The Strike & Your Wedding

While the LCBO strike appears to have been averted, there seems to be no quick end to the municipal strike. If you have a wedding coming up in the next few weeks, here’s how the strike could impact you.

Marriage Licenses

Marriage licences applications are available online from the province right here.

To get your actual licence, you and your partner will need to head down to City Hall, Monday- Friday, sometime between 8:30 and 4:15. I recommend getting there as early as possible since there might be line up as City Hall is the only place to get a marriage license during the strike (usually there are four locations). For details on getting a marriage license, head over here.

Photo Permits

A photo permit is required to take formal photos in any city park. Unfortunately, no new permits are being issued during the strike so if you want to take your photos in one of the city’s parks, you’re going to have to take a bit of a renegade approach.

By-law offices are out and working and technically, they could fine you for taking photos without a permit. However, I’d like to think that those offices are too busy preventing illegal dumping to be bothering brides who just want a pretty picture.

However, there is another, perhaps bigger issue — location competition. Usually permits are issued in such a way that you’ll be the only couple at that spot at your reserved time. However, since no permits are being issued, it’s possible that you might find yourself competing with other couples for prime spots. And since none of you will likely have a permit that would civilly settle any disputes, well, just remember that no photo is worth a torn dress or ruined make up.

Also, before you head out to take your photos, make sure your location hasn’t been turned into a temporary dump site. Some of Sunnyside Park’s parking has been turned into one of those mini-dumps so if you want to take you photos down by the lake, you might want to think about a different location.

Wedding Chambers

From Toronto.ca: Wedding ceremonies will continue during regular business hours from Monday to Saturday at Toronto City Hall. Only scheduled ceremonies at North York Civic Centre will take place. No new bookings will be accepted during the strike, except at Toronto City Hall.

Wedding facilities in the Scarborough, East York and York civic centres are closed. Affected residents can call Registry Services at 416-392-7036.

Disaster Averted!

LCBO workers won’t be striking after all—the union and the liquor store reached a deal earlier today—so you no longer have to stress about having a dry wedding this summer.

Of course, if you’re one of the many brides out there who stocked up in preparation for a strike, congrats on being so organized! If you want, you can take any unopened bottles back for a refund or just keep the bottles at your place and have one more thing crossed off your to-do list.

It's Cake Week On TheKnot.com

I think the best part of this whole wedding thing, other than the actual wedding, will be cake sampling. I love cake and while I don’t know what our cake will look like, I know it will tasting amazing and have at least one layer of darkest, richest chocolate money can buy.

Because I think about baked goods a lot, I was happy to see that TheKnot.ca is having “cake week” this week. Basically this just means that they’re running a bunch of cake-themed articles. One of them, Wedding Cakes: 6 Steps to Getting the Perfect One, is jammed pack with useful and education details, like, for example, the difference between buttercream icing and fondant (buttercream is made from butter and sugar while fondant is made from sugar, corn syrup, water, and gelatine and is that stuff you always see used on those fancy cake making shows on the Food Network).

A few other highlight from the article:
- generally, expect to pay at least $1.50 a slice, with fondant icing costing more than buttercream - reduce your costs (and the size of your cake) by only serving half-sizes
- pay the extra and get the bakery to deliver the cake. This is just one of those things that’s best left to the experts
- here’s an interesting flavour combo: chocolate
-banana cake layered with custard and brushed with banana liqueur
- ganache, a yummy mix of cream and chocolate, is one of the greatest things ever (okay, that’s from me and not the article)

Like these cake pictures? You can check more out over here.

Cute Video Invite

Sometimes I think about doing something really creative and clever for my wedding but then I come across something like the item below, a stop-motion video invite (yeah, stop-motion). Stuff like this always makes me realize my place – using pre-existing designs and getting someone else to create my “vision”.

The video was put together by Corey, of Corey and Rachel's wedding, and the amount of time and effort that went into this video invite must have been ridiculous. However, the end result is certainly fun and memorable.

A Trio Of Engagement Photo Tips

The other week Shawn and I had our engagement photos taken. I’m too shy too put them up on the blog (though if you know me on Facebook, you can check them out over there) so you’re just going to have to trust me when I say that they turned out great.

And the whole experience of getting them taken was also great, as well as quite educational. I had a lot of faith in our photographer, my friend the very talented Christopher Manson, and I knew the end result would be beautiful photos. But I was worried about the actual process. Shawn and I are hardly naturals in front of the camera and I was concerned that our photo shoot might be long and painful.
It turns out that that concern was completely invalid because in addition to being talented, Chris is also quite funny and put us both at ease. So there’s engagement photo tip #1: find a photographer who’s not just good but is also funny, friendly and some you both mesh with personality-wise. Though Chris did take a lot of shots, our shoot never felt long and it was actually fun instead of being painful.

Engagement photo tip #2: have a plan but be flexible. We knew we wanted photos that were relaxed and casual looking and set outdoors. Since we live near Toronto's biggest (and in my opinion best) park, High Park, we decided to take them over there. But we didn’t plan the exact location, instead letting Chris pick the spots that he thought would work best. This turned out to be a great approach since having a general location saved time and stress but not having a specific spot allowed Chris to his thing while further reducing stress on our end since we weren’t worry about what we’d do if our specific spot was occupied or somehow unusable (in case you're wondering, Chris had us pose sitting on the ground in front of a flowering bush and then do a bunch of standing poses down by the pond).

And finally, for tip #3, make sure to apply a heavier than normal coating of loose or pressed powder over your foundation/concealer. Between the lights and the pressure, you will be sweating and the last thing you want in your photos is a shiny face. And if you can, apply a bit of that powder on your male partner. While he might protest, the end result is worth it.

Have A Question?

I’m thinking of putting together a sort of “Wedding FAQ” where I’d post the answers to the questions that are asked by almost every Toronto-area bride; questions like “How do I get 40 percent off at Michael’s” and “How do I get an occasional liquor permit?”

If you have any questions you’d like answered, leave them in the comments section below (you have to be logged into Blogger/Gmail) or email them to wedtoblog@gmail.com

I hope to get started on this project this weekend and post the first set of FAQs then.

Virtual Invites

The other day I received my first digital wedding invitation. It was a personalized email that included all the info you’d fine in a physical invite as well as a link to the couple’s wedding website. While certainly not as fun as a traditional invite (I find real mail always more interesting than the virtual kind), it did do its job.

I know wedding experts frown on email invites (and in all honestly, I’m not totally sold on the idea) but I can certainly understand their appeal. They’re cheaper, they’re greener and they make keeping track of RSVPs much easier. And really, apart from a handful of close relative or friends, who really is going to keep your wedding invite?

But on the other hand, not everyone understands this internet thingy and many guests will likely be less than impressed if you go the email route. My friends seemed to understand that and made it clear that they were making a small number of invites for less internet-savvy guests and that if we wanted, they could send us a paper invite.

If you choose the email invite route, I think that’s the approach to take: do be prepared to have to create real invites and do be prepared to send them to more than just those guests over 60.

A few other tips:

- Don’t make your email look like something that escaped 1997. Stick to one font and one colour and only use effects like italics and bolding sparsely

- Do keep your layout simple and clean and keep in mind that because different email programs display emails differently, what you see isn’t necessary what your guests will see

- If you’re building out a graphic email, keep links and images to a minimize to avoid your mail being labeled as spam (this is particularly important if you’ll be sending them from a web-based email address like Gmail or Hotmail)

- But don’t make your graphic email all one big picture. Most email programs automatically turn off these images and receivers who aren’t paying attention or aren’t email-savvy might be confused or even delete your invite

- Prior to sending out your digital invites, send out an email asking that your email address be added by your guests to their safe/white lists; this will prevent your invites from being labeled as spam. You can also use this email to ask if any guests would prefer paper invites

- And do be prepared for at least one email to be labeled as spam and for you to have to follow up with that old-fashioned technology the phone