Waterfall Centerpiece Reveal!

I realize I've left you guys hanging with my centerpieces ever since I shared my inspiration with you months ago.It's not so much that I'm a bad blogger bee as much as I was a bad bride. I actually only finished assembling my centerpieces three days before the wedding, which is beyond ironic since the main reason I wanted to DIY them in the first place was to have them done way ahead of time.To achieve the look I was going for,  I needed to find three vases of different heights, some silk orchids, 3" floating candles, blue floralytes, and some crystals to cover them up.

The first thing I tackled were the flowers. After visiting Wal-Mart, Michaels, Ikea, and about a million Dollar Stores, I found Calfolia, a silk flower warehouse in Montreal. I purchased all the white orchids that they had at 4$/stem to carry on my all-white floral theme. Then came the hard part, finding the vases. I spent months searching for the perfect glass vases in three different heights, within my budget. I was easily able to find 6" and 9" vases at the Dollar Store, but couldn't find a 12" vase to save my life until last Christmas, when I discovered them in a random Dollar Store. They only had about 5 in stock that day, but after months of making the rounds of our local Dollar Stores, we had accumulated all the vases that we needed. Next, we ordered 3" floating candles from Dlightonline.com, which was the cheapest we found at time. We also decided to skip the floralytes in order to save money. Unfortunately, by this point, I got very sick and had to put all wedding crafting on hold. Here is the initial mockup:

I asked our venue coordinator if we could bring a set of centerpieces to our final meeting in order to see them in the space, and she happily obliged. The problem with this was that we had some scheduling conflicts and were only able to meet the week before the wedding. I must admit that when I finally saw the centerpieces in the space, my heart sank a little, and not in a good way. They looked so tiny and barely made an impact in the huge room. I had liked the sleek, understated look of these centerpieces because the Versailles room was so ornate, but now, they just looked plain cheap. The tables were so big and the centerpieces barely filled any space at all. Cue bridal freak-out.

If you're making your own centerpieces and have the chance to see them in your space beforehand, I highly suggest you do it. I would have been sooooo disappointed if this had been our final look, but trying them out allowed us to make some last minute adjustments. First of all, the tables had not been set up; once all the table settings, utensils and stemware were in place, they took up a lot of room. Our awesome venue coordinator also suggested that we add a small mirror underneath to reflect the light, and I also tried adding the floralytes that I had purchased for my initial mockup, and they made a huge difference once we filled the vases (pictured without water above). So, with only a few days left to go, we were scrambling to find a bunch of floralytes and mirrors. We were able to find the mirrors at Ikea and I called my florist to ask where I might find some cheap floralytes since we didn't have time to order them online. At her suggestion, I sent Papi Waterfall to Chinatown, where he actually tested every single floralyte to make sure they were all working - seriously, best dad ever.  The floralytes were a huge pain, execution-wise, but totally worth it in the end. Our venue coordinator was nice enough to agree to fill the vases, set them up on the tables, and light all the candles, but the centerpieces needed to be pre-assembled. Ideally, the floralytes would go at the bottom of the vase, followed by the beads, then the flowers and finally the candles. However, if we were to light them too many days in advance, the battery would have run out before the wedding. After trying a million different ways to go about it, we finally decided that our coordinator would just have to light the floralytes and plop them in before filling the vases. The Type-A control-freak in me was not thrilled about this solution, but it was the most practical. Sure, I noticed some of floralytes peaking out at the reception, but I honestly doubt anybody else did, and my sanity was way more important in the grand scheme of things. 
MIL and Lil Waterfall were a huge help with the centerpieces. I was beyond overwhelmed getting everything together by myself while Mr. W was away at his bachelor party when they happened to drop by. Upon seeing me on the verge of tears, they insisted on helping me assemble the centerpieces and between the three of us, we were able to finish in a few hours.

Waterfall Wedding Central, W. day minus 5 days

I must say that as stressful and time consuming as our centerpieces were to make, they turned out FABULOUS and saved us a ton of money, making them one of my most worthwhile DIY's. Maybe I'm a bit biased, but I honestly don't think you can tell that they were a) homemade and b) FAKE! We got so many compliments on them from guests, but enough yammering already, let's see some center pieces!

Pictured with the lights on (left) and off (right)

Centerpieces on our wedding day/ guest photo

Are you planning on making your own centerpieces?
*All photos personal unless otherwise specified

Suite Dreams Are Made of This

Booking a hotel suite to get ready at was hands down one of the best decisions we made throughout our wedding planning process. I realize it's an added expense and not everyone has room in their budget for this... but if you can swing it, DO IT! Seriously.

Growing up, I had always envisioned getting ready at my parents' house the day of my wedding, but that's the funny thing about wedding visions: they almost always change. My parents' house is way out in the suburbs, and requires crossing over at least one bridge to get to the main island of Montreal. Traffic can be really unpredictable and after we booked our venue, I just knew that I didn't want to add the extra stress of possibly getting stuck in traffic on the big day. My family actually ended up hosting a bunch of family and friends from out of town the week of the wedding, so it was a really full house; I'm so glad I was able to get ready in a nice, quiet hotel room instead!

Our tiny one-bedroom apartment was not an option, as I could already foresee that it  would be one giant mess on our wedding day. We also knew that we'd be putting up BM Green Eyes and her boyfriend on an inflatable mattress in our living room - NOT photo ready. Our venue actually offered a "bridal suite" free of charge, but it was basically a glorified conference room. While it served its purpose for bustling my dress and getting touched up after photos, it would have been much too cramped to fit me, all my girls, my parents, the photographers, videographer, hair and makeup people AND all the crap it takes to make girls look their best. We knew we needed a hotel room.

We found Le Saint Martin Hotel Particulier through Le Windsor's preferred vendor's list and they did not disappoint! After some comparison shopping, we decided to use them to reserve a block of rooms for our guests. We knew a large number of our list would not be local, and for those that were, we didn't want to encourage drinking and driving after our 8-hour open bar. For this reason, we absolutely loved the hotel's proximity to our venue.

We decided to book the Cannes Suite for ourselves, which was the biggest room in the penthouse, and had loads of natural light. We saved money by having it do double-duty as our wedding night suite AND a place for me and my girls to get ready before the ceremony. Since we had a 5:30 ceremony start time, I was able to negotiate an early check-in of 1 p.m. for free, which gave us plenty of time to get ready and do photos. While I would have loved waking up in the hotel room with my girls, making our way over to the hotel after sleeping at my place allowed us to save a lot! Had we filled a certain number of rooms, we actually would have gotten upgraded to the Cannes for free, but a lot of our guests ended up booking their rooms way past the cut-off date, which was beyond frustrating.

At the last minute, we also had to book a smaller room for Mr. W and his boys to get ready in, which we hadn't anticipated. Best Man Tequila had said he planned on booking a room for himself, so we had thought the boys could just get ready there; but after he decided not to, we were left scrambling. I was actually able to negotiate a cheaper rate as a "day use room" since we only needed it for a couple of hours, so it worked out. I wasn't familiar with this concept before, but apparently, it's a growing trend for big city hotels to rent out rooms for a few hours to their business clients for meetings and such.

One last piece of advice: Since I knew we would be using the Cannes as our wedding night suite, I was very strict with my girls and asked them to keep their messes out of the photos and to make sure that the bed was made and all their stuff was put away in the closet before we left for the ceremony. This was one of the best things I did because it ensured that Mr. W and I came back to a cozy, romantic hotel suite, and not a bunch of clutter everywhere.

Are you planning on booking a hotel room for your wedding?
All photos courtesy of the Saint-Martin Hotel.

Viva Cuba

I've already mentioned my Cuban heritage; I was born and raised in Havana and my family moved to Canada when I was 12. Though I've now spent the majority of my life on the outside, I feel and identify as unequivocally Cuban, whatever that means.

Mr. Waterfall and I have been successfully navigating this weird, cultural melting pot for the past 10 years - Reveillon de Noel with his family one year, Nochebuena with mine the next, and so on. However, planning a wedding where we wanted everyone to feel included proved to be much trickier than we had anticipated.. It was important to have both of our cultural backgrounds represented, so, we gave a lot of thought to what it meant to have a Cuban-infused wedding, as opposed to a full-fledged Cuban theme.

The process was not easy, and we considered several ideas that we ultimately discarded, such as setting up dominoes tables, like Miss Beanstalk (while we loved this idea, and had the space for it at our venue, we wanted to encourage our guests mingling and having fun together, rather than a mass exodus of guests to a separate area to play dominoes). We also entertained the idea of handing out traditional Cuban cigars as favors, but this would have been costly and we didn't want to encourage our guests smoking because of health concerns.


photo by Bee Photographie/ favors by Joy of Light/ image via theknot.com

So, what ways DID we incorporate my Cuban heritage into the wedding?


1. The ceremony: After speaking with our priest, we decided to include las arras or unity coins into our ceremony, symbolizing Jesus and the twelve apostles. In the Spanish tradition, las arras are 13 gold or silver coins which the groom places in the bride's hands as a promise to provide for his family, and the bride's trust in his ability to do so, a promise that "what's mine is yours".  At Grandma Waterfall's insistence, we also brought in a small replica of  La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre (Our Lady of Charity), the patron saint of Cuba.

via Etsy shop Wedding Lassos

2. Food and Drink! Cuba is famous for its delicious food, and Mr. Waterfall loves Cuban food even more than I do, but it didn't quite mesh with the formal plated dinner we had in mind. Instead of doing a full-blown Cuban meal, we chose to make one tier of our cake be Dulce de Leche. We  also  offered espressos after dinner since coffee is a Cuban staple. Finally, after some negotiating with our venue, we were able to feature mojitos as our signature drink alongside our martini bar. The mojitos were a huge hit and what better way to feature Cuba than through rum? At our coordinator's suggestion however, we only offered them after cocktail hour. Since mojitos are such a popular drink, and so time consuming, it would have created an unnecessarily long line at the bar, so keep that in mind if you're planning on having them at your wedding.

image via consumelikeme.com 

3. Music: Obviously this is a big one! We worked together with our amazing DJ to create a good mix of hard-core salsa as well as some club hits and wedding staples (yes, kids, we did the YMCA and people lost their sh*t, true story). Lucky for us, Latin music is very in right now, so even Mr. W's side of the family loved getting down to some Celia Cruz. Aside from Celia and Pitbull (ya tu sabes!), I also wanted some authentic Cuban music, so I gave our DJ a list of about 10 must-play songs that I knew he probably wouldn't play otherwise, including a conga, and I don't mean the cheesy Gloria Estefan one! We also considered hiring a live bongo player, which would have been awesome, but oh, so expensive!

I really think we achieved a nice balance of incorporating Cuban elements into different aspects of the wedding without going overboard. How are you incorporating your culture into your wedding?

For more Cuban wedding inspiration, check out these photoshoots.

Ici, on parle Spanglish

Translation: Here, we speak Spanglish

Planning a wedding sometimes brings out issues that nobody anticipated, and for us, language was a big one. As I've already mentioned, I'm Cuban, while Mr. Waterfall comes from a French Canadian family but was raised as an Anglophone. Spanish is obviously my mother tongue and Mr. Waterfall has actually become quite fluent in it during the ten years we've been together. We met while attending college in English, so naturally, we speak English at home, and occasionally some Spanish. When we visit my parents, we mostly speak Spanish, when we visit his mom, we speak English, and when we visit his extended family, we speak French. It's like the freaking United Nations, but it works!

image via rottenecards.com

We never really gave much thought to it until it came time to book our church and we were asked whether we wanted the service in English or French. To say that language is a very touchy subject in Quebec would be a huge understatement. I won't get into it here, but just know that there are very strict laws in place designed to protect the integrity of the French language, and that the Anglophone and Francophone communities of Montreal are often at odds about it.  Mr. W's family is very Francophone, but they all understand English fairly well, while my side of the family is obviously more comfortable in Spanish, but most of them speak English or French, if not both. It was one of those situations where no matter what we did, we were bound to offend someone so we decided to have our wedding in English. While we were definitely met with some strong reactions at first, it just made the most sense for us. English is not only the language that Mr. W and I most often speak to one another, it was also the common language that most people at the wedding spoke, or at least understood.

Surprisingly, one of the people who were the most upset by this was Grandma Waterfall, who insisted that we needed to get married at La Guadalupe, the only Spanish church in Montreal. It took a lot of explaining for her to understand that having a full catholic mass in Spanish would alienate half of our guest list, including the groom himself! While I really wanted to incorporate my heritage into the ceremony, I didn't want to make the already long service even longer by having the priest say everything in two or three languages! So, we decided to have all the readings, gospel and homily be in English, while the arras and the blessing of the rings would be in Spanish and finally, our vows would be half Spanish/ half English.

We were faced with the question of language once more when it came time to design our invitations and while we could have easily designed three separate sets - one in each language, it seemed like a huge waste of time, so we stuck with one invitation in English as a way to let people know what language the wedding would be. I'm sorry, but ain't nobody got time for that! Then, when it came time to build our website, we decided it might as well be in English also, and were met with several comments about how the content should have been in French, or Spanish instead, or even better - in all three. Building our website using my non-existent coding skills was already hard enough, now I was expected to translate multiple pages into multiple languages? Because you know, apparently, I had nothing better to do...

The last straw was picking our music. I was running our music selections by my family when my grandmother got upset yet again that none of the songs were in Spanish and that I was abandoning my cultural heritage by picking only English music. I had to sit down with my grandmother to better understand why she was so upset, and had to remind her that a wedding is a merging of two people, two families, and it was important to have both sides evenly represented. As it turns out, it wasn't really about the language, but more about Grandma Waterfall trying to hold on to her culture in what is still a foreign environment to her. So, I calmed her down by pointing out all the ways that we would be incorporating our Cuban heritage into the wedding day.

In the end, our Spanglish wedding was a success, and everybody had a blast, regardless of what language they spoke. We actually had one guest complain to Mr. Waterfall that they didn't feel included because there hadn't been enough French in the wedding, but you can't please everyone, so all in all, I would still call it a success.

Are you dealing with a bilingual wedding?

Pretty in Pink

I had been looking forward to my bridal shower as long as I had been engaged, but with my worsening health, and the fact that my bridesmaids were spread out in Montreal, Toronto and Miami, it was looking more and more like I might not have one at all. I didn't really want much, just to wear cute dresses and sit around drinking champagne, eating my favorite finger sandwiches and playing some silly games. While I don't want to dwell too much, this was a really sad time for me. I felt really melancholic whenever I read fellow bees' accounts of their showers because it was becoming increasingly obvious that nobody had thought to plan one for me. BM Green Eyes had already made it very clear that she would not be flying up from Florida until two days before the wedding, and BM Tiny had also booked a vacation to Florida and was only set to return two days before the wedding.

Well, one day I opened my email to find this little cutie, which read:

evite via punchbowl.com

Pretty in Pink !

Hi Miss Waterfall,

We welcome the pleasure of your company at the Pretty in Pink Bridal Shower celebrated in your honor. On this lovely day, we hope you enjoy every single second and we encourage you take a moment to really appreciate all the little things (and the people you hold most dear to your heart) that make your life that much more special. But most importantly, think of that one person who knows you better than anyone, who understands your every word, and who will shower you with infinite love and care for years to come....yes..?..you got it..your perfect man, Mr. Waterfall. So come join us at this wonderful and well anticipated event just for you...before you become a bride, before you throw the bouquet, before you walk down the aisle, before the BIG DAY!

We cannot wait to see you there beautiful as ever!

Love you always,

BM Tiny, BM Green Eyes, MOH Long Legs

Guests received this slightly modified version of the e-vite

They planned the shower on a long weekend, and MOH Long Legs drove up from Toronto with her mom, who's like a second mommy to me on the Friday. On Saturday, we all drove together to my final fitting at DB in Vermont so Long Legs could learn how to attach my bustle. The shower was set for Sunday afternoon, but unfortunately, we got in at 1 am, so Long Legs and Tiny had to get up really early to set everything up at my parents' house, with a lot of help from Mami Waterfall, Mommy Long Legs, and my aunt, BM Tiny's mom. When I arrived, I was greeted by many friendly faces, and lots of adorable pink touches everywhere. BM Tiny came up with the theme "Pretty in Pink" after I decided to wear my favorite pink lace dress that I had purchased from H&M last summer. I would have loved to wear white to all bridal events, but I just didn't have enough white dresses, and hadn't found any that I liked while shopping. So pink it was!

I gotta say, even though my girls had never done this before, they pulled it off! They thought of so many adorable touches! MOH and Mommy Long Legs stayed up for hours baking and made these adorable cupcake topiaries while Auntie and BM Tiny made me a lovely towel cake.

The food was delicious and I know how hard they worked making it all. It really does take a village! They even had my favorite finger sandwiches, and little "bride" favor boxes filled with Godiva chocolates.

MOH Long Legs, Miss Waterfall, BM Tiny

It wasn't until a few minutes in that I noticed a giant, floating head on the television. Papi Waterfall had actually Skype'd in BM Green Eyes from Miami!

It felt so nice to be surrounded by the people I love that it made me forget all about my health issues for an afternoon!

With Mami Waterfall

With BM Tiny and her momma, Auntie Tiny

We started off by playing a few shower games like "How well do you know the bride" and a sort of newlywed game where I had to match my answers to Mr. Waterfall's (BM Tiny had emailed him a list of questions beforehand). One thing about Mr. Waterfall and me is that we're both really competitive and really into board games. For some reason, our answers were quite different any time it was a 50/50 choice. The funny thing is that at the time, I actually thought that Mr. W had switched some answers around to trip me up,so I got a bit mad that he cheated to make me look bad! As it turns out, he did no such thing and when I asked him about it that night, he simply replied "I guess you know me better than I know myself!" So sweet, I can't even! At any rate, it was really funny, and Lil Waterfall and MIL Waterfall definitely got a kick out of that one! Seriously though guys, game night at the Waterfall house is like a blood sport - I'm talking The Hunger Games kind of bloody, win or die. True story.

MIL Waterfall, Lil Waterfall, Miss Waterfall

MOH Long Legs and BM Tiny running the show

The only game we didn't play that I really wish we had was the toilet paper dress game, but by this point people were starting to get antsy, so the girls decided to skip it and start opening presents. Bummer. Now, I know a lot of brides dread having to open the presents in front of everyone,  but as a gift giver, I love watching people open presents after spending so much time picking them out, so I was happy to oblige by opening everyone's gifts!

Lil Waterfall was my little helper and would grab each present from the pile and save all my bows for my rehearsal bouquet, while MOH Long Legs jotted down who each gift was from.

I got a variety of things, from lingerie to cute things for the honeymoon and some house wares. 

 

For those of you that are wondering how much of your registry will get bought up, I only got one gift from our registry at the shower, these amazing With Love by Vera Wang toasting flutes that I loved but couldn't justify buying for myself.

MIL Waterfall also surprised me by gifting us with a lovely cake cutting set, engraved with our names and wedding date.

 

Another cute thing the girls came up with was an advice jar. They decorated a glass jar and asked guests to write me little pieces of advice, or well wishes, or anything else that they wanted. I would then open the jar on the morning of the wedding while we were getting ready. Super adorable, right?

After a while, people started to leave and the shower drew to the close. With only my bridal party and family around, we got goofy and enjoyed some leftover food and champagne. It was so much fun to feel so much love all around me!

BM Tiny, MOH Long Legs and Lil Waterfall

I also took some time to snuggle with my favorite puppy.

Simba!

And just when I thought we were done, BM Tiny brought out a pink envelope and explained that it was a letter from Mr. Waterfall. With all my favourite women crowding around me, I started to read it aloud and broke down in about two seconds. Mr. W. was feeling really shy when BM Tiny asked him to write me a letter, so he felt like it was not his best work, but I loved it. All the emotions I had been feeling that weekend just came bubbling up and had nowhere to go but out my eyeballs. Soon, MOH Long Legs took over reading it out loud and it wasn't long until we were all sobbing together. I was getting married!

Hi Miss Waterfall,
I'm sorry that I couldn't be with you today, but I'm sure that you're having lots of fun. All you wanted was the fun little games, and champagne, and to have a lovely shower, and I'm sure that's what you got. I'll be waiting patiently for you at home, and I love you. I'm not surprised that you love the games, we both love to play! That's one of the things that I love about you, that we play, have fun, and can be friends. I know that the rest of our life together is going to be filled with laughs, and fun, and friends. I can't wait for the big finale in just a few short weeks, you're going to be so beautiful, and I promise to be a good husband to you. I'll never stop loving you,
-Mr. Waterfall

It was right around that time that Papi Waterfall and Brother GM came home from doing...whatever it is that boys do, and were quite surprised to find us all in tears, hugging one another. They really didn't understand what was wrong!

Anybody have a shower coming up?

* All photos personal, courtesy of BM Tiny and Mami Waterfall

Basket Case

Last week, I told you about my emergency kit, and today I'm here to tell you about our bathroom baskets!

The first time I saw a bathroom basket was at our friends' wedding, the day Mr. W proposed, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever! I really appreciated as a guest, so I knew that when my time came, I would like to assemble some bathroom baskets for my guests. I also knew that we couldn't really afford to do OOT bags because we had so many out-of-town guests, so offering a few basic things was the least we could do for everyone to pamper them a little.

So, if you recall, this is what my stockpile looked like, for two baskets and my emergency kit.

I mostly hit up pharmacies for the goodies, and bought the woven baskets along with two frames and a few extra things from the Dollar Store. Bathroom baskets are not really common in Cuban weddings, and Cubans really love free stuff so I wanted to make sure people didn't raid the baskets within minutes, thinking it was a free-for-all. After some Googling, I found this cute poem online, printed out in a pretty font and stuck it inside a frame for each bathroom. Sorry, I forgot to take a picture.

So happy you’re here to share in our special day!
But should something happen to go astray,
Please help yourself to the contents within,
Hair spray (or Wet wipe), lotion, gum and even aspirin,
Use only what you need and leave the rest,
It may be useful to another guest.
So repair the damage that may have been done,
Then hurry on back and join the fun!
Compliments of the Newlyweds

In the Men's Basket, I included:

• Tissues/ Q-tips/ Nail clippers
• Band-Aids
• Mouthwash/ Floss/ Gum
• Oops stain remover/ Lint roller
• Advil/ Alka- Seltzer/ Fisherman's Friend
• Combs
• Axe Body Spray
• Purell
• Crazy Glue

 The Women's Basket was much larger, because let's face it, we need more stuff ;), it included:

• Tissues/ Baby wipes/ Makeup removing wipes/ Q-tips
• Pads/ Tampons/ Panty Liners/ Intimate wipes
• Hair Spray/ Brushes/ Combs/ Bobby Pins/ Hair elastics
• Band-Aids
• Mouthwash/ Floss/ Gum
• Oops stain remover/ Lint roller/ Safety Pins
• Advil/ Alka- Seltzer/ Fisherman's Friend
• Spray deodorant (nobody wants to share a stick with 50 other sweaty people, am I right?)
• Purell
• Nail Clippers/ Nail file/ Tiny scissors
• Crazy Glue
• Lotion

A word of advice about the baskets: Travel sized things can actually cost as much (or even more) as a normal size container of the same product. While I strongly recommend using travel sizes for the emergency kit, it's not as important for the bathroom baskets, and might save you some money.

Also, this may seem obvious, but don't put anything in the baskets that you would mind not getting back, like a bottle of your favorite perfume. Assume that anything in the basket is fair game, and don't be surprised if guests take a lot of stuff home with them at the end of the night. I know our guests took home entire bottles of Advil before cocktail hour was even done and somebody took home the Axe Body Spray and baby wipes, despite the little note saying "please don't bogart the basket contents". This is especially true if you share the venue with another event, or if the bathrooms are public.

Also, if you're assembling your baskets ahead of time, I strongly suggest wrapping them in saran wrap to prevent dust and dirt getting in there, and to prevent things falling out during transport.

So there you have it folks! Anybody else doing bathroom baskets and an emergency kit? Whatstuff did you include?
*All photos personal 

Confessions of a Fat Bride

Have I got your attention?

Body issues. Everyone has them. Tell a girl she's beautiful and she'll jump straight to what she perceives as her worst flaw and focus on that instead. Throw in a wedding and it gets so much worse. As soon as I announced my engagement, the question I was most often met with was "So, how much weight are you planning on losing for the wedding? You have almost two years so you could lose a ton if you get started right away!" You have no idea how hurtful and insulting it was to hear this at every turn. It got to the point where I actually started dreading announcing the happy news because every congratulations came with it's own little footnote: PS, you're fat.

For the record: I'm not fat, I don't think. I mean, I'm definitely not skinny, but I'm also not plus-sized or anything like that. I have huge boobs...and an ass...and my thighs are bigger than my legs. But overall, I look proportional and dare I say it? Good.

image via www.tumblr.com

At first I would shrug it off and politely answer that I wasn't actually planning on any drastic weight loss for the wedding, that I wanted to look like myself, only better. Apparently though, my normal self wasn't good enough, wasn't pretty enough or thin enough. It didn't help that the comments were coming from the people I valued most like family and close friends. Even my maid of honour offered to help me lose weight. Help. Like I was so set in my fatty ways that I couldn't figure it out on my own.

My first encounter with bridal sizing came one month after being engaged. I was out shopping for bridesmaids dresses with BM Tiny and MOH Long Legs who are respectively, a size 0 and 2 when they decided that I needed to stand in for BM Green Eyes since I was closest to her size and she would not be flying in from Miami. I went to grab my regular size when the consultant rolled her eyes at me and said " no, you need a size 18", which was quite a few sizes up from my normal size! I put the dress on and to my disbelief, it barely zipped, my boobs spilling out the top like two gelatinous blobs.  I didn't even come out of the fitting room. I just stood there, watching myself in the mirror, crying. I was fat. I was a fat bride. I hurried out of the store and didn't tell anybody other than Mr. Waterfall what had happened that day,  but the experience scarred me enough to keep me from trying on a single wedding gown for months. On my first wedding dress shopping trip, my consultant kept putting me in dresses that were nothing like what I had asked for. When I finally asked why she was ignoring my requests, she said that I wouldn't fit into the other dresses because I was too fat. In case you're wondering, my consultant herself was definitely not a skinny girl. Every store I went to had more of the same. It felt like the entire industry was telling me that in order to wear these dresses, I had to look a certain way. Be a certain size. But if there is one area of fashion where vanity sizing should be the norm, it should be wedding gowns! It's the one time in your life when you want to feel your most beautiful, and even though it's a number on a label, it can really mess with your self-esteem.

While I wanted to be healthier, I almost didn't want to give anybody else the satisfaction of losing weight. I felt as though if I did, I was tacitly agreeing that my normal self wasn't good enough. I remember a few years ago, this girl I worked with was getting married and she became so completely obsessed with her weight  that she would eat a handful of olives for lunch and then run on fumes for the rest of the day - and by fumes, I mean cigarette fumes, because she smoked like a chimney to curb her appetite. She lost a ton of weight all right, but I certainly would not consider a diet of coffee and cigarettes healthy. I knew I didn't want to be that girl. I wanted to tone up certain problem areas and try to make healthier choices, not just for the wedding but going forward. For the record, I don't believe in dieting because it simply doesn't work. It's like slapping a Band-Aid on a wound that needs stiches, a quick, temporary fix. It's been proven that diets don't work simply because the second you stop depriving yourself (and eventually, everybody does) you gain the weight right back.


 image via someecards.com

I did not want to be one of those girls who loses a ton of weight for the wedding and is too depressed to look at her pictures down the road because she gained the weight right back, and then some. This is not meant to disrespect any bees out there who have taken the wedding as a steppingstone to a healthier lifestyle! Several blogger bees have shared their experiences with getting healthier, and I applaud them, I just disagree with a quick fix mentality of fad dieting. I believe that it's more about making small, achievable lifestyle changes that you can continue to maintain for years, after the wedding has come and gone. For me, it was more about portion control and eating more veggies and less processed foods, rather than say, declaring all complex carbohydrates to be the devil until after the wedding. My main emphasis was on health, not just physical, but mental.

image via someecards.com

I ended up buying a dress that was 3/4 sizes up from my regular size and was terrified that it would end up being huge on me. The irony of it all is that I actually lost close to 30 lbs. before my wedding without even trying and while it's probably the thinnest I've ever been, it's also the least healthy I've ever been...I was literally wasting away because my body was so sick that my organs couldn't even process food. People would compliment me on how thin I looked and I didn't even know how to respond. "Why thank you, I've been vomiting for months, I guess it shows"? Instead, I politely thanked them and moved on. I guess they meant well. When I went for my first fitting and saw my dress on the hanger, it looked like a tarp. When they put it on me, it was literally falling off. Alterations would have been so costly that they decided to rush-order me a new dress, which I still had to have taken in. And while it felt nice feeling thin for once, that's not what I see when I look at my wedding photos. I don't see how much weight I lost, I see how radiantly happy I look to be marrying Mr. W surrounded by family and friends.

In this age of Pinterest and STMP, we brides face so much pressure to look perfectly immaculate on our wedding day. And I get it, really. It only makes sense to want to look your best on the most photographed day of your life. You want your teeth to be pearly white and your complexion to be glowing and dewy, but not shiny. But what we often forget is that a wedding is just one day. Some brides break out or have a bad hair day, others have their period. It happens, because it's real life and not a styled photo-shoot with professional models in some glossy wedding magazine. So why do we hold ourselves up to such impossibly high standards? It's no wonder brides are willingly paying thousands of dollars to be fed through a feeding tube, all for the sake of being thin and beautiful on their wedding day.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: If you want to lose weight for yourself, because you want to feel better about yourself, I applaud you. If you want to get healthy and eat better and exercise more often, I'm right there with you. If you've been looking for an excuse to get off the couch and go for a walk or a run then by all means, do! I strongly encourage anyone to do things that will make them fell happier and more confident, and for many brides the wedding is great motivation to finally make a change.  But don't feel like you need to change yourself in order to fit into some crazy standard of what a bride should be. Please keep in mind that you're already beautiful, and your significant other already loves you, just the way you are. Real women come in all shapes and sizes, and real beauty comes from within, not from some number on a scale or on a label.

What positive changes have you made?

Oh Shit!

Do your friends have a joke about you that goes "pulling a [insert name here]"? Well, in my circle of friends, "pulling a Miss Waterfall" means being overly responsible/ prepared/ acting like an adult, like, for instance refusing to go out on a Friday night because I should really get a jump on my law school readings, seriously guys, this pretty much sums up my life:



I'm always prepared for anything and everything. My purse weighs a ton because I carry so much needless crap on a daily basis, just in case I need it... tampons, Advil, Kleenex, extra shoes, umbrellas, books, other books in case I don't feel like reading the original book, you get the idea. In fact, I almost picked the Rucksack icon because it reminded me of Dora's backpack and how she also seems to have everything she could possibly need in there.

Bathroom baskets and an emergency kit were a no-brainer for me, even though the cost can be slightly prohibitive. If I were truly frugal, I would have started stockpiling the basics a few months in advance, whenever good deals came up, but I didn't, so I spent a whole day running around stores gathering all the supplies and assembling the baskets and kit the week before my wedding. Live and learn guys!

I got home, dumped my goodies on the ground and proceeded to text this picture to MOH Long Legs, to which she replied "This seems excessive, even for you".

Now, keep in mind that this was for two bathroom baskets and an emergency kit, so I'm not that crazy, right? For the Emergency Kit, I included:

Tissues/ Baby wipes/ Makeup removing wipes/ Q-tips/ Cotton pads/ Eye makeup remover

Pads/ Tampons/ Panty Liners/ Intimate wipes

Hair Spray/ Brush/ Combs/ Bobby Pins/ Hair elastics

Band-Aids

Mouthwash/ Floss/ Gum/ Toothpaste/ Travel toothbrushes

Tide-To Go pen/ Lint roller

Safety Pins (including two jumbo in case my bustle broke)/ Travel sewing Kit with white,  black, grey and blue thread/ Buttons

 Stick on snaps, for making sure strapless dresses stuck to the bras

Advil/ Alka- Seltzer/ Fisherman's Friend/ Allergy Medication/ Visene/ Gravol/ Immodium

Deodorant

Purell

Nail Clippers/ Nail file/ Tiny scissors

Crazy Glue

Lotion/ baby powder

Lanacane anti-chafing gel (seriously, best stuff EVER to prevent chafing under the dress!)

A spare buckle for my shoes

Liquid courage (tiny bottle of rum for me/ scotch for Mr. W)

Things I wish I thought of including in the kit:

A sample of my wedding perfume

Extra Makeup for touch-ups, I always carry extra makeup, but since I paid to have it done professionally, it slipped my mind. I could have used a touch up later on.

Disposable razors. BM Green Eyes forgot her razor the morning of the wedding, but thankfully the front desk at the hotel was able to send one up for us.

Everyone made fun of me for being so thorough, but we used the emergency kit SO MUCH!. I probably went overboard with all the medicine, but I wanted to be prepared for any situation, because you never know how stress is going to affect you! And it was so comforting knowing that if anything went wrong, we were covered. For example, within minutes of arriving at the hotel, my father had somehow managed to break my adorable bridal hanger, had I not had crazy glue with me, I might have been forced to murder him on the spot, thankfully, all were spared thanks to the Kit. We also had to break out the needle and thread on a few occasions and I spilled brown bordelaise sauce all down the front of my dress at the reception, but thanks to the Oops stain remover, it was out in seconds!

While we were getting ready, the running joke in the room was that somebody would ask if anybody had [insert random thing nobody else thought of] to which everyone would roll their eyes and answer "check the kit!" in unison. Mission accomplished :D

After we left the hotel, BM Green Eyes was in charge of the Kit, we kept it in the limo during the ceremony and pictures and then stashed in the Bridal Suite at the venue. If you don't have it in your budget to do bathroom baskets, I strongly recommend at least doing an emergency kit.  You probably have many of the supplies already, and a lot of it can be repurposed for the honeymoon. If you don't want to include as much as me, I would prioritize the hygiene products (both feminine and oral), sewing kit and crazy glue because those got the most use for us. Also, I really liked that the bag was clear with handles, it made it easier to search for what you needed, and the handles made transport a breeze.

What weird stuff did you include in your kit?

*All photos personal 

R.S.V.P. Find out what it means to me!

Last week, I showed you guys the wedding website I created using WeddingWire. The main purpose of the site in my mind was to offer an online RSVP option. I’ve yet to receive a wedding invitation that offers online RSVP’ing, but I would seriously be SO excited! First of all, guests can reply instantly without ever having to leave the comforting, radioactive glow of their laptop to find the nearest mailbox. I also figured this would significantly reduce the number of late or forgotten RSVP’s that I would then be forced to track down in the weeks leading up to the wedding. Since people could answer straight away, I thought they were less likely to throw the invite on top of their mail pile and forget about it (oh, how wrong I was!). WeddingWire also sends you an instant notification every time you get an RSVP (instant gratification FTW!), which was fun, though I’ll admit not nearly as thrilling as getting actual paper mail. Before we continue, allow me to let you in on a little secret I wish somebody had told me when I was planning my wedding. No matter how easy you make it for your guests to RSVP, there will still be people who can't be bothered to do it. I'm not saying that I get it, but it's just a fact of life. Seriously. Just accept it and move on, for your own sanity. There is nothing you can do about it. What you CAN do is plan ahead and leave yourself enough time to chase down the stragglers.


Image via someecards.com

So, here is the Waterfall RSVP card:



Sorry for the wonky lighting!



Initially, we toyed with the idea of only offering online RSVP’ing to cut down on postage and invitation costs, but decided that this would not fly with some of our older guests who weren’t as computer-savvy,  so we offered both options predicting that the older folks would stick to paper while the younger peeps would RSVP online... Wrong again! As it turns out, a lot of our younger friends, whom we'd predicted would for sure RSVP online chose to send their response by mail, because, I quote "it felt fancy". We even had two handwritten cursive RSVP's... maybe our friends are hipsters?

The other problem we ran into was postage. A lot of our invitations were actually international, and slapping a Canadian stamp on the RSVP envelope would have caused all of our international RSVP’s to get lost in the mail. So, after much debate, we just sent out our invites without pre-stamping the RSVP envelope (I know, gasp! – Sorry, Emily Post). Honestly, this was one of those situations where I had to put the etiquette books down for a second and think about what was more practical: spending hours tracking down all the different kinds of postage we would need, or letting those who wanted to reply by mail put their own stamp on it? And guess what you guys, nobody complained about having to put a little stamp on their RSVP! I’m all for putting your guests first and keeping their comfort and convenience in mind when making decisions, but there are limits! On that note, it was actually super fun to see all the different stamps that came back! 

Surprisingly a lot of flags!



Now, if you decided to RSVP online, you could search for your name on our website



And then choose from a list of people with that name, in this example, the Waterfalls

You would then reply for each person in your party, and specify your meal choice. Done!

A big bonus for the online RSVP function versus the traditional card is clarity. I thought our cards were fairly standard… fill in your name, and initial your meal choice… but people still managed to screw it up. First of all, a surprising number of people were confused about the "M." line and didn’t know what it stood for.  Secondly, the meal choices - so many people just wrote a number instead of initialing their choice, which apparently created some confusion when dinner was served during the reception. I refused to call those people to ask who wanted the beef and who wanted the chicken, seriously, ain't nobody got time for that!

I  also wish I had included a "we have reserved __ seats for you" line. I'd seen it done before, but assumed it wouldn't be an issue with my guests. Well, don't assume anything! SO many people wrote in +1's and it drove me absolutely crazy! We decided to only extend courtesy plus-ones to people in long term relationships, not only because of money, but because it’s such an intimate moment for the bride and groom. Who wants the room filled with randoms that couldn’t care less about the promises that you’re making and are only there to take advantage of the open bar to get ridiculously drunk? We were also fairly accommodating  if somebody called and asked if they could bring a guest, but a few guests still mailed back their RSVP card having added a plus-one, and it was infuriating! 

Image via someecards.com

None of these things were an issue with online RSVP’s since you had to pick from a drop-down list!(Well, except for one wise guy who used the "comment" feature of the website to write in his plus-one). 

 

The last thing I would do differently would be to use a separate insert or Moo card for the website information, like so many bees before me. I thought I was being clever and saving money by including our website right on the RSVP card, but after people mailed their cards back, they no longer had the website info... so I kept getting calls and messages from people wanting to know what our website was...not my brightest moment, you guys!

If you look closely at the RSVP card, you can see that our reply-by date was April 19, almost a full two months before our June 15 wedding. We did it this way because of our rolling guest list. The plan was to send out the international invites first, and send out the local invites as more spots opened up, so we needed to allow ourselves plenty of room to send out all of the invitations with enough time to avoid hurt feelings. Overall, it worked out really great, and nobody's feelings got hurt.

 

Also, thank goodness that we left ourselves plenty of time because by the cut-off date, we still had about 100 people who hadn't replied! Thankfully, my parents were able alleviate a lot of my stress and track most of them down with a few weeks to spare. In the end, there were about a dozen people whom we were not able to get in touch with, and I had several nightmares that they showed up at the wedding, expecting to be fed. Thankfully, that wasn't the case!





Image via www.rottenecards.com/

 

Did anybody else loathe the RSVP process?

* All photos personal unless otherwise specified