Wedding Finished!!!

Hooray, the stress is over.

Well, the wedding planning is now over. Everything went perfectly (at least so far as I could tell). There were no problems at all except that there was too much sugar. By the time we cut the wedding cake, people had eaten so many desserts that no one wanted any cake.

We would like to thank all of our friends and family for their support throughout the planning process and for being with us on our special day.

Tomorrow we leave to Ucluelet for the week for some much needed relaxation. We'll post again when we get back.

Invite Update

Just a quick update on the head-count.

Attending: 27
Not Attending: 21
Waiting Response: 6

Yes, we are still awaiting some responses. 2 of those are a last minute invite. For the other 4 (and you probably know who you are) we are assuming that you are not coming. If you are indeed coming, you better let us know soon as there is only 11 days left.

Rollin', rollin', rollin'

Keep them invites rollin'. Rollin', rollin' rollin' Wedding!

So the RSVP's are slowly rolling in. Here is the current count.

Attending: 23
Not Attending: 5
Still waiting response: 21

Some of the still waiting response are people that probably won't be attending but our info is third hand, so please let us know directly whether you will be attending or not.

Registry Redux

So now that the invitations are out, it is probably a good time to let you all know all of our registry info. I know that I did a post some time ago when we first started our HBC registry. We went in to The Bay on the weekend and added some more things to it. We also have a registry at Canadian Tire and a wish list at Mountain Equipment Co-op. So here are registry numbers and ways to find them

The Bay: Visit http://www.hbc.com/registry then click on "Find a Registry; Buy a Gift". You can then search by either of our names. I don't know if you can search by registry number, but it's 05528336.

Canadian Tire: Visit http://www.canadiantire.ca/giftcenter/gift_registry_landing.jsp, click on "give a gift" under wedding registry, then enter the registry number of 005578273.

Mountain Equipment Co-op: Visit http://www.tinyurl.com/h4fmj This will take you directly to our MEC wish list. Normally you are required to purchase a $5.00 lifetime membership to buy anything at MEC, but if are buying from a physical store (rather than by phone or online) you could tell them that it is from a wishlist for a wedding and they may let you buy items without an account. Otherwise, my dad has an account and has agreed to purchase items on your behalf. If you would like his contact info, please get a hold of me.

Finally, we also have a bit of a registry at Kata Trading here in Victoria. They are a small martial arts supply company that is run by two very nice people. The only problem with this registry is that you will be forced with making a decision between who you want to buy a gift for. As Tam and I are in two very different martial arts, we have no gear requirements in common. If you really want to buy a gift from there, visit their store at 670 Herald St and ask for the registry for Adam MacNeil

Rest and Relaxation

We've had a few people ask what are plans are for the honeymoon. We didn't really have any plans to go on a honeymoon anytime soon. We've now found out that as a wedding gift we are being sent to the Tauca Lea Resort and Spa for a week long honeymoon. We don't leave until a few days after the wedding, so we have booked ourselves into the Markham House B&B for the night after the wedding.

Tam and I would like to give a big thank you to the friends who are kind enough to send us on our honeymoon.

Check your mail

Finally!

The invitations are finally in the mail. Hopefully people should start receiving them later this week. We didn't include return cards per se. We included an email address and our phone number for people to let us know if they are attending. We will reply to any emails we get, so if you send us your reply via email and we don't get back to you in a few days, please try sending the email again or phone us. That being said, we did include cards with the invitations. They are so you know exactly who is invited. If you really want to, you can mail the card back to us, but we would prefer email first, then telephone.

In other news, the alterations on Tam's dress are nearly finished, the bridesmaids dresses have arrived, and the boys and I are going down on Thursday to get fitted for our tuxes.

Last Thursday we met with the photographer to have our engagement portraits done. I believe he will be posting them on the web, so we will let you know when they are up so you can have a look at them. We aren't planning on having a traditional guest book, but instead will be getting one of the engagement portraits framed with a large mat so people can sign the mat. We didn't think that we would really go back and look at a guest book, so we thought this would be a better idea.

Less than 2 mo. to go.

Holy cow.

I can scarcely believe that there's now less than 2 months until the wedding. On the plus side, today was a pretty good day, wedding wise. We got the rest of the stuff we needed to do the invitations, so if we can huckle our butts, they should be sent out later this week or early next week. I hope everyone likes the look of the invitations as much as we do.

We also met with the chef at the Delta who will be doing our cake. He has recently finished a cake decorating class with one of his co-workers. They are just trying to get as much experience as they can, so the cake will be quite inexpensive.

Finally, we went in and ordered our wedding bands. Getting all that stuff done is quite a relief because we are really starting to feel the pinch of time.

Directions to the venue

As you know, we are having our wedding and reception at the Delta hotel here in Victoria. Here is a map of the area. You can click on the picture to go to Google Maps so you can move the map around and zoom in/out to help plan your route to the hotel.

If you come over the Johnson St. bridge, you will want to be in the right hand lane. Just after the bridge take the off ramp up and to the right. This will bring you to the main entrance to the hotel. If you keep going to the right you will see the underground parking garage to the left. We will be given a code to get into the garage, but we don't have the code yet.




In other news, things are moving along. The guest list has been trimmed and now we will be having around 50 guests. We have figured out what we want for the invitations. It is just a matter of doing up some trial copies. We are planning on having them printed, and then assembling them ourselves. That will be the big project after we get back from a friend's wedding in Vancouver this week. Hopefully we will have them sent out in a couple of weeks.

Registry

So Tamara didn't want to open her own blogger acount, so I will be posting things on her behalf.

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From Tamara:

We just came from our first official wedding registry event. I call it an event because it seems you are supposed to make an appointment and have done some reading before hand. Adam and I, however, had not. We went in blind, sort of expecting to get the little gun and run round the store pointing at things, instead the lady talked all about completion programs, maximizing our HBC Rewards and using credit cards to get discounts. We got piles of brochures, our second white paper folder (I'm told there will be many of these), an orange scented candle, coupons, checklists and planners. We answered questions and signed sheets, gave away our personal details and the details of our parents (sorry, guys). We sat and listened to the official Bay registry speech. About half an hour into our bridal registry registration, I was starting to fight to keep my eyes from glazing over.
When at length we did get the gun (along with piles and piles of paper), we went round zapping things. Man, stuff is expensive. All of a sudden I understood why the mismatched conglomeration of flatware we have (stolen from airplanes from way back, when it was worth stealing, from various staff rooms, from mom's flatware and the camping flatware and some of gran's old flatware) has been good enough for so long. So that's why we haven't bought a new duvet! Oh and that's why I wait till a sale to buy my towels. Huh.
Hopefully we picked a fair bit of stuff that's not too expensive and stuff we do genuinely need. We'll be adding to our registry at the Bay and supplementing it with other registries that we'll post about in future. But now, it's time for a nice relaxing coffee and a sit down.

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I realize that it is usual for info about a registry to be spread word of mouth through mothers and bridesmaids, but we figured this would be most efficient since everybody is scattered everywhere across the province, and even into other provinces.

We would also welcome monetary gifts as there are a few things that we would like to get that are quite expensive, such as a new computer, or a down payment for a house.

To see our HBC wedding registry, click on this link. You can search for it under either of our names.

It's Official

So we officially have a date and venue. Yesterday we went down to the Delta and booked our wedding for Thursday September 7th 2006 at 11:00 am. The guest list is still TBD but we are thinking of having 60-70 guests.