[This is imported from my old journal, which is why it's showing up five months later].
We got married on the hottest day of the year (Aug. 6th) at East Van’s favourite beach (Third) with 40ish people in attendance. It was a Wednesday, at 4 pm. Reception at 6 pm at radha yoga & eatery. We always wanted it to be simple, fun, and elegant.
My parents and brother arrived in town four days before, and my sister two days before. One day before, my mom and sister and I headed down to Granville island to do some last-minute shopping, mainly for flowers and jewelry. For flowers we ended up buying one small potted kalanchoe (a succulent) with pink flowers and I bought a green glass heart pendant at the bead store. I went back home via the bike store (for a new chain), got changed (I made the rehearsal dress myself), and headed to the beach for the rehearsal. We just had a small beach picnic, like I’ve had many times with my friends at that beach. The night before everyone left me and James alone, which we really enjoyed. We had a lot of work that we’d left till the last minute though, I was still working on my dress (yep, I made that too… kind of a mashup of my prom dress in green satin and an antique (~1946) lace wedding dress) and we made up the entire reception playlist. Finished around midnight.
I woke up around 7 am on wedding day and got up to start doing things. The first thing I did was finish up my dress, it just needed one more hook & eye closure sewn on. James and I had breakfast, my sister was still sleeping.
The lace overlay still had chalk markings on it from sewing the side seams, and they were quite visible, so I thought I’d just wash them off. Worst. Decision. Ever. I hung it up to dry, rubbed coconut oil through my hair and scalp (this works really nicely for making shiny moisturized hair, by the way), washed my bike, and went back to check on my dress only to discover that the dye from the green lining had bled allllllll over the white lace. I resisted the urge to freak the fuck out and sent my sister off to the dry cleaners in a hurry to see if anything could be done about it. James returned from doing a few errands just in time to see my Dress Disaster Meltdown. I freaked out at him for a bit, then went to go cry in the shower and wash out the coconut oil.
My sister came back with the dress, having been unsuccessful at the cleaners. The lady there had tried to bleach it, but it wasn’t doing anything. Yeah. I made my own beautiful dress, and I both finished it and accidentally destroyed it on the morning of my wedding. My mom came over about that time, and I sat down on the floor to have another cry. My mom and I took the lace off to see if we could somehow whip up a new lace overlay in a few hours. There wasn’t very much left from the old dress, but we thought it might be enough, though it would have to have two tiers. While she got started on that, James and I jumped in the car to go dress shopping. This was about 10:45; my hair appointment was at 12. I think we did not too badly actually, looked at a few stores along Commercial Drive, didn’t find anything, and went to the mall downtown. Just a couple weeks before I’d been seeing white sundresses everywhere, but hardly any that day, which was frustrating to say the least. Eventually I found a nice white knee-length linen sundress at Le Chateau it was almost perfect. We were back at my house only 15 minutes late for my hair appointment.
James’ cousin is a hairdresser, so she did my hair while my sister went out and got me some Indian takeout. People started showing up and congregating in my kitchen James’ mom with the flowers, my parents with some corsage supplies, James’ sister and uncle and uncle’s girlfriend and my brother and the best man and God only knows who else. I was getting a bit annoyed at so many people in my kitchen, but not ready to make a big stink over it.
The photographer came at about 1:45 just as I was getting finished with my hair, and Emily handed me her makeup bag. We had planned for her to do my makeup, but that didn’t work out what with her getting her hair done. I have no clue how to do makeup at all, so the photographer helped me out a bit.
There was some more mishaps and general bumbling before we were able to leave I forgot that I hadn’t made my necklace, so i just tossed the pendant on some wire and got James’ sister to close it with a crimp bead, no time for making clasps here! As I ran down front steps the pendant fell off and broke in half. I went back inside and grabbed the first necklace I saw, which was a blue one my sister had bought for me in Iraq. That ended up being my something blue, since I never did get around to finishing that blue garter. I did remember my mom’s opal ring both borrowed and old; it had been her grandmothers.
Finally James and I took off on our bikes at about 2:30, half an hour late, leaving my parents to finish with the corsages. On the way we remembered a few things e.g. we didn’t have a copy of our readings, for example, so we phoned the best man, got him to look it up online, and copy it out by hand since we don’t have a printer.
We met the photographer at a couple spots along the way to take pictures. This was a lot of fun, and it was really nice to take some alone time and have a ride with James just before the ceremony, but it did take a lot of time, and being half an hour late didn’t help.
We had planned to show up around 3:30 to mingle, but got there right at 4 instead, after being busted by the park staff for riding the wrong way around the seawall path - it’s one way and was not in our favour - generally I don’t want to be *that asshole* who’s going the wrong way, but I felt it was justified here.
Unfortunately we were really stuck for time; our best man had to leave at 4:20 to get to work on time (they had let him know in no uncertain terms that they knew he had his best friend’s wedding, and that they would NOT tolerate him being late for it). But our photographer hadn’t found parking yet so we had to start without her. The best man ended up having to duck out just before the vows anyway.
The ceremony, however, was perfect. We had two readings, On Marriage by Khalil Gibran, and Ecclesiastes 4:9-12. Our vows were simple and short, from the Quaker tradition. One thing I liked was that after asking everyone if they knew any reason why we could not be legally wed, he asked them for reasons why we SHOULD be married. Several people spoke up, and it was really touching.
I cried a bit and I think James was getting a little misty as well towards the end It was a beautiful time, people stopped to watch (though that kind of creeped me out a bit, it’s still nice to know that random strangers are happy for us) and before I knew it, it was all over! We went around to hug all our family and friends, took some pictures with family on the beach, and just hung out for a while. I’d planned to go over to the picnic area which is grassy and shady to play some bocce or something, but nobody else was into it, so we just chatted on the beach and sweated our asses off. I didn’t bring a thermometer, but the weather people had been calling for a high of 31 C. People started drifting off to go to the reception, though it wasn’t going to start till 6:30 most people who drove only bought two hours of parking. My cyclist friends and I, however, stayed and chatted till 6 then rode over to the reception together.
The reception was really really nice, I’m quite happy with how it went although, as with everything else, it wasn’t how I planned it. I had it at a yoga studio which is also a vegan restaurant. It’s a bit hard to find, being on the second floor, and sandwiched in between two condo construction sites. The space, however, was perfect just the right size and ambiance for us. The food was fabulous and all my fears about there being a new chef were totally unfounded. And there was SOSO much of it. We seriously overestimated, and had some last minute cancellations as well. I was amazed at how much was left over. But it was definitely good.
I danced for a bit and a few people joined me, but most just weren’t into dancing. That was fine, we sat around talking and laughing and drinking and that was excellent too! I was getting a little disheartened when a lot of people started leaving before 10. By 10:30 there were just me and James, and 6 of our friends. But that ended up fine too. The 8 of us sat around talking and having a great time till past midnight, and even the waitress joined us eventually. It was such a good time, a really nice ending to a fabulous (if trouble-ridden) day.
Quick rundown of some things we did:
Dress: Originally DIY of course, the materials cost about $60 since I used my old prom dress and a vintage ~1946 wedding dress. I bought a vintage pink crinoline and some notions. Substitute dress was obtained six hours before the wedding for $50 it was already on sale, and I got another discount because of a small unnoticeable defect. I knit my own shawl as well. This only cost $48 for the yarn, but probably 80-100 hours of work.
Flowers: got them at the market the day before, with some supplements from the back yard. Total cost, less than $12. My mom and dad put the corsages together the morning of, having had zero prior florist experience. They looked fabulous.
Centrepieces: I had 7 tables, and I got one medium and two small glass bowls for each one at the crazy cluttered kitchen store, along with enough pink, white, and green floating candles to have one each in each larger bowl. Total, $35. For the smaller bowls I raided my MIL’s lavatera bush, which was flowering prolifically. I floated two flowers in each small bowl.
The photos are here. You should go look at them all because I think they’re fabulous, but I don’t have time to post them here except for my favourite one.
