The dress ...

Oh the dress debate ...
I must have spent hours looking through dresses online and watching countless episodes of "Say Yes to the Dress" thinking that I would never find a dress that I liked. I took my mom and my maid of honor out a few times to look for dresses and was overwhelmed by the number of beautiful dresses.
We are a pretty efficient group though and were able to narrow it down easily, but now there are two beautiful dresses that I love and have to make a decision between.

One is long and sexy with a drop waist and a ruffled organza bottom. It's a lot of dress but it is gorgeous and almost everyone that I have shown it to thinks it's THE dress for me.

 

The second is a lovely elegant high low dress with an empire waist and pockets. I really love this dress too. Part of me is leaning a little more towards this dress for a few reasons. I really like that it is short and you can see my shoes. I also think that it fits our wedding a bit more than the big ball gown. We are planning a more casual laid back wedding and this dress just seems like a good fit.

On the other hand ... everyone keeps telling me I'm the bride so I can wear the big dress no matter what everyone else is wearing. What to do, what to do??!!!

Color, Color Everywhere.

I love color! Last summer, when I started to do a bit of planning, I was really excited about getting to choose colors for the wedding. There are so many great combinations to choose from. I searched online for ideas because I was having a really hard time making a decision. The knot had some great inspiration boards full of color ideas but I still could not choose!

 

  

  

I started leaning towards a rich royal purple/bright green combination. I thought we could create some really nice accents and MK liked the combo too. A year has gone by and I'm back to not being able to choose colors so I decided instead to go with many colors and use our country/rustic "theme" as a guide.

I definitely don't want the wedding to look like a little kids birthday party but I do want to use color in many areas in subtle ways. I was thinking of going with a wildflower/multicolor bouquet and possibly having each of the bridesmaids carrying a different colored bouquet, depending on what they wear. 

Modern Rustic Country BBQ

My fiance (MK) and I are both fairly laid back people. We decided a fancy chic wedding just isn't us. We are hoping to have a relatively casual country BBQ at the barn. Our ceremony will be outside in a courtyard and there will be country cocktails and hors d'oeuvres while we have family photos taken.

 

MK and I have been debating on how dinner will be served. We are currently meeting with caterers comparing buffet vs. plated vs. family style. We like the idea of people having choices and the ability to take as much as they would like of certain foods, which is why buffet or family style are really sticking out to us. Some of our family members are not big fans of a buffet at a wedding so we are leaning a bit more towards family style where platters are set out on each table and guests can serve themselves, that way we have a bit more of a casual feel but still appease our family :)

We are really excited about our dessert table.Our family is full of excellent bakers and we've been asking close family members if they would make some of their yummiest desserts to feature on the table with our cake. I know it's been done before but I love the idea and we are going to have some amazing homemade desserts...apple crumble, brownies, pineapple delight, banana chocolate chip bread, caramel cake, cheese cake with raspberry drizzle. Super yum!! I'll be making tags most likely on little chalkboards with information about the dessert and who it was provided by.

 

MK, like most guys, loves burgers. He has been awesome with adopting a bit more of a vegetarian lifestyle since moving in with me, so I wanted to include something I knew he would love at the wedding. Our late night (because we both come from European families where a late night meal will be expected) will be sliders & french fries (and grilled cheese for the veggie heads like myself).

Well it's true...

I am indeed getting married in a barn!

My fiance and I met 8 years ago through friends who ran into each other one day at a subway station in Toronto. We're high school sweethearts who went to different high schools. We dated through high school and university (& college) and we are now both beginning our careers. My fiance is an Computer Engineer (nerd!) and I'm a Veterinary Technician (animal geek!). We are very excited to be taking the next step in our relationship together.

Last May, when my fiance proposed we decided to wait a year or two to get married so I could finish my program and we could save some money for the wedding (and a house in the future)! The one thing we decided to book was a venue before I returned to school in September, so we set out on a search for something different. We knew we didn't want a typical church & banquet hall wedding celebration as that really isn't "us". We looked for and visited venues where we could get married outside and possibly have a tent reception ... and then we came across an amazing old barn that had been turned into an event space and we fell in love with it. We invited our moms to come see it one weekend and they fell in love too.

So the one thing we have done is booked our venue...the barn. The reason for the title of the blog is that as the resident animal geek in both my fiance's and my family, I was always teased that I would probably get married in a barn...but there will not be horses!

Although there will be dogs :)