This is our family (not a very great pic but only one with all of us in it, which is why we are doing family photo's in April!!!) Pic was taken at the CNE 2 summers ago.  It was such a fun day.  It poured rain sooooo bad in the morning that there was hardly anyone there.  The kids were able to get on rides and play games without having to wait in huge line ups!  

I have been trying to think of a way to include the girls in the ceremony but haven't really thought of anything that I like yet.  If anyone has suggestions I'd love to hear them. 

FINALLY - see below for a decent picture of the Family! 

This is my ring, single, solitaire and I must say that I always thought I'd want diamonds in my band or side stones of some sort but I love, love, love my ring.  Not the best Pic but this is my ring and band together. Looks more like the ones below in "real" life.

I found the 1st picture surfing the net late one night and it is exactly our rings.  :-)  (btw, if it's your photo pls let me know so I can give credit or even remove it if you like.  I am very click happy sometimes)  The second is just another photo of what my ring will look like with my band.

I had originally wanted to stay away from the more fall like colours as our wedding is not quite fall yet BUT here I am with a colour scheme of Chocolate Brown, Burnt Orange, Red/Burgundy and Gold.  I love it and think it will look awesome.  There will also be subtle hints of ivory, green ect... to lighten it up, through the flowers.

We are getting married on Sept 19th 2009 at 2:00 in the afternoon.  We will be having our ceremony at the The Old Mill Inn and Spa in Toronto, Canada.  It's an old lumber mill that has been converted into an Inn and has banquet rooms and the most charming chapel.  I love the architecture and history of the building.  If anyone is interest in seeing more pics the web site is  http://www.oldmilltoronto.com/History.html

For the night before and the Wedding night we have booked a room at the inn as well.  It's too perfect because I won't have to rush around in the morning, worry about traffic or any of that stuff.  10 min before I'll just have to walk over to the chapel. 

So the Old Mill banquet prices were way to high and didn't include anything!!  My girls have had their baseball banquet at the above venue before and the food was amazing so we deceided to check it out.  Everything is included for about half the price of the old mill.  We couldn't be happier with the hole "bang for our buck" with Strates.

Davinci, in ivory/cafe --   I ordered my dress in Oct and it's finally in!!! While we were out BM shopping this weekend I stopped by the bridal shop to try it on.  I have definitely gain a few pounds so I'll need to rectify that in the next 5 months.  I'm going to have the seamtress change it to a little bit of a sweetheart neckline as well.  I can't wait for alterations and for the dress to be steamed.  It was very stiff today.  But as you can tell from the first pic I felt just as awesome in it as the first time I tried it on!

UPDATE::::  FIRST AND FINAL FITTINGS ::::

These are from the first fitting.  She put some pins in to mark the neckline changes.  In the first pic I have the crinoline on, the second I don't.

General Idea of how the bustle ended up.  I didn't take a pic at my last fitting.  I don't have the crinoline on in this pic either.  With it on the sides "puff" out more, and I don't have those funny lines on my bum.

This is the final product.  My mom is the worst picture taker of all time, so there are no pics of the back :(  Have to wait until the big day for that :)

Thought I'd add a pic of the tiara I'll be wearing with this ensemble ( pictures do it no justice! lol) You can't see it in my dress but the pattern of the flowers is almost exact.

Went shopping today with the girls and they all fell in love with this Mori Lee dress (Affairs collection style 791)

We ordered it in chocolate and should be here begining of July! One more thing checked off the list :)

(ordered the junior BM dresses too but I don't have a pic - yet!)

I LOVE shoes (who doesn't?) and will probably have a harder time choosing shoes than I did a dress, LOL

Ok so I am changing my mind EVERY day about the flowers.  I think these are styles are what I have narrowed it down to but like I said it is constantly changing so there could be an update on this one! :)

Ok, so I'm not a very "crafty" type of girl.  I know what I like ect.. ect.. but sometimes putting it together on my own can be funny at best.  So I was fooling around tonight trying to come up with some concepts to show our (graphic artist) friend who is doing our invites and such what kind of monogram I would like.  WELL.. I must say I'm kinda pround of myself.  I watched a video on Youtube on how to make a monogram in powerpoint (which I know nothing about) and voila!  The below it what I got.  I know it is the same " J " in all of them but really there aren't too many nice "fancy" J's out there! Why couldn't FI have a last name that started with M, N, S or something of that sort  LOL...  anyways I can't wait to show our friend how "creative" I was tonight.  She is soooo gonna laugh at me. 

This is our cake.  FI actually picked it out!!  We are not doing the design on the bottom though.  It will all be the same.  I'm really not into the "Groom and Bride" toppers so will most likely have either flowers or something of that sort.  The cake in the shop had a big "sugar" bow and it look really good. 

 Nancy's Sweets      Stole this from H.Smiths's photo's - it shows kinda what the cake will look like with out the bottom layer.

      This is a bad pic, but it's the cake stand the cake will be on to give it more height.

This was the cake I wanted and forgot my picture to show them.  When FI really liked the above cake I figured it was a win, win.  Because he liked the cake he didn't care about the price and it was typical of the designs I've been liking  ;) (although my heart is sooo with the cake below!)

close ups:

Pls excuse my "lovely" hair.  Had my make up trial today after work and I'm very pleased.  I don't usually wear make-up (mascara and lip gloss that's about it) I didn't want something tooooo dramatic that I didn't look like myself but I also didn't want boring. Just "jazz" me up a little for my big day!  I think she achieved that.  My MOH's cousin works for MAC and she's doing all our make-up for an amazing price.  I just love her. 

OK, so I'm the least creative person I know.  But I have done two DYI's that I'm very proud of! hehe

thought I'd post them.

I had made my own monogram and I incorporated it into a favor tag.  It's just printed on plain white paper here but I plan on going to Michale's next time I have a coupon (which they send one every week) and buying ivory card stock to print them on.  Once I have the final product I'll take another pic.

I bought votives on sale at Michael's and found dyi instructions right here on PW on how to make a wrap.  I found a picture on the internet of a damask that I liked, copied it, used powerpoint and voila, the above it what I got. I cheated too.  I didn't use velum.  I just printed on plain white paper, glued on with mog podge (best stuff EVER) and it seems to work.  I lite a candle and let it burn for 4 hours or more and it was fine (was worried the paper may burn or discolour from the heat).  I originally was just impatient to buy the velum and wanted to see what it would look like so I did one.  After I found out how much the velum was gonna cost me I said forget it and just used the paper.  It saved me like $18.  Not a hole lot of money but $18 here $18 there adds up.