9 Months until the Wedding!!!!

I'm sorry for the lack of posts in October but there was not much to report. Finally we have a few updates with the main one being of course that we are only 9 months away from the big day!! Time sure is flying! I remember constantly saying "we have more than a year no need to rush" well that time has come and gone and now we are officially into the wedding planning checklist and although we are still ahead of the game we need to make sure we leave ourselves enough time for all the remaining items (and there are LOTS!).

Firstly, our florist... so once again we have changed our minds. I know we said we were really impressed with Jackie-O and very unimpressed with The Old Mill Flower Shoppe but after many stressful and unhelpful emails back and forth with Jackie-O we decided to give The Old Mill Flower Shoppe another try and we were pleasantly surprised. Our major concern was the language barrier and as it turns out the owner speaks fluent English and was extremely bubbly. On top of that of course there is the convenience of them being on site and that their prices are already cheaper than any other florist we met with and we get another discount on top of that because we are having our wedding at The Old Mill. All in all I think that The Old Mill will work just fine and we had said from the beginning that we hoped that would work out and I believe it has. *fingers crossed*

Secondly, (my favourite and most exciting news) so as most of you know I tried on a wedding dress at Nicholas and Elizabeth and really liked it but continued to look around to see if I liked anything else. I could not for the life of me get that dress out of my mind so I made another appointment to go back and try it on again however, with my luck, got there to find out that the night before I arrived they had sold the sample of the dress I loved so I was unable to try it on again. I did try on a few more while I was there and there were some other beautiful gowns. All in all this would not have been that big of an issue if I knew the brand so I could go to another store and try it on however, for whatever reason, Nicholas and Elizabeth will not tell you which designers they carry so I was left to search the World Wide Web to find a needle in a haystack. After hours and hours of searching with no luck I just happened to be in chapters buying a new bridal magazine and to my shock and dismay I came across a picture of a different gown I had tried on upon my return to Nicholas and Elizabeth that had had some similar features so I desperately logged onto their website clicking through each dress image in hopes that it would be the same designer as the one I loved and... low and behold... IT WAS!!! I found the designer!!!! *dancing in my chair* I was so excited so I called every store within 300 miles, both Canada and the US, too see who had a sample of this dress. Once again wouldn't you know it, I must have called at least 20 stores between Oshawa and Ottawa and Peterbourgh and Rochester, NY and ONE, let me repeat that ONE store has it! Which store might that be? Manchester, New York... 4 hours away! Okay so I'm making this sound like the worst thing ever but actually that is great news because there are lots of stores I can order it from in Canada if I do decide to buy it I just need to find somewhere to try it on so a 4 hour drive is not so terrible. But to make matters even better after I found out that the Manchester store had a sample a store in Ottawa called me back to say they are getting a sample of that dress in December which ideally is when I did want to purchase. So overall I am super excited that I now know the designer and can now (daily) look at a good image of the dress I love and there are potentially 2 locations I can go to and try it on at my convenience which is superb! (Anyone who wants me to send them the link email me I can't post the designer's name because Brandon doesn't want to know)

Lastly, I want to talk a little about bridesmaid's dresses. We are still undecided as to what we would like the girls to wear but I just cannot get the Jim Hjelm Occasions dress out of my mind. (See image below)

Jim Hjelm Occasions Style 5001

I love so much about it. The colour is gorgeous! The neckline is unique and extremely eye-catching. As much as I love the dress from the image I really felt like I needed to see it in person to make up my mind. Once again I called around to stores and only 1 had a sample so today I drove to Ottawa to try it on and see it in person to see if I still loved it as much as I did in the picture and... I love it so much! It is light, which is great for August. It is a gorgeous rich beautiful shade of purple (Eggplant). The neckline, and dress as a whole, I think is flattering to any body type. Now this doesn't mean I am dead set on this dress because we are still torn as to whether we would like all the girls in the same dress or different? But if we decide we would like them all in the same then I think this is it because it is just a gorgeous dress!

So that is all the update for now. On my "Ultimate Wedding Planning Checklist" in the Nine Months and Earlier section out of 19 items we have 2 left to do:

• Select and order my bridal gown and headpiece (which will hopefully be done in the next month)
• Select and reserve the officiant (we have been in contact with The Old Mill because we will most likely use theirs however they just had someone retire so they are looking for a replacement and as soon as they have one they will contact us and we will meet with them - so hopefully will also be done in the next month)

In the Six to Nine Month Before Wedding section out of 10 items we have 4 left to do:

• Give the Wedding Party specific responsibilities (we are working on this but it is hard since we are in separate cities to include them all in as much as we would like too)
• Select attire, shoes, and accessories for the bridesmaids (refer to bridesmaids dresses - we are also working on this but again it is difficult since we don't live in the same city to get together to try on dresses)
• Schedule fittings and delivery dates for myself (kinda hard to do without a dress haha but will get done after I order my dress)
• Select and book a florist (my hope is we are days away from this)

So as mentioned we are doing well in the checklist area. 6 items to get done in 3 months not so scary. We are taking it one item at a time and we are still having fun.

Hopefully in the next few weeks we will have some more updates for everyone.

Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween.