What's New?

Well it feels as though the list never gets any shorter. There is always things to do, and new developments to pay attention to. The latest is that Rose, Nathan, Brent and I bought a house! It's slightly overwhelming, yet really exciting. We have been doing a lot of thinking and planning over the past week or so, and so the wedding stuff has kinda been on hold. But, I think I'm jumping right back in!
My mom and I met with the caterer this week. His name is Chef Paul and is really great. He is actually a magician in the kitchen and makes an average of 132 meals a day, with no staff!! It's insane! Anyways, the meal is going to be fabulous with chicken, pasta, pork loin, salads, breads, and amazing desserts. It is going to feel like a royal wedding with the service that we are getting, but crazy enough, he's the cheapest around! It will be great!
I met with Ruth Martens (my "florist") and talked more about the bouquets and flowers. We're not totally settled on what we're going to have, but the colours are still a dusty rose, lavender, and some darker shades as well. They will be beautiful. I never thought I would have a pink and purple wedding though! Hopefully it's not too overwhelming.
The decoration ideas are still brewing in my head. I've found it really hard to imagine, but thankfully I have a whole crew of creative brains to get ideas from. Maria is coming in two weeks and so when she comes, we'll hopefully make some progress on that front.
As for the dress, I am going to my grandma's this week to start the adventure! I am soo excited and anxious to get it started. I think that will really make this whole wedding adventure a reality. At this point, most everything has been hypothetical, and a smattering of ideas. I think when I start to work on something tangible, it will really hit me that this is real. It will be incredible!
So, that is the lastest greatest I think. I am soo excited for when Maria comes. That will commence the showers and everything will then move at high speed! Hold on tight!!

Decoration Ideas

There hasn't been much development over the past week or so. Basically we are waiting for a few confirmations, and waiting for Maria to come so we can do some exciting things, but we have had a few decoration ideas.
Basically the colours are going to be white, dusty rose, and accents of purple from the hydrangeas. The barn, though, will mostly be decorated with white. The latest thought is that, down the center section of the barn, we are going to have big billows of very light fabric sectioning off the dance floor. They will be drapped over the beams, and will add a very whimsical yet majestic feel to the barn. Then, we are thinking of having either lanterns, or globes, or big tissue paper flowers hanging in and among the billows. It will be very extranvegant, and totally gorgeous!
The tables are going to be set up in a very cool way, (hopefully).
So, as you can tell from the drawing, the food will be in the middle, and will be buffet and then the tables will stem off of that. The head table will be up in the front, and the band will be in that front corner. The back corner, is a mini kitchenet. So, this will be the set up for the dinner, and then when the dance happens, the buffet table will be gone, and you have an awesome dance floor! It should be pretty sweet.

So that's the latest greatest. Sweet eh!

The Big Barn!

So, we went to check out THE Barn this past week and it was exactly as I had imagined. It was a dream! It was filled with all kinds of equipment that they were storing, but it was rustic, and beautiful and wil be absolutely perfect. There were some unexpected features, but knowing the Klassen legacy, we can make something out of nothing! So here is what we saw.

This picture gives you a feel for how tall and huge the rafters are. The two shining eyes in the middle are windows. There are a lot of outlits on the rafters so we can hang all kinds of lights if we wanted. An idea that I had was to do the same type of thing that Maria did for her wedding and hang a canopy of lights over the dance floor. It would just be mesh, so you could still would have the vastness of the building, but it would really set off the floor.

This is one set of doors and it has this big wheel/pully system above it. I'm not too sure what it's for, but we could do something cool with that if we wanted. Also, there are six of these big pillars. I don't know if I like the winding lights; they look a bit cheesy. But we'll see.

This is a really horrible picture, but here are the edges of the tables that we will have. They are so great! They are 6 feet long by 33inches wide. The lastest thought is to have three or four LONG tables that would be the feasting tables. So, we would put all the tables end to end and just have a huge banquet style dinner. Wouldn't that be sweet!?!?! (Sorry that I didn't take better pictures. I obviously didn't remember that I would be sending them to everyone to get ideas from :P)

And this gives you some perspective standing at the "front doors". As you may have noticed, there is a white band around the whole building, which is made out of concrete. That was the one feature that I wasn't the biggest fan of, so any ideas of how to make that look cool/nice? It also serves as a ledge though, and so we could have all kinds of flowers and candles on there which would be a lot of work, but really cool. Also, I wont be having the big florescent lights blaring! (Dad in his randomness was surprised at that. I don't know what he was thinking!)

Here are the chairs. They are your standard chair, but they will do the trick.

So if you guys have any thoughts of how to make this place look beautiful, let me know. One of the key things, is that with the decorating I don't want it to be an all out country wedding. I know, I know. I am having it in a barn, but I stil want it to be classy and elegant. Hanging lanterns, doing some more romantic things will add to the formality of a wedding. So when you are thinking, try to balance the casual with the elegant. I want this to be a wedding, not a hoe-down!

It's Booked!!

What a relief! This morning I booked the barn! Basically I was going on faith that they still had it open, and sure enough, my prayers were answered. The Thursday before Christmas, I had called and got all the dates that were available. It took us a few days to decide what would be best, and then when it was concluded, the office had closed for the holidays. There was that one Friday between when I had called to check for availability and the holidays, and that one day was haunting me. But, all the worry was in vein. I called at 8:50 this morning to ensure that I would be the first one at her desk, and I booked it! Wow, what a load off. So it's set! May the 8th, 2009 at Ball's Falls BARN!!!!!

The Dress!!

This weekend was super exciting because I went and picked out the material for my dress! It was an overwhelming experience, but really amazing at the same time. My mom, grandma, Rose and myself, all went to Hamilton to "fabric central". There are all these fabric and textile stores all in a row, and it is a sewers heaven!

The biggest objective of the day, was that I wanted lace (don't worry, Brent has sworn not to read this blog), and so that was our main search. We went into the first store, Textile Centre, and there was sooo much fabric; a sea of colour. Against one wall, there were a few lonely shelves, all white with Bridal Lace (I didn't even know it existed)! The women who ended up helping us, Alicia, knew everything there is to know about lace; everything from quality, to colour; style, to print; make, to price. She was amazing, and helped us so much in understanding what we were dealing with. Of course, all the lace was beautiful and this made the decision all the harder. After about an hour of pondering and questioning, pulling out patterns, ideas, and pictures, we decided that we should keep looking. So, we went into many other stores, but as my grandma said, "we saw the best one first".

Within our wanderings however, we ended up finding the bridesmaid fabric!! After some wedding dress "shopping" the weekend prior, we had decided that the colour of the dresses was going to be a dusty rose, and there in the back reaches of fabric land, was a whole spool of the perfect dusty rose fabric. So girls, the fabric is bought, and ready for the taking! So exciting.

Well, eventually we found our way back to Alicia (I don't think she was surprised). Again, after a few more hours of pondering, tossing and turning, debate and discussion, I came to decide. I think the deciding factor for me, was when Alicia insisted that I "try it on". "You won't know until you have it on you." So, I took the fabric and held it up against me. Of course I was wearing a black shirt, and so that didn't help with the visualization. But then, Alicia was like, "No! You need to give it some shape". She made me unbutton the top of my shirt, pull it off my shoulder and hold the fabric like a dress! It was quite the ordeal, but then I looked in the mirror, there it was- my wedding dress!! BAH!!!

The lace that I ended up choosing wasn't really like what I had originally imagined. The flower pattern is quite large and spread out, with plenty of mesh between the flowers. But, what is the winning ticket, is that it has sequence and beading on it. I know, I know. This sounds totally not Suzanne. But the sequence and beading is completely translucent and when the light catches it, it looks like a shimmering lake; it dances in the light!

I am so excited for it all. We found a pattern that had the rough shape of what I want, and to top it all off, my grandma loves it all too. This will make the whole process that much more enjoyable. It is going to be stunning in the end!