Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Upcoming Events

Just wanted to share some of the stuff coming up this month and yes some of it is wedding related.

This weekend is one of my best friends birthday and coincidentally my other best friend who recently moved to Alberta is coming to town for a little bit so I'm very excited :)
This is a picture of the there of us when we were 15. So tender.

Anywhoo... Basically Friday we are all going out to the bar to hang out and stuff, then Saturday is Shay's birthday (one on the right) so we are going for dinner and then to the bar after (no clubs in that town). Then on Sunday Jolene's (one on the right) sister is throwing a first birthday party for Jolene's daughter. She's actually 18 months or so now but since Jolene moved we never got to celebrate it so we are doing it this weekend. Really excited because I haven't seen the little one since she was like 9 months! She's walking and talking now it's going to be strange haha.

On another note, our lease is almost up in our apartment. When we got our apartment last year we had an incentive for signing a 1 year lease. Basically we got a certain amount taken off our rent every month. Well they lessened the incentive so our rent is going to be going up $100 if we resign so we started looking for another place. Well we found a place in the next city over. It's an all inclusive basement suite and it works out to be less than what we are paying in this place right now. Once we put our deposit down next week the place is ours :) We won't be moving in till July 1st though because thats when our lease here is up. 

I'm a little bit apprehensive about moving because I'm already like a half hour drive from all of my friends and now we're moving another half hour away from where we are now but it's also closer to my school so it will cut my commuting time down a bit which is a plus. Win and lose!

Packing for this move will be quite interesting because I'm going to Toronto from the 11th to the 25th! So when I get back we'll have 4 days! I am also very excited to go to Toronto because well I love it there :) A couple months ago I went for my cousin's bridal shower. Well now this is the actual wedding. I will be sure to post pictures because lets just say, it's going to be spectacular. While I'm there, I'm also going to be booking the hall and the chuch hopefully. Crossing fingers everything goes smoothly because I won't be back there until December! I've also been bugging my Dad about us going to a Blue Jays game. We used to go but past couple summers we haven't :(

Anyway that is all for now :) Just thought I'd give a little... or big depending on how much you like to read ... update haha.

Ta Ta!

Sunday, May 27, 2012

First Item Bought!

Well... besides the dress haha. My Mom suggested I start collecting the Michael's coupons for 40% off single item. There's not a huge amount I want from Michaels as of right now but they have these little flower confetti things. I got it for $5 with the coupon. 
 I was aiming for the pink ones but when I went back to the store they didn't have any and they don't have that color on the website either so I decided to get the grey instead which makes adding grey as another color (an idea I was contemplating) kind of official! Haha so pink and grey it is :) 

If you are wondering what I'm using this for ... I will explain now. After looking through many centerpieces I came to the conclusion I really love this one the best... 


 With pink crystal thingies of course.... Sooo I'm going to put the flower confetti on the table around this. I'm just going to keep collecting boxes ... I'm thinking I'll need probably 4 or so to be safe... I don't want to drown the tables in the confetti haha. I'll post another blog later of all the centerpiece ideas I had looked at. I also found the round vase thingies (if vase is what you want to call them) at Michaels in the states but not in the one in Canada. The one's at Michaels are $15 each so hoping I could find them cheaper elsewhere but these ones are kind of hard to find. I'll be buying them as soon as I figure out my table count. 

And to close this entry. The other day I reached my 2 years until the wedding mark so now we are UNDER 2 years which is quite exciting for me :) The 5 months up until that point went by quite fast so I will be saying I Do in nooo time.
May 24 2014
Days until Wedding: 728
Theme/Colors: Pink, Grey & White
What has been booked: My dress

Friday, May 11, 2012

Cakes!!

Hello Hello

So lately I've had cakes on the brain. I thought I would share with you my ideas about the wedding cake (even though I'm far from booking it haha) - this post is picture heavy.

As always, I'm trying to find cheaper alternatives to what the "usual" is. For the wedding cake I knew having less tiers would make it cheaper so I was thinking around 2 would be fine. Either that or I was thinking cupcakes because they run cheaper too. I really like the look of cakes though. Here's some ideas of the look I'm going for.



 Now the next three pictures are of cakes that I think are so adorable! 

In addition to this cake - the cake stand is so adorable and really goes with the fairy-tale theme. 
You can get it here It's kind of pricey but if I have some money leftover in the budget I think I will definitely be ordering this - they ship to Canada (already asked haha)

These cupcakes are so cute too - it's what made me really consider cupcakes.


 Now I noticed that buttercream or cream cheese icing is cheaper than fondant and I don't even really like fondant anyways. It looks nice on the cake but it hurts my teeth! I also realllly love red velvet cake. It's so good! So my fiance and I have decided we are going to go with a red velvet cake with buttercream or cream cheese (would go with it better) icing!




 The cupcake version of red velvet. We definitely will not go with the cupcake version because red cupcakes would for sure clash with my pink and white color scheme lol!

Anyway those are my thoughts on the cakes I thought I'd share. I have so much time to plan everything and I'm so impatient. Can't wait to get all these things booked haha planning is half the fun for me :P



May 24 2014
Days until Wedding: 743
Theme/Colors: Fairytale / White and Soft Pink
What has been booked: My dress





Wednesday, May 02, 2012

Venue

Boa tarde!

Since I got engaged I've been searching for a reception venue that was cheaper than what you would normally see. I wanted to have the reception in a hall because they have an "all-inclusive" type deal. Basically you get a price per plate and it involes an open bar with unlimited alcohol plus you don't have to pay for venue rental (at most places). Unfortunately, most halls were priced at $100 or more per plate.

Well as previously posted, I visited Toronto (which too short of a trip!) and I spent my last day there visiting venus that I had chosen.

The first place I visited was called The Renaissance. My cousin who is getting married reccommended this one to me because it is a Portuguese hall which I had been looking for (but they are all kind of pricey). She said she had been to a couple weddings there and it was quite nice.

Pros:
  • Portuguese hall
  • It was nice
  • $74 per plate (excluding tax) but if I were to book in off-season it would be $74 all inclusive
Cons:
  • The coordinator I was dealing with kind of made me feel uncomfortable
  • I didn't like the low ceilings and the parking lot was kind of small (don't know why this stuck out to me haha)
  • They had a minimum of 130 - I only plan to invite around 100 so that bumped my price up
  • The Portuguese menu was actually around $90 per plate
When I walked out of this place it was definitely a place that was staying on the list as a contendor

The second place I visited was my first choice - this hotel that I had found online called Stage West.
 
Pros
  • Cheaper than most - $74 per plate all inclusive
  • It's a hotel so it was great for the out of town guests coming out and reasonably priced
  • Literally right on the other side of the highway from the airport
  • The lobby was impressive
 Cons
  • The room was small, barely room for a dancefoor 
  • To open it up to the other room I would have to have a minimum 130 guests - I would have no problem inviting that many and was starting to consider it but I didn't like the boost in the price
  • The room looked like an old folk's bingo hall (thats the best way to describe it)
  • Low ceilings = my short self felt closed in
Needles to say I was not impressed and kind of dissapointed because I thought this would be the one I would book. It was taken off the list.

My Stepmom decided to take me to a third place that she had been to for a baptism that previous weekend. Speranza Restaurant and Banquet Hall

Pros
  • Portuguese
  • The guy I was dealing with was fun and was pretty jokey so I felt more at ease
  •  The rooms were quite large 
  •  There was no minimum
  •  Really nice details - chandaliers and moldings around the door and all that
  •  The lobby was really spacious
  •  $90 per plate for the Portuguese menu (which is kind of a con) BUT - a sweet table was included and again - there was no minimum
 There are no cons to this one.  I really liked this one, I loved the rooms. It is a little bit on the pricier side but we get a sweet table included, it includes the tax and there is no minimum. I calculated it out and it comes to the same price as the other would be anyway. Another plus was that it's a $2000 deposit when you book and you don't have to pay the rest until the night of the wedding - which I wouldn't do because who wants to worry about that but it is open to pay whatever we want whenever we want before the wedding as long as it's all paid for the night of the wedding of course.


We haven't booked it yet. I still haven't figured out where to have the ceremony so I want to make sure there's a date for that before I book the venue. When I go back in June for my cousins wedding my Mom will also be coming to visit her side of the family and we will go search for the ceremony venue (most likely a church) and then book this. Exciting =D 

Thanks for bearing with me for this extremely long post! It will feel really nice when I get to book something for the wedding!