10.10.10

Now that I've been married for a month I think it's about time I blogged about my wedding!

To start, I want to take this opportunity to apologize for my pre-wedding craziness! I was so stressed out that I literally made myself sick. Two days before the wedding Ken found me in bed crying, wiping snot from my face and coughing. I said to him "...I'm so sick...I can't be sick at my wedding...I just can't...The wedding is off...we can't do it!!" Ken shoved tissue's in my pockets and took me to the pharmacy. All puffy eyed I walked up to the pharmacist and cried "I'm getting married the day after tomorrow...help!" With great sympathy the pharmacist hooked me up with a neti pot and the right meds and sent me on my way.

With that we were off to Lac Du Bonnet... I slept the entire way there! The meds made me so loopy that I kept thinking I wasn't sleeping in the car, and was actually sleeping on the couch in our living room. This is especially scary as I hate sleeping on the couch in the living room and would try and get up and go to the bedroom...but I was in a car.

All week people had been checking the weather for me, and giving me worried looks when they would see a forecast for rain or even snow. The morning of the wedding I set my alarm for 9am...I woke up at 7am... I was too excited to sleep. Instead of getting that much needed sleep I started setting out mason jars and upon going outside discovered it to be the absolute perfect weather. Sunny but not too sunny, warm but not too warm. It was just perfect.

With things finally out of my hands and no longer having any sort of control as to whether the day was going to go down in flames or go as planned... I felt relaxed for the first time in 5 months!

Now I have to say...these meds were either miracle meds... or it was all a placebo effect and the illness was completely in my head... Ken seems to think it was the latter.

Around this point my fabulous photographer, Melissa Johnstone of Sugar and Soul Photography showed up and started shooting. So from here on I'll let the pictures do most of the talking...

To start... the details:

These signs directed guests to my parents cabin in Lac Du Bonnet, where the wedding was held.

My lovely brothers made the signs and I painted them.

This is Sophie Madeleine's album Love.Life.Ukelele. Ken and I walked down the aisle to her song, "You Are My Favourite" and used the album as a guestbook. The album will now hang on our walls for years to come instead of being in a box in the basement like many guest books.

This was a last minute addition. When people started bringing cards I looked around and found a bird cage! Ya, these are the kinds of things I find at my parents cabin. The bird cage was used for cards for the rest of the night.

You better believe that Ken and I folded 1000 paper cranes and hung them from the ceiling!!! These birds are still suspended from my parents ceiling!

I sewed and stamped these bags for the favours. Guests then filled them with candy!

Said candy in mason jars. Mason jars were seen everywhere. Why? Ken's last name is Mason... Which means my last name is now Mason too!

These are little chocolates that I made the wrapper for. I used our engagement photos for the outside and on the inside of the wrapper was the password to our online photo gallery!

My moms coworker made us these cookies!! They were absolutely amazing and totally delicious! Mad props to Joanne Roth!

Headband by BeSomethingNew

Shoes by OxfordHeaven

Garter that we completely forgot to toss by Let's Dance Garters

...The dress! I got my dress at Chantal's Bridal in Winnipeg, and it's totally random that I got it!

I was gonna get a vintage dress and have it remade to be like poofy and fun. My mom and I were headed to the seamstress and walked by Chantal's. A friend of mine got her dress there, and I was supposed to get a brides maid dress there. My mom and I decided to stop in and just look at the brides maids dresses. The woman there asked me to try on a couple dresses and I was all "No, I don't like beading...No, no bling for me..."

She then went to the basement and pulled up this ball of fabric. She said it had just came in and hadn't even been tagged yet. She told my mom to put it on me and us both to close our eyes...By the time it was zipped up my mom was crying and I was completely red in the face.

It was already my size, and waaaay below my budget. It was just way too perfect.

Boutonnieres I made.

I made a bow tie for my family dog, Ozzy.

And of course a corsage for my cat! (Side note: I did NOT paint my cats nails. She's wearing softpaws!)

The ceremony site!

I made mason jar lanterns that lined the aisle.

My mom did the flowers and I think she did a fabulous job!! She actually ordered the flowers from Costco of all places and arranged them in the mason jars I made the morning of the wedding.

Best of all...The rings!! Ken and I had these custom made by a couple in the Art Space building in Winnipeg. We gave Bryan Johnson Creations the gold from my grandmothers earrings, a family ring, and my mother in law gave us several rings as well. Bryan Johnson used our gold to make these rings, he then took a stamp of our fingerprints, enlarged them, and then etched them onto the rings. Ken's necklace was put onto a chain because he can't wear things on his fingers. They came out wonderful!

Getting ready:

I've known James since we were 15 and I adore this boy! Lucky for me he's also an incredibly talented hair stylist at Hair FX and agreed to do my hair for the wedding.

I especially enjoy that he wore a Power Rangers shirt while doing it.

Meagan Perron did my makeup, my moms, and mother in laws. She did a wonderful job! I loved it so much that I choked back the tears all day to prevent myself from ruining it.

Getting in the dress..

Ken getting cleaned up.

My mother in law pinning on a boutonniere.

Ken and I did photos before the ceremony. This was my first look at him all dolled up.

This was his first look at me.

Pre-ceremony formals:

Pre-ceremony gifts:

We got our ring bearer a super cool lego camera as a thank you. He took some really awesome shots!

We got Ken's best friend, Scott ordained to marry us!! He did such a great job. We literally couldn't have got married without him! This is him showing off his gift from us.

Wedding time!!

Ken's mother walked him down the aisle.

Our ring bearer carried our rings in a birds nest! He was such a rock star!

My dad walked me down the aisle.

Ken wrote FAKE vows on a piece of left over wrapping paper!!

His real vows were written inside a crossword!

When Scott asked if anybody had anything to say about this marriage Ozzy barked!

A very unique way of placing a ring on your partners finger.

We asked Scott not to say "You may kiss the bride!". We rewrote it to "You may now high-five the bride!!"

..and then we kissed!

My mother and Ken's father walked back down the aisle with us to sign the marriage license.

Fun fact: We signed our license in blue ink which is a HUGE no-no!

Post-ceremony:

Hugs all around!

Hugs for my new grandpa!

My family.

Ken's family. That's right...I doubled my amount of brothers.... *sigh*

Scott and my brother, Taren (the two men "blowing it up") did the toasts to the bride and groom. They were so well written my eyes are welling up just thinking about it!

Post-ceremony formals: