The Barbecue after the Wedding

I made a slide slow for this one. It was a lovely day and there was a lot of fabulous food. It was surreal visiting Cindy's Dad's farm since it has had a major face lift since the last time I was there. I kept wandering from room to room and marveling at all the changes and all my memories of being in that house. I spent almost as much time there as I did at my own house. It was cool seeing all the adorable babies even if it's a bit strange that it's our little sisters who have them (well, Cindy and Amy's anyway). I also got to see Lexi, one of Venus' puppies from the recent litter. She is getting so big already! It was nice to touch base with lots of people and just relax once the wedding was over and a success. Fun day! Here's a link to all the pictures.

George Gets His Groove Back

I just had to share this video we took of George dancing at the reception. Way too hilarious! He's really got some moves, eh?

The Wedding Cake Fiasco

My Mom made Cindy and George's wedding cake. Possibly you aren't aware of this but my Mom is the best cook/baker ever and basically self taught herself how to do everything. She decided a few years ago to try her hand at making wedding cakes and it's blossomed into an insane (my word, not hers) hobby.

Look at how gorgeous the cake was:
My Mom made this, from scratch. She baked (no cake mix) this lemon pound cake (the bottom two layers) using 12 real lemons, 2 dozen eggs and 6 pounds of real butter. Why are wedding cakes always so dense? Because if it was made of angel food cake then it would collapse when the other layers and decorations were placed on top. That's why traditionally fruitcake has been used since it's so heavy and strong.

Anyway, Cindy's wedding weekend was a scorcher. It was over 30 degrees. Mom had finished up the cake earlier in the week and froze it (very common thing to do). When we went to put it in her 2nd refrigerator to slowly thaw out we discovered it was too giant to fit in (it fit but the door couldn't' be closed without smucking it. So it was decided that it would thaw out in the cool basement. This was on Thursday evening. Friday morning Mom and Tom left bright and early to go to another wedding while Matt and I were helping to decorate the hall and do other odds and ends. Just before it was time to go to the hall to decorate I noticed that something resembling snot was oozing down the cake and the deep freeze and leaving a sticky puddle on the floor. Naturally I did what any mature adult would do. I panicked and frantically called my mother. Mom said she would be able to fix it and she did, the morning of the wedding. Luckily she had an extra batch of the special fondat icing sticking around but it was pretty freaky for a bit. The cake was still a huge hit and had double the icing. Hopefully not too many guests developed diabetes as a result of that cake. Isn't it lovely though?

The Wedding Post

Wow, this has taken me awhile to post about. Things have been extremely hectic in my life with the new apartment and job but stuff is calming down a little bit. I have so many pictures from this wedding that you may as well go here and look at them. I will try to include some of the best ones though.

I woke up ridiculously early on the morning of the wedding- something like 5 am? I just couldn't sleep. You'd think that it was my wedding or something from how stressed and nervous I was. To be fair, Matt and I did have substantial wedding responsibilities. I spent the morning getting gussied up, helping Mom a bit with the cake fiasco (will blog about this next), putting last minute touches to our reception jokes and plans and answering Cindy's phone calls.

Everything went pretty perfectly. Sherry and Jenn (Cindy's sisters and bridesmaids/maids of honor) looked beautiful and Autumn was an adorable flower girl even if she did get a bit scared and fussy by the end of the ceremony (she's three though so considering this she did awesome). I sang the song and was so nervous (also wearing heels and trying to concentrate on not falling) but it's over and I think it went okay and I do not have a copy of the video, thank goodness. There were a lot of teary eyes and the ceremony went much smoother than the rehearsals so I guess it's good that the minister practiced 43042 times. Stephie bawled through the whole ceremony, especially when George had to take a moment to compose himself while saying his vows.

Between the ceremony and the reception I had to run over to the hall and get the "You Score, They Score" stuff set up, find the microphone and get the top secret Tim Horton's donuts in place. Then I had a much deserved milkshake and visited with Donna, Tamara, Jason, Steph, Dad and Sharron. I also managed to get a nap in before we had to head over to the hall.

The reception went reasonably well. We had worked really hard to try and make things entertaining and organized. There were a few fuck ups though and they were mainly my fault. Like when I introduced the wedding party and called George's brother by the wrong name. His name is Kevin but I called him Ross because he looks like Ross from Friends, also George's middle name and son's name is Ross so I think this is why I had that name stuck in my head. It was embarrassing but I tried to play it off. Also I forgot to ask his sister to come up to say grace at the right time. Our hockey themed kiss idea didn't work as well as we hoped but the kids loved it and happily played with it all night and kept out of trouble so I guess that was worth it. At the end of the night we gave the sticks and pucks to the kids to take home.

The dinner was delicious although I did have to sort of rush through eating it. People laughed at most of my jokes and the shoe game was a big hit. There were lots of touching speeches and apparently we pronounced all the names correctly (and other than Kevin we even had their correct first names). Overall a big success.

I cannot stress enough how gorgeous Cindy looked. She was just glowing. I've never seen her look so beautiful! George was looking pretty slick too. We had fun dancing the night away and I was fairly amused at Kevin (George's 30 yr old brother) attempting to pick up Stephie (who is 20). People from Ontario seem a bit strange. Haha. Maybe it was just this sample though. I also was the one that caught the bouquet. I am still not getting married but I just would like to reiterate how competitive I am. I just wanted to win. Matt did not get the garter.

In summary, it was a great day, perfect weather and all things worked out. I was really honored to be included so much in their day. I love you Cindy and George! Oh and I can't wait to see the professional pictures that Heidi took!!!

Decorating/Rehearsal

Friday was another frantic day- I spent a lot of it trying to map out our MC stuff exactly (you should have seen my paper and what a freak I am) and some time freaking out about Cindy's cake (there was a meltdown that my Mom fixed like a pro but at the time it was pretty scary) and lots of time keeping Cindy cool and things rolling.

We stopped by the hall and helped decorate for a number of hours. Cindy was stressed but overall pretty calm. She did get a hint of bridezilla going on when she started scouring every rented table cloth for the slightest of stain. We managed to get things set up satisfactorily though. Setting up the hall took way more time than I planned so we ended up going straight to the wedding rehearsal from the hall. This would be no big deal except I was going to have to sing and had no time to warm up.

I haven't been involved in a lot of weddings but this struck me as the longest rehearsal ever!!! It lasted an hour and a half! The minister didn't impress me and seemed to have no clue what was going on and insisted on reading out full passages of things and making us do everything 4 times or more. We had to tell him basic things like "shouldn't you ask the congregation to stand up before Cindy comes in?". He also made me sing my darn song 3 times!! The pianist looked a bit annoyed but we got through everything (and the minister did a good job on the actual day so that's really what counts).

Then it was rehearsal dinner time. As if anything else could go wrong, the restaurant scheduled us for a different day! They found space for us and after a lot of waiting (we had a huge group) we finally ate. We got some awesome thank you presents too- Matt got cuff links engraved with his initials and I got an awesome (but incredibly heavy!!) cast iron tea pot and cups. It's from a store called Teaopia that I will have to check out sometime. It was a long day but a decent one.

You Score, They Score!

Here is the kissing game that Matt and I planned and built for the wedding. What do you think? They are both big hockey fans and had a slight hockey theme in their wedding (the tables were labeled with different team names) and Cindy really didn't want people clinking glasses to get them to kiss. I got the idea when I saw that some people had done a putting thing because they liked golf. In the end, it worked okay but not enough people participated in my opinion. The kids at the wedding loved it though and spent the whole evening playing with it. Their parents were probably pretty happy that they were out of the way. I gave away the toy sticks and pucks to them at the end of the night. (In case it isn't clear, someone has to score a goal and then the couple has to kiss.)

Surprise Bridal Shower

Last Wednesday night I headed out to Sherry (one of Cindy's sisters) house for Cindy's bridal shower. Somehow everyone managed to keep it a secret so she was surprised. I almost let the cat out of the bag on the weekend but remembered at the last second and stopped myself from saying anything. There was a good turn out, lots of yummy food, fun games (I won the "Pin the Junk on the Hunk"game- I know where things go.) and a crazy gift exchange. A lot of it was R rated or bordering on that so I will just give you the link for the bulk of the pictures. No slide show for this one! Some of the pictures may be not safe for work so you have been warned!!! Here they are!

I was a bit choked that I didn't win the quiz about Cindy (I came in second) but there were some tricky questions that could have had more than one answer. It's probably for the best though because then I would have won all the games and that would have been bad for other people. The prizes were delicious smelling Partylite candles and I actually ended up with two packs (I stayed around to talk about MC stuff and they had one left over.)! It was fun holding all the babies and just having a good laugh. Sherry has a great house although it's pretty far away from Edmonton but whatever. Good starter house! Oh and isn't Jenn's daughter Hayley cute? That's the baby I am holding. I repeat, not my baby.

It's Wedding Time!

Wow, I have been so busy this week. Today's the big day for Cindy and George. The hall is decorated and there have only been a few hiccups. I think it should be fabulous. I wish I had slept better- I fell asleep at about 12:30 and woke up at 5 am!!! WTF! You'd think that it was me getting married or something. I think I am just stressed about singing and being the MC but I am sure it's unwarranted. Anyway, look for updates about Steph's birthday, Cindy's bridal shower and the wedding soon!