Love Online Coupons?

I know that I've talked about Groupon before on this blog but I don’t think I’ve mentioned One Spout, a site that basically collects all those Groupon-like online coupons into one place.

This site offers a bunch of different sorting options, including by distance and category, though you can’t sort by newest first, which is kind of odd.

That one flaw aside, this can be a great site for a bride-to-be.  It lets you declutter your inbox while still letting you catch a great deal, like over 50% everything from flowers to photos to wedding cakes. There’s even deals on wedding show tickets.

One deal that caught my eye was this one from TakeItAndGo.com that, for $89, gets you an at-home spa party for you and three friends. The really nice thing about this deal is that you can buy an unlimited amount so in theory, you could buy three of these coupons and have a twelve person bachelorette where everyone gets a mini- massage, pedicure and manicure (if you’re interested, the deal’s still on for four more hours).

One Spout isn’t just a Toronto thing; it has sites for most major North America cities as well as areas like “Halton region” and “Niagara region”, so this a great site for brides all across the continent.

Some Emails Worth Signing Up For

Since I’m winding this blog down but still occasionally posting, I’ve added a new email notification thingy to it so that it’s easier to find out when I have made a new entry. Signing up is quick, easy and nope, I won’t get your email address and neither will any other lists. Then on days when I do post, you’ll get an email of that post delivered straight to your inbox.
And speaking of emails, are you signed up for any of those email coupon sites like Groupon? If not, you might want to check out the following sites:

• Groupon
• WagJag
• FabFind.com
• Deal Getters

While each of them is slightly different, they all work by emailing you a daily deal. And why might you want to sign up for all this mail? Because sometimes the deals are perfect for a bride.

For example, spa and restaurant deals are very common and could help you save on your beauty and thank-you/rehearsal meal costs. Many of the coupons can also be bought as a gift for someone else so there’s a way to save on your bridal party thank-you gifts.

I’ve also seen deals on photography (while I doubt you could get your actual wedding photos cheap, I have seen some that do apply to engagement photos) and stores that sell jewellery and accessories.

Personally I’ve bought Groupon deals a few different times and it’s always been a smooth process, both buying and redeeming.

 A few weeks ago, we bought a couple Groupon coupons that, for $35 each, got us $115 at Photobook Canada. This was a fantastic offer for us since we were planning on creating photo books anyways and those things aren’t cheap. Since then we have created our books and redeemed our coupons and as usual, it was a smooth process (and yes, I will post about my Photobook Canada experience at some point but in case you’re wondering, it was positive).

While all these emails can be a bit spammy (most of them you will just delete), the deals they offer are so good that personally, I find they’re worth the email clutter. Just make sure you only buy coupons for stuff you needed to buy anyway!

My New Blog

While this blog is steadily wrapping up, I have another one started over here.

It’s called Stuff I Bought and it’s basically a product review blog. While I’m up for reviewing pretty much anything I’ve bought, there will be a heavy focus on beauty products.

Since that’s also a Blogger blog, you can follow it using Google Friend Connect (just scroll down to the bottom). I also set it up with Facebook’s Networked Blogs.

So if you’re already following WedTO, please consider following my new blog. I think you’ll like it!

Make Your Own Wedding Photo Book

I’m not a Mac user (other than my phone) but wow, I wish I had so that I could use Mac’s iPhoto book-building feature.

Photographers will charge you hundreds of dollars to make a personalized photo album but with iPhoto, the digital copies of your photos and a bit of creativity, you can create a 13x11-inch, hardcover, 20-page book for $50 ($1.149 for every extra page).

To see the whole thing in action, check out this video.

While I’ve never made one, a friend of mine has seen the results and was quite impressed. Of course, while Apple gives you the tools to create a truly professional product, it is up to you to supply the high-quality photos and typo-free copy.

Hmm... I wonder I can rent a Mac Book from somewhere?

Check Out My New Blog

I have a new blog. It’s called Stuff I Bought and it’s basically me reviewing various products, everything from mascara to fast food to small appliances.

You can follow it via Facebook, Google Connect or scroll down to the bottom to see the different ways that you can subscribe to it.

I hope you like it and yes, I’ll be continuing with my wedding blog for a few more weeks, since I still need to post about a few different things.

Getting Your Toronto Marriage License

If all goes as planned, on Friday Shawn and I will be picking up our wedding license. This actually involves a few steps:

1. Head over to the Service Ontario website and print off a marriage application form. You can also grab a physical copy from a Registry Services office.
2. Fill out the form and make sure everything on it is correct. Both of you also need to sign it.
3. Then head on down to a Registry Services office (we’ll likely do either City Hall or Etobicoke Civic Centre) Monday through Friday, from 8:30 am-4:15 pm. You’ll need to both be there and you need you bring your form, a piece of government-issued photo ID that shows your current legal name and a way to pay for the fee.
4. For Toronto, that fee is $130 (it can be cheaper in other cities) and can be paid by cash, money order, certified cheque, debit or major credit card.
5. A license is good for three month from the date of issue and is valid for anywhere in Ontario. This means that if you’re getting married in Toronto but you two can’t make it to a Toronto Registry Services office during business hours but can say, make it to the Oakville one, go to the Oakville one, you license will be good.

There are no citizenship/residency requirements for applying for a marriage license, there’s no required blood or medical tests and of course there’s no gender requirements either. But you do need to be 18 or, if you’re 16-17, have your parents’ permission.

Got more questions? Maybe Service Ontario can help.

Changing Your Name

Changing your name once you’re married is one of the more contentious wedding/marriage-related topics out there. Personally I say do whatever works best for you though I will admit that I do cringe at hyphenated names that are twenty-odd characters long.

While many brides do choose to keep their maiden names (I’ll be keeping mine for work purposes though going with Shawn’s for social purposes because I think it’s just easier that way) there are still plenty of women (and some men) out there who do change them.

If you’re one of those women, you need to first decide if you want to elect to change your name or if you just want to assume your partner’s name. According to the Ontario government, most people go with the later action. It’s free, requires no forms and allows you to easily revert to your maiden name.

If you want to change your name on your identification, credit cards, etc., to match your partner’s, you then need to apply to update the cards in question and use your marriage license as proof of your new name. More details on assuming a name can be found here.

Electing to change your name is more extensive process that does involve forms and takes about six-eight weeks. It’s free if done in the first 90 days following a wedding, and then after that it costs $25. Details on this type of change live here.

There’s also the formal name change, where you actually change your name on your birth certificate. It costs $137, takes six-eight weeks and will involve contacting whatever province/territory you were born in. if you want to go this route, you’ll want to read this page.

If you want to change your name on your driver’s license and health care card, you’re going to need to pay a visit to Service Ontario. You can use this page here to find the one closest to you.

Info on changing your name on your passport can be found here (guess what, you get to re-apply and re-pay) while Revenue Canada has some name change info over here.

Make sure to also contact your bank as well as your work’s HR department if you’re changing your name on your driver’s license. The only thing that sucks more than being denied a Visa transaction because you don’t have matching photo ID is to miss a pay deposit because of some weird name mix up.

City Of Toronto & Wedding Photography Permits

Here are details you need to know if you plan on buying a photo permit from the city of Toronto.

• The permit centre photo number is: 416-392-8188
• Booking for 2011 starts on September 1, 2010
• Permits are booked on a first-come, first-served basis so book as early as possible if you're set on a certain site
• Some sites have are booked for an hour, others two hours
• While I’m sure rates for 2011 will go up, one-hour permits were going for $54 while two-hour permits were going for about $143
• The booking must be made and paid by either the bride or groom
• For indoor bookings, the photographer’s name and contact info will be needed

Bookings are done one of two ways:

1. Go in person between 8:30 am-4 pm, Monday to Friday, to the Etobicoke Civic Centre, North York Civic Centre, Scarborough Civic Centre, or Toronto City Hall, where you can pay using a major credit card, cash or certified check
2. Phone the permit office and book using a major credit card. I was told that if you’re booking over the phone, you need access to a fax machine so yeah, maybe you can do this from the office

Someone at the permit office told me to visit this site: http://weddingparks.ca for a listing of city parks but then added that the city doesn’t look after that site so the info’s not always up-to-date/accurate.

Helpful!

Custom M&Ms & Promo Codes

By the time you’re reading this, I will have just gotten back from my trip to New York City.
One of the things I was originally planning on picking up while I was there were some customized M&Ms to use as our favours.

The reason why I was going to pick them up in NY is because Times Square is home to a big M&M store and I was thinking that by picking them up there, I could avoid having to pay for shipping. Sadly, you can’t get personalized M&Ms at M&M stores, you have to buy then online. Sort of annoying…

Thankfully, through the magic of Google, I was able to find some promo codes that at least make buying these things a little cheaper. I did a test order with the Thanks15 code and it totally worked but I think I’d save more with the free shipping code so I’m going to try that when we go to make our actual order.

Hopefully a few of you will find those codes and the site they live on, RetailMeNot.com, useful. While that site definitely caters to Americans, you can find the odd promo code that can save us Canadians some cash when we’re doing our online shopping.

Green Wedding Services in Toronto

Green weddings are the in-thing these days and if you want to make your big day as environmentally as possible, check out this blog post over on BlogTO that highlights some of the city’s greenest wedding venues.

Here my thoughts on a few of the places they’ve highlighted.

Cabaret Vintage: a must-stop for any bride who wants vintage, or vintage-style dress. While the dress prices are hardly steals, they are reasonable for a wedding dress.

Vert Catering: I’ve heard great reviews about these guys but I’ve also been told that they are on the expensive side.

Mill St. Brewery: I don’t drink beer but Shawn and many other beer drinkers I know love this brewery. I think we’re actually going to get these guys to provide all the beer for our bar.

Pure + Simple & Elixir Organic Spa: While I’ve never been to either of these spas, I’ve heard great things about both of them and am considering both for them for my pre-wedding pampering.

Toronto Botanical Garden: We checked this out last spring and my review is over here. It’s a nice place, just not for us.

Kortright Centre for Conservation: Another venue we checked out and that review is here. Kortright is quite pretty and eco-friendly, but it was a bit too far out-of-town for us (plus it didn’t have AC).

Shawn’s Ring

I don’t really like shopping online. It’s OK for things like tickets or books or music; stuff that you don’t need to see and touch first before you buy it, but I never buy clothes or anything like that online.

So it’s a bit surprising that we bought Shawn’s ring online. I know, I know, buying jewellery online seems quite risky and I doubt we would have done it if Shawn’s ring contained diamonds or any other stones. But since Shawn wanted a fairly simple tungsten ring, it seemed like it would be a safe thing to do.

We started by going to a few brick-and-mortar jewellery stores first so that Shawn could try on a few different rings and narrow down what he wanted. We did see some very nice designs out there and, with the help of Google, Shawn found many of these designs over on TitaniumKay.com, a site that also offers amazing prices, with rings starting as low as $55 US.

After Shawn finally picked out his design, we just did a general Google search on TitaniumKay.com to see what kind of negative feedback was out there about it. We didn’t come across anything concerning so Shawn placed his order and saved us probably $200 on the cost of his ring.

The website promised the ring would be in here in about a week and in actuality it only took four days (were you expecting some kind of lost ring horror story to start here?). It looked exactly like it did online and Shawn is quite pleased with it.

The only issue is that I think it’s about a half-size too big though Shawn’s still uncertain about that. Thankfully, he can send it back and get a re-sized version for free (Shawn had asked about this prior to placing his order). We had gotten Shawn sized the day before he placed the order but we’ve since learned that generally you want to order tungsten rings half-a-size to a full size smaller (thanks Peoples for not telling us that).

So overall getting Shawn’s ring was quick, easy and we came in well under-budget. I’d still be hesitant to get a diamond ring online but a stone-less one? Yeah, I’d do it again as long as I was buying from a reputable website that uses insured shipping (and any reputable should be offering just that).

Wedinator

Time for a bit of Sunday silliness.

Need a good wedding-related laugh? Then check out Wedinator. This blog, brought to you by the same people behind I Can Have Cheezburger?, says that is all about “trashing your special day.”

What it really is is a collection of user-submitted photos and videos of wedding disasters, some just in bad taste and others accidental. Actually, if you’re prone to wedding nightmares, you may want to skip this site but trust me, you’ll want to stop by it once you’re wedding is done with.

My favourite pics are the really random, weird ones. Below are a trio of examples.

Clever Bride

You know those ads that show up on the right side of your Facebook profile? Well, generally I just ignore them but today an ad for something called The Clever Bride caught my eye so I decided to click and check it.

What I found was a surprisingly useful site. OK, so it contains a lot of pink. But it also contains a lot of info. Basically, Clever Bride is a wedding vendor directory that allows you to search for your ideal vendors based on price point and other details. For example, you can narrow your vendor search by such criteria as cuisine type, handicapped accessibility or even whether or not the place allows outside caterers.

All your typical wedding categories are covered; so dresses, rings, DJs, photographers, etc.; along with some less traditional though still related ones such as gyms, teeth whitening, group activities and fireworks. You can also easily search the site for a vendor who you’re thinking of hiring.

Clever Bride does allow you to review vendors but unfortunately not a lot of people are using this feature. There are also no boards or commenting or anything like that so Clever Bride doesn’t really have that community feeling that you find on sites like Canadian Bride or Wedding Bells.

However, I will say that in terms of pure functionality, Clever Bride has both of those sites beat. It’s quick, easy-to-use and while it certainly doesn’t have every vendor out, it does have quite a few.

The site also contains some basic planning tools like a guest tracker, a photo gallery that you can get inspiration from and a blog.

There are also sister sites for Los Angeles, Miami, Montreal, New York, Ottawa and Vancouver so if you have friends getting married in any of those cities, let them know about Clever Bride.

Wedding Website Winner

A few weeks ago I started my hunt for a wedding website website and I not have a winner: Momentville.com.

Yeah, yeah the name sucks but on the plus side:
- it’s free
- it has a template that I like and that works with our colour scheme
- it’s super-easy to edit text and photos
- it’s super-easy to add in new pages
- the budget and RSVP tools look like they will be useful (assuming I remember to use them)
-my website will never expire
- it claims to be a carbon neutral company

On the downside:
- it’s not as customizable as I would like (though if I upgraded to the a paid site I could basically create my own template)
- there’s no seating chart tool
- the interface is kind of ugly though it is easy to use

Based on my somewhat limited research, most free wedding websites offer basically the same tools/features (guest list manager, photo gallery, budget stuff) and are all generally pretty easy to use. The big differences are templates and the length of time your website will “live” for (some websites will expire after a year or two) and just a warning, there are a lot of ugly templates out there.

If you’re willing to pay for a wedding website, check out Wedquarters.com. Its own site is pretty slick looking and seems to offer some great template options. You can also choose to pay for a custom domain. www.trueloveforeven2010.com anyone?

Let's Build a Wedding Website

I’d like to get our wedding website up for Christmas (maybe I can even mention it on our save-the-dates if we end up doing those) but first I need to figure out what site to go with.

I *think* these are the top wedding site site-builders out there but please let me know if I’m leaving anyone out:
http://www.ewedding.com/ - claims that you can set up “your free wedding website in under 5 minutes”; themes seem limited but looks like you can add lots of stuff (polls, events, etc.) to your sites

http://www.weddingannouncer.com/ - they seem to offer lots of features but what do the templates look like

http://www.wedquarters.com/ - I like their site but you have to pay

TheKnot.com - a popular site but the templates are pretty limited

http://www.mywedding.com/ - tons of templates here, many that come with matching stationary

http://www.momentville.com/ - oh, it looks like you can customize the look of the templates. I like that
I’ve heard good and bad things about all of these sites. What are your thoughts on them? Is there one that you would use over another?

I want a site that’s fairly easy to set up but at the same time, I want to be able to customize how it looks. While I don’t really have any design skills, I do know HTML and I’m fine with mucking around with templates that other, more talented people have created.

I would also prefer to go with free site though I might be persuaded to paying a small fee if it gets me a better site.

I am going to do a bit more digging into these sites and I’ll let you know which one I go with.

A Must-Use Website

Have you checked out www.projectwedding.com yet? If not you should because this is one useful site.

It’s home to hundreds of reviews on all those aspects that make up a wedding: food, photographers, entertainment, attire, etc.

Not of all of the reviews in the “Toronto” category are actually Toronto-specific, but then when it comes to certain items, such as cakes or flowers, sometimes it’s useful to see what the GTA has to offer.

You need to register in order to review things and while vendors are supposed to register for their own special, vendor accounts, there is always the chance that a vendor might get a regular account and then pump up their own rating.

If you come across a review that seems too good to be true (or is completely contradictory to every other review), check to see if the reviewer has bothered to fill out her profile and has written other reviews on her other vendors. If she has then she’s probably a legit bride who just happens to of had a great experience with that vendor.

The site lets you sort vendors by highest rated as well as by price. But best of all, it has a search function that actually works and is a quick way to check out the vendor you’re thinking of using.

Everyone Wants A $10,000 Wedding

It must be “plan-your-$10,000 wedding” week. On Saturday, the Star ran a piece on how to have a green wedding on ten grand. Then on Monday, theknot.com’s weekly email contained a link to its “$10,000 challenge”.

That article profiles five under-$10,000 weddings that took place in five different American cities. While the pieces have some interesting, though rather city-specific, ideas, it feels rather hypocritical to be reading about budget weddings on a website that’s packed with images of elaborate, six-tier cakes and dresses that cost more than $10,000.

A better source for cheap wedding ideas are 2000dollarwedding.com and APracticalWedding.com. While 2000dollarwedding.com is bit too homey and DIY for my taste, it might be right for you it if you’re crafty and don’t dream of the Big White Day. The author also answers readers’ questions and provides plenty of detail on how she was able to pull off a $2,000 wedding.

APracticalWedding.com is more my thing. The author takes a very common-sense approach to planning a wedding and doesn’t make you feel guilty for spending money or not going the DIY route. She also profiles other practical weddings and links to over a dozen wedding-related blogs including one called a $10,000 wedding.

Need To Share A Secret?

Sometimes a bride just needs to vent in a way that will lead to no hurt feelings, no regrets, no bad reputations. In other words, she needs to vent anonymously and that’s where Truu Bride Confessions comes into play. Formally known as just TrueBrideConfessions.com, this revamped site lets you vent without fear of repercussions (unless you get really, really detailed).

The site also lets you comment on, share and “me too” other bride’s confessions. The “me too” feature is particularly nice because it lets you know that you’re not the only other person out there who wants to strangle the best man because he’s insisting on a cigar roller.

The site does force you to create an account in order to post but you can basically post anonymously and the sign-in aspect does allow for some fun features like being able to follow your post and see what kind of comments it generates. And while creating an account is a bit of pain, it’s probably worth it if you’re the type of person who knows that she’ll enjoy making multiple confessions to this site.

But even if you’re not one for publicly sharing your secrets, this site is still worth checking out simply for entertainment value. Dozens of posts are made each day, varying from the gossipy (“I was about to ask one of my dearest friends to be my maid of honor, but she erupted: ‘I am so tired of people getting married! everyone's getting married, you are getting married!’ “) to the just plan random (“I do not understand the desire to have your wedding cake look like your wedding dress.”). In other words, it’s a fun way to kill a few dull minutes at the office.

Three Great Lists

Who doesn’t love a list? I’m certainly a fan of information being presented in a quick-to-read, easy-to-digest, numerical fashion.

theknot.com recently sent around a newsletter that contained a link to “The 12 Worst Pieces of Wedding Advice Ever.” While that list was a bit of a disappointment (it’s really just twelve brides talking about weird things people told them to do), that list did lead to some interesting and useful articles.

For example, “10 Rules for Every Bride” offers some down-right common sense guidelines such as “I can live without lady’s slipper orchids” and “I won’t have unrealistic weight expectations”. True, both of those examples are rather obvious but they’re also completely true and on theknot.com, a leader in wedding porn, they’re also quite refreshing.

“12 Wedding Day Details Not To Miss”, meanwhile, offers great advice that’s not so obvious. I certainly haven’t given any thoughts to what our exit will be like and I just assumed that the venue would take care of just details as the cake table and the washrooms.

Then there’s “10 Inventive Wedding Ideas”, a lighter-toned list that once again is packed with great ideas, like having a cookie bar instead of a dessert bar. I think that’s a really and affordable idea. I also quite like the low-tech slide show, which is really just a bunch of childhood photos lined up in matching frames. It’s a classy alternative to a traditional slide show which is often more embarrassing than entertaining and, unless it’s being handled by the DJ or some other professional, a source of much stress.

I’m sure that there are more great lists buried on theknot.com and other sites and I’ll be sure to post them as I come across them.

[Note: I believe you’ll have to be a member of theknot.com in order to read some of the above lists.]

Wedding By Color

Confession time: I have no design skills. I struggled to put together a simple colour scheme for my bathroom and I’m easily amazed by people who designed their own wedding stuff, like invitations and centerpieces.

I do though know what I like and what I don’t like and if presented with a creation, I have no problems declaring my opinion on it.

Because of this, I’ve been spending a far amount of time on Google Images and Yahoo images, looking up keywords like “purple flowers” and “original centerpieces” (I’m 99.9 percent sure we’re going with dark purple as one of our colours). It was this process that led me to Wedding By Color, a great website packed with design idea to uh, inspire you.

The site is really an online community for brides but what makes it different from other wedding blogging sites is that all the bride blogs are categorized by colour. Pick your colour (your options are: red, orange, blue, green, purple, pink, yellow, brown, black and white) and you’re taken to a list of blogs maintained by brides who are all using that colour in their weddings. Most blogs are packed with pictures of wedding stuff: everything from bridemaids’ dresses to cakes to favours. For an example of one particular pic-heavy blog, check out oldhollywoodbride’s black wedding.

You can also view posts by categories or tags (for example, the “flowers” categories will bring up any blog posts that have been tagged with or categorized as “flowers”) and there is a search let that lets you put in a keyword and the refine the results by colour. I tried this out using “Toronto” as my keyword and it actually did bring up some Toronto brides who were also going with purple (though it did also bring up non-Toronto brides as well).

So if you’re a design-challenged bride like myself, check out Wedding By Color. It’s packed with great ideas and much cheaper than hiring a professional designer!