Our Un-iversary

Today is September 20. One year ago, Matthew and I signed the papers, and made our union legal. Even though we have no plans of celebrating this date as an actual anniversary, we can't help but be a little sentimental today. Starting next year, July 10th will be the most important date in our life together, but what's the harm in celebrating our civil marriage just this once?

There is definitely a bottle of wine and a hot tub in our future!

An Ode to Our Wedding Party

Deciding on a wedding party started out as a fairly difficult decision for me, and than became an awfully simple one. Because I had just graduated from University, I had quite a number of close friends that I still hold near and dear to my heart. There were my three house mates, J, H, and R who were my partners in crime during school, and were as close to family as I had in University. Than there was "the core": a group of friends from my program who are like my intellectual soulmates. There was also M; although she's a friend more recently acquired, we have so much in common that I consider her to be one of the few people that understands where I come from. To round out the group of my closest friends, there is R, a loyal friend whom I have known since high school. All together, that makes 8 people whom I couldn't imagine excluding.

Well, you might think that eight is not such a ridiculous number. I have been in weddings that had more than eight attendants on each side. However, I have yet to discuss my family. I have a younger sister, who without a single doubt in my mind would be my Maid of Honour. Also, Matthew has a younger sister whom I adore, and I desperetly wanted her to stand by my side.

So that makes ten....ok, the number is getting up there, but it's still not unheard of, right? But what about my cousins? I have one cousin, A, who is like a little sister to me, and 4 other cousins who I am very close to.

All together, that makes 15 bridesmaids. Fifteen! Where would my groom find so many groom's men? Fifteen was just too much....cuts would have to be made!

But who to exclude? I didn't want to insult anyone, and I didn't want anyone to think that their relationship with me was less valuable. So I did the only thing that I could think of.....I cut everyone! I decided that I wanted our wedding party to consist of siblings only, which works out quite perfectly since Matthew and I both have a brother and a sister. Since my friends and family are an increadibly talented bunch, they will be included in other special ways throughout the wedding. I truly hope that none of my friends are hurt by my decision, and I hope that they are excited about getting to choose their own dresses for the big party!

Decor?

On a recent excursion to downtown Burlington, I stepped into a local discount wholesale store. I have driven past the Big!Lots store many times, and have always laughed at the incredibly ridiculous name! There are no Big!Lots stores in Canada, so I was curious as to what I might find there. What I found was everything! The store had everything from furniture to birthday cards. It also had a large selection of vases, picture frames, and glass containers. Being a full out bridezilla, I started wondering if I could find anything there that I could use for the wedding. I found something indeed!


These are candle holders. I picked up one large one and one small one to show my sister, and the more I look at them, the more I like them. Even though they are meant for candles, I think that they would look beautiful as a base for the floral centerpieces. The best part? They were 75% off, so the tall one cost $3.50 and the small one cost $2.50. Now, when I went to the store, they had 6 large ones and 16 small ones, which wouldn't be enough for centerpieces (we need 25-30). I think that I might make Matt drive me to all of the Big!Lots in the area to see if I can hunt down enough of them. The only problem is that Matthew thinks that they are too busy and is not as in love as I am. What do you think?

A Polish Wedding(s)

During my wedding marathon, I learned a lot about Polish weddings that I didn't know before. I have only been to one wedding in Poland before this adventure, and even though I have been to dozens of Polish-Canadian weddings, I found that the real thing can be quite different! I hope to incorporate some of these new found elements into our wedding, but some of them just wouldn't work in the North American setting.



(All of these pictures were taken by either Matthew or myself, and are a combination of the two wedding celebrations that we attended in Poland)

The wedding day starts with the bride and groom standing outside of the bride's house welcoming guests and well-wishers.


This is a very interesting tradition. On one hand, I was thinking: "but what about the moment when the bride walks down the aisle and everyone is left breathless by the impact of seeing her for the first time?" On the other, we got to leave presents at the home, so we didn't have to worry about finding the gift table, and the wedding party didn't have to lug the presents from reception to home. Also, it allowed neighbors and acquaintances who weren't invited to the wedding to get a peek at the happy couple.

Polish wedding = Catholic wedding. Poland is an extremely religious country, and 95% of all Polish people are Catholic. Hence, a Polish wedding begins in a church.


After the ceremony, guests gather outside to congratulate the happy couple, and to get a couple of group shots. In Poland, instead of showering the couple with rice, bubbles, or rose petals, the guests throw coins! This is supposed to symbolize the wishing of good fortune onto the newly weds. The couple has to pick up each and every coin all by themselves before heading to the reception.


The reception itself is a party full of food and dancing. There are no speeches. You heard that right....no tender words from the father of the bride, or embarrassing jokes from the best man. Instead, there is a lot of this:


Guests are too busy eating to take a time out and give a speech! Also, there are no bartenders at Polish weddings. Instead, the best man carries this:


There were bottles of wodka on every table, and the best man's job was to ensure that non of them were empty. The hosts planned for .5 litres of vodka per guest!

Fish is a very popular course in Poland. However, it is served a little differently than Matthew and I are used to.


It's smoked, often covered in gelatin, and is always, always, staring you straight in the eyes.


The final interesting thing about Polish weddings is that it is considered insulting to leave the party before the sun comes out. Matthew and I were so tired, but we made it!


All in all, we had a lot of fun, and can't wait to incorporate some of what we learned into our own wedding!

Planning a Wedding is Harder than it Looks on the Internet

About a week before I left for Poland, I telephoned our decorator Ashley from Princess Weddings and Occasions because I wanted to pick out the linens before the vacation. Despite of the very short notice, Ashley was wonderful and agreed to meet with my mama and me. I thought that this would be a breeze; I knew exactly what I wanted, so we would be in and out in a matter of minutes. Boy, was I wrong!

When I got to her studio and sat down, I realized that I actually had no idea what our event is supposed to look like. I explained to her that the main colour was going to be navy, at which point she made a bit of a face and explained that navy is "a very difficult colour to work with". I told her that I wanted the decor to be mostly navy and white, with yellow accents. She asked me if I had any pictures. Of course, since navy seems to be such a popular accent colour on all of the wedding blogs, I thought that the decorator would for sure know what I was talking about. I mean, she has definitely seen all of those beautiful navy and yellow inspiration boards on Snippet and Ink or checked out the several Weddingbee weddings that were heavy on the navy blue, right? Man, am I a bonehead! Turns out that what works in the virtual wedding world and what works in the real world are two totally different things.

Take, for example, this beautiful inspiration board from Snippet and Ink:


Beautiful, right? This board was very inspirational to me when I first started leaning towards this colour combination. But, wait a second, do you see what is wrong with this picture? The board has very little to do with an actual wedding! Hmmm...let's see....fancy china within the colour scheme that is not available for rent in quantities of 200+.....a lovely yellow chair with dogs on it (I do not possess neither the furniture nor the canines)......a girl wearing thick, navy stockings to our July wedding.....a bottle of navy blue nail polish that I would never put on my fingers for our wedding day, but I suppose that I could incorporate it into the centerpieces? All in all, the only actual idea that I got from this board is that I should have yellow in the invitations (duh) and that lemons could work as a major decorating element. Ok.....but what about the table cloths? What colour should the chair covers and napkins be? Alas, these questions are not often answered on blogs that feature really beautiful, unique weddings that usually do not take place in giant, empty reception halls.

So, I went online looking for inspiration. You know what? Ashley was right. Navy is difficult to work with. This statement must be true since it is close to impossible to actually find pictures of real life reception halls decorated within this colour scheme. Here are the only images that I have hoarded so far:

InStyle weddings managed to be somewhat helpful with this image of a navy and yellow place setting...

...and Project Wedding provided me with the only picture of a navy and yellow reception table I could find using my (very modest) Google skills.

So, back to the story. I told Ashley that I was thinking about navy table cloths and ivory chair covers. She said that she wasn't a fan of the great contrast that those colours created, and that it might not look great in a reception hall of our size. She suggested silver chair covers, and my mama agreed. Internally, I was thinking "Ewww....silver chair covers are totally against the initial vision of my (ahem....our) wedding!", but when I got home and found the picture above, I started to wonder if maybe silver is the way to go?

Ashley emailed me images of the navy table cloths next to the silver and ivory chair covers:

Navy damask table cloths and silver chair covers

Navy damask table cloths and ivory chair covers

In the pictures, they actually don't look that different. What do you think? Can anyone out there find other images of the navy and yellow colour scheme put to real wedding use?

Polish Adventure ~ A Wedding in Lubawa (Day 1)

Lubawa is a teeny-tiny town in north eastern Poland. It is the place that both of my parents were born, and one that holds many dear and painful childhood memories for me. My family's route to immigrating to Canada was not an easy one, and while my dad was in Canada for three years and my mom for 11 months without the kids, we stayed with my very, very generous and kind aunt and uncle in Lubawa. As an adult, I can't help but admire the great sacrifice that my aunt and uncle made by taking in 3 children under 6 years old, while having 2 of their own. On top of this, my aunt was pregnant. I will forever be grateful for their selflessness.

Anyway, the reason why I am telling you this is because the cousin that was getting married in Lubawa is the daughter of the aunt and uncle that so graciously took care of us while our parents established a better life for us in Canada. Because we are the same age, I consider her to be like a sister to me. We went to kindergarten together, and later, when I came to visit for summer vacations as a teen, she was my partner in crime. Hence, this wedding was very special to me.

So get your shot glass ready, and pull your wodka (the true spelling) out of the fridge, I will try to take you step by step through a Polish wedding:


(as a side note, I think that Matthew may be the only man in all of Poland with curly hair :P)

A Polish wedding is not simply a one day affair. It is a full out celebration consisting of three full days of binge eating, drinking, and dancing. The fun begins with the Polterabent: a Polish/German custom (side note history lesson: our part of Poland was under German/Prussian occupation for close to 300 years before WWI) where anyone from the community that wants to come and wish the soon-to-be-married couple well is invited to bring a collection of bottles and jars and smash the glass on the porch of the bride's house. Traditionally, the bride and groom were supposed to clean the glass up themselves to prove that they would work together on the household chores. The people "testing" them could only be persuaded to stop throwing glass if the groom persuaded them with enough wodka.

In the modern version of the Polterabent, some things have changed:


The glass is now thrown into a self made bin for easy clean up (The sign says "Wishing You Luck").



And somethings haven't changed at all:

There is still a lot of wodka :P

If you ever go to a Polterabent, you can also expect a lot of food;

My aunt and I with a tub of freshly made kielbasa on the morning of the party

And, in true Polish fashion, someone is bound to whip out an accordion and play a polka or two:


All in all, night one of the celebration ended with only a few casualties :P Stay tuned for the actual wedding!

Where have I been? A Wedding Marathon!

My blog has been silent lately, and that makes me sad. I do have a very good excuse for failing to update: In the past three weeks, I have attended three weddings! That's right! Three weddings in a row on back to back weekends! Not impressed? Than what if I told you that I traveled just over 10 000 miles to attend these events? Have I sparked your curiosity?

The wedding marathon began in Toronto, Canada, where Matthew and I boarded a plane that took us into Krakow, Poland. From there, we traveled to Northern Poland for my cousin Beata's wedding, followed by a two hour train ride to the shores of the Baltic sea for my other cousin's Karol's wedding. From there, we traveled to Poland's capital, Warsaw, and boarded a plane to Chicago, where Matthew's cousin Katie was tying the knot. From Chicago, we jumped in a car and drove for about 14 hours to get to Essex, Vermont, where we are currently resting and recuperating.

I plan on doing short recaps of all of the weddings. At each one, I found myself very obviously taking notes on the things that I liked and didn't like. Matthew got sick and tired of hearing my: "what a beautiful bouquet!" or "what do you mean there is no seating plan?". Polish weddings are very, very different, but I did run into many traditions that I would like to incorporate into our own ceremony.

We also had the chance to sightsee a little bit, and I hope to post pictures of some beautiful and very, very old places.

So? Do you think that I can consider myself excused?