Thursday, June 30, 2005

shower fun

My friend Jamie hosted my Florida bridal shower last weekend. It was a really wonderful party. She and my friend Diana (of Indu-Zari Henna) did a lot of work to make it special. They decorated Jamie's entire house in an exotic Morrocan/Indian style. Diana made a fruit plate and a batch of cookies, all decorated with henna patterns in icing, chocolate and caramel. During the party, my friend Alina did my hair in "tribal goddess" style, and Diana did henna on me and on other shower guests. We also had a selection of videos for the night: Kama Sutra, Devdas, and Bellydance Divas. Thankfully, no silly shower games!

My friends gave me lots of nice gifts, and it was nice to be "princess for a night." No one has really ever thrown me a party before...someone I used to be friendly with tried to give me a 30th birthday party, but the idea unfortunately backfired. Needless to say I'm feeling really fortunate and thankful to have such thoughtful, fun people in my life right now. I don't know how I would have survived living in Florida without them!

You can see an online picture album from the shower by clicking here.

As Michael wrote below, we're more than a little unhappy that the postal system has conspired to ruin some of the invitations we sent out. Strangely, most of Michael's friends and family say their invitations were destroyed, while the people I've asked on my side say theirs are fine! I'm not sure what's going on here, but it's upsetting--especially considering that the post office worker here assured us that they would get special handling. I guess between USPS and good old Canada Post we should have expected it though. Anyway, we will be making more invitations, and if anyone whose mailing was damaged would like one, we'll be more than happy to hand-deliver on on before the day.

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

My search for a wedding shirt is over!

Well, I finally found a shirt to wear for the wedding! We tried in vain looking for one ten days ago at Broward Mall but had no luck. My trips to the Middle East and Thailand had influenced me to want a light colored banded collar (collarless) shirt with no front buttons. A few days later a work colleague told me to visit an East Indian clothing store. So we went there last weekend. They had a small men's section that contained nice attire with neat trimmings and embroidery. They were all very nice but unfortunately they were all full length gowns. I wouild have bought a shirt if they had had any in stock. See our March 16th entry for a photo of the gown I wore to the Bollywood event.

So we proceeded to the Sawgrass Outlet Mall and looked in a few stores. We entered one store and, in desperation, asked a clerk if they had banded collar shirts. She replied, "if we do then they will be on our discount rack." We finally saw our first banded collar shirt but unfortunately it was black. The clerk told us that they're not in style. I find that strange since I think it looks quite fashionable and it is such a refreshing change from the staid Western styled collared button up shirt. I had bought two banded collar shirts when I lived in Spokane ten years ago and I got many compliments from people. I should have bought more!

By this time I was beginning to get a bit despondent. Then we approached the Banana Republic store so we walked in and went to the men's section. I finally ound a rack with a few white banded collar shirts and my heart immediately leapt! Amidst the small sized ones I found an XL and tried it on. It fit perfectly and was exactly what I wanted. The shirt is called a linen banded-collar pullover shirt. To quote the store's website it's "designed in the lightest linen weave, this cool summer layer is a generous fit with a classic banded collar and buttonless placket for simple, unconstricted style. Pintucked detail adds a refined touch. 100% linen, banded collar, button cuffs and straight hem. It's also imported but I don't know from where. Plus it was on sale for only $38.00! I was relieved and I hadn't spent this much time looking for men's clothing in my life. I tried the shirt on at home with my darker colored vest that I bought in Turkey. Not sure which dark pants to wear but I will likely wear my shiny Florsheim shoes.

Last bit of news is that everyone that I've talked with has mentioned that their wedding invitation has been severly damaged in the mail. We're livid about this and especially with the American Postal service. The post office told us to pay extra for domestic mail so that the cards wouldn't go through the sorting rollers. We had even packed bubble wrap in the envelope. All to no avail. So far nobody I know received their invitation intact. Two people told me that their card had a hole punched completely though the card while others said that the little ball had detached. Only after I described what the invitation was to look like did they realize that their card was missing either the little ball and/or the bow. Another prime example of the horrible mail service. Luckily we bought enough material so Darcy can make extra invitations for guests who want a pristine copy. Anybody want a copy?

Friday, June 17, 2005

Overdue for an entry!

No, I haven't been deliberately avoiding posting an entry! I feel badly about not writing in ages but it's also been the case with my personal blog. Darcy and I agree that it's unfortunate that in many ways the wedding planning has taken a backseat to planning our lives together past next year. I guess it's hard to focus on one day (our wedding) when we aren't sure where we are going to be in a year from now! Plus there's no frame of reference since the wedding won't take place where we're living. We've done some planning and organizing that Darcy has mentioned previously. One thing I need to do now is find something to wear! I sort of have an idea but don't know where to look. I guess I'll try looking online first.

One big thing we still need to do is arrange the music. I have a lot of Middle Eastern tracks on my RealOne player. We have plenty of music at home too and just need to burn a couple of *Best Of...* CDs. It was a little dicey for a while but my brother and his wife were able to get plane tickets for the Big Day. They fly up July 28 and leave August 7. We've appreciated the help from Darcy's parents too so far. So things continue to move along slowly but surely. Which reminds me - I need to add a few expenditures to our wedding spreadsheet....

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Flurry of activity

Invitations. are. out! Finally!

I finished decorating them on Sunday night. We mailed them on Monday morning. Hopefully the stitching will hold and they will all arrive intact!

We also finished working on our ceremony, and sent the text to our officiant, Pam. She says she really likes it, so that's a relief! We have tentatively set up the rehearsal for 5pm the day before.

My mom is going to go to Hole's Greenhouses on Wednesday to talk about flowers. We don't really need too many, I don't think, besides a bouquet for me and boutennierres/corsages for our family members. I gave her a picture of the kind of thing that I like--something loose and informal looking in white and green--something like this picture, maybe. Michael used to work at Hole's, so it would be fitting for us to go there. We're also talking about food and decorating.

Who knows, this thing may actually come together after all!

Saturday, June 11, 2005

a shower in the forecast

I had not thought that anyone would do this for me, but my friend Jamie has decided to host a bridal shower later this month. Even better, she's arranged for my friend Diana to do henna at the party! Diana is a wonderful artist, and I love henna, so this should be a great evening. I'm really looking forward to it. Thanks Jamie!

Of course, this has necessitated a shorter deadline on populating our wedding registry. So I've had fun picking out things in Crate and Barrel, and the amazon.com one should grow as well. Not that I expect we'll be getting everything on there, but once you get into it picking things out is actually kind of fun.

Invitations have not been finished yet, but they should be soon--I'm hoping to get the decorations done this weekend. I'm pretty sure just about everyone on our guest list knows when and where anyway--one of the advantages of having a small party. Michael has arranged for some really nice wedding favours, too--handmade by someone he knows at work.

Hard to believe it's coming up so soon!