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.

Ring Picked, Cake Still A Mystery

This is how wedding planning goes: one step ahead, two steps back.

The step ahead came yesterday when the quote came in for my wedding ring. Because of how my engagement ring is designed, I can’t wear a regular wedding band (well, not without it looking weird) so I needed a custom one. A few weeks ago, Shawn and I headed over to Made You Look, a Parkdale jewellery shop that has a great reputation for creating high quality stuff. After a bit of back and forth and quick meeting last Sunday with a ring designer, we got our number and it fits within our budget so that’s good.

My ring is being designed by Jilian Maddin and so far she’s been great to work with. While Made You Look certainly isn’t the cheapest spot in town to get a custom ring made, they are reasonable and the end result is great so if you’re looking for custom jewellery I recommend them (the store also stocks all kinds of beautiful, sparkly things and its smaller sister shop located across the street offers lots of fun, and cheaper, pieces).

The steps back are the result of the stupid wedding cake. I should start by explaining that our wedding cake will be doubling as our dessert and I want it to be one of the best cakes that my guests have ever tasted.

Cakes, and desserts in general, are important to me and I really, really want this thing to be one of the highlights of my wedding. But I also want something that’s in my budget and that looks nice. So I got a few quotes, ate a few samples and then decided that really, my best bet would be to get a couple of amazing mousse cakes from Patisserie D’Or in Oakville.

This place makes cakes that you think about for days after and even though our cake likely wouldn’t look like a tradition tiered wedding cake (you’re not supposed to stack mouse cakes), it would taste so good that no one would care what it looked like. And this place is totally within my budget. Sadly, it’s closed for month, starting mid-July and continuing into August. So no wedding cake from there.

I do have a back-up bakery (no, not Dufflets; getting a custom design pushes the price above our budget and I don’t like their wedding cakes enough to make that splurge) and while they make great cakes, I wouldn’t say they make cakes that you dream about. I have emailed a couple of other places to see what they charge and hopefully we can get this cake business wrapped up soon.

7 Pretty Wedding Bouquets

Let’s continue with the topic of flowers with some images of a few bouquets that caught my eye while I was browsing through the hundreds of images over on TheKnot.com (remember, to see stuff on TheKnot.com you usually have to sign into the site).

I love this combination of orchids but I bet it's quite pricey

This is a pretty purple combo though it's a bit too light for my wedding.

Here's a delicate pink combo, perfect for anyone who loves roses.

I quite like the contrast between the dark calla lillies and the little green berries; they really brighten this bouquet up.









If white was one of my wedding colours, I would seriously look into having this bouquet (even though I know it's on the pricey end).










This one is just so colourful and eye-catching!











And this one's quite dramatic. I think it's using quail feathers or something like that.

Wedding Flower Links (Including My Toronto Florists Shortlist)

Here are a handful of flower-related links that you might find useful:

• Big Wedding Tiny Budget: The DIY-section of this site is must-read if you’re thinking of saving some cash by doing your flowers self (end verdict: you’ll save money but you might also drive yourself insane so keep it simple)
• Bride.ca: See what flowers are available in which season and then read a ton of other articles
• Bronze Budget Brides: Lots of useful posts on how to keep your flower costs down; includes links to online flowers shop and even a few how-to videos
• The Knot’s Flower Guide: OK, so it’s a bit overwhelming but there are a lot of good ideas on here and you can search by colour
• Sierra Flower Finder: It's like a dictionary for flowers

And here are links for a few Toronto florists who I thought looked interesting:

• Cool, Green and Shady: Located on Queen East; has been featured on Rich Bride, Poor Bride
• King West Flowers: Located at King and Bathurst; offers tons of choices and bouquets start at just $40
• Pink Twig: Located on College near Crawford; offers lots of fresh, contemporary designs
• Jackie O: Located on College near Bathurst; has a standard package for $950 that includes 10 centrepieces
• Costco: Several locations; Costco is must-checkout if you’re doing the flowers yourself. Most shops also offers simple arrangements

March Wedding To-Do List Update

A quick update on our to-do list:

January

• Get sample invite: Done!
• Write invite copy: Done!
• Get guys’ outfits: Not yet started
• Block off hotel rooms: In progress
• Start the registering process: Done!
• Make short list of cake bakers: Done!
• Make short list of florists: Done!
• Make short list of officiates: Done!

February

• Figure out flowers & hire a florist: Florist picked, in the process of figuring out what we want
• Figure out hair & make-up & book: In progress
• Hire cake baker: Waiting on one last quote
• Hire a DJ: Done!
• Hire an officiate: Done!
• Buy invites: Done!

March

• Figure out ceremony music: No clue
• Pick first dance song: Ha!
• Figure out rings: In progress
• Have all guest list info in our magical guest list spreadsheet: In progress

So the big lingering item from January is the guys’ outfits and I hope to have that sorted some in the next couple of weeks. The other January item is the guest hotel rooms but we have the hotel picked and we have a quote, we just need to tell them to block off about a dozen rooms for us.

I’m confident that the cake will be sorted out by the end of this month. I’m pretty sure we have a design picked, we just need Dufflet to get back to us with a quote (for some reason it takes them a week).

I am a bit worried about my hunt for an in-house hair stylist. There seems to be a ton of talented, in-home make-up artists out there but hair stylists seem rarer and I’ve yet to track one day who I think will work.

Then there’s figure out our first dance song and ceremony music. I have no clue what we’re going to use there.

Our First Consultation With a Florist

The one aspect of wedding planning that had me the most worried was the flowers. I know nothing about flowers, we have a tiny budget for flowers, florists’ websites are generally vague when it comes to useful info, florists themselves always want to arrange a face-to-face consultation before they give you any numbers/ideas, etc., etc.

I had started making a shortlist of possible florists back in January but then stopped when I found out that our venue, the Berkeley, now had a preferred florist and not using her would result in us incurring extra fees. Shawn pointed out that since our original contract says we can hire whoever we want, we shouldn’t have to incur those fees if we go with an outside person but I said I was fine with this new arrangement and am actually quite happy that the Berkeley now has a preferred florist. I really wasn’t looking forward to trying to get some kind of comparable quotes out of florists and really, unless you’re DingIY or have some kind of inside connection, all florists are expensive.

We met with Jenn, the preferred florist last night and things went pretty smooth. She’s been working with flowers for a few years now, loves doing weddings and her website is currently under construction. She was quite friendly, great with my psycho dog and not at all offended that I know nothing about flowers and that we weren’t spending a ton of money of them.

She came prepared with a bunch of magazines and her own portfolio though we only ever looked at the portfolio. I had a few clippings that we looked at and she gently broke the news that the only flower I really liked, something called a Picasso lily, is really expensive. So we talked about a few other options such as callas lilies as well as great bang-for-your-buck flowers such as hydrangeas.

While I had an idea for our escort card table (which I’m now re-thinking), Shawn and I were wide open to suggestions for everything else and Jenn came up with a great one that involves two giant water-filled vases that can do double-duty for the ceremony and the head table.

Jenn is now preparing a quote for us though I think I’ll email her this weekend with some ideas that I now have. I spent most of our meeting being really vague and saying useful things like, “Whatever you think works best” and “We’re open to whatever” but as soon as she left I started picturing what I wanted.

Here are a few basic bits of info you should know before you meet with any florists.

1. Colour scheme and how much you care about it


2. Date
   
3. Venue location
   
4. Theme/feeling/ambience


5. What you’re going to need flowers for, complete with numbers (so number of centrepieces, bouquets, boutonnieres, etc.)
   
6. Any flower preferences


7. Any flower dislikes


8. Any “shape” preferences


9. Any venue restrictions (no open flames or no water for example)


10. And most importantly, budget

Over the weekend I’ll get a post up with some links to some useful flower-related sites along with my original florist shortlist.

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.