Lemonade Made...and It's Goooooood

29 days to go

So today we officially have lemonade, good lemonade. We signed our new venue, and it's gonna be great! I will be honest, as you have read I have been up and down and this week; the whole situation if fact has really left me mentally drained. I know some people may not see the big deal of relocating your wedding venue, but when you have spent over 11 months planning something and you suddenly have to make drastic changes...let me tell ya, it messes you up. We knew we had to move fast so when Prince Charming and I looked at venues yesterday we knew we had to decide before we went to bed; and decide we did.

We opted to be married in a the Ottawa landmark known as the Canadian Museum of Nature.

L said to me last night..."Maybe things happen for a reason, maybe this is the wedding you were really meant to have"... with that I felt like myself again, ready to sign on the dotted line.

Now, hyper wedding planning begins...I'm in overdrive people!

Making Lemonade with Rotten Lemons

30 days to go

I'm not looking for a pity post here but really, this sucks!

They say when life hands you lemons you make lemonade, but what happens when those lemons are rotten?

Welcome to a snap shot of my day.

Call #1...*ring ring* "Hi there, I was supposed to have my wedding on the 28th of August but my venue is now closed due to fire....can you accommodate ?" "Oh, I heard about that.. yes we can but we require a $16,000 minimum spending"

Call #2...*ring ring* "Hi there, I was supposed to have my wedding on the 28th of August but my venue is now closed due to fire....can you accommodate ?" "Oh, we heard about that...we would have to scatter your party around, some on at the tables, some at the bar..."

Call#3...*ring ring*"Hi there, I was supposed to have my wedding on the 28th of August but my venue is now closed due to fire...I really hope you can help" "Oh, we have a booking that night, but we can do it if you change your date to the next day...." *insert Bantering Bride Scowl here*

Call#9...Voice mail- "Hi my name is BB and I was hoping you may have a room available for the 28th of August,you see my venue is closed due to fire and..." *ring ring* Hello Bantering Bride?Yes, we have a room that can accommodate you. Would you like to come and see it? Is your fiancée Prince Charming? I just got off the phone with him."

The wedding gods are smiling again...lemonade anyone?

Breathe

30 days to go,

OK, here it is. I have to relocate my wedding (insert look of shock here) I got the call last night from my venue. They provided me an alternative location which Prince Charming and I have gone to look at. It's our back up. Right now we will talk about our options and look around to see if there is anything else out there that is better suited for us.

Does this suck? yes. Am I upset? yes. But what can I do. Now that I know what I am dealing with I have to get my butt in great to re-plan my wedding around a totally different venue in less the 4 weeks. If I pull this off people, I will call my self a kick ass wedding planner of the year. Wish me luck !

I know that my wedding will not be my dream wedding. That wedding went up in smoke with my venue. But it will still be my wedding. I will still be there marrying the man I love; despite the fact that I've been nothing but a pain in the ass these past few days. Now I have to plan the best wedding I can with what I have, I only plan to do this once so I have to work double time. Once I finalize a venue I will be OK, I know it. Fingers crossed.

My Maid of Honor will NOT be naked!

31 Days to go

Still no update from my venue. Now I know that they have other (more anxious and stressed out) brides to deal with then me and I’m sure their job has not been easy these past few days. But we are all selfish creatures and we all want to be top priority (weather if it’s realistic or not) especially a Bride to be. Now I know this isn’t going to happen so I just need to sit and wait. I’m trying to not be negative about this with the hopes that my good vibes and karma will be rewarded later on closer to my wedding.; ie, everything will work out the way it was supposed to *wink, wink, nudge, nudge to the wedding gods**

I did however get a piece of good news last night though. My Maid of Honor, who lives in Hong Kong finally, is getting her dress made. I’m sure many of you are in shock that she would have waited so long and so close to the actual wedding, or why I would have allowed it to be put off for so long. Well in Asia, a custom dress can be made in a matter of a week and I gave her the choice of choosing her own style as long as it matched my color scheme. I figured that there was no use in me dictating what she should wear mainly because she was half a world away and the only one in my side of the bridal party (aside from my Usher/MC who is wearing whatever suit he wants to as well) with all this stress from the venue fire and the wedding being a few weeks away, I was really starting to worry that she hadn’t gotten it ordered yet, especially since she lands in Canada August 18^th. Believe me, it wasn’t fro the lack of trying to ride her ass to get this darn dress made, it’s just so hard to get a hold of her due to the time difference and all. Plus, I know she was avoiding me because she hadn’t placed the order the last time I emailed her. Anyways, the dress will be done in a few days and she will send me a picture of it before she leaves for Canada…I hope it’s not ugly.

No title ... Less shock...Wish for more information

32 days to go

So these past few days have been a real emotional roller coaster. Have you ever felt so many things that you just didn't know what to do with yourself? welcome to my past weekend, and I'm sure my next few days.

When I got news that there was a fire at my wedding venue my heart dropped. I swear if felt like someone just killed my cat or something, I was honestly numb. So numb that I tried to call my venue. What was I thinking? there was a fire there; but I guess I really didn't know how serious it was. Calling didn't work so I emailed them. I was so numb I couldn't even type the little letters on Bedazzle (my Blackberry). Once I finally managed to compose a e-mail I texted Price Charming, I was close to tears, but none came. All the while I had to clean myself up and look happy and stunning since I was late for my dear friends book launch. I told myself I would let this disturb her night to shine so I kept it to myself...OK, I told my BFF who was waiting for me at the party. In true male form he had no words to comfort me.

My only comfort came in the form of comments posted on this blog. Comments that told me things would be ok and others who let me know I was not alone ( Sofia if you are reading this I would appreciate and update on your wedding, I hope is was beautiful). Today at work all I could think about was any sort of back up plan I could think of. I've called around a few places but they are either booked or are way too expensive. I have heard that they are trying to relocate weddings to neighboring restaurants that have the same owner but really, you know it's not the same no matter how much you try; but this has not yet been offered to me. I have only received one email from my venue which is this:

Thank you for your patience, I understand how frustrated and worried you must be. I am sure that you have heard by now that there was a small fire at the Courtyard Restaurant on Thursday July 22, 2010. The fire started in the kitchen and was quickly contained, however the kitchen has sustained damage that will require repair.(blah, blah, blah)... We have back-up plans in place should we need them and will continue to work with you during your wedding planning process. Until the power and phone lines are reinstated at the Courtyard Restaurant the best way to contact me is via email; I will do my best to respond in a timely fashion. Although I do not have too much of an update, I can let you know that the owner and Management Team will be meeting with our contractor and NCC Property Director Monday and Tuesday of next week. We hope by that time we will be provided with a better understanding of what is going to be taking place and what type of time line we are look at for the future. I hope to have a more concrete update for you early next week and will be in contact with you again once I know more. I sincerely apologize for any distress and inconvenience this may cause you. Thank you very much for your patience and understanding, I will be in touch very soon.

As you can see it's pretty general and vague. I've been trying to do my own investigating and have found out there is a hole in the floor of the second floor . This is where my ceremony and reception was to be held. I don't know what is next. All I know is I have no control over anything right now and it drives me crazy. I feel sad, angry, fustrated and anxious. I'm super stressed out that my fingers are tingling and so deleted that the wedding planning that once brought me joy now makes me want to to scream. I know I can't stop planning since the wedding will happen no matter what, but this whole thing has really just kicked my ass and taken everything out of me.

Stay tuned for updates.

Still no title...still in shock

36 days to go ?

So I’ve had about 10 hours to try and digest this shit. Yes, I’m cursing because I’m still in shock. The thing is, I can’t control this and that in itself is driving me bonkers. I have e-mailed the venue and tried to call. Obviously unanswered since they are surly tending to others who have their weddings in the next few days.

On the venue website it says this:

Minor Kitchen Fire Update:

Our upcoming wedding clients will contacted within the next 48 hours by a member of our Events Staff. We will continue to aid you through your wedding planning process. Please send all inquiries tomiranda@courtyardrestaurant.com.

All upcoming personal and corporate reservations will be contacted within the next 72 hours by our Events Staff with a reservation update.

Thank you for your understanding and patience.

But it still doesn’t change the fact that inside I AM freaking out. On the outside I am calm. Maybe because I’m in shock or maybe because a part of me is holding on to hope that it really was a minor fire that only caused smoke damage and can be cleaned up in a few days. But really, if it is a major thing would they really post it for the fear of 100 crazy brides stalking them to try and get answers?

I know it’s wasted energy to obsess over this, but anyone how has ever planned their wedding will tell you, this is a frigg’n big deal.

I know I’m driving myself crazy but I can’t help it. I know there is absolutely nothing that can be done on my end all I can do is pray that it all works out. At this point if it doesn’t I have no idea what to do.

No title ...just shock.

36 days to go

I want to cry. I just saw on the news that my wedding venue had a fire this afternoon.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Update...9602/story.html

I’m out of town right now and obviously I can’t get in contact with anyone at the restaurant.I

am praying to the wedding gods that it will be all right.

Come dance with me?

40 days to go

Just a little over one month to go before the wedding and we are now sending invitations out to our friends to come join us after the ceremony and the family dinner, these are not close friends but co workers and teammates from sports teams. We are not super close but hang out often. We are calling them our “drinks invites” because they are invited to come for drinks, some food and lots of dancing after all the formal stuff ends. Now I know some of you are a bit shocked that Prince Charming and I would do this, but we never saw anything wrong with it, we thought it was a great idea. Since deciding this I have heard some peoples input (none who are guests) say why would you do that? Don’t you think that’s rude? My reply, why wouldn’t I and no I don’t think it’s rude.

Some arguments I’ve heard against this are as follows; It makes people feel like they were not important enough to be invited to your whole wedding, or it seems more like a gift grab. I was surprised that people would feel this way….all I can say is, man, people are way too sensitive about silly things.

This is my response to those who are silently judging me and disapprove of this. Our venue only holds 75 people seated. I’m sorry I loved my venue and it suited us perfectly so I wasn’t gonna pass it up. But after all the older people are gone (older Asians tend to leave after dinner) we invited some friends, none of which are from out of town, to come join us for drinks and dancing and really celebrate with us. We have specified no gifts and they didn’t even have to dress up. Just want them there to have fun. Really what is wrong with that? We wouldn’t have too much fun if we just had family there for dinner and dancing. First of all, Asians don’t dance a heck of a lot, and second, I’m not close with my family. This is all more formality then anything. I have never felt comfortable to let loose inform of my family, let alone Prince Charming’s. So to have our friends come in after and really celebrate with us…why not? If we didn’t do this we would have probably hosted a party after for these friends ( I repeat none close, all from work and from teams we play sports in) so why not tack it on to the night where we are already paying for a venue and a bar and I can have good food provided with a DJ?

As for the argument of people feeling like they were not important enough…well, really if I’m not too close to you why would you want to sit there and listen to my aunt or uncle talk about my childhood and how happy they are…blah blah blah? I’ve been to so many weddings where I’ve endured speech after speech about the bride and groom who I had only known for a little while. In that case to be honest I felt like it was a gift grab since I was not close to either the bride or groom.

Prince charming and I just wanted to throw a big party fro our friends, and this was our way to do it.

Despite some peoples opinions about how we are organizing our wedding and who we are inviting to what part, I’m sure the friends who do attend will see what we want to do and understand this is really more our style. We are very social people but at the same time very private. For those who get offended and don’t come…more drinks for others, they will miss a great party, because obviously, they don’t really know us at all…and who wants that at your wedding?

Invitation by obligation

42 days to go

Ok, I know this post may offend some but let me just start off by saying it is no way geared towards anyone who would read this blog. Now that all my invites have gone out and most of our RSVPs have come back with an answer I can get to plan my seating plan. However, there are still some outstanding RSVPs out there who let me be honest with you, I could care less if they come, actually, and I’m hoping they don’t. This brings me to my topic. Why do we invite people out of obligation? Now I understand when you are obligated to invite family. Like your aunt from overseas who your parents made you invite or your second cousin whom you have not seen since you played together when you were 4 years old. Family I understand you can’t fight blood, but friends (or not so good friends) I don’t see the point.

Maybe I’m cold, heartless, selfish, whatever. I just don’t see why you would invite people you were once close to out of obligation. I mean if they really wanted to be part of your life and you them, you would have made the effort to stay close. And well if there was a falling out then call it what it is and move on. I mean I have a handful of great friends, if they couldn’t make it to the wedding I’d understand; I did not invite them out of obligation. However, there are some (who have yet to RSVP) that I secretly wish don’t come; heck I didn’t even want to waste an invitation. But Prince Charming (who is also my voice of reason, and apparently a much nicer person then I) said we had to. It was the right thing to do.

The more I think about this situation, the more I don’t want them at my wedding. Really if they did attend it wouldn’t ruin our day or anything. However, I know that they wouldn’t really want to be there either. It’s one of those tip toe around the big pink elephant in the room what nobody wants to be the first one to talk about. I say end it. Don’t dance around the situation just end it. But I guess we live in a society where we have to try and be as socially correct as possible. Aside from that it’s goon manners. But really we all think it. Why can’t we just stop doing things we are obligated to do, especially when it doesn’t benefit anyone in the end. If they do come they wouldn’t want to really be there and we really wouldn’t want them to come. Look every one Big Pink Elephant in the room! But I guess that’s why I have prince Charming, he keeps the peace…if I were left to my own devices there would be chaos.

Yay! Cake Toppers

55 Days to go.

Ok so it's 2:55 am and I just finished our cake toppers. We were gonna get bobble heads made but decided at the last minute to save the $200.00 and use it for something else. Well, while walking around down town yesterday for Canada day we found these things called Munny. I had seen them before but never knew what they were. Pretty much a blank canvas in the shape of child. Figured I'd try my hand at it and see what I could do with it. After all, we still didn't have a cake topper. Anyways to make a long story short...with a little bit of planning and some paint Vola!

just had to share.