J&M got Maui'd!

Maggie says... This has been a great month for wedding planning because it finally feels like the wedding is coming together! When I was in school, I always loved the feeling of crossing/checking items off my to-do list: - Flights booked - Accommodations booked - Photographer booked - Wedding-bands ordered - Meet with seamstress and get measured for alterations Jenning, myself, his mom, and her friends went with us to meet a Goldsmith today. I was referred to her by two co-workers who recently purchased rings from her. I had no idea what to expect as I wasn't sure if her workshop was going to be like a flea market type of set up with a bunch of other vendors. I had no idea what she looked like as we had only communicated by phone up to today. We got to the building, and into a tiny elevator and only realized we were meeting each other when we were getting off the elevator together. Her suite was super tiny, so all 6 of us were cramped into a tiny room. She didn't have a lot of ...

Finally! We booked our flights and accomodations last weekend, which is a great relief. We will be working on the rest of the wedding planning and making more updates as plans unravel.

Maggie says... Last weekend, the bridal team finally went shopping for bridesmaid dresses. First we headed out to Sears in Yorkdale because Jean had seen a nice dress on their flyer. When we got there, we found out that they didn't have the dresses in stock, so the sales associate took my info and said she would call me once it was ordered. We then headed to David's bridal, which just opened in Canada last month. Apparently, you need to book an appointment ahead of time so we didn't get to try any dresses out since all the change rooms and associates were busy. The dresses were definately more expensive than the U.S. stores and website. We left the store and headed a few doors down to Winners, I didn't think we'd find anything but I was up for some regular shopping. Similar to when I went for the first time to buy my wedding gown, I didn't expect us to find anything, but surprisingly, we were able to find the bridesmaid dresses there. Since Jean is a shopaholic,...

Maggie's non-wedding related encounter... This entry is non-wedding related, but I thought I should post it because I have encountered this a few times in my life and find it 'interesting and frustrating'. I attended a workshop a couple of weeks ago and ended up sitting next to a fellow Chinese co-worker I just met. This was our conversation: Co-worker (CW): Are you Chinese? Me: Yes CW: Do you speak Cantonese? Me: No CW: Do you speak Mandarin? Me: No CW: But you are Chinese, how come you don't speak Chinese? Me: I speak Hakka. Do you speak Hakka? CW: No Me: You're Chinese, why don't _you_ speak Hakka? CW: No further response I find it interesting the number of times I meet Chinese individuals who seem to think that every Chinese person on earth speaks Mandarin or Cantonese; and if you don't speak either dialect, then shame on you and/or your parent for not teaching you. I find it effortful to try to explain to these individuals that there are...

Maggie says... In case any of you didn't read the what's new/welcome page entries, we contacted the Ritz Carlton wedding coordinators today and have officially changed our wedding date to Tuesday, December 27th, 2011. These last few weeks have been very slow in terms of wedding planning. A group of us are still waiting for airlines to quote group rates for flights! According to WestJet, we're still early if you can believe it. We still haven't heard back from Air Canada. This makes it frustrating because we can't book our accomodations (which involves an even larger group, some who have already booked their flights individually). I am really learning that patience is a virtue. I am also crossing my fingers and toes that with the date change, we are still going to the our 1st choice photographer (Scott Drexler). A few weekends ago, we went shopping in Buffalo, and I helped my mom find a colourful dress for our oceanfront wedding ceremony. I also found really cute sho...

Jenning says.. So after looking into our options, we have determined that we may have to change the date of the wedding to take into account the new Christmas break schedule that was released a little while ago. We are still looking at other options so that we can keep our current wedding date, but just to be safe, do not book anything until we get final confirmation on what is going on. Hopefully this will be in the next week or so, as we are now in March and the wedding is less than ten months away! (Delayed or not.)

Jenning says.. We just found out that the Peel district school board has set their winter break to start on the 26th this year. This can pose a problem for those people who want to come to the wedding!