My best friend's wedding

Nearly two weeks ago my best friend got engaged. Being the typical twenty somethings we are we jumped on this faster than you can possibly imagine. Where did we turn, you may ask?


I'm nothing if not traditional in the corniest of ways. Naturally, I couldn't resist buying her a stack of wedding magazines. We spent a few hours sitting at a coffee shop looking through them, not really discovering much. Both of us know the kind of styles she's searching for, it's just a matter of materializing them. One magazine had a fantastic encyclopedia of flowers and their actual names, which will prove helpful. But I can't say these mags, while a tradition, really served to show us much more than that. 

That's alright, because we've both been pinning like mad women since finding out she was getting married. Nearly every wedding-related Pinterest pin I've made she's repinned to her own board, making me feel useful and her feel organized. Getting together the other day we were discussing the process of planning and the issue of really engaging with one another online came up. It was at this point that I realized that you can tag people in Pins. Yes, we do it everyday on Twitter and Facebook, but this tool hasn't always existed on Pinterest. Its development is going to take us from organized chaos wherein we create a pool of things we like, to organizing our discoveries and actually making notes to each other about the attributes of them worth remembering. 


Here's the crux of it..Pinterest is a detail-oriented person's heaven. That's both of us. And more often than not the details on where something is from or how it's made are available to you, so you can see your details and use them too. For my best friend and I, that spells out a very happy, busy and exciting wedding planning process that I'm going to be sure to embrace every step of the way. 

Dear 40 year old me,

I think it's time we have a talk about the dangers of being involved in a wedding. Be honest, it's stressful. But it's important to take away from it what's truly important so that when you're 40 you don't think back and only remember a haze of frustration. Here are some of my ideas for getting through your densest wedding years, happy memories intact. 


Remember, you're not 40 yet. We're  young, we ought to have fun and you (or your dear friend) only gets married once, ideally. Keep that in mind. You do have the energy to go the extra mile and make it a great day. Weddings are supposed to be a celebration of a couple beginning their lives together. If you're there, they're celebrating with you. If you're in the bridal party, they want you on their inner party circle on the day, and they need your help beforehand. So as our friends at Nike say, just do it. Honestly, you'll wake up the morning after the wedding remembering the way the day panned out, and it'll all have been worth it. Check out this song to remind you of this. 


But even those who embrace these experiences will get stressed. There's a lot to plan and somehow it's always down to the wire. Just take a deep breath, remember you're doing this for a groom you love or a friend you love, and just carry on. Taking a drive or having a wedding free weekend are just a couple ideas suggested on The Knot. Another super simple tip? According to planning website MarreMe it's pretty simple. Just don't procrastinate. It's not school work or work work, it's fun work - remember that and don't put it off.


Just remember that you want to look back on this time and think happy thoughts. So, dear 40 year old me, please calm down, everything will get booked. Everyone will be fed. The wedding will be fine, so just savour the time you have to plan with friends.  

Pinterest revolutionizes wedding planning

If you're in the middle of planning a wedding and you haven't turned to Pinterest for cool concepts and tip on cost saving crafty tips yet, get on it! Go on, introduce yourself. Hello wedding, this is your new best friend - Pinterest.

Yes, Pinterest is a consumer's paradise. And yes, sometimes it's a challenge to source the products you find on it. But the ability to index the items you see and like into custom titled boards is a fantastic way of organizing things you used to just see online and try to remember, or worse, bookmark. The remainder of the weddings I've been or will be involved in are weighing heavily on Pinterest for ideas. Here are some of the best reasons to use Pinterest for your wedding planning experience...

1) It's totally free. You're not buying a scrapbook and spending hours cutting pages out of magazines.  You're not hiring a wedding planner to do all the remembering and finding for you. Find it, pin it to your board, and get the details on it.

2) It's customizable. You can add in your own comments or tag relevant persons in the comments section, allowing your bride/bridesmaids to find out when you've discovered that perfect bouquet or seen the dress of your dreams.

3) It's pretty. Seems silly to say that, but when you're planning something as visually driven as a wedding (or any other event for that matter) you'd better be able to envision exactly what you're piecing together. The uncluttered layout on Pinterest allows you to breeze through your board pins without hassle.

4) Best of all - it's constantly updated and cutting edge. If you're like me,  you don't want to end up with a tired theme at your wedding. You want ideas that are fresh and fun and not massively used just yet (hello groomsmen wearing sneakers). Because Pinterest is largely consumer driven, people are bragging about the innovative ideas they've had. Product makers who are posting on Pinterest understand that, so a lot of their posts are fresh too.

If you still don't believe me, check out my Be the ultimate bridesmaid board. I guarantee you won't be able to resist the urge to save at least one of my pins. Better yet, request an invite from me and repin it today.

Discovering Wedding Blogs

Let's be honest - many of us want to say we subscribe to blogs *busy body bridesmaid* but simply do not keep up with them often enough to really qualify as doing anything but occasionally stealing ideas. Or at least, that's how I used to be.

Today's discussion revolves around what is likely my most complicated wedding. It's an Alice In Wonderland themed wedding. I've had a substantial amount of time to help the bride get this planned, but let me tell you it was no small challenge. The immense amount of detail involved in this wedding meant three things: 1) I will never look at Alice the same again 2) I will never stop thinking of ways to tie this in and 3) I needed help coming up with creative ideas. 

Naturally I turned to my best friend, Google. So here's what I've discovered...

1) Good old fashioned Google searches aren't what they used to be. You want the cream of the crop? Looking for the most current, useful, relevant information about how to throw a crazed, tea-party-gone-wrong wedding? You need something more than eHow. 

2) My solution has come to be, quite simply, attaching the word blog to the end of my search. A huge number of wedding focused blogs with stories on just what I need always materialize. Whether its about decor or invitations, there's always something relevant to be found. 

The reason these blogs are so helpful are because they're written by people who are real and who have that invested interest (like Little Miss Best Friend) in the wedding they are discussing coming out great. They're sharing the information sort of to brag but more to share knowledge and allow some of us to avoid the pain of making 4 bad decisions before arriving at the good one. 

2) Other bridal party-ers around the world are your friend.


Listing some of my favourites would take all day, so I'll give you the one that started it all. After reading this blog and seeing some of the pictures posted on it, I couldn't get enough. Great resource. Creative ideas. Well organized.... Style Me Pretty

The Country Chic Wedding

The first wedding I'm going to talk about took place summer 2011. After much planning, one of my oldest friends got married at Black Creek Pioneer Village. The wedding was a country affair with a mixture of city sensibilities (although we could have used a few more) and country cuteness. Pioneer Village is right in the city, so we had the ability to have the benefit of being in the city while it looked like we were miles and miles away.


Some great things about having a sultry country chic wedding...
It's really beautiful. The setting was so beautiful. It was a gorgeous sunny day and as we stood taking our pictures, we were bathed in sunlight. We really look like we were glowing.


Black Creek definitely suited the bride and groom. Both born and raised in the slightly country end of the GTA (or as I call it, the boonies), they weren't interested in the typical banquet hall experience. They wanted something that encorporated their love of the outdoors with an elegant affair that would also reflect the bride's British heritage. In the end we juxtaposed the country style of Pioneer Village with the modern, elegant style of the wedding gown, bridesmaids' dresses and formal suits on the guys. Country + Chic. There you go.


Further to that, because it was summer the day was long and the sunset was beautiful. The ceremony was held in a tiny white chapel and then guests popped across the lawn, or played on it, before heading to the outdoor pavillion where the reception was held.


But let's be honest, no idea is perfect...
One major issue was the heat. It was a very hot, very humid, breeze-less day. The church's windows were actually nailed shut and the pavillion had no fans in it, so both buildings sort of served as saunas. They held in the heat and let us sit there sweltering. There was no way to escape the heat and even after the sun set, it didn't break.


In keeping with that, there was also a real issue with bugs. Having a wedding outside is really something that has to be weighed against how you think guests will receive it, and whether or not you care.

At the end of the day the wedding was gorgeous but truth be told at times it was stiflingly hot. One bridesmaid fainted and the groomsmen sweat through their suits. But you can't tell any of that from the pictures, they look great - so maybe that's all that matters. You can check out some of our pictures here.




An interesting thought about this wedding:
A year doesn't seem like that long a time to have gone by. But in the time since planning this wedding, the way I plan has changed so much. When I planned this wedding I searched and searched online for actual items but didn't use many sites for inspiration. Today, for all the the weddings I'm involved in I heavily depend on social media and blogging sites to get ideas and, more importantly, keep track of them. This is an idea I'll definitely be discussing in subsequent posts.

What kind of bridesmaid does your bridal party need?

"Always a bridesmaid..."  You know how the saying goes. Most of the time the young woman saying it has an air of bitterness or sense of sadness in realizing she's always the bridesmaid and never the bride. Most young women want to have the dream wedding and get married themselves. But I am not one of those. I thoroughly enjoy the experience of helping my bride-friends sort through the chaos of planning their weddings. My inner event planner celebrates a little bit every time I host a planning session, go dress shopping or taste cakes for one of the many weddings I have been or will be involved in.

But before I get to talking about the weddings, maybe I should tell you the type of bridesmaids you may or may not be dealing with.

As far as I can tell there are three different types of bridesmaids...
1) Little Miss Trophy-Maid: she may live out of town or simply not think of herself as a "planner" but she's really just along for a ride. Happy to go along with whatever is done for her, it's really the bride's pleasure to have her. She may fly in the night before the wedding or simply claim to be too busy or too broke to financially invest in your wedding, either way - I hope she's good looking cause she's really for display purposes only.

2) Little Miss Control Freak aka "If it were my wedding": Every group has one, the person who thinks their personal tastes and preferences are the be all and end all of anything -anything-you may think of. She'll come to just about every planning session, dress fitting, cake tasting, decoration choosing or invitation mailing. She's been a bridesmaid before and must really knows how it's done. Slightly jaded, somewhat resentful of being in another wedding, yet willing to impart her wisdom, she's going to make the bride doubt everything she thinks she wants.
She wants to plan everything. Honestly, you're not sure if she's the bride, the maid of honour or just another part of the wedding party - but everyone else's suggestions seem subpar. She dominates conversations and decisions. If this girl is in your bridal party I have two suggestions: run or grow nerves of steel real fast.

3) Little Miss Best Friend: She tries to identify with the bride's desires as frequently as she can. When she voices her opinions you know she's being honest, so you ask her what she thinks when you really need help. Because she's probably the bride's best friend, she's likely to be in tune with the vision of the wedding or at least feels driven to be on the right track. Her invested interest means she'll try to be gentle but take control of Bridesmaids # 1-2 as necessary. She loves the bride and she's nurturing, but if you threaten to rock the boat she's gonna get you. Likely to be willing to work straight through the night for you or drive 2 hours to pick up the right shade of ribbon, her commitment means she may be easily hurt when you don't want her help. She'll be the one with nerves of steel so she sort of becomes the mamma of the group (because there aren't enough mothers around already). She may have been in a couple of weddings before, she may just actually care to see the bride happy or the wedding go smoothly - regardless be glad you've got her.   

Each of these categories definitely has different variations. Whether you're in the bridal party or planning the wedding, I hope for your sake you have a Little Miss Best Friend in the mix. You need someone on the team to be looking out for everyone's best interests and keeping the peace, and she's probably your best chance at that. But each bridesmaid type brings her own contributions and flare, so don't worry. It'll feel like utter mayhem at points, but in the end everyone survives. 

Meet & Greet

I've finally done it. I'm taking the plunge...


Into blogging that is. Yes, this may be required work for a Corporate Communications & Public Relations post-grad program, but my non-student-self is aware that it is also long overdue. Why not share my thoughts with the world?


So share my thoughts I shall! Stick around and you'll see me write on topics that interest me and are relevant to my life.


If you're a twenty-something still trying to get your career on track, misery loves company. Has your phone become another appendage because you're afraid that if you put it down you might miss something on some social media platform (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr)? If you are addicted to Pinterest, consider this your support group. If your parents ever called you "artsy-fartsy", "bleeding heart", or tell you you're online too much, I know your pain. If you're intrigued by the way people communicate their ideas, interests and opinions (as well as the things that they're sharing), I am your girl. If you've ever sat down to do work and woken up 2 hours later in a haze of stumbles from one video/story/blog to the next, you are not alone.


I'm going to talk about all the pretty little things we can find online, and how we can use them to engage the world around us.