As I am sure all you brides-to-be are aware we have our Bridal Fantasy Edmonton: The Bridal Show Everyone Is Talking About is fast approaching (January 22, 2012). Doors open at 9:30am!

This year Marks 30 years in Alberta for us and we cannot wait! We have our celebrity keynote speaker Renee Strauss and Kevin Lee from Slice TV’s “Brides of Beverly Hills” coming in. Not to mention we are giving away over $100,000 in prizes! And Molson Canadian 67 & 67 Sublime are the official Fashion Show Sponsors giving away a few prizes of their own, keep an eye out for their Extreme Team. One of many amazing prize that will be won is a 9 night getaway to Fiji! Fiji is absolutely breathtaking; and is valued at over $5000! This beautiful trip is being brought to you by Farlie Travel, Aussie Travel and Air Pacific be sure to stop by their booth.

Some other great prizes that will also be given away are:

One Groom’s free rental and Three Groomsmen rentals ($1000) Courtesy of Derks Formals & Menswear

All-inclusive trip for Two to Mexico or the Caribbean ($3000) Courtesy of Flight Centre

A One-Hour Game Show Package for your Rehearsal Dinner Party ($1500) Courtesy of Hear by Request

A Brianna - Fresh Start Queen Size Mattress Set and Frame ($1999) Courtesy of Mattress Mattress

Outdoor Photo-shoot and Ten Images of Your Choice ($1100) Courtesy of McMasters Photographers

Free Wedding DJ Services ($1199) Courtesy of Platinum DJ

Wedding Gown ($1000) Courtesy of Sposabella

All brides that attend our show will receive a copy of 2012 Bridal Fantasy Magazine, 2012 Wedding Planner and of course our Brides Coupon.

Tickets are $20 available at the door. Don’t forget to print off your Registration Form ahead of time!

For a full list of our Featured Exhibitors click here.

Keep your eye out on our Social Media Outlets for the latest Sweepstakes Info! Being brought to you by Lexus of Edmonton, Thomas Cook Weddings, Molson Canadian 67, UNIGlobe Travel (Love in London) and Bridal Debut (FREE - Alfred Sung Gown).

On December 23, 2011 I finally got married. After months of planning, drama, and stress, it’s over. It went perfectly, even better than we thought that it would. The ceremony was beautiful, the dinner delicious, and the guests entertaining and supportive. The schedule that I had been working on for weeks was followed exactly, to my surprise.

After the ceremony I expected to feel like a wife. I thought there would be some sort of feeling of relief, or a ‘walking on the clouds’ sort of atmosphere. Instead, I feel exactly the same as always. It makes sense, seeing as we have been living together for 5 years, we bought a house together, and have been raising three animals for 4 years. There’s not much difference in being a wife compared to a fiancé or girlfriend. Perhaps it would have been different if we had gone on a honeymoon.

Since the wedding I have had to decide if I am going to change my last name to my husband’s. At this point, I have decided to keep my maiden name the way it is. Perhaps one day I will change it, when we have kids or it gets too complicated to have different names, but I am proud of my name and I’m not ready to give it up.
The best part of the wedding was the dinner afterwards. We had an intimate dinner of 10 people in a private room. It was cozy and everyone was happy. The food was great, our hostess was amazing, and there were smiles all around. It was great to sit at the same table as everyone else and to be able to enjoy all of them at the same time. It was the first time that Kyle’s mother met mine and it was wonderful to see our two families together.

The worst part was that it was my last night with my mom in Alberta. She left of December 24th, and we are very close. It broke my heart knowing that she had to leave, but I have a little sister in Ontario who needed her over Christmas more than I did. It was hard to take her to the airport the next morning, but she made such a difference in my wedding that I am just glad she came, even if only for a few days. She remembered things like painting my toenails, getting sparkly things for my hair, she did my make-up and hair, and she took on a good amount of responsibility to help me out. It wouldn’t have been the same without her, and even though I rolled my eyes at her insistence that I wear lipstick and satin shoes, I am glad that she made me do it.

Unfortunately there is still a touch of drama surrounding our wedding and our choices, but it was exactly what we wanted and we couldn’t have asked for more. We enjoyed ourselves immensely and wouldn’t have changed a thing. Now all I have to do is get used to saying ‘husband’.

With most weddings sticking to a budget can be difficult but with Bridal Fantasy’s Bride Coupon you’ll have a handy resource right at your fingertips.

From Photographers to DJ’s we have you covered! Some of last year’s popular choices were 15% off Bridesmaids Package of four or more dresses courtesy of Tifany’s Bridal for those picky bridesmaids or $300 of any wedding package courtesy of Images of Distinction. Grande Rockies Resorts offered 15% off the ballroom or outdoor ceremony space rental fee for brides who were looking for a unique venue. For brides who were looking for that must have staggette Bust Loose offered $50 off any staggette transportation so they could travel in style.

*Please note these offers are expired*

This money-saving Bride Coupon is exclusive to Bridal Fantasy and you will receive one coupon per ticket purchase, not just per bride!

Now you’ll be able to use some of the city’s top professionals and be able to stick to your budget!

Today, my wedding is a week away. My mother and grandmother will arrive tomorrow evening and then comes complete insanity. Don’t get me wrong, I am excited, but having the 3 of us together in my tiny house is going to be interesting. You see, they asked me to wait on some things until they got here so that they could help out. Such as my shoes, my hair appointment, make-up, and my flowers. Now I am starting to think this was a bad idea.

Since the end of November, I keep having extremely vivid and disturbing dreams about my wedding. Like that my fiancé will ditch me on our wedding day, that my family won’t make it because of the weather, that my dress gets ruined just before I get to the aisle. Now, I don’t worry about these things during the day, but my subconscious is taking advantage of my exhaustion and stress over other things and has decided to attack. I know, in my logical mind, that these things won’t happen and that everything will be fine, but to be honest, at this point I can’t wait until the day after.

I am also feeling excited, which I didn’t think would happen. I am not an overly excitable person. In fact, I have a fairly dry sense of humour and a very logical mind. I take things on with a plan, and usually come out just fine. So, now I am all out of sorts because I have had butterflies in my stomach for a month. Perhaps it’s because we tried planning our wedding about 5 times before we actually made a solid plan, and this time it’s really happening. Maybe, somewhere deep down, I thought that we were just going to stop planning it and never actually get married. Now that we are and it’s so close, things are starting to sink in.

There are still a number of things that need to be done, and I can’t get my mind around how such planning is necessary for a 20 minute ceremony and, after that, a small dinner. There are so many different people involved in a wedding and you have to rely on all of them to contribute their part perfectly or else it will cause a domino effect. And at the head of it all is you, the big boss, the orchestrator of everything that is your wedding. If anything falls apart, ultimately it comes back to you. For you brides out there who are planning large weddings, I feel for you. For you brides out there having small events, I share your pain. Although I have had a lot of fun picking out my dress, ordering a cake, and deciding on all of the details, it hasn’t all been kittens and gumdrops.

I am sure that it will all be worth it in the end, and that it will be everything that we wanted. I know that all of this planning and stress and perfectionism will pay off in the end. I just hope that the next week flies by and that with the added support of my mother and grandmother, I will make it through with a smile and a spring in my step.

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.