Real Life Wedding Planning: Part 2
After deciding the date and the province, my fiancé and I moved onto planning the more intricate details. We started with an officiant. Neither of us are particularly religious and we wanted a small, simple ceremony. I set to work contacting all of the Alberta officiants in the Edmonton area and quickly learned that their prices vary quite radically.
Eventually we found the one that would work for us. Her price was right, and her personality and ceremony ideas matched ours. She suggested we do a sand ceremony after saying our vows, which we both thought was a great idea. Next we picked our guests. We both have large families and step-families to boot, so we decided to keep it small. All in all, our guest list for both the ceremony and reception includes 7 attendees—my mother and grandmother, and my fiancé’s mother, father, and three younger sisters. So very small, but precisely what we want.
Now, I had to find a dress. My budget was small ($200.00!) and when I called some dress stores to inquire about their price ranges, I thought I was going to faint. I considered having one made, but I wanted to look around first. As I mentioned in my first blog, I’m not much of a girly-girl, so I thought that I was going to stay away from poof and sparkle. The third dress that I tried on was poofy and sparkly and when I looked in the mirror I felt like I never wanted to take it off. Big surprise for me. Even bigger surprise for my mother and grandmother who were almost certain I was going to wear jeans and a t-shirt. The dress was within my price range, but it needed to be taken in. I went to a local tailor and they quoted me $285.00 to take the dress in and to hem it. Again, I thought I was going to faint. So, I turned to the internet and poured through seamstress ads. I eventually found a great seamstress that is very close to my home who is only charging me $85.00 for everything. Remember ladies, if you ever feel like anything to do with your wedding is overpriced, don’t shy away from looking at different options. Just make sure that in your planning you allow for some extra time to explore those options.
Since I had found my dress and seamstress, we decided that my fiancé needed to find clothes too. After looking over our choices, we decided to rent a tux. At the store, I almost died laughing as they measured him and asked him what he thought about certain colors and cuts. He’s not one for fashion, so he turned to me to answer just about every question and the expression on his face was one of awkward compliance. He almost ran out of the store when we were done.
But where oh where were we going to do it? Since our wedding is going to be so small and we would like to have a bite to eat with the guests afterwards, I thought that a nice little private room in a restaurant would be perfect. After emailing at least 40, a family member mentioned The Moose Factory. I had never been there, so we went to check it out. It’s very beautiful inside and only costs $40.00 to rent a private room for an evening. We chose the Bordeaux room for our ceremony, in front of a big fireplace, and then rented the Chardonnay room for our dinner. The event planners for the facility have been both extremely helpful and considerate, which was a nice change from some of the other aspects of wedding planning.
This was the point in planning where everything started to come together. After almost 5 years together, (3 of those engaged), we were actually going to get married. For real. And I started to feel that excitement about our wedding for the first time. Like a little kid at Christmas.
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