A Cozy Christmas Wedding: My Anti-Social Morning

The morning of our wedding began with me realizing that we didn't have the brown sugar I needed to make the pumpkin spice whoopie pies that I was making for our wedding dessert table. This resulted in Mr. Knitting having to get out of bed and run to the store to buy me some brown sugar.

Brown sugar disaster averted, I proceeded to make my whoopie pies:



Mr. Knitting then had to taste test the final result:



You wouldn't really know it from the look on his face, but I swear he pronounced them delicious!

We then balanced out the sugar high with green smoothies:



Eventually it was time to go our separate ways to get ready. Figuring out where each of us would get ready was a bit of a pain because both of us just wanted to get ready in our apartment. In the end though I claimed our apartment and Mr. Knitting headed off to the hotel all my family were staying in.

I was trying to spend as much of the day as possible with as few people as possible. That sounds really anti-social, but I can explain! I am a huge introvert and by that I do not mean that I'm shy and quiet and hate people. I mean that I draw my energy from being alone. Since I knew I'd be spending most of the day surrounded by lots of people, it was really important for me to delay that as long as possible. As a result I did 90% of my getting ready with just my older sister there.

I did my hair and make-up alone in my bedroom while my sister showered/took a picture of me:



After those tasks were completed we kept things very low key and munched on some sushi while my sister gave me a last minute MOH present. She made me a scrapbook entitled, "Reflections of a Maid of Honour". I'd show you the cover, but my sister used a very unfortunate (but hilarious) picture on the cover that I'm not desperate to post on the Internet!

It was set up sort of like a storybook, featuring pictures of us when we were younger. Here's a few examples of the pages.





I have no idea where those green fuzzy hats on our heads came from...

The back pages of the book were filled with marriage advice from some of my favourite women. It was a really sweet gift and I had so much fun reading through it that morning.

After that, my people began to arrive and the wedding fun really began. This was really a great way to start my wedding day. It was not completely stress free, but I was able to follow my regular breakfast routine and then to have a very quiet morning which I think was pretty essential for my sanity and my ability to enjoy the rest of the day.

Knitting Wedding Tip #1: Know who you are and what you need to get your wedding day started in the best possible manner. If being surrounded by all your favourite people will get you super excited and pumped, do it, but if you know you need quiet, make sure to organize that time for yourself. Don't worry about what other people do on their wedding days. Think about who you are and what you need!

A Cozy Christmas Wedding: Yoga Time

Mr. Knitting and I both believe that our choice to have a group yoga class the night before our wedding in place of a rehearsal dinner was definitely one of our very best wedding decisions. It was an absolutely incredible experience and I honestly can not say enough good things about it.

The class was held at 889 Yonge, our favourite yoga studio. I've written about yoga in the past, but in the last few months yoga has become even more important and special to Mr. Knitting and myself. We go at least 4 times a week and I really can't say enough positive things about the studio. The space is fantastic, the yoga teachers are incredible, the selection of classes is outstanding, the staff could not be kinder, and they even provide all kinds of awesome extras like delicious herbal teas! We both absolutely love this place and it really made sense to include it in our wedding festivities.

We had spent the day doing a whole bunch of errands, but we had a bit of time together before our class began, and decided to go get some food. After much deliberation we settled on Veda, which serves delicious, healthy, and quick Indian food.

Mr. Knitting went for the butter chicken and I got some palak paneer:





I know you're not supposed to eat before yoga, but I find if I haven't eaten I get really nauseous and I was not interested in getting nauseous the night before our wedding!

We then headed over to 889 Yonge nice and early.



Here we are all excited for our guests to arrive:



The class itself was really amazing. We invited a selection of our friends and family and made it clear that we understood that yoga is not for everyone (even though it is!) and that we would not be offended if they chose not to join us. Lucky for us, almost everyone we invited said they'd be thrilled to attend, including a few relatives to whom yoga was a completely new experience! We were so honoured that they were so enthusiastic about attending such a "kooky" (but AWESOME) wedding event.

Nicky Poole, the Yoga Community Leader for 889 Yonge (and one of my favourite teachers) taught the class for us. Nicky is sort of the coolest person ever and I absolutely love being in her classes. She's really creative in her style of teaching and extremely nice, but she also really emphasizes how yoga is about more than just movement and I really love that. For her it's important to stop doing yoga and to start being yoga. She taught an absolutely fantastic class that was accessible to all levels, which was just what we wanted.

Here's Nicky looking awesome:


Source

It was really incredible to do yoga with so many of our favourite people. I actually don't really know how to put it into words other than to say it was a really powerful class and frankly probably one of the most awesome experiences of my life!

Here we all are doing downward dog:



It doesn't look like it in the picture because of the flash but the room was almost completely dark and lit only by candlelight so it was really beautiful.

Here we are doing some cobra:



One of my favourite parts of class was when she played Donna De Lory's version of In the Sun as we did some seated postures. This is a song Nicky often plays as we do back bends in her class and Mr. Knitting and I absolutely love it. Seriously, I challenge you not to feel totally soothed as you listen to this no matter how not religious you are.

The hands down most special part of class was when she had us all sitting with our hands at our hearts and asked everyone to send Mr. Knitting and myself good wishes for our marriage. It was really amazing and a very special moment. Definitely one of the highlights of the weekend.

Here we are with Nicky after class:



After class we all hung out and drank tea for a bit and then headed our separate ways. Mr. Knitting and I headed to sushi with my family.

We split some sweet potato tempura:



I also had some spicy salmon rolls:



No one really wanted to be in pictures right after yoga so here's a look at the group avoiding the camera:



Oddly, at the end of the meal they brought us fortune cookies and look at what mine said:



This, of course, prompted many jokes about how we should just get married right then!

Overall I can't say enough good things about this yoga class. I am so glad we did it. I realize this type of event isn't for everyone, but if it's something that your friends and family would enjoy I would highly recommend it. It was definitely a major highlight of our wedding weekend and an incredible memory for us! It also really encompassed everything we wanted in our wedding since it was both extremely personal to us and very community centered.

To conclude, I think this awesome picture my cousin took pretty much sums up the feeling of the evening (K and W are our initials):



Cozy, lots of yoga, and filled with love!

The Night Before?

I think the tradition of the bride and groom (or bride and bride or groom and groom!) spending the night before their wedding apart is really sweet. Even if the couple has been living together, I think there's something really sweetly symbolic about spending their last night as an unmarried person with their family or close friends. For me, it would have been a great way of acknowledging the ties I have with my family. I'm sure it would have also heightened my anticipation for the next day.

However, for us this was not to be. I briefly considered this idea and then realized logistically it wouldn't really work for us, but more importantly, emotionally there was no way I could deal with that. Despite how much I loved our wedding and how much fun I had working on it, our wedding and the lead up to it was really stressful for me to the extent that I feel I've almost recovered now two months later. I was by no means a crazy stress monster, but I was definitely feeling a slow build up of stress, as well as night before jitters.

Mr. Knitting is my absolute best emotional support and to have spent the night before our wedding without him would have been a terrible idea for me. I don't think he would have been too happy about it either, although he might have been a bit more stoic about it than I would have been. We really needed each other there to keep each other calm and happy. I also had the sense that even though lots of other people have been married, he was really the only person would understood what I was experiencing (which is sort of true in that we were the only bride and groom of our wedding!).

Two months later, I have no idea what we did the night before our wedding after we got home from our yoga class, but I definitely know that spending the night together was the right choice for us. We may have watched an episode of the Daily Show, complained about family members (not any of you who read this!), played on our computers separately (because we're really romantic), or spent some time talking about the next day. Whatever it was, it was a good idea. I would have felt very alone and probably a bit scared if I had spent the night away from him, no matter who I had stayed with.

How did/do you plan to spend the night before your wedding?

Goals

I've been reading a lot about goal setting recently (the Lululemon blog is particularly helpful if any of you are interested!), so I thought I would write about goal setting and our wedding today. I'm not a crazy goal setter or anything but I had a few goals in mind for myself for our wedding. Here they are:

1) Don't freak out

2) Eat food

3) Send excellent thank you notes in a timely manner

Here's how I did:

Don't Freak Out

Despite my worries, I am proud to say I didn't freak out about anything on my wedding day. There were definitely moments of stress and I wouldn't go so far to say I was completely zen, but overall I think I did pretty good.

Not quite me, but close enough:


Source

The moment I really could have freaked out was when we arrived at the Faculty Club to take pictures before the ceremony and absolutely nothing was set up. I'm proud to say I didn't freak out at all. I just kicked off my shoes and started running around getting things done and assigning tasks to the wedding party. I really wish someone had thought to take a picture of this, because it's kind of hilarious. There was no pre-wedding lounging with my BMs for me. We were all hard at work.

I'm pretty proud that this is how I reacted. I'm still a bit upset that we didn't get to take any pre-ceremony indoor photos because we were busy setting up the things that I had been told would already be set up, but I totally kept my cool and I think that's pretty great! If I had freaked out at that moment I think I would really regret it now.

Eat Food

I didn't do quite as well on this one, but I'm okay with that because I didn't eat a lot of food because I didn't have much of an appetite and not because I logistically couldn't. I really planned to ensure that Mr. Knitting and I would have an opportunity to eat because this was important to me. One way I did this was by having a selection of appetizers delivered to us right after the ceremony.

Food for us:



This way we could eat some food privately without having to talk to any of our lovely guests and then we could go downstairs and completely focus on them without trying to search out a waiter.

Another strategy was to have a receiving line so that we wouldn't feel obligated to go from table to table during dinner, and instead would be able to eat our food. These were excellent plans, but when it came down to it, I just couldn't really focus on eating and ate much less than I usually would. Oh well...I'll make up for it at other people's weddings.

Send Excellent Thank You Notes in a Timely Manner

This one was important to me. I felt really grateful that we had such lovely people at our wedding and I wanted to make sure to acknowledge that. My parents once received a thank you card that said, "Thank you for your monetary contribution" and that was it. I wanted to do the opposite of that and took my time writing what I hope were pretty thoughtful cards. My desire to do this was definitely also helped by the fact that I was really excited about these gorgeous cards (ours said Thank You):


Source

I sent the cards out in waves and I sent the last one just about a month after our wedding. I definitely could have done it more quickly, but I'm ultimately really happy with that since.

I highly recommend goal setting for your wedding. These were all things that were important to me and identifying them, being aware of them, and coming up with strategies to achieve them was really helpful. I know that sounds a bit crazy and rigid, but for me it wasn't. For me, particularly with the not freaking out goal, by just being mindful of the potential problem I managed to avoid it, and that definitely helped me have a more enjoyable wedding day!

Did/do you have any goals for yourself for you wedding?

A Cozy Christmas Honeymoon: The Fun

While we spent a pretty big chunk of our honeymoon eating, we did do a few other things!

We went skating by the river:



This was really great because there was a 2km skating path right next to the lake so it was really pretty and scenic. It was also really nice to not have to go around in circles over and over. I was a bit concerned about how I would do on skates, but was pleasantly surprised with my abilities (i.e. I didn't fall).

We also went snowshoeing:







Despite the fact that the trail we were on was really poorly marked and I was worried about getting lost, this was really fun. The trail was gorgeous and we had a great time.

We spent a lot of time reading and relaxing:







Thanks so much for all your book recommendations. Unfortunately, none of my library holds became available in time for the honeymoon, so I ended up reading Wicked while we were away. It was really good, but I wasn't prepared for how different it was from the musical. Since coming home I've been slowly starting to work my way through your recommendations and loved Pillars of the Earth. I'm currently in the middle of Outlander and can see why so many of you recommended it! As for those that recommended Lauren Willig or Phillipa Gregory, you know my taste pretty well as I've already read all their books!

We went walking:





The most exciting thing I'd say we did was when we went to Nordic Station, which is a Nordic spa. This place was gorgeous. It was located pretty much in the middle of the snow covered woods of Quebec.

How it works is you go through a cycle of hot, cold, and relaxation over and over again until you are thoroughly relaxed. For hot we had the choice of an outdoor hot tub, a steam room, or a dry sauna. The idea is to stay in the heat for as long as you can manage, usually 20 minutes or so.


Source

Sauna overlooking the river:


Source

You then are to cool down really quickly by dunking yourself in ice cold water or the frozen river.


Source


Source

Next you go to a relaxation room to relax until you body temperature has normalized. You repeat the cycle as many times as you like. We did the cycle a number of times and then lost interest in torturing ourselves with the cold and just hung out in the gorgeous hot tubs for a while.

We then had our couples massage in a cabin in the woods. This was kind of hilarious because we're not exactly the type of people who are interested in things like couples massages. However, that's all they had available when we booked our massage so we figured a honeymoon is a great place to try a couples massage.

Our verdict was that while our massages were excellent, they were not enhanced at all by having each other in the room and we're not likely to book any other couple massages in the future. I spent too much time worrying about whether or not Mr. Knitting was enjoying his massage and that took away some of my enjoyment.

Anyway, that's a pretty good overview of all the things we did on our cozy Christmas honeymoon!

A Cozy Christmas Honeymoon: The Food

One of the reasons we chose Hovey Manor for our honeymoon was because of the incredible food. They are very well known for their local and regional gourmet cuisine and we were so excited, since we've pretty much never eaten a meal that could accurately be termed gourmet. We like our meals out to cost less than $15 each please.

Each day began with their "full country breakfast". This included a buffet of things like amazing Quebecois cheese, croissants, homemade granola, freshly squeezed juice, smoothies, muffins...etc.

Me enjoying a mini smoothie:



In addition, we also got to choose something from the menu which included options like omelettes with brie and smoked salmon, oatmeal, bacon and eggs, pancakes...etc.

Here's Mr. Knitting trying to decide:



Here's my first breakfast choice. French toast with butterscotch sauce. Amazing:



Mr. K was especially partial to the omlettes:



Lunches were not included so we would go have lunch in one of the small villages nearby. Here's a look at our favourite lunch.

Poutine (we were in Quebec after all!):



I also spent some time searching out some amazing food souvenirs like local honey (I just ran out of it and am very sad even though we do have lots of delicious Ontario honey available) and maple butter, which I think is one of the best foods of all time. I'm sort of kicking myself that I didn't buy a case of it!

Our dinners were definitely a major highlight. Mr. Knitting and I were a bit worried about how we'd do with long, multicourse dinners since in our normal lives we never linger over dinner. At our favourite restaurant, Tokyo Sushi (at Bay and St. Joseph Toronto ladies), we're usually in and out in about 45 minutes tops. However, I am happy to report that the dinners were amazing and we had no problem enjoying 2 and a half hour dinners every night. Who knew?

They won me over right away with the salt. I'm (sadly) a salt addict so to be provided with 3 different types of delicious salt made me really happy right away.



Here's a few of our favourite things we ate. While they all had fancy long names that indicate pretty much every ingredient in the dish we'll be using simplified versions of the names made up by me!

Appetizers

Scallops and artichoke puree:



This was probably Mr. Knitting's favourite dish from our honeymoon. He is now obsessed with scallops.

Salmon Gravlax with beets:



Main Course

Sable fish and risotto:



This was my favourite dish. That fish was just completely moist and flavourful.

Christmas lobster:



Dessert

White chocolate mouse dessert amuse bouche:



Wouldn't these be so cute at a wedding?

Chesnut macaron amuse bouche:



Rocky Road dessert, complete with a macaron and homemade marshmallows:



My favourite dessert:



This was basically chocolate cake with peanuts, homemade vanilla ice cream, and that little jug is full of fleur de sel caramel sauce. I wish I had ordered it every night.

I also ordered the cheese tray one night and it was fantastic. The cheese guy (no, that's not his official title!) comes by your table and helps you select 3 cheeses. Here's what I ended up with:



The goat cheese on the far right was my favourite and it actually won Best Cheese in the World 2009.

So, as you can see, we definitely ate very well on our honeymoon. Mr. Knitting was especially happy because he got to ate great food 9like at home!), but he didn't have to do a single dish after (I might be not so good at household duties like cleaning!).

Up next: what we did when we weren't eating.

Toronto Meet Up

Hello Toronto and GTA Bees! I hope you're all surviving this endless winter. In an attempt to escape winter we're planning a meet up on February 9th at 7pm at Snakes and Lattes.


Source

If you'd like to join us for some hot chocolate, wine, or board games (they have Dream Phone!!!) please RSVP here.