2007-10-23 - 1:50

It can't all be wedding cake

The last couple of weeks have been quite fantastic. Laurie and I got married on the 13th and, other than the weather, everything went at least as well as expected. Some wedding guests have sent photos our way, so I'll try to recap the day in pictorial form. Of course, I'll assemble a more thorough photo gallery later.

We took the week off prior to the wedding, starting with the Thanksgiving holiday. Laurie's mother and sister came up on Wednesday to stay with us; so, apart from some last-minute wedding planning, we also had to find the time to put the house in proper order. Things remained busy at the house, with Laurie's bachelorette party launching from here on the Thursday and most of her bridesmaids sleeping over on Friday.

Also on Friday, we hosted a rehearsal dinner at The Works, which was great for a few reasons. The private room has a very comfortable feel, which was perfect for getting everyone together. It's also a unique restaurant, which was fun to show off to the many out-of-town guests. The party was a relief after the scramble that we had been making in the house hours earlier to get everything ready and packed.

At the party, Laurie gave her bridesmaids Swarovski rings, while I gave my groomsmen board games and bacon wallets, keeping one for myself. (Well, I gave gifts to everyone but my brother Jason, the best man, who had yet to arrive; but more on that later.)

After the dinner, we corralled several volunteers into helping us decorate the hall. Between giving instructions during the rehearsal party and the decorating, I had to take charge more than I usually do in life; but it all came together.

It was about one o'clock when we packed it in and Laura gave me a lift to Nick's, where I was spending the night. After a brief stop for gas, we pulled out behind a van with Nova Scotia plates--sure enough, it was my brother, finally arriving. Nick was nice enough to also provide accommodation for my brother, his girlfriend Allison, their four-week-old baby, and their dog.

In the morning, the rest of my groomsmen (i.e., Aaron and my brother John) met us at Nick's, where we had breakfast and got ready. In typical Jason form, the biggest task for the morning was assembling the decorations that he had printed for me and brought with him (more on that later, too).

Between that job and the assistant photographer being enthusiastic about fitting in as many preparation pictures as he could, we were at least a half hour late in leaving. Fortunately, when I called Laurie to tell her we were just leaving the house, she was also running so late that she was just leaving our house.

We had originally hoped to have our formal pictures taken outside before the ceremony but a constant drizzle caused us to shift plans to taking photos in the hotel. At least this gave us a chance to pop in the room and give the decorations a quick tweak. Plus, Laurie was looking so amazing that the lack of a fancy backdrop wasn't going to take too much away.

Okay, the pictorial portion of this entry starts now (click for larger images).

Soon enough, 5:00 rolled around, everyone took their seats, and the ceremony was good to go.

Our officiant, Santina Kerslake, did a great job, helping us to plan the ceremony a couple of weeks earlier, ironing out a few details minutes beforehand, and smoothing over a couple of miscues, to the point where nobody would have really noticed. Surprisingly, the two-year-olds serving as flower girl and ring bearer made it down the aisle, although Abby dropped her flowers and raced towards her Tigger doll, while Eric lost the decorative bird's nest pillow, arriving with only a fabric egg in hand.

The ceremony itself was short and simple, as we wanted. Both Laurie and I held up well, although she had insisted all along that I would have no problems because I have a heart of stone. (I think that was an affectionate joke.)

I was also really happy with our music: the wedding party came out to "Teardrop" by Massive Attack, Laurie came out to Bright Eyes' "First Day of My Life," we used the Dirty Three's "Alice Wading" during the signing, and we exited to "I'm the Man Who Loves You" by Wilco. Our DJ was stuck on the opposite side of a divider, where the hall was mostly set for the reception, but he did a fine job. Even when he jumped his cue for the Wilco song, we made a quick recovery for a laugh.

At any rate, the ceremony breezed by; and we were soon in the hall, accepting congratulations while the staff finished setting up the hall.

The tables ended up looking quite cool, in my opinion, as demonstrated by the Garden Bean table.

A closer look at Liam's place setting shows the game theme that we were going for. Everyone's place was marked with a Scrabble rack, an idea that came together through Ebay and a pair of glue guns.

Additionally, the tables themselves were named based on cards from the game Bohnanza. Outside the hall, everyone found and took a regular card from the game with their name on the back. When they flipped it over, the bean type (red bean, in this example), matched the big bean card on their table. Those 5" by 7" cards were the final decorations that Jason printed and brought up for me and that all the groomsmen and I worked on assembling that morning.

Finally, as wedding favours, we gave everyone a deck of cards, personalized for our wedding. (Laurie also managed to find special card games for the two kids and a card of ABCs for Jason's baby.)

The Scrabble racks were a hit, making for photo ops. Here, Jason poses with baby Morgan. (At least, I hope that was the name that he and Alli settled on.)

The centrepieces were provided by the hotel crew, using fresh flowers from the market; and once again, I was happy with the job that they did.

The head table also had a Bohnanza card (the rare cocoa bean) but it was prettied up with lighted pumpkins, garland, and the girls' bouquets. The pumpkins had the longest gestation period of any of our ideas, since we started buying them last year. We got all of them from the craft store Michael's. Every time that store puts out a flyer, it offers 40% off any single item. So yes, each of our ten pumpkins was purchased separately over the past two autumns. As a bonus, we should be looking well prepared at Hallowe'en.

The cake table was also well decorated, although the real work of art was the cake itself.

As expected, The Girl with the Most Cake delivered a stunning cake that tasted every bit as good as it looked. (The leftovers also served us well during the week that we took off following the wedding.)

Although this abbreviated picture recap jumps to the kiss at the end of the last dance, the interim was also fantastic.

Keeping up the games theme, we made people answer questions to make us kiss. Every table got a copy of a list of ten statements and had to determine which statement was true for their table. This was something that came together very much at the last minute (we were printing these along with the programs in the last couple of hours before the rehearsal dinner, after having run out of ink earlier that day). The game got people involved in the action, while also limiting the number of times that we'd be interrupted during our meal (mmm . . . lamb), so it was win-win.

We were light on speeches, although I ended up on the microphone several times. My main thank-you speech was half prepared and half ad libbed but I got a few laughs and everyone kept telling me that I did a good job (perhaps surprisingly). The best part was probably Laurie (who stayed well away from the mic) telling me to cut it short before I hit the end, a fact that got a laugh when I relayed it to the crowd. Oh, and I managed to end with a Simpsons quote ("in your face, space coyote!"), so all was good.

The dinner went a bit longer than I was hoping, which shortened the dance a bit but I still think it was a fun time on the floor. Seth, the DJ, did a great job of blending the songs such that the overall night represented our taste but there were enough songs breaking that mould that most people should have been happy. Our first dance was Buck 65 ("Phil"), as was our cake-cutting music ("The Food Song"). I also made sure to get Radiohead's "Punchup at a Wedding" played at the end of dinner, as well as The Fiery Furnaces' "Single Again" during the dance. At least a few people got those jokes.

Laurie forgot to put on her garter, so we skipped that and the bouquet toss, which helped us make up time. Apart from a quick hop outside for some street photos, the evening wound down with some dancing and chatting with some folks who I hadn't seen in a while.

Overall, the wedding was a blast. We were both extremely happy with how it all came together; and I think that we ended up with a party that really represented us, which is all that you could hope for.

The days after the wedding have been excellent, too, including the solving of the mysterious anonymous bad gift, more time with the brothers, a quick getaway to Montebello, and Giulia and Andrew's wedding; but I'll have to save that recap for another time. (I'm finally back to work tomorrow, so I should get some sleep.)

J.