Mrs. Dragon, Sioux Lookout/Brockville, ONAge and Occupation: 24, JournalistFiance's Age and Occupation: 35, Graphic DesignerEngagement Date: August 22, 2011Wedding Date: September 2012Venue: Mother of the Bride’s ResidenceAbout Me: I moved to Northern Ontario for a job, expecting to be single for the year I'd be there. Within one month I was dating a co-worker, and now, more than two years later, we’re planning a wedding and I’m still a Northern girl. I’m a reporter and a photographer for a small-town newspaper, and I get to do all kinds of fun, exciting, and sometimes weird things at work. When I’m not getting the scoop, I’m cooking, adventuring, playing with our three black cats, or blogging.
…but not so, wedding blogs. (Puff the Magic Dragon, anyone?)
Is anyone actually “good” at good-byes? I’m not. Sometimes I leave too early, trying to rush out a side door so that nobody notices I’m getting away without properly bidding my farewells. Other times, I’m the one lingering embarrassingly long in the doorway, not quite ready to go.
I was introduced on Leap Day this year, our wedding took place as the leaves began to turn, and now, at least here, the snow is flying. And so, though I wish I could stay here forever, or slip quietly away so I wouldn’t have to really say good-bye, it’s time for me to make space for the other lovely women who are here to share their stories.
Being a part of this awesome community over the past nine months has been truly amazing. You have lifted me up, offered me assistance, and been wonderful friends, and I can only hope I’ve done the same for a few of you along the way.
My wiki page outlines our planning journey and has links to all of my recaps, so I won’t rehash all of that here. I would, however, like to show you a bit of what my world looks like outside of the wedding bubble:
You can see, as it did before we were engaged, and during wedding planning…life goes on. We work. We play. We fight like cats and dogs, sometimes. I am still a worrier while Mr. D blissfully wanders through life. But now we do all of that with a greater sense of responsibility toward each other, toward our marriage. It’s a very secure, warm feeling and we’re lucky to have it.
So…what now? Well, we’re working on some of those plans I’ve mentioned. Saving for the wedding taught us that we’re capable of putting money away, so we’ve been squirreling our pennies into savings in the hope of eventually buying a house. In the meantime, we’re keeping warm, wrangling cats, getting ready for Christmas, and trying to make it through another Northern Ontario winter.
I’ve been blogging over at Northern Exposure for a few years, and I’d love it if you dropped by. Let’s stay in touch!
A thousand thanks to all of the Weddingbee readers, to my fellow blogging bees, to the phenomenal team that keeps everything running smoothly here. I’m not exaggerating when I say that this site has changed my life.
Good luck to all of you, and good-bye!
Mrs. Dragon, Sioux Lookout/Brockville, ONAge and Occupation: 24, JournalistFiance's Age and Occupation: 35, Graphic DesignerEngagement Date: August 22, 2011Wedding Date: September 2012Venue: Mother of the Bride’s ResidenceAbout Me: I moved to Northern Ontario for a job, expecting to be single for the year I'd be there. Within one month I was dating a co-worker, and now, more than two years later, we’re planning a wedding and I’m still a Northern girl. I’m a reporter and a photographer for a small-town newspaper, and I get to do all kinds of fun, exciting, and sometimes weird things at work. When I’m not getting the scoop, I’m cooking, adventuring, playing with our three black cats, or blogging.
As soon as we were home from the wedding and honeymoon, I ordered our thank you cards. I really, really wanted to get them done and over with as soon as possible.
I ordered the Bridal Trio White card from Shutterfly, personalized with our initials and photos, of course. Note how it says M&S, not S&M (victory is mine!).
I know many people don’t send thank you cards to people who didn’t give gifts, the idea being that the reception is the thank you in that case, but we decided to send a card to every person who was at the wedding, along with people who weren’t in attendance that gave us gifts.
Mrs. Dragon, Sioux Lookout/Brockville, ONAge and Occupation: 24, JournalistFiance's Age and Occupation: 35, Graphic DesignerEngagement Date: August 22, 2011Wedding Date: September 2012Venue: Mother of the Bride’s ResidenceAbout Me: I moved to Northern Ontario for a job, expecting to be single for the year I'd be there. Within one month I was dating a co-worker, and now, more than two years later, we’re planning a wedding and I’m still a Northern girl. I’m a reporter and a photographer for a small-town newspaper, and I get to do all kinds of fun, exciting, and sometimes weird things at work. When I’m not getting the scoop, I’m cooking, adventuring, playing with our three black cats, or blogging.
This was a bit of a challenging post to write, but I think it’s something that affects enough people that maybe sharing my experience would be beneficial. I tried to be really careful in writing it, so I hope nobody takes offense—this is just my opinion, and my experience.
So. Weddings can be difficult for all families, right? Whether you have divorced parents, step-parents, small families, big families, awesome in-laws, outlaw in-laws, whatever—put a whole bunch of people into one big emotionally fraught situation, add in a lot of expectations for perfection, and you have some nerve-racking dynamics to deal with, no matter what.
A lot of the time, weddings can bring out the worst in people. We’ve all heard stories of overbearing parents inviting half the world to their kids’ weddings, or evil in-laws not wanting to give up their son or daughter. We didn’t have any of those problems (my in-laws are awesome and so are my parents!), but we did have something.
Mrs. Dragon, Sioux Lookout/Brockville, ONAge and Occupation: 24, JournalistFiance's Age and Occupation: 35, Graphic DesignerEngagement Date: August 22, 2011Wedding Date: September 2012Venue: Mother of the Bride’s ResidenceAbout Me: I moved to Northern Ontario for a job, expecting to be single for the year I'd be there. Within one month I was dating a co-worker, and now, more than two years later, we’re planning a wedding and I’m still a Northern girl. I’m a reporter and a photographer for a small-town newspaper, and I get to do all kinds of fun, exciting, and sometimes weird things at work. When I’m not getting the scoop, I’m cooking, adventuring, playing with our three black cats, or blogging.
When I let you know I found an app to handle our iPod wedding, a few readers asked me to review the app after the wedding. I’m happy to say, it went well!
Before I get into the details of the app and how it worked for us, I have to tell you about The Missing iPod Problem. A few days before we left for Brockville, Mr. Dragon formatted his old iPod Touch so I could fill it with wedding music and get the app ready to go. Once it was set up and charged, we made sure to put it away carefully, along with the cable Mr. D Frankensteined together, to make sure we had everything we needed to just plug and play with my dad’s PA system he was bringing from Ottawa.
So we get to Brockville on the Thursday before the wedding, and Dad Dragon arrives. The first thing he wants to do is check out the audio setup to make sure it’s all in order. Mr. Dragon looks for the iPod, can’t find it, then asks me where it is.
What followed was half an hour of rummaging through boxes, exchanging “you must have moved it!”s, and frantic scurrying until I declared that it was either at home or in the truck, back at the rental car parking lot 24 hours away, and we couldn’t do anything about it, so too bad.
Mrs. Dragon, Sioux Lookout/Brockville, ONAge and Occupation: 24, JournalistFiance's Age and Occupation: 35, Graphic DesignerEngagement Date: August 22, 2011Wedding Date: September 2012Venue: Mother of the Bride’s ResidenceAbout Me: I moved to Northern Ontario for a job, expecting to be single for the year I'd be there. Within one month I was dating a co-worker, and now, more than two years later, we’re planning a wedding and I’m still a Northern girl. I’m a reporter and a photographer for a small-town newspaper, and I get to do all kinds of fun, exciting, and sometimes weird things at work. When I’m not getting the scoop, I’m cooking, adventuring, playing with our three black cats, or blogging.
I had a hard time picking out our wedding music. There were so many options, and we had such a wide variety of people to please! I spent a lot of time poring over any playlists I could find online, so I wanted to share ours, in the hope that it might help out another frantic self-DJ’ing bride.
PRELUDE
Due to our late start, I’m not sure if this actually played, but when I set it up I was aiming for lighthearted music to make a happy mood.
1. “Me and You” – Barry Louis Polisar
2. “Is This Love” – Bob Marley
3. “Stand By Me” – John Lennon (I like it more than the Ben E. King version!)
4. “When I’m Sixty-Four” – The Beatles
5. “Say Hey (I Love You)” – Michael Franti
6. “Love You Madly” – Cake
7. “Home” – Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes
8. “All I Want Is You” – Barry Louis Polisar
Mrs. Dragon, Sioux Lookout/Brockville, ONAge and Occupation: 24, JournalistFiance's Age and Occupation: 35, Graphic DesignerEngagement Date: August 22, 2011Wedding Date: September 2012Venue: Mother of the Bride’s ResidenceAbout Me: I moved to Northern Ontario for a job, expecting to be single for the year I'd be there. Within one month I was dating a co-worker, and now, more than two years later, we’re planning a wedding and I’m still a Northern girl. I’m a reporter and a photographer for a small-town newspaper, and I get to do all kinds of fun, exciting, and sometimes weird things at work. When I’m not getting the scoop, I’m cooking, adventuring, playing with our three black cats, or blogging.
I heard a lot of mixed messages about using friendors while we were planning the wedding. Lots of people like to tell horror stories about Uncle Bob and his point-and-shoot camera, who ruined the wedding photos completely.
The only “outside” help we had for our wedding was the rental company, for the tent, chairs, and tables (from Have Tents Will Travel in Brockville), the linen rentals, from a separate company, and the hair salon for me, the bridesmaids, and Mom Dragon. Everything else was done by friends and family, and I’m here to say, it was a smashing success.
Mom Dragon created the bouquets for me and the ladies and boutonnieres for the men, a flower girl bouquet for Lily (Opie didn’t want one), a few big bouquets for the buffet tables, and a lapel arrangement for Mr. D’s grandma. Most of the bridesmaids’ bouquets were repurposed as centerpieces for dinner.
Mrs. Dragon, Sioux Lookout/Brockville, ONAge and Occupation: 24, JournalistFiance's Age and Occupation: 35, Graphic DesignerEngagement Date: August 22, 2011Wedding Date: September 2012Venue: Mother of the Bride’s ResidenceAbout Me: I moved to Northern Ontario for a job, expecting to be single for the year I'd be there. Within one month I was dating a co-worker, and now, more than two years later, we’re planning a wedding and I’m still a Northern girl. I’m a reporter and a photographer for a small-town newspaper, and I get to do all kinds of fun, exciting, and sometimes weird things at work. When I’m not getting the scoop, I’m cooking, adventuring, playing with our three black cats, or blogging.
I can’t really give an accurate idea of what our wedding cost. A lot of BIG aspects were donated to us-the food, the alcohol, the officiating, the flowers, the favours. Our families played a huge part in making our wedding affordable for us, and as a result, I don’t know the monetary value of a big chunk of our day. I would suspect, though, that at least few thousand dollars can be added to the grand total I give you.
I can, however, share what WE spent. Mr. Dragon and I didn’t set a budget to stay within; rather, we started putting money away every month into a fund we could draw on for wedding spending. Here’s how it all broke down (bearing in mind that some of the costs are rough estimates).
Attire, including rings— $1901.06
This includes all of my clothes and accessories, Mr. Dragon’s clothes and accessories, the flower girl dresses, and shirts for the groomsmen. All of my expenses, from garter to dress alterations, totaled $771.74. Mr. Dragon’s were way less expensive at $285.69.
Mrs. Dragon, Sioux Lookout/Brockville, ONAge and Occupation: 24, JournalistFiance's Age and Occupation: 35, Graphic DesignerEngagement Date: August 22, 2011Wedding Date: September 2012Venue: Mother of the Bride’s ResidenceAbout Me: I moved to Northern Ontario for a job, expecting to be single for the year I'd be there. Within one month I was dating a co-worker, and now, more than two years later, we’re planning a wedding and I’m still a Northern girl. I’m a reporter and a photographer for a small-town newspaper, and I get to do all kinds of fun, exciting, and sometimes weird things at work. When I’m not getting the scoop, I’m cooking, adventuring, playing with our three black cats, or blogging.
I made my inspiration board after we had a lot of our details in mind, so I’m not surprised that it matches up quite well. Here’s my original, pre-wedding board:
Mrs. Dragon, Sioux Lookout/Brockville, ONAge and Occupation: 24, JournalistFiance's Age and Occupation: 35, Graphic DesignerEngagement Date: August 22, 2011Wedding Date: September 2012Venue: Mother of the Bride’s ResidenceAbout Me: I moved to Northern Ontario for a job, expecting to be single for the year I'd be there. Within one month I was dating a co-worker, and now, more than two years later, we’re planning a wedding and I’m still a Northern girl. I’m a reporter and a photographer for a small-town newspaper, and I get to do all kinds of fun, exciting, and sometimes weird things at work. When I’m not getting the scoop, I’m cooking, adventuring, playing with our three black cats, or blogging.
A lot of our wedding attire came together last-minute (really, it’s us…could it have happened any other way?)
You might remember that I bought my dress, the J. Crew Sophia in silk chiffon, really early, about a month after we got engaged, so about a year before the wedding.
It was a really, really comfortable dress (and my something new!). A bunch of people were asking me at the end of the night if I wanted to change out of it, but I swear it felt better on my body than yoga pants would have! It’s free of embellishment, and, aside from the hem, fit well, so it felt more like wearing a nightgown than a ballgown.
I bought it early, yes, but it took me up until the last minute to decide on how to wear it! In the end, I didn’t even pack the lace top.
Mrs. Dragon, Sioux Lookout/Brockville, ONAge and Occupation: 24, JournalistFiance's Age and Occupation: 35, Graphic DesignerEngagement Date: August 22, 2011Wedding Date: September 2012Venue: Mother of the Bride’s ResidenceAbout Me: I moved to Northern Ontario for a job, expecting to be single for the year I'd be there. Within one month I was dating a co-worker, and now, more than two years later, we’re planning a wedding and I’m still a Northern girl. I’m a reporter and a photographer for a small-town newspaper, and I get to do all kinds of fun, exciting, and sometimes weird things at work. When I’m not getting the scoop, I’m cooking, adventuring, playing with our three black cats, or blogging.
We turned up at Dragon Mom’s house with a plethora of boxes and Rubbermaid containers, filled with little decor details that we, with tons of help from my mom’s friends, our parents, the wedding party and family members, used to make our wedding our own.
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Dad Dragon made a bunch of these wood rounds, which were intended to be used to give height to our centerpieces. We had too many of them, though, so they were scattered around the tent for decoration as well. Here, they’re with our giant B monogram, which we used as a guestbook. He burned each round with a different message.
You can also see a few of my yarn-wrapped jars on the guestbook table. They were filled with little rocks and tealights, on this table and the dinner tables. And, those yarn poofs made an appearance.
Mrs. Dragon, Sioux Lookout/Brockville, ONAge and Occupation: 24, JournalistFiance's Age and Occupation: 35, Graphic DesignerEngagement Date: August 22, 2011Wedding Date: September 2012Venue: Mother of the Bride’s ResidenceAbout Me: I moved to Northern Ontario for a job, expecting to be single for the year I'd be there. Within one month I was dating a co-worker, and now, more than two years later, we’re planning a wedding and I’m still a Northern girl. I’m a reporter and a photographer for a small-town newspaper, and I get to do all kinds of fun, exciting, and sometimes weird things at work. When I’m not getting the scoop, I’m cooking, adventuring, playing with our three black cats, or blogging.
We had another hour of music set to play after the bouquet and garter tosses, but things were generally starting to wind down.
Pro tip for backyard brides: have a taxi company’s number handy! So many people asked me how to get a cab and I didn’t have an answer. I kept directing them to the clump of my Mom’s friends on the back deck!
Most of Mr. Dragon’s guests cleared out after the tosses, to hit up a bar. For months Mr. Dragon insisted that we should be there at the after party for at least one drink, so I tried to wake up even though I was fading, fast. I had been up since 6:00am, on five hours of sleep, and was listing toward utter exhaustion.
An emptying tent! [Photo by Aaron]
About forty-five minutes before the wedding music would run out, Mr. Dragon, to my relief, determined that we would not be attending any after-parties. With half an hour left to go, we started making our rounds, saying goodbye to anyone that was still present.
I had loaded the second half of the reception playlist with all the “fun” music (Don’t Stop Believing, 500 Miles, all of those great tunes) and was kind of bummed that they were playing to a mostly empty dance floor…but then, my Mom and my aunt appeared from the back deck to enjoy a rousing rendition of “Friends in Low Places” with my bridesmaids, which made me smile even though I was too tired to join in.
At that point, all that was left of our guests was the wedding party and a handful of family members and friends. The last song of the night, carefully selected, was Lean on Me, and I have no idea if anyone danced to it because I was inside making sure we had cab money and all of our overnight stuff packed.
Mrs. Dragon, Sioux Lookout/Brockville, ONAge and Occupation: 24, JournalistFiance's Age and Occupation: 35, Graphic DesignerEngagement Date: August 22, 2011Wedding Date: September 2012Venue: Mother of the Bride’s ResidenceAbout Me: I moved to Northern Ontario for a job, expecting to be single for the year I'd be there. Within one month I was dating a co-worker, and now, more than two years later, we’re planning a wedding and I’m still a Northern girl. I’m a reporter and a photographer for a small-town newspaper, and I get to do all kinds of fun, exciting, and sometimes weird things at work. When I’m not getting the scoop, I’m cooking, adventuring, playing with our three black cats, or blogging.
About an hour and a half into dancing, it was time to throw the bouquet and garter. But before we could do that, I had to find a bouquet and a garter!
I had planned to just throw my bouquet because I couldn’t really take it with me, but it had my bee charms and my grandma’s brooch in it, that I didn’t want to lose. My mom found one of the bridesmaid’s bouquets, I ran upstairs and put on my garter, and it was go time.
The single ladies got ready to made a grab (particularly Fatina…). I was worried I’d throw it too high and bounce it off the tent frame, but I ended just lobbing it directly behind my head. I don’t think those in the back row really minded.
Mrs. Dragon, Sioux Lookout/Brockville, ONAge and Occupation: 24, JournalistFiance's Age and Occupation: 35, Graphic DesignerEngagement Date: August 22, 2011Wedding Date: September 2012Venue: Mother of the Bride’s ResidenceAbout Me: I moved to Northern Ontario for a job, expecting to be single for the year I'd be there. Within one month I was dating a co-worker, and now, more than two years later, we’re planning a wedding and I’m still a Northern girl. I’m a reporter and a photographer for a small-town newspaper, and I get to do all kinds of fun, exciting, and sometimes weird things at work. When I’m not getting the scoop, I’m cooking, adventuring, playing with our three black cats, or blogging.
The very first song to kick off the party was supposed to get everyone out on the dance floor—you’d think “You Shook Me All Night Long” by AC/DC would do it, right?
Well…everyone kind of just stared at us as we bounded onto the dance floor. I think it took a few moments for people to realize that all of the traditional stuff was out of the way and it was time to just enjoy the reception.
I think Rozy caught me beckoning people up in this picture. My Mom, Ashley, and SIL Melissa did me a solid and ran up as soon as the music started, saving us from extended awkwardness.
I actually didn’t think we’d have many dancers. We were dancing on grass, in a kind of cold tent (though that propane heater was a godsend), and we didn’t have a huge guest list. While we never had more than a handful of people on the floor, and there were a few songs where nobody danced, the people that were dancing were energetic about it!
Mrs. Dragon, Sioux Lookout/Brockville, ONAge and Occupation: 24, JournalistFiance's Age and Occupation: 35, Graphic DesignerEngagement Date: August 22, 2011Wedding Date: September 2012Venue: Mother of the Bride’s ResidenceAbout Me: I moved to Northern Ontario for a job, expecting to be single for the year I'd be there. Within one month I was dating a co-worker, and now, more than two years later, we’re planning a wedding and I’m still a Northern girl. I’m a reporter and a photographer for a small-town newspaper, and I get to do all kinds of fun, exciting, and sometimes weird things at work. When I’m not getting the scoop, I’m cooking, adventuring, playing with our three black cats, or blogging.
I’m going to be totally honest here and tell you that our first dance was pretty awkward. We had done a brief practice at home during which we figured out a way to at least get onto the dance floor gracefully, but when we attempted it at the wedding, we had to tell everyone we were going to dance, hit play, then walk away so we could come back in, and everyone started yelling, “WHERE ARE YOU GUYS GOING?”
Mr. D tried to still do the intro but I panicked and stepped right into the high school shuffle, where I firmly stayed for the rest of the dance.
Note how Mr. Dragon is smiling and I’m doing all that I can to not look at the people staring at us.
Add to that the fact that my dress was improperly hemmed and was still too long, and there we were, spinning in tight circles, while I stepped all over my dress. I felt dizzy and flustered and on display, which made me really want everything to be done and over with. I guess I wasn’t quite finished with those nerves!
Mrs. Dragon, Sioux Lookout/Brockville, ONAge and Occupation: 24, JournalistFiance's Age and Occupation: 35, Graphic DesignerEngagement Date: August 22, 2011Wedding Date: September 2012Venue: Mother of the Bride’s ResidenceAbout Me: I moved to Northern Ontario for a job, expecting to be single for the year I'd be there. Within one month I was dating a co-worker, and now, more than two years later, we’re planning a wedding and I’m still a Northern girl. I’m a reporter and a photographer for a small-town newspaper, and I get to do all kinds of fun, exciting, and sometimes weird things at work. When I’m not getting the scoop, I’m cooking, adventuring, playing with our three black cats, or blogging.
I don’t have video of our speeches, so I’m going from memory—forgive me for not being specific! We tried to encourage our speakers to keep things short, though we did go beyond the typical father-of-the-bride/best man/maid of honour options and extended an offer to all of our parents to speak.
Mr. Dragon and I decided to get started with all of the speeches, as everyone looked like they were finished with the buffet line. Our readers spoke one after another rather than dragging it out. I’m not sure if we infringed on anyone’s dinner or anything like that, but we didn’t hear any negative feedback!
Ashley started things off by reading Falling in Love is Like Owning a Cat (with a little jab at everyone for forgetting her during the ceremony!). I thought she would be nervous, but she was completely calm and well-spoken. She even threw in a reference to our “three kids,” a.k.a. our kitties at home! It was a really cute way to start things off, and a great save from forgetting to include the reading during the ceremony.
