Baby you can Have Whaterever you Like: Registering

Last time, I revealed our amazing honeymoon destination, and I can't wait to share those recaps with you all, but before I do, I want to take a moment to discuss our honeymoon registry.

It's no secret that honeymoon registries are a controversial topic. While some consider honeymoon registries to be extremely Le Tacky, others swear by it. You can easily guess what camp I'm in since I'm writing about it. Like so many modern couples, Mr. Waterfall and I moved in together before getting married. Over the last two years, we have furnished our home with most of the household items we need. And while there are some items that we would love to add (Kitchenaid Stand Mixer, I'm looking at you), we just don't have the room in our tiny, one bedroom apartment. Since we won't be able to purchase our home right away, we didn't love the idea of accumulating a bunch of extra stuff that we would then be forced to pack up and move in a year. Enter: the honeymoon registry.

Our first encounter with honeymoon registries was a few years ago at a friend's wedding. The couple was honeymooning in Bali and had registered for yoga classes, room upgrades, even breakfast in bed! We instantly loved that we could help our friends have the honeymoon of their dreams instead of just buying them a blender or handing them a cheque. I guess it all comes down to personal preference, but seeing pictures of our friends' honeymoon gave us a sense of satisfaction that we hadn't felt with traditional registries or cash gifts.

If you're not familiar with honeymoon registries, the way it works is: you build a wish list of items - dinners, excursions, plane tickets, you name it! You can then split up each item into smaller or bigger chunks. For example: one spa day could be split up into one chunk of 200$, 2 chunks of 100$, or 10 chunks of 20$ - it always helps to have a variety of price points available for guests of different budgets. After your guests pick a gift, they can choose to bring a cheque or cash to the wedding (free of charge), or deposit the money directly into your PayPal account through their credit card or bank account. There is a small PayPal fee associated with this option - it varies, but I believe it's somewhere around 3%. You can choose to have the fee deducted from the gift, or have your guest pay it (we chose to have it deducted because as a guest, it would irk me to have to pay extra to give a gift).
After much research, we settled on Honeyfund.com. The site itself is free (aside from the PayPal transaction fees), and you can pay for an upgrade, which removes ads and allows you to post pictures of yourselves, as well as the items you're registering for. I happily paid for the upgrade, as it gave the site a much more polished look; since you're expecting your guests to transfer you money online, you want your website to look legit!

Image via www.tumblr.com/

After reading some of the comments on fellow bees' posts, I was afraid of getting a negative reaction from some of our more traditional guests, which is why we also had a smaller traditional registry at Linen Chest. This gave us the chance to upgrade a few items like china, steak knives, towels, bamboo sheets (seriously the best sheets ever, look into it!) and my dream Nespresso coffee maker.

I'm happy to report that people really LOVED our honeymoon registry and as far as we know, nobody was offended by it. Most guests hadn't necessarily heard of a honeymoon registry before, so we did have to field a lot of questions, but once people understood the concept, they were totally on board with it! A lot of people said that they wanted to give us something that we really wanted, to which we replied that what we wanted most of all was the trip of a lifetime! We had three categories of gift on our registry: the necessities (hotels, transportation, airfare and meals), the must-do's (excursions we knew we would be doing regardless of whether somebody actually bought them for us) and the VIP perks (things we would love to do but didn't have the budget for, like upgrades and fancy massages).

I would like to note that we did not expect our guests to finance an extravagant honeymoon - we had already paid in full for all of our accommodations, flights and meals months in advance. However, having a honeymoon registry allowed us to take our trip to the next level, and thanks to our guests' generosity, we were able to do every single activity on our list, which we wouldn't have been able to do otherwise.  The really unique excursions (like the underwater safari and the private beach picnic) and romantic massages were the first to get bought up because people want to feel like they're buying a unique experience. Another thing we noticed was that items with less "chunks" had more success. For instance, the dolphin swim was one of the pricier items on the list, so we split it up into six chunks, but only one actually got purchased. I guess people don't want to feel like they're giving you only a small part of a bigger present, they want to give you the whole thing! The least popular item on the registry was airfare. From the necessities list, romantic meals were a huge hit with our foodie set of guests. Another surprisingly popular item was nights in our private overwater bungalow! It goes to show: people want to buy you something different and special (and an overwater bungalow screams Bora Bora).


Snapshot of our honeymoon registry/ Image via Honeyfund.com

I know some naysayers claim that a honeyfund is basically a glorified way of asking for cash. I guess that's true in a sense, but it's more personal than cash since you get to bid on a specific item. We also promised ourselves that we would only use the money for what it had been intended and earmarked each gift for the activity our guest had purchased. We would have felt dishonest taking the money and doing something else with it. For this reason, plan your trip ahead of time and don't over-register! It can be tempting to put everything you want on the registry, but keep in mind how long each activity takes and prioritize the ones you would really love to do.  It would be terribly disappointing for your guests to buy you something and find out later that you used the money for something else. This is the reason why we included things that were already paid for, like the hotel rooms, in our registry. This way, guests who wanted to contribute to the honeymoon could still do so even after the more unique excursions had gotten bought up.  You can also heavily hint as to what activities you're really looking forward to doing if you want to make sure those get bought first.

At Mrs. Blue Whale's suggestion, we also took a list of the gifts with us on our honeymoon and took the time to think about each person and mentally thank them as we were enjoying their gift. We also made sure to take lots of pictures and will include a printed picture of us enjoying the activity in our thank you cards. We hope our guests will love seeing us actually enjoying their presents!

After all was said and done, cash gifts were still the most popular option with our guests. Out of 150 guests, 45 gifted us cash, 36 bought something on the honeymoon registry, 10 bought something from the Linen Chest registry and 8 people gave us random other presents that we hadn't registered for, and a few people dropped off a box of fresh Wyoming air ;). I hate to admit that as lovely as they were, we're still struggling to find room for some of these registry items in our tiny downtown apartment two months after our wedding! Also, a fun fact: the award for most unique present goes to Brother GM, who bought us stock.

Personal image

Next up: we go to Bora Bora, so get your towels ready, it's about to go down!
Did you use a honeymoon registry? Why or why not?

Sugar Pie, Honey Moon

Mr. Waterfall and I have been planning our dream honeymoon since we were just a couple of crazy 18-year old kids. We would fantasize about taking a trip around the world, visiting every city that was named after either of us. Of course, ain't nobody got time for that... vacation time, that is! Or, you know... MONEY, for that matter. But the point is, we had given our honeymoon a lot of thought.

As we got older, we started seriously considering Europe. For the longest time, my dream honeymoon destination was actually Italy. I've had a major fascination with Ancient Rome my whole life (did you know they had flushable toilets?) and actually minored in Classics in college and took Italian for over a year. I could just picture us walking hand in hand in the Piazza Navona, eating gelato, or snuggling in a Gondola in Venice while a gondolier serenated us. Delicious food and wine... gorgeous romantic sights... what more could you want for the perfect honeymoon?

Well, after giving it some serious thought, we did a complete 180 and opted for a totally relaxing, beachy honeymoon instead! Last summer, we went to an all-inclusive resort in Cuba for a week and it was just the vacation we needed. It was Mr. Waterfall's first time at the ocean, and he loved it! As much as we loved Europe, there is just so much to see and do that we would have felt guilty sleeping in and lounging instead of taking in all the sights and museums. We knew we wanted a destination that offered lots of relaxation and pampering with spectacular beaches. We also wanted to go somewhere neither of us had been before, somewhere we might not go otherwise... a one in a lifetime trip. We both love travelling, and we still plan to see the world, one vacation at a time, so we wanted our honeymoon trip to stand out from the rest. One night, we were sitting on our couch and decided to yell out our ideal honeymoon destination on the count of three: One...two...three... BORA BORA.

image via Hilton Bora Bora

After some initial research, we were super bummed out by the prices, and started looking at different alternatives. I spent a good month Googling things like "cheap Bora Bora" to no avail; I was a woman on a mission!. I had all but given up when I mentioned it to Papi Waterfall, who must have been a travel agent in a previous life. My parents are huge travellers who go away every year to a different location and my dad spends months looking for the best possible deals on air fare and hotels. He asked if I would mind him taking over my research and by this point, I was so discouraged that I was seriously glad to have it taken off my hands. A few months later, he called me in the middle of a work day to tell me he'd found an amazing deal and we had to act fast. I spent the rest of the day on the phone with Mr. W, my dad, and the travel agency, and we had our honeymoon booked that same night! I still can't believe the amazing deal Papi Waterfall found! We also set up a honeymoon registry (more on that later), which significantly helped us, and our guests were thrilled to send us on our dream honeymoon.

We booked 2 nights at the Intercontinental in Moorea, followed by 5 nights in our very own overwater bungalow in Bora Bora and it was seriously amazing! I cannot wait to tell you guys all about it.

Waterfalls in Bora Bora/ personal photo

Where are you honeymooning?

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