Showered with Love and Family (and a little advice for Brandon thrown in for good measure)

Anyone that knows me knows that family is very important to me. I love the very idea of a group of people supporting each other and being linked (genetically or otherwise)... family is a beautiful thing. For this reason the very first wedding shower that was thrown for me a few weeks ago represented the epitome of family togetherness and left me with a feeling of warmth and joy that is hard to put into words.

The shower was hosted by my Dad’s trio of sisters and my grandmother and was held at my lovely Aunt Donna’s house. The whole event was a surprise and the rouse to get me there was that it was an anniversary party for my grandparents – more fool me (I was confused for at least five minutes after I walked in – even though everyone yelled “surprise!”). The guest list was varied and included everyone from my youngest cousin Julien (who is singing at the wedding – yeah!) to my grandmother and three of her sisters (that would make them my “great” aunts).

Some of the wonderful women of the "Greig" family

(L to R) Julien, Laura (Mom!), Aunt Deb,

Me (the one with the veil), Aunt Kim, Aunt Donna, Megan

The food was fantastic – finger foods, cake, and sundaes – can it get any better? And needless to say the generosity of the guests was amazing and Brandon and I appreciate everyone’s thoughtfulness and kindness – who knew we were so lucky?

More family and friends like family 

 Aunt Deanne, Aunt Donna, Janessa, and Denise 

One of the activities organized by my cousin Janessa for the guests was to take the letters that make up “Marie ” and “Brandon” and give us marital advice (starting with each letter). The winner of this contest was Julien (she hasn’t even reached the age of majority yet!) and her advice would rival the best pearls of wisdom that of a woman married for over 60 years would be able to offer... for example for “B” she suggested “be comfortable in your own home” – genius I say, genius! Julien when you are 80 you will just be scary with brilliance.

So since the shower I have been developing my own set of advice for the letters in our names to offer to Brandon to help assist him deal with me as the days tick by (24 left) until the wedding and after we say “I do” – so without further adieu my advice to Brandon...  (Please enjoy all the advice Brandon – and remember I am always able to provide more!)

M – Money, just give me money.

A – Always treat me better then the refrigerator.

R – Remember to plug my cell phone in for me (and tell me where my keys are).

I – Isolate all smells at least 4.78 metres away from me.

E – Enjoy the honeymoon stage when I clean and cook, because let’s face it... it won’t last.

and

B – Breakfast, always make me breakfast in bed.

R – Retail therapy is not a four letter word.

A – Answer to everything is “yes dear”.

N – Never confess your undying love of the TV before you say the same to me.

D – Don’t expect decent meals all the time – or some of the time for that matter.

O – Only do laundry when I am not around to feel guilty about not helping.

N – Notwithstanding everything mentioned above... please don’t forget I love you and I think you are the best part of my life.

The highlight of the event for me was something quite simple and rather quite old... a paper doll with a fold out skirt that has managed to work her way into every shower held in my family over the last 40 years... (see the picture). This “old” gal must be a good luck charm as she oversees every bride at her bridal shower and so far (touch wood) not a divorce in the crowd... how many families can say that? In the picture you may notice a tartan shawl draped over the lass (my family tartan) – as I am having an “off kilter” Celtic wedding, my Aunt Deb decided to add a little “scotch” to the lass – pretty good looking, eh?

Looks like a Scottish Jackie O

Thank you once more to everyone... Aunt Donna for hosting the event at her house, Aunt Kim for the cake, Aunt Deb for the food and the Scottish lass, my mom and my sister just for being there, all the other guests, and most importantly my grandmother for being married for almost 64 years and showing that even if you add 6 kids into the mix, marriage can last a lifetime – I love you all.

Double Booked and a Wedding Cake - 25 days!

Rehearsal Dinner...

You might remember a few posts ago when I mentioned that the restaurant we are holding our rehearsal dinner at double booked us... seriously! I was sick as a dog with a broken insulin pump when I received the call from the restaurant. Apparently they have two wedding rehearsals scheduled for the same day, same time... hmpf.

As a result I had to go down to the restaurant in my public health disaster state and try to figure out what we were going to do - nothing like fun. The owner of the restaurant met me and after I sneezed and hacked all over the place (take that!), we pretty much determined it sucked to be me. How frustrating! They have a different area we can use, but the point is that when I booked they had nothing else written in their reservation book - therefore, I think I should have the room I requested... however, it is what it is and life goes on.

Tonight Brandon and I returned to the restaurant to talk about the rehearsal dinner and I am feeling much more reassured and think it should be pretty awesome - despite the fact that the restaurant was nearly condemned by the time I sneezed and sniffled my way through the last time I was there (sorry if this horrifies the rehearsal attendees!).


Wedding Cake...

Another wonderful moment as of late has been the constant preparation of wedding cake by my fantastic mom. It has been like a Betty Crocker Bake Off as she has prepared over 20 loafs of cake to be divided up for our lovely guests, and of course a layer for the top of the cake! I will be honest I've sampled and may I say YUM! I love my mom for many reasons - she can be punched by our dog and still come up fighting, she is the perfect West Wing buddy, she has always taken amazing care of my sister and I, but most importantly the fact that she always goes the extra mile with everything she touches is another reason I love her to pieces.

Okay it is 10 p.m. and time for bed... the shower tale will have to wait until tomorrow...

Walk A Mile In Her Shoes® Toronto 2010

Attention World:

You may recognize the fellow attached to this link as one of our awesome groomspeople... Amandeep has a quest and it is to rid the world of violence against women. To achieve such a mission he is approaching it one step at a time... in high heels! Click on the following link to check out Amandeep's mission and his goal of $1,000 (http://my.e2rm.com/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=918481&langPref=en-CA). Thanks everyone for any interest!

... whatever did happen with my wedding shoes?

After what can best be described as a hectic couple of weeks, I think it is time I finished up the saga of my wedding shoes as I have had requests from a number of people eager to find out whether I am going bare foot or not (they could have just been being polite and humouring me, but let's just pretend for the sake of argument they were intrigued by my tale)... However, before I get to the conclusion of the shoe saga, I must first talk about one of the more exciting elements of being a bride... getting fitted for your wedding dress.

EVERYONE knows that my search for the "perfect" wedding dress was rather "endless", which means it shouldn't be much of a surprise that I would be stressed passing my dress over to someone to cut and "mangle" into a different shape.  It is so perplexing that one buys a dress and then passes it over to someone else to re-shape the dress into something different.  While I am not really changing my dress the fact that it will still be carefully "pruned" amazes me... and makes me feel slightly nauseous with worry.

I think the key to avoiding the stress is to choose a tailor you trust... and I think I have accomplished this task, as I feel "relatively" relaxed about my choice or as relaxed as I get... we all know that is not necessarily very far).

I have now been twice to the tailors to have my dress "tweaked"... my opinion is that it gets better, and better and I cannot wait to see the final product.

Okay... I am done stalling, and now I think it is time to finish the shoe saga...

So I went to re-order my shoes... and as I mentioned previously I had received a coupon from Zappos and wanted to use it (obviously).  However, when I went to order the shoes the field for the coupon code never showed up on the screen, which meant I had to once more call Zappos and ask what the heck? (it was especially urgent as I already had given them my credit card information and didn't want to loose the coupon - I had earned it - they sent me used shoes!).

Calling worked out extremely well as ended up chatting to a lovely fellow stationed in no man's land California (as he described) who offered me an additional discount just because of the "trauma" (his words, not mine) I had experienced receiving used shoes... The order eventually was processed and the wait was then on and my anticipation was building to see what my shoes would be like... would they be new? would they be gently used? would they be neon pink? at this point I wouldn't be surprised if they were flip flops...

In less than three the shoes arrived and with rather nervous hands I slowly lifted the lid of the black and pick shoebox and carefully removed the pink tissue paper to discover... brand new shoes (thank God) - not a toe print in sight!  The shoes were exactly what I wanted (and ordered) and I am now eagerly working on breaking them in so that they (and I!) last for the whole wedding day.
 
Speaking of which the wedding is 26 days away... are you loosing sleep with excitement, or is it just me?

Jack and Jill Report: Meatball Blow Job Anyone? (Don't worry this doesn't get R rated...)

All Brandon and I can say is thank you, thank you, and thank you! On July 16th our fabulous collective of friends and family threw us a Jack and Jill extravaganza and needless to say it was one “hot” affair!

Ronda, Anna, Rick, and Tim... hopefully winning some big money! 

Thanks Bill for dealing cards!

With friends and family coming from places as remote as Barrie, Ontario (so far away!), as dangerous as Jane and Finch (hehehehe), and as deep south as Birmingham, Alabama, Brandon and I spent the night surrounded by a wonderful group of people who apparently care about us – who knew we were so lucky?!

We love you all!

The event kicked off at 8 p.m., with casino games, raffles, 50/50s, and most importantly drinks! Upon entry Immediately Brandon and I were handcuffed together by my lovely (cough) sister and we had to buy our way out of the cuffs… to do so we had to do any number of silly/embarrassing/sentimental/horrifying/death defying activities to buy our way out… some of the highlighted activities included: Brandon having to take his shirt off, the “truffle shuffle” (apparently you have to watch the Goonies to know what this is referring to), singing off key to Sonny and Cher, and the grand finale… (are you ready for this?) I had to give Brandon a “meatball blow job”. If children are reading this (or adults that are sensitive to horrifying acts performed with food) I would recommend skipping this section!

So you are probably wondering, what on earth is a “meatball blow job”? Don’t worry I was in the same boat, but as we were offered $40 to perform this “activity” it seemed worth our while to pursue the concept. Therefore, I shall now explain such a “novelty” so that others may (or may not) incorporate this into their lives.

Instruction Manual – Meatball Blow Job:

1. Have partner lie on back [Brandon was the partner in our case].

2. Have partner roll up shirt to expose belly button [are you gagging? giggling? or just grossed out?].

3. Kneel beside partner [I was the kneeler in our case].

4. Have third person place a hot, gooey, slimy, sauce covered meatball directly on partner’s belly button [have you thrown up yet?].

5. Lean over and eat said meatball out of partner’s belly button [OMG!].

6. Sit back chewing (it may burn a little) and wonder if you will ever be the same again [I wasn’t, nor will be…].

Once I had recovered from such a “wondrous” experience it was time for other antics … as the room was about the same temperature as the sun (or perhaps 1-2 degrees hotter) a table fan was auctioned off to our “steamy” crowd… frankly I would have paid any amount of money for it at that point, but it seemed a little selfish. The Shaw Clan (Paul, Leslie, Murray, and Meri-Lynn) won the fan and were able to cool down their surroundings slightly. I on the other hand was ready to fling myself into a vat of ice cream to cool down… mind you I would normally be willing to do that!

Mike and Amandeep - Amandeep you look happy!

Another highlighted event was the “pie-ing” of Brandon, Lanny, and I… pies were auctioned off for each of us (to the highest bidder) and then thrown in our faces – to add insult to injury ;-)… Lanny was pied by my cousin Julien who demonstrated she has an arm fit for Major League Baseball (the splatter was humongous!), I was pied by Lanny (perhaps he was bitter about his own pie-ing experience?), and lastly Brandon was pied by the one, the only, Faye. After having spent a large amount of Brandon’s teenage and twenties semi-living with him and his brother, Faye had a lot of pent up “excitement” that needed to be executed onto Brandon’s face… and so she did and may I say, she did it well.

Two other great fundraisers for the evening were the selling of “real-estate” space on a pair of boxers for Brandon to wear under his kilt (HE WILL BE WEARING SOMETHING – YEAH!)… different regions of the pair were sold for different prices and let me tell you there are some rather exciting and concerning comments provided… I think rulers and directional arrows were involved...

Elizabeth displaying Brandon's wedding under kilt wear...

Another intriguing fundraiser was a simple that led to hilarious results… a jar filled with Hershey’s Kisses was raffled off and my Aunt Donna was the lucky winner… for which Brandon provided her with a rather energetic dance (it was mildly creepy for me, but entertaining as all get out for everyone else). I think Aunt Donna will never be the same again!

As the fun-filled night drew to a close, prizes were raffled off and the final prize (a massive Texas Mickey of scotch) was won by the piper for our wedding – Denise (could there have been anyone more fitting?).

I was going to write out the list of people that need to be thanked, but out of sheer fear of forgetting someone I will just say:

Thank you to our wonderful family, friends, and co-workers who joined us for the evening, laughed with us, laughed at us, flew across North America to be there, took pictures, dealt cards, jumped in out of the blue and ensured the 50/50s were a success, prepared food, tended bar, organized the evening, and/or contributed in someway shape and/or form to the event. It was a wonderful experience that Brandon and I will remember for the rest of our lives. We love you all and you have each contributed to making a special night and our wedding that much more meaningful… and of course introducing to the world for the first time ever: THE MEATBALL BLOW JOB!

PS... I would like to say a special thank you to Tamara Kaye of Instyle Weddings and Decor who decorated the hall for us - she did a beautiful job in sage and ivory and to be honest it made the whole event look beautiful!  Thank you Tamara - as per usual you are wonderful.