France Marriage Equality

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This week, along with Uruguay, France’s senate voted to legalize same-sex marriage and to allow same-sex couples to adopt.  Not without some controversy.

I didn’t specifically want to make this blog political, after all it is supposed to be about celebration, but I can’t ignore what is happening in the rest of the world.

While in Canada we had it relatively easy with support for same-sex marriage, other places in the world are still struggling.  Despite France voting for gay marriage, there is still a lot of protesting and needless violence going on around the world.

  • French Senate Passes Gay Marriage Bill – France’s justice minister, one of the bill’s loudest supporters, said the reform recognizes that many children are already living with same-sex parents and deserve the same protections afforded children of opposite-sex parents.  “These are children that scrape their knees, eat too much candy, don’t like broccoli, drive you crazy… we protect them,” Christine Taubira told senators following the vote.  The justice minister said the reform will “move our institutions towards ever more freedom, equality and personal respect.”
  • French marriage equality bill met with threats of violence
  • France Gay Marriage Debate Prompts Homophobic Assaults – Wilfred de Bruijn’s face is bloated, seeped in blood, his bruised right eye shut tight, his tooth broken — the victim of a brutal attack in Paris while he was “walking arm in arm” with his boyfriend.
  • Gay Marriage Law Passes Crucial Vote In France – For the past six months, hundreds of thousands have participated in demonstrations in opposition of marriage equality. Most of the opposition is backed by conservative religious institutions, which claim the legislation will create psychological and social problems for children.

Matrimonio igualitario en Uruguay!

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Planning a wedding, going through a kitchen renovation, renovating our laundry room…

On the wedding front, our invites have arrived and we’ll be mailing them out in May.  For those in farther places, maybe earlier.

But in other news, today, el Senado voted 23 to 8 in favour of marriage equality. It still has one more step before it comes law, and it sounds like it is expected to pass.299252

Uruguay will be the second country in South America to support gay marriage.  Argentina was first.

I spent 7 to 8 weeks in Montevideo last year and I’m very pleased to see how progressive Uruguay has been, in South America and Latin America, on gay and trans rights.  Support for adoption, recognizing change in gender for trans-folk, and supporting civil unions (which is different from marriage).

Matrimonio gay por amplia mayoría

As with any wedding plans…

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photoAs with any wedding plans, sometimes there are hiccups.

We had a hiccup with our rings.  In short, for the rings we chose, they could not get Scott’s size in.  Never fear – there are alternatives!  And we found an alternative, in the same material with a similar style.  We finally picked the rings up on Friday and they fit perfectly. Again, if you’re looking for a great jeweller, Scott and I won’t hesitate to recommend Ben Moss at Sherway Gardens, they were awesome to work with.

On the cake front, it was recommended that we go to For the Love of Cake in the Liberty Village area of Toronto.  Genevieve and Adam were awesome to work with, and their cupcakes are divine.  I know our cake is going to be awesome.  Check out the picture of the Mario and Peach wedding cake they did to the right.  Amazing detail, and reasonable too.

As much as I want to spill as many details as I want, my lips are sealed over what the cake is going to be and look like.  Needless to say, we came up with the ideas very quickly.

We got the food all finalized, and we’re finalizing the plans, times and such with the church and reception hall.  The only thing left to figure out is what clothes we’re going to wear, what the table decorations will be and to send out the invitations.

I’ve been chomping at the bit to send out the invitations and Scott has been holding me back – LOL!  We do have the design and pretty much everything is ready to go.  We just need to print them up and send them.  WOOHOO!

August can’t come soon enough!

I am a foodie

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Scott enjoying some form of food item

Scott enjoying some form of food item

Over the past 16 years, Scott has taught me much about being a foodie.  And he’s learned that my nickname is “Dyson” – an upgrade from “Hoover” many years ago.

Yes, I eat quickly.  Yes, I do taste food and I enjoy it, but food, for me, is about sustenance and energy to do what I do in my daily life.  It’s not necessarily about savouring and a particular scene from “When Harry Met Sally”, which wasn’t really about the food anyway.

I digress – Today we did the tasting with Herrera’s Catering.  We picked Herrera’s because of friends of ours have used them in the past, we’ve had their food before, as well it’s run by the sister of a friend of ours.  Why wouldn’t we go with them?

Ian from Herrera’s has helped us to feel considerably relaxed as we pick menu items and such for our day, assisting with food allergies that friends of ours have, etc…

Now as much as I want to gush and give you details about the food… Scott and I have agreed that we are not giving anything away.  Nope, my mouth is shut – I’m not telling you anything about what we have planned.  Some of you will already know the general details, but I’m not going to say anything further.  It’s different, it’s not your standard fare for a wedding, but it’s also classic.

When we arrived, several dishes were laid out for Scott and I to try absolutely everything on the menu that we picked for the day.

As I tried the first piece of about sixteen, an appetizer, my inner foodie came out and started dancing describing how you get a high note of mint that melds into… that finishes off with… and marries with…

And the look on Scott’s face was priceless, and he said, “What happened to my husband? When did you become and start talking like a foodie?”

Yes, I’m secretly a foodie and Scott had never heard me describe food in such ways.  It’s all about context for me.  I’m there for a tasting, not for a free meal – which really isn’t a free meal anyway as we’re going with them for our catering, and remember – there’s no such thing as a free meal.

I gotta say, the food was amazing.  Meeting Dean, the Executive Chef, who explained everything that was being served was great – a chance to see who is behind the great food.  The rest was for Scott and I to eat and yay or nay.  Everything was yayed!  It was fantastic, and there’s something for everyone – vegetarian, gluten free, chocolate lovers, etc…

You won’t be disappointed, that’s for sure.

The desserts, wow perfect size, and my mother and sister will be way more than pleased – and one of the desserts that is being served is a favourite of theirs.

Out of all the food items – one stood out.  All I am allowed to say is, “It’s like thanksgiving dinner in a single bite.”

*GRIN*

 

Really?

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sexismguideSo I’m visiting the website of a subsidiary of a rather large, long running in the history of Canada, department store that deals with housewares.

Now, the parent company’s site does a good job of being gender, and even event, agnostic.  A gift registry is exactly what it is – a gift registry for a special occasion.  They have something for everyone – although it’s real shame they got rid of their electronics department, but I digress.

So I’m looking at registering with this housewares site because there are a few things Scott and I could use especially as we go through a kitchen renovation starting soon.  Every picture on this site that’s related to the gift registry service is almost all women.  Now, you’re probably saying, “Iain, you shouldn’t be surprised because, after all it’s her day.”  Oh come on!  I have two issues:

  • It’s OUR day together, not just ‘her’ day.  You’re celebrating the union of two people who are in love, who want to share the rest of their lives together, and both need to live with the gifts they are given.
  • There’s more than just hetero-normative weddings out there!  It would be nice to see more representation of visible and invisible minorities.
  • Roles have change significantly between men and women – if you’re going to use the argument around stay-at-home mum, what about the stay-at-home dad?

Diving deeper into the site, I see the “Gift Guide, Women’s” link and decide to see what it includes, and I’m expecting something for women… Admittedly i’m not sure what that is when it comes to housewares, but you know it when you see it.

Firstly, what about “Gift Gide, Men’s”?  I would say most guys would want more than an electric shaver that happens to be on the site.

What I saw under “Gift Guide, Women’s” was what any man or woman would want.  I see lovely espresso makers, a Cuisinart Brew Central coffee maker, a mini retro popcorn maker, etc… Maybe I’m skewed, but while those are things we don’t need – we already have a Tassimo, and we don’t need a popcorn maker – I could see these items appealing to more than one gender.  Do we have a misnaming in the category?

Guys have to have their fun too, and there are many guys out there who do like to cook in the kitchen, who like good kitchenware, home décor, and appreciate good stemware.  On the flip side, I think guys should feel comfortable enough to build up and add to the registry and not be chastised for it, so let’s stop it with wedding registries being sexist.  Men, if you want that pair of 3D glasses for your man cave, a set of crystal beer mugs from Tiffany’s (we actually have these) – add them to your registry!

Given my ideology on relationships and such, I will never understand why something like a gift registry has to be so skewed towards women these days.  Yes, it made sense many years ago, however, welcome to the 21st Century.

Maybe that’s a great idea – a central registry place where anyone can go to create their own registry that allows the user to track various links to webstores, for items they are adding. I trademark this idea. 🙂

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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