Category Archives: Wedding

Registering!

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Gift Registry "Arch" at The Bay Queensway

Gift Registry “Arch” at The Bay Queensway

So… this post will be about our “journey” to getting registered at The Bay in preparation for our wedding.

Once the proposal was accepted we began to talk about several things, and one of those things was the idea of establishing a potential Gift Registry at one of the major department stores.   Initially, Iain was not too thrilled with the idea.  He was quite resistant and mostly was saying “But do we really need to do that” or “Do we really need to register?” or “We don’t really need anything like that, do we?”.   I suggested to that having a Registry is as much about us, and opportunity to open a new chapter in our home, but also about giving the guests to our celebration a source for ideas should they decide they want to get something.

Iain with a Scanner! :-)

Iain with a Scanner! 🙂

I think it was a plus that when we booked the appointment, we happened to see a couple just finishing up and they had one of the laser scanner handheld devices – and you could see Iain’s face light up!  Sold!

With that idea that having a Registry was cool, we visit our local “The Bay” to set-up an appointment.   Unfortunately, with all of the excitement and “busy-ness” of the first month back after Christmas, we accidently double-booked, and had to move it to the following weekend.   That brings us to Saturday, January 26th, 2013 and our 1pm appointment with one of the “Gift Registry Consultants”   We really lucked out with ours, and had someone who was excited, full of energy, and totally into the idea of helping us get things organized.

Us with Darlene the Awesome Gift Registry Consultant!!

Us with Darlene the Awesome Gift Registry Consultant!!

Darlene walked us through the whole process – the benefits of having a Registry – including a “Completion Card” that gives us a 10% discount on all items on the Registry  from now until 1 year after the wedding, the number of items they recommend to have on a Registry with a certain number of guests, and then suggestions of what sort of stuff to consider.   They have a really great “suggestion” book for some of the basic things.    

spectrum-chaletSince we were sitting in and around all the dishes/china, we decide we would start there and work our way “out” from there.    We poked around at the selection that they had, and eventually settled on a more formal dinnerware pattern from Noritake called Spectrum (see a post sometime soon with details) and after some tense moments we eventually settled on a mirror finished stainless steel flatware choice from Splendide called Chalet (post to come soon).     We started wandering around the other kitchen stuff and decided to ask for some of the Bay’s “everyday” dishes to replace the ones that we currently have.

We finished out the initial Registry creation process by looking at and adding a few small appliances, some bakeware, items for entertaining, and some towels.   All and all it was a really fun experience.    We will be adding more to the Registry to round the whole thing out over the next month or so, but at least it has been started! 🙂

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Wedding Rings!

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So…. leafing through the fliers this morning, I ran across one for Ben Moss Jewellers and saw a wedding ring that I thought looked pretty cool.   After a bit of fun/weirdly-somewhat-stressful morning of meeting with our kitchen reno contractors (Yes, you right that right… we are doing a kitchen reno in the midst of wedding planning… crazy, right?), we decided wedding-bands-cobaltKayto swing by the Ben Moss showroom closest to us down at Sherway Gardens.

My skin is relatively reactive, so have to go with metals like Titanium, Tungsten (and its alloys) or other non-reactive metal varieties.   The sales person, Rob, who was also the store manager (who was AWESOME by the way), pointed us towards an alloy called BioBlue27 made by Scott Kay out of New York.    That all being said, Iain and I  chose the ring in the picture shown in sizes 11 and 15.5 respectively.   Eeeek!  🙂

A little more real…

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The geek side of wedding

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It’s all about the e-wedding these days, isn’t it.  Or is it?

There can be a bit too much technology – such as entering in “I do” on an Apple ][ as one couple did in the 1980s.  And then there’s technology that makes sense.  Here are a few tips and tricks Scott and I are using, leveraging technology in our wedding preparations.

  1. Google Docs
    We’re using Google’s Spreadsheet to make sure we both have access to the list of invitees, statistics, to-do list, music list and budgets.  We can do so pretty much anywhere if needed – home, work, on the bus to work, in the middle of a shopping mall, when inspiration strikes us.We’re not really using any other parts of Google Docs.Here are some geek tips I’ve been using:

    • Use formulas such as COUNTIF to count the number of yesses and nos.  i.e. =COUNTIF(A1:A5,”Y”) – beware, Google Spreadsheet likes double quotes rather than single quotes.
    • Sum to sum up a column of # of attendees.  i.e. =SUM(B1:B5)
    • Use If to get a count of people likely to attend and not likely to attend.  i.e. =IF(G108=”Y”, C108,0) – If cell G108 has “Y” in it, then put the value of C108 in the cell the formula is going in, otherwise put “0”.
    • One thing I found with Google Docs that you don’t see in Microsoft Excel is, when adding an additional role above a formula, such as a SUM, the formula often will not include the added row.  Beware of that and be sure to check your counts in this case.


  2. A Label Maker
    photo 2I’ve never owned a label maker, and despite the fact that I have used Avery labels in a standard printer, putzing around with Microsoft Word to make it work can be a royal pain.We made the smart move to buy a label maker today – a Dymo LabelWriter 450.  It’s fast, it doesn’t user toner, and it’s saved me and our guests from trying to decipher my handwriting.

    Believe me – my grade 7 teacher made me type a science exam using Sierra Online’s Homeword.It’s Mac compatible, and the software is not bad.  Generate your list in a CSV or Excel formatted file, import it in and print directly from the spreadsheet.  Easy!


  3. QR Codes?
    photo 1We decided to add a QR code to our postcard, mainly because we’re geeks, and maybe a bit too geekish. Was it necessary, no, but hey it’s a great discussion point.

    The one we added leads to our blog.You could use QR codes in a multitude of different ways. Maybe you want to have a private page that only guests will see? Maybe you want to do a door prize at the reception and the first person to arrive who actually did their homework, wins.


  4. Vistaprint.ca
    photoWe would be nowhere today without Vistaprint.  Their prices are not bad, you can build your own design almost professionally, and get them printed on all kinds of different types of cardstock. We opted for a matte finish on recyclable paper.

    Scott was responsible for the design, with help from our friend Nico. It looks pretty slick!


  5. Social Media
    I think there is a fine line between how much people use social media, and I suspect I’m going to learn how much people will get fed up of ‘wedding this, wedding that’. Hey, we’re both big boys and can handle the criticism.

    We’re communicating some stuff on Twitter and Facebook such as this entry because someone else may be interested in what we’re doing. On the day of the wedding, you could use Twitter to provide something as mundane as traffic updates as your motorcade makes it’s way through the city, or pictures as it happens!

    Blogging your experience is a great way to keep an online record of the lead up to your day, and the happenings on the day of your wedding, whether it’s sharing pictures or thoughts as the day goes on – as if you’ll really have time for that!

    Remember, what happens on the net, stays on the net – so beware of what you write. Afterall, the net is not like Vegas.


  6. Web streaming
    Something we’re not doing is streaming our wedding online. But if you wanted to, services like UStream are available. You could get cameras such as Logitech’s Broadcaster Wifi Web Cam which might be able to do the trick if you’re on a budget. This is a great way to include others who are remote and can’t attend your day.

    Remember, the venue where the service takes place needs to have net access, or you’ll be using a Wifi hotspot from your phone which could be killer in charges. But hey, LTE wireless data networks are fast!


  7. Stuff you should already be using…
    … such as Email, Phone, the net, and your phone (land line and/or mobile). Admittedly the caterer seems to have an aversion to calling my cell phone and constantly calls the home number despite me giving him both numbers. So we’ll see what happens there.

    If you’re reading this, then I am going to assume your’e savvy enough to use a search engine to find ideas and information. If not, you can get a lot of great ideas online which can be used to help shape your day from clothing, to food, to table settings – you name it.

Sadly, none of these companies are helping to pay our wedding. Maybe they should for the ideas I just gave!


That’s pretty much it for now. Now where’s that bottle of wine?
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Ahhhh!

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Hi Everyone, Iain here, and welcome to our wedding site.

Some of you have said, “IT’S ABOUT TIME!” and you’re right – it is about time Scott and I did something about our relationship of 16 years as of Toronto Pride 2013.  Yeah it’s about time we tied the knot.

Considering the first time I proposed was 9 years ago this April, on top of Mt. Diablo in California.

So why the long wait?   There’s no doubt that we were in it for the long haul, but we wanted to make sure we were ready.  Two things came to mind

  • firstly, there’s that rebellious, “Why do we need to get married?”  – Honestly we don’t need to, but in this case we want to.
  • I have to admit based on certain previous life events on my side, I wanted to make sure this was the right step for us. I think we’ve both matured over the years as well and we’re truly ready to take this next step in our relationship.

So there you go.

We’ll be sharing our experiences as we put together the wedding plans, our vision and all of that fun stuff.

Stay tuned!