Pre-Wedding Celebrations

This post is coming late because we just got back from a busy weekend in Toronto with Donny and Marika and other friends. It was a good weekend but I did not have a lot of time to blog :)

When we got married we lived in Edmonton, AB and we got married in Waterloo, ON. We flew to Ontario about a week before the wedding and it was a crazy busy week. I should also explain that we didn't have a wedding party, per se, but we had friends which we asked to fill different roles. My "matron of honour" was Janice, one of my very best friends. I told her that her duties were to get a pedicure with me, to come with me to get my hair done the morning of the wedding and to sign the official stuff as my witness. And anything else that she wanted to do. And oh did I mention allowing Dave and I to stay at their place the week before the wedding?!?!?! (After that week I said thank you about a million times for allowing our stressed out, pre-wedding selves to invade their family for that week. And just in case you've forgotten, and you're reading this, THANK YOU so very much, again Janice!)

I told her that I didn't expect her to throw me a shower but about a month before the wedding she said she wanted to host a tea for me the Saturday before our wedding. We both love tea and I LOVED this idea. It sounded perfect for me. I told her she could on the condition that people knew that there were no gifts allowed. Having a celebration the week before the wedding just felt like a gift grab to me so I wanted to be clear about that. She invited all the women and girls from our church who were invited to the wedding and it was so much fun!

On the left is me with two girls I used to baby-sit at the food table. The girls in the right picture were all the same age. Tessa on the left is Janice's daughter and my "local niece" and Lily, the girl on the right, became my niece the day I married her uncle.

I loved that women of all different ages were there. In the right picture I am visiting with a friend from small group, and my future sister- and mother-in-law.

More women visiting. They surprised me by completing our dinnerware as a gift which was totally unexpected and made me cry, because let's face it, the dinnerware was more for me than for Dave! (We registered for Denby Blue Jetty which has since been discontinued although you can click the link to see it.) And Dave's mom later gave me her mom's pearls which also made me cry. Dave's grandma died about six weeks before our wedding :(

Dave's parents took us to Disneyworld the December before we got married and we had bought mouse ears but Dave had gotten a pirate instead of a top hat. Tim and Janice went to Disneyworld the April before our wedding and graciously picked up the more formal top hat for Dave to wear. Look for these ears to appear in an upcoming wedding post! Bet you can't wait...!

Dave had a bachelor party and my friend Marika helped me plan a bachelorette party two night before our wedding. Dave and his friends at The Mongolian Grill are pictured below.

My friends and I went to East Side Mario's. Yum yum yum!!! (And yes, those are my two nieces at the end of the table!)

Then we went and watched "10 Things I Hate About You" and ate ice cream sundaes. Yum yum yum!!! (Ooops! Did I say that already?!)

Then we went and surprised Dave at Mel's Diner for more carousing and merriment :) (Poor Mel's has since burnt down and it is very sad.) You can see me in the picture on the right surprising Dave.

And this is the whole group of us at Mel's. It was an awesome evening.

And here are Marika and I at the end of the evening at Mel's. I had to pick the picture where either I looked good or Marika looked good and I decided to be a nice friend and post the latter one. You're welcome Marika! It was such a fun night!

And just for fun, I've included a picture of a bunch of us celebrating Marika's bachelorette which was just six weeks before mine. (And because we lost most of our 2009 pictures (except for thankfully our wedding ones -- whew!) I just had to copy a picture from the post I wrote about celebrating Marika so the formatting is messed up.) Yep, Donny and Marika and Dave and I got married six weeks apart. We were all living in Alberta at the time and Donny and Marika got married in Winnipeg and we got married in Ontario. We had so much fun planning and celebrating our weddings together. You can click on the "weddings" tab on my blog to see some of those planning posts!

Coming up tomorrow: The Rehearsal!