Clinking Glasses = Blarg

Happy Thanksgiving to all the Canadians in the Hive! Okay, now back to wedding stuff.

That's right, BLARG! I can't stand when people clink their glass with a knife to make the couple kiss at a wedding. I think it's cute once, and then it becomes this awful irritating noise that goes on forever. This happened at my friend's wedding and it was this huge unpleasant distraction throughout the dinner. NOT COOL.


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As a result, I've been trying to come up with alternatives to the glasses clinking. My original thought was to just get my MC to tell the crowd that we're not doing that and all glasses clinking will be ignored, but in a nicer way than I just wrote because that makes us sound mean and cranky. We might still go with this, but I figured it was a good idea to think about some other options that might work for us.

Hula-Hooping
My cousin and his now wife did this at their wedding and it worked out wonderfully. Seeing this work so well at their wedding is the main reason I'm even considering an alternative. If someone wanted them to kiss the person had to go up and Hula Hoop. Everyone seemed really into it and it provided some good entertainment and photo ops.


This is my dad and his siblings Hula-Hooping. Yes, they're very WASPy and bad at it, but it was funny and my grandmother (who wasn't at the wedding) loved it.

Some Other Type of Physical Challenge
I read somewhere that someone from a family of golfers decided that if you wanted them to kiss you had to sink a putt. Neither of us are from a golfing family, but I like the idea of someone having to do a physical challenge. Do you think the Faculty Club would let me set up a basketball net in the dining room?


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Donation to a Charity
OR or to the Knittings' grad school fund...okay probably not...I like this idea (the charity one, not the selfish one!). It's a bit more dignified and for a good cause. That being said, I'm not really comfortable asking a guest to pull out their wallet at our wedding. I know that's common in lots of cultures, but I would feel weird about it.

Trivia
I LOVE trivia. I think Trivial Pursuit is the best game ever and Mr. Knitting and I actually got to know each other when we were both on the Reach Team (trivia) in high school. Huge nerd alert. As a result, the idea of making people answer Trivial Pursuit questions or entertaining Knitting specific trivia questions could work.

A Combination of All of the Above
We could come up with a number of challenges beforehand and write them on a piece of paper and place it in a bowl. If someone wants us to kiss they have to pull out a challenge. The challenges could be trivia questions (Knitting specific or not) or random tasks.

Currently I'd say I'm torn between doing nothing and the combination option. I'm just not sure what would work better for our guests. The tasks could be a big flop, or they could be fun. I suppose we could have the tasks ready to go, but only mention them if people don't stop the clinking or if we get a good vibe from the group.

What's your favourite alternative to glasses clinking?

Our Silhouettes in Action

As you may remember from this post, I was going to attempt to recreate a guestposter I had found on Martha, so that it would be more in keeping with our taste and could incorporate the lovely silhouettes Mr. Knitting made for me.

Here's what I came up with:



I "designed" this using a few of my favourite web resources. The font is my new favourite typewriter font from Dafont. The sprig of holly is from The Graphics Fairy, and the flourish is from Project Wedding. Finding websites with images like these has been essential to my DIY process.

I'm pretty happy with it but it's not 100% finished. When putting this together I copied Martha's wording for simplicity, but the line "Our cherished friends and family" doesn't really suit us. We don't really say things like that (read: it's too sappy) and I've been trying to come up with alternatives. I liked the idea of writing "Our Favourite People", but since some of my favourite people are not going to be able to attend our wedding that doesn't work. If you have any suggestions for wording (or feedback in general for the poster) it would be much appreciated.

Has anyone else tried a guestposter?

DIY Success and a Pretty Great Resource

Menus were something I had never planned to do. I've never found them essential at other weddings and I figured they weren't something we really needed. Our guests could find out what they'd be eating when it was placed in front of them (or if they read WeddingBee!). But then I realized that I love creating paper projects for the wedding and that making a menu would mean more fun for me.

Here's what I came up with:



I love these. A lot. I am ridiculously proud of them. I realize that these are not a pinnacle of DIY fabulousness, but as a notoriously not crafty person I can't believe I created something that I'm so happy with.

These were really easy to do. I found the Santa and fork and knife graphics from The Graphics Fairy. I can not say enough good things about this website. I have found so many fantastic images that will be making their way into my wedding and a few that will probably be making it onto my walls as instant (and very affordable!) art.

Here's a few images I've downloaded from The Graphics Fairy that may or may not end up in our wedding:


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I got a little distracted there...So many great images! Okay, back to the menus. For the font, I got to indulge my newfound love of Dafont and used their Mom's Typewriter font. Then I printed the menus onto cream paper, cut them out, and glued them to burgundy cardstock. Easy!

How have you been pleasantly surprised by your DIY skills? What's your favourite image resource?

My Thoughts on Changing My Name

Like many of you I've gone really back and forth about changing my name. I've gone through cons like feeling like I'm losing my identity and not being thrilled at trading in my lovely and easy to spell last name for a somewhat more complicated one that doesn't go as perfectly with my current first name. I've also considered pros like how it would be nice to have the same last name as my husband and for something tangible to change once we're married as we're already pretty much married.

We've been engaged for a bit over a year now (where did that go?) and I've changed my mind about this subject a lot over the past year.

At our engagement party one year ago:



I would say that I was leaning a lot more towards not changing it for most of the year. I really like my current last name and there didn't seem to be any pressing reason to change it. Mr. Knitting didn't care, there wasn't any social pressure, no family pressure, and I just overall didn't really want to. I will say though that feminism had nothing to do with it. Either way I was going to end up with a name that was passed down by a man, so whether or not it was my father or my husband did not factor in to my decision making process.

However, despite all this, I often felt like I wanted to want to change my name. I felt like I really wanted to want to take his last name, but had to come to terms with the fact that ultimately I didn't really want to take his last name. This was tricky to deal with. I would have loved for Mr. Knitting to tell me that it was really important to him for me to take his last name because then I definitely would have wanted to change my name simply because it was important to him. Unfortunately for me, Mr. Knitting doesn't have an opinion on it and is perfectly happy with whatever I decide, which is really one of the reasons I love him so much.

Anyway, complicated ramblings aside, here's what I've decided. I'm giving myself permission to be undecided. At the moment it doesn't feel right/I'm not ready to change my name and that's fine. By the time our wedding rolls around I might feel ready to change my name and if not, oh well. I might feel like that's the right choice for me in a few years and if so I can change my name then. I don't have to make a final decision in 2 months. So I haven't decided to change my name, but I also haven't decided not to. I'm undecided and that's working for me.

Fun celebrity fact: Sarah Michelle Gellar changed her name as an 5th anniversary gift to her husband and we all know how awesome Buffy is!


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How are you doing with the name change decision?

Guess What I Did on Friday?

Mailed our invites!

I took these:



and brought them to the ugliest looking mailbox I could find:



and now they're off! Um, except for the few that are still in our apartment because there's still some relatives' addresses that have not been communicated yet...

I found mailing (most of) our invites really exciting. I feel like it is one of those major steps in the wedding planning process that make you feel like the wedding is actually happening. The other major one for me was booking our venue.

What made you realize your wedding is really happening?

Cute and Fun or Just Plain Silly?

Hive, I need your help. A while back I told you how I was trying to figure out floral alternatives for pretty much everything. That's right there's basically no flowers at our wedding. You guys gave me some pretty great ideas, but I was still having trouble with what to do with the groomsmen. One day while browsing the St. Lawrence Market Antique Market I came across Christmas pins for $2 each and snatched a few up. However, I can't decide if I like them or not.

Here they are:





I also tried to get Mr. K to model them for you, but he was very grumpy about this idea, so I only got pictures of 2 before his grumpiness became overwhelming. he also refused to put them anywhere but his lapel because he didn't want "suit holes". SOMEONE's not getting the calf massage they were promised...




Okay, so here's my thing: somedays I love them, and other days I think they look too juvenile. I do like the fact that they're very Christmas-y, from the antique market, and pretty fun, but I'm worried about them coming across as a bit cheesy.

What do you think? Should we go with the pins or should we keep looking?

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?