A Cozy Christmas Wedding: Hilarious

There's a bit of a language and communication gap between Mr. Knitting and myself and his parents. Most of the time it's a bit unfortunate, but sometimes it's a bit hilarious!

For a few months before our wedding Mr. Knitting's mom had expressed a number of concerns to Mr. Knitting about our wedding looking cheap. We weren't too sure why she thought this since knew that our wedding would not look cheap and so we just kind of ignored these comments. We thought it was odd that she thought our choice of the Faculty Club was cheap because she had originally wanted us to get married in her church and have the reception in the industrial looking church rec room. While this would have been a perfectly fine option for some, it can't be denied that the Faculty Club has a bit more ambiance.

We invited her to see the Faculty Club with us beforehand but for various reasons she had not actually seen it before the wedding, nor had she expressed interest in seeing any pictures.

Flash forward to our wedding. My MIL walks in the door and is stunned by how much nicer it was than she expected and goes around telling everyone what a great venue it is. We were very pleased that she liked it so much, since she had seemed so unenthusiastic about our venue choice.

The next day my mom filled us in on the rest of the story. My MIL does not have the greatest grasp of English and it turns that that she was only familiar with the word "club" in the context of a grungy dance club. That's why she was so concerned. She thought we wanted our wedding to look like this:


Photo via Girls of T.O.
(That's a photo of the Brunny for any of you Toronto readers!)

Needless to say she was thrilled when she walked in the door and saw that it was a completely different type of club!

This story was really funny to me because, while I think one could have a completely awesome wedding in a "club" club, that is so NOT something that would suit Mr. Knitting or myself and is so far from what we actually planned.

What's your funniest wedding miscommunication?

A Cozy Christmas Wedding: Down the Aisle

Finally it was time to walk down the aisle. Mr. Knitting and his groomspeople waited for us at the front. I know a lot of people choose to have the groomsmen walk down the aisle with the bridesmaids, but that didn't really make sense to me. I preferred the symbolism of him waiting supported by his people, as opposed to standing on his own at the front.



BM Mel went first:



Followed by BM Rach:



My MOH went next:



Then it was time for the Flower Girls:



They lived up to their zany personalities and did a slightly (okay very) campy walk down the aisle involving stepping together, pausing, and then dramatically fluttering rose petals. They also provided one of the most amusing moments in the wedding. My sister had hidden her reading in the flower girl cone and the other FG did not know this. Right as they got near the front of the room, the other FG accidentally flung the reading across the room. She then had to crawl under chairs to pick it up! Knowing her it was probably done in a highly entertaining manner! I'm really sad I missed this moment and am super sad no one thought to take of picture of this moment.



Then it was my turn:



I really loved walking down the aisle. It was a lot of fun and I loved seeing all our guests for the first time. The fact that Mr. Knitting was waiting for me at the end was pretty awesome too! This was definitely one of my favourite experiences of the night.







Now it was time to get married!





All photos by the amazing Josh Levinson

Missed a Knitting Recap?:
First we yoga-ed
I spent the morning being anti-social
Mama Knitting figured out how to dress herself and I turned into a bride
We had our first look and snuggled in the snow
We played in the snow with our friends and then spent an hour doing some unexpected set up
Our guests arrived and we looked at some ceremony details

Prince William is Copying Us!

Okay, okay he probably doesn't read WB, but I think I'll spend the rest of my life pretending Mr. Knitting was his inspiration!

As someone who is super excited about the royal wedding I was very excited to read that just like Mr. Knitting, Prince William will not wear a wedding ring. Apparently, Prince William "doesn't wear jewellery" and therefore does not want to wear a wedding ring.

Copier:


Image via The Official Website of the British Monarchy

I also wanted to give a bit of an update about how I feel about Mr. Knitting and his lack of a wedding ring. Many of you expressed concerns that you would not be okay with your husbands not wearing rings and I can definitely understand that. I was pretty sure this wouldn't bother me and can say now, 4 months after our wedding, I definitely do not have any issues with him not wearing one. I don't feel any less married or any less loved, and it doesn't bother me that random women won't immediately know he's married. If some random woman is hitting on him (this is a really funny statement if you know what homebodies we are!) he can tell that woman he's married and if he doesn't that would make him a scumbag that I wouldn't want to be married to anyway! Long story short, I don't have any mixed or unhappy feelings about forgoing a wedding ring for Mr. K.

While reading about 15 different articles about Prince William's ring decision (I should probably be embarrassed about that but I'm not!) I also learned that double ring ceremonies are actually a relatively new tradition. I've been calling our choice to have a single ring ceremony "wacky" when describing it to others, but perhaps I should have been going with "traditional" instead!

I'm now really curious to see if the fact that William is forgoing a wedding ring influences many others. My guess is no. While I'm sure their wedding will be make a huge impact in the wedding world, I think people are ultimately pretty attached to the tradition of wedding rings and I don't see that going out of style any time soon. Who knows though, maybe in ten years the idea of a man wearing a ring will be hopelessly out of date all thanks to William.

What do you think? Will the fact that Prince William is forgoing a wedding ring spark a trend in this direction or are wedding rings for men here to stay?

A Cozy Christmas Wedding: A Few Ceremony Details

I absolutely love reading about other people's wedding details so I'm going to try to be as thorough as possible about mine, starting with a few details related to our ceremony.

Our Programs


Personal Photo

I absolutely loved our Western Union Telegram programs. I was originally inspired by this post on Ruffled, and I'm so glad I followed through on this one. I loved the way they looked and I think they really suited the vintage feel of our wedding.

I also had a lot of fun writing the text of the programs. Our wedding was a pretty casual affair and I wanted the text to reflect that. The paragraphs at the bottom of the programs explain the "wackier" elements of our wedding including Mr. Knitting wedding watch (entitled "What's with the Watch?"), his tie (entitled "What's Going on with Mr. Knitting's Tie?"), and our flower girls (entitled "Why are the Flower Girls Old?"). See I told you I used casual language! If you want to read the program just click on the picture to enlarge.

If you want to make your own telegram programs the template I used can be found here.

Reserved Seating Signs





I really loved these signs and they were very easy to make. I downloaded the frame from The Graphics Fairy and used my favourite Jane Austen font. The signs were then tied to the chairs using bakers twine. We made them for our parents and grandparents and I'd like to think they appreciated the VIP touch, but it may have only been me!

Mr. Knitting's Ties

Mr. Knitting wore 2 (actually 3!) different ties on our wedding day. This is because he is a clotheshorse. Just kidding, he's not, but he did wear 3 ties. The first one was a gift from my MOH:





I know you're all blown away by the fanciness of it, but it actually gets better. The tie plays music. I don't know why he didn't ditch the other ties and wear this one all day. I could have walked down the aisle to his tie music. Opportunity missed!

For our outdoor photos Mr. Knitting wore this tie:



This is one of my (deceased) grandfather's ties and my favourite that Mr. Knitting wore that day. This is the Anderson clan's tartan which is my grandfather's mother's clan.

For the rest of the evening Mr. Knitting wore this one:



This tie features the Anderson clan crest (an oak tree) and motto ("Stand Sure"), which is pretty fitting for a wedding accessory! I love the picture above because my grandmother has been out with my grandfather many times while he was wearing this tie and it's sweet to see her next to Mr. Knitting while he is wearing it.

My Bouquet

I was pretty indecisive about what to do about my bouquet, but in the end a very simple solution found me. While shopping at Pier 1 Imports I found this bouquet for $12:



I was really happy with this find. I thought it was pretty, it was very inexpensive, I loved the colours, and I didn't think it looked completely obvious that it was fake. Done.

My Something Borrowed

My lovely former boss Jennifer provided my something borrowed in the form of this beautiful brooch, which I (meaning my friend Emily!) attached to my bouquet with floral wire.



After the wedding, Jennifer let me keep the brooch so I'm not sure if it really counts as a something borrowed. It's more like a something owned...

Vintage Hankies

I love the trend of incorporating vintage hankies into weddings, so I made sure to include them in mine. I found a great selection in the fabulous vintage stores of Kensington Market and chose a few for myself and my ladies.

Here's a close up of the one I carried with my bouquet:


Personal Photo

My BMs and MOH were supposed to use the others to carry their lanterns, but looking at photos now it appears that they didn't. Fail:


Personal Photo

Oh well, the lanterns are still pretty:



Lace Wrapped Votives

Like many of you I was completely in love with Wedding Bee Hostess Bakerella's wedding recaps, particularly her details post. Seriously, if you haven't read it yet, do it now! I particularly loved the lace wrapped votives she used and ended up buying half of hers to be used in my wedding.

Here's a shot of the candles in action at her wedding:



Photo by Justin Demers of StillMotion Photo and Cinema

And here they are at ours:



We basically lined every surface possible with these candles. The lights were actually a lot dimmer than they appear in this photo so the candles really stood out and looked really nice (in my opinion!).

Ring/Watch Dish

I had a bit of trouble deciding which ring dish to use, but ultimately went with this one:


Personal Photo

It just had more of a cozy, Christmas-y feel and a better size for our wedding jewels.

So those are a few of our ceremony details. People will tell you that details don't matter, but that's not really my experience. Yes, in the larger sense I can recognize that the most important thing is that Mr. Knitting and I got married surrounded by all our favourite people, and maybe in 50 years the details won't be all that important to me, but I really drew a lot of pleasure in collecting these details, seeing them in action, and enjoying them now in pictures and as home decor (that's a different post). As a guest, and as a blog reader, I also really enjoy seeing other people's details. It's fun to see how people have used their creativity to personalize their event. Details are not essential to getting married, but if they're something you care about, then go all out (and then share them on WB so we can all drool over them!).

Unless otherwise noted. all photos by the amazing Josh Levinson

Missed a Knitting Recap?:
First we yoga-ed
I spent the morning being anti-social
Mama Knitting figured out how to dress herself and I turned into a bride
We had our first look and snuggled in the snow
We played in the snow with our friends and then spent an hour doing some unexpected set up
Our guests arrived

A Cozy Christmas Wedding: The Guests Arrive

As we put the finishing touches on all of the wedding details, the guests began to arrive.

My Flower Girls added some last minute desserts to our beautiful table:



My beautiful grandmother hung out with my dad:



The guests began to sign our guest poster:







Then they mingled and enjoyed some apple cider:









A few guests were not familiar with the idea of displaying a dessert table as one would a wedding cake (What do you mean everyone doesn't obsessively read wedding blogs?) and began eating from our dessert table. This resulted in the staff covering most of the table in foil. This makes the wedding blogger in me cringe, but I guess it's better than all the dessert being gone before the ceremony! If you're displaying a dessert table make sure either your guests know not to eat from it beforehand, or have someone (subtly!) guard the table to avoid this problem.

Eventually, it was time for the guests to move upstairs for the ceremony.





Mr. Knitting, his groomspeople, and my aunt (our pianist) got into position:



Oh, and this would be my parents who apparently didn't connect the fact that if they're about to walk me down the aisle, they probably shouldn't be in their seats!



Haha oops! I sent my MOH to go get them and they scampered backstage to wait with us. Now we were ready to walk down the aisle.

All photos by the amazing Josh Levinson

Missed a Knitting Recap?:
First we yoga-ed
I spent the morning being anti-social
Mama Knitting figured out how to dress herself and I turned into a bride
We had our first look and snuggled in the snow
We played in the snow with our friends and then spent an hour doing some unexpected set up

A Cozy Christmas Wedding: The Lost Hour

I wrote about this briefly before in this post, but I wanted to go into a bit more detail as to what happened.

We had arranged with my venue that we would be arriving an hour early to take some more photos inside prior to the ceremony. However, upon arriving at the Faculty Club it turned out that almost nothing had been set up and what had been partially set up (the chairs for the ceremony) had been set up completely wrong.

I found this really frustrating because I had gone over the set up with my venue's coordinator and she assured me that her staff would set everything up. I had dropped off all the items the day before and I had even drawn elaborate diagrams so that everything would be as clear as possible. When we arrived I had been expecting everything to be in the process of being set up, if not actually fully set up. However, when we arrived at the club, all of these items were still in the office.

Even more frustrating was the fact that the ceremony room had been set up in a completely different orientation then I had discussed with the coordinator numerous times. We had discussed setting up the room to face the fireplace and I had gone on to people (and all of you!) about how we would be getting married in front of a fireplace. The event staff apparently had not been informed of this and had set the chairs up facing the windows. It seemed like nothing I had communicated to the coordinator had been communicated to her staff.

As a result instead of spending the hour prior to the ceremony relaxing and taking some more photos, I had to almost comically kick off my shoes and direct our entire wedding party and our families in how to set everything up.

To be fair the staff were extremely nice and really tried to help us as much as possible. When I saw the ceremony room and was like "What the...?" they immediately told me they could change it, no problem. However, I decided to just stick with what they had done. There were too many other things to be done to be wasting manpower on moving 100 chairs. The staff may have also planned to set up the dining room during our ceremony, but I was just so freaked out by the fact that the boxes and diagrams had not been even looked at by the time we arrived that I didn't really trust that to happen.

In the moment I didn't freak out, I just did what needed to be done, and our wedding party and families really came through for us tying signs to chairs, setting up jam, and lots of other random things. That being said I was really frustrated with the lack of communication that went on. I had expected to arrive and have a quick glance over things and then relax and take some photos, but instead got to sprint around the venue. This eventually ended with me sprinting through a back hallway and staircase to prevent my aunt, uncle, and grandfather from seeing me in my dress prior to the ceremony!

Anyway, despite this lack of communication, in the end everything got set up and we went on to have a lovely wedding, in a lovely venue, with a lovely staff. Now, I'm just sad there aren't any pictures of me racing about barefoot in a wedding dress!

Missed a Knitting Recap?:
First we yoga-ed
I spent the morning being anti-social
Mama Knitting figured out how to dress herself and I turned into a bride
We had our first look and snuggled in the snow
We played in the snow with our friends

A Cozy Christmas Wedding: Outdoor Fun with Friends

After we'd finished with photos of the two of us, it was time to take some photos with our wedding party and families.

First I went for a casual walk with my BMs and MOH:



These are the lanterns they will be holding instead of flowers during the ceremony:



Aren't they lovely? (and in perfect height order!):



Then I sent my lovely grown up Flower Girls for a frolic (No, neither of them thought boots were a necessity, and yes those are bare legs on my sister!):







I, of course, figured out how to include matryoshkas in these photos:





I took a quick photo with my parents:



and then ran inside because my feet were getting numb!

Mr. Knitting proceeded to take a few photos with his groomsmen and groomswoman:



Mr. Knitting wanted us to have a snowball fight but I vetoed this idea, as I suspected it would end with me having a soaking wet dress. I was happy to pass this request on to a groomsman:





Huddle (probably for warmth!):



Mr. Knitting the model:



These photos were so much fun to take! I had sort of been dreading this hour for a few weeks beforehand because of the cold, but when it came down to it, I had a really wonderful time. That being said, logistically these photos were a bit tricky to take because we were luckily able to have people wait inside, which meant the people we needed for a photo weren't always right there. It also means that we weren't able to get any shots of the wedding party all together because we ran out of time/body heat. Oh well, I think that's just something that comes with wanting to do an outdoor photo shoot in Toronto in December! All in all I'm so glad we did this.

After we were done at Spadina Museum we all piled back into unglamourous cars and headed to the Faculty Club where a rather unpleasant surprise awaited us...

All photos by the amazing Josh Levinson

Missed a Knitting Recap?:
First we yoga-ed
I spent the morning being anti-social
Mama Knitting figured out how to dress herself and I turned into a bride
We had our first look and spent some time in the snow