't able to invite as many people as they would like. They're getting to invite a lot more people than my parents, but they aren't able to invite all their friends and every single member of their friends' families. For Mr. K and myself and my parents it's not difficult to explain to some people that space is limited so we have to be really selective, but for Mr. K's parents, I think it is.

They are being really good sports about our wedding and while they don't talk to us about it very much, they haven't said a single negative comment about our wedding to Mr. K or myself. It's definitely not their idea of an appropriate wedding, but I think it's pretty nice of them to refrain from making any comments about this to us. I think maybe they really just want us to be married after we've been living in sin for 2 whole years!

Has this been an issue for anyone else? How do you and your parents' ideas about what a wedding should be diverge?

My Easiest Wedding Choice...

...was picking my photographer. My BIL Josh happens to be a fantastic photographer, so about 10 hours after informing our parents we were engaged, we asked Josh to be our photographer. Lucky for us, he agreed!

A little preview of his work:


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We really are lucky to have him as a photographer because budget is definitely an issue for us and there's no way we could have paid full price for someone of his quality. Now I know some people get worried about the idea of family members as vendors (famdors?), but Josh has been very upfront with us about what he can and can't do and what we can expect from him.

One of these things is the fact that he's not a really experienced wedding photographer. He loves photography and is an incredible photographer (I'm one of his biggest fans. Examples coming up!), but he's definitely been clear with us about the fact that he's not Jose Villa (yet). I know for some people the idea of having a photographer who doesn't specialize in weddings is something they'd be hesitant about, but after seeing a lot of Josh's photos I'm not the slightest bit worried. He's so creative and such a perfectionist that I know our pictures will be fantastic. I'm also thrilled that he'll be able to use our wedding to build up his portfolio (or at least that's what I keep telling myself so I don't feel like we're completely taking advantage of his generosity!).

Recently, I was lucky enough to get to look through a selection of his photography and I'm going to walk you through a few of my favourites. We'll start with the non-wedding ones in case you need a break from looking at too much wedding photography!

This is probably my all time favourite and I would love to have this one framed on my wall. I think the colour is amazing.


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I love this one. He got his friend to shoot a rock at the can with a slingshot and then was able to capture the moment it exploded. Yup, that's how Josh spends his camping trips.


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In addition to being a great photographer and finishing a PhD in Neuroscience, Josh is also a SCUBA instructor and has done a lot of great underwater photography.


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I love the twinkly lights in this one. Since we're having so much candlelight in our wedding I'm hoping for a few twinkly light pics. And yes, twinkly is a technical photography term!


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I think this one would be especially fantastic as an engagement photo.


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One of Josh's favourite subjects to photograph is wildlife. It's kind of hilarious going hiking with Josh and my sister because while she likes to speed ahead as fast as she can, Josh likes to stop every few metres to take pictures. Once on their honeymoon it began raining at the exact moment they came across a walrus. My sister had to go wait in the car while Josh took pictures of the walrus for half an hour! As her sister I'm horrified, but as his future photography client I'm thrilled. The more practice the better! Here's some of my favourite wildlife photos of his:


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Do you think I can ask him to stand outside for half an hour in the middle of December so I can have one of these for our wedding photography?


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These were the cake toppers from Josh and my sisters' wedding. His mother picked them out and they're a runner and a SCUBA diver. My sister told me that Josh actually wanted to be the photographer at their own wedding, but I'm pretty sure she's exaggerating!


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I love how moody this photograph is.


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Hilariously though I also love it because it reminds me of the rock in The Little Mermaid. I know you all know what I'm talking about!


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This is probably the prettiest picture ever taken of my sister.


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True Story: Josh isn't the only one helping us with our wedding photography. My poor sister is helping us by putting up with his practicing. Josh has decided he needs to practice his lighting techniques and this has resulted in him chasing my sister around the apartment taking pictures of her doing pretty much anything. I'm told there are some pretty great (read: hideous and embarrassing) ones of her eating chips and salsa. Again, as her sister I'm horrified on her behalf, but as Josh's photography client I'm thrilled! The more chasing the better.

Okay, enough non-wedding pictures! Here's a few photos from one of the weddings he's covered.


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The bride wore flip flops. I love it!


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Josh has also given Mr. Knitting some interesting ideas by suggesting we think about including references to our hobbies in our wedding photography. I think this is a great idea, but Mr. K has now decided that doing complicated couples yoga poses in our wedding clothes will be the coolest thing ever. I need him to lose interest in this idea right away!

Not happening in my wedding dress:


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Needless to say I'm ridiculously thrilled with our photographer and am so incredibly grateful that he's doing this for us. One of my main goals with our wedding is to make it as community based as possible, so I love the fact that our photographer is my BIL. I also know that he's a great guy, so it'll be a lot of fun to spend the whole day with him.

How are your family members helping out with your wedding? If you had a family member as your photographer what was your experience like?