Wedding Story-Part 2

So, after our first wedding in Germany, we jetted off to Vancouver the next morning for our second wedding (6 days afterwards) in Vancouver. Of course we had a lot of things to get done, sights to see with out of town guests and wedding details to finish, on top of all the mishaps that were coming up.

The day of the wedding went by way too fast. It was a Friday afternoon wedding, traditional Canadian/American schedule and thinking back, we would have definitely planned it longer than what we had. We had around 100 guests (I have a very big family) and in the 6 hours we had for the wedding, it didn't seem like we had enough time to greet everyone the way we wanted.

The day started with hair and makeup with the girls, and shortly before the ceremony my husband and I met for more first look photos, it was still really nice, since I had a different dress and a veil (which I didn't have in Germany) but wasn't as special as the first time he saw me in my wedding dress. We had photos done on the beach and around the venue before the guests arrived. The ceremony started at 6:00 and was quite short -exactly what we wanted. The weather was perfect, which can be difficult if you've been to Vancouver before, you know it ALWAYS rains there; and since we were having an outdoor wedding, it could have turned ugly. But we were lucky and had wonderful weather. After the ceremony we had a cocktail hour while we took pictures with our family. Then we had dinner, speeches and ended the night with a lot of dancing! Again, we didn't want the night to end, but we were more than excited to go on our honeymoon the next day!

Again, as there are so many wonderful moments that happened, I will leave it to the pictures to describe it.

Stay tuned for a wedding detail post which will be just about the decor, outfits and food and drink details we decided.

xo

Surprise!

After all of our wedding bonanza (Part 2, and honeymoon yet to come) we arrived back in Germany ready to start our lives as a married couple -all to be completely taken down with what I thought was a serious case of jet lag!

I spent about a week in bed, trying to keep my eyes open, running to the washroom, and just feeling exhausted in general. My husband was getting frustrated with me and kept telling me to see a doctor if I was truly that sick, my intuition told me I had something else coming. But, of course, I would have to wait 2 more weeks to find out. That weekend (after I told my husband I thought I was pregnant and he told me that I was crazy, we wouldn't be that lucky to get pregnant that fast) we bought some at home pregnancy tests. When we came home I put them away, knowing that I would have to wait a few more weeks for them to be accurate, that night, I couldn't help myself, I had to see. I went to the washroom without telling my husband what I was doing. Did my business and felt disappointed that I would have to wait 5-10 minutes for something to appear. After about 30 seconds I noticed it was positive. I could not believe it! I started dancing, smiling from ear to ear and just felt completely smitten. I debated (for about 30 seconds) how to tell my husband. I went into the bedroom, asked him if we could talk in the most serious face I could make and told him it was positive. His smile was the biggest I have ever seen it (close to our wedding day) and we hugged each other and were so excited for the next chapter!

I am now 32 weeks pregnant and we are expecting a little boy at the end of January. We were so shocked that it happened so fast and are beyond excited to welcome our little boy.

Be on the lookout for pregnancy tips and stories in the weeks to come. Think, work out routines, discussing vitamins, the not so great things of pregnancy, diet discussion, and tips for other moms-to-be. I can't wait to share this journey with you!

Blissful Bloopers

Having two weddings means having twice the opportunities for things to go wrong! My mindset with planning the weddings was to have everything as detailed as possible so everyone knew what they had to do when (I'm talking down to the last minute -thank you type A personality). I thought that having such detailed plans would mean that I'd be able to relax on the days of the weddings knowing I did everything I could to organize them; and that's exactly what I did!

Of course, nothing went off without a hitch and they just happen to be some of our favorite memories from our weddings.

Lets start from the beginning. My mother called me crying 3 days before she was to fly to Germany, to inform me that she had broken her foot and was in a cast, and a wheelchair. My first thought was that she wouldn't be able to fly, seeing as it usually causes swelling and I knew that wouldn't be good. She was a trooper and came, only needed to be wheeled around for the 2 weeks she was here, and, well, having to be photographed in a cast in one of the most photographed days of our lives. She also, unfortunately, was uncomfortable for most of the wedding activities and couldn't dance -but otherwise, we were all just happy she was there.

At the wedding in Germany, nearly nothing went wrong except for running a little behind (the hairdressers fault). Overall it went very smoothly, thanks to my meticulous planning -thank you OCD.

However, a few short hours after the wedding, taking a cab to the airport with some wedding guests, we jinxed ourselves by talking about how smoothly everything had gone and how easy it was because after our first flight, it all went down hill.

This story is one for the books, and trust me, I am not exaggerating it! We all met at the airport at 10 in the morning after the wedding (10 of us -2 more were joining us at our layover in Munich) and were eager to get to Canada. We got our first flight from Dresden to Munich and I played some musical chairs between my mom and husband to make sure my mom was okay. As we were landing, my husband said that we were short on time and in order to catch our connecting flight we would have to hurry. So I was trying my best to make sure my mom had assistance and we had a wheelchair as soon as we landed. We all gathered our carry on bags, wheelchair and guests and darted to customs to get through as fast as possible. When we got to customs I realized... I FORGOT MY PASSPORT ON THE PLANE. We handed my mom (in wheelchair) over to our friends, with our carry on bags and everything so we could manage to run through the airport to get there faster. Everyone went through customs and we darted to the service counter (30 minutes left to spare before our flight, now with other guests, left). We waited 10 minutes (it felt like an eternity) for the man at the counter to tell us that they found it, but they weren't sure if we would get it in time for our flight. So we had to wait (another 10 minutes) and finally he said that my passport was on the other side of customs, waiting at gate 32B. So, my husband had to get through customs, while I waited on the other side, get my passport and throw it over to me to go through customs. He went threw and I started pacing, with 10 minutes left before our flight, with our guests, and our luggage, including my wedding dress departed. After 8 minutes, someone came up to me and handed me my passport, wait what? My husband was on the other side looking for it?? -Meanwhile he had been running from gate 32B to 32A to 24B to 25A who all told him they didn't have it the next counter did.

After I got my passport I budged through the line up to get through customs. I ran, literally as fast as I could to gate 32B (remembering this is where he was supposed to be) and started yelling and waving my arms like a crazy person to inform my husband I had it and we needed to bolt to our gate 37A.

We ran there, handed them our passports and they asked where my boarding card was.. uhm, on the other plane where my passport was. Well, they printed me a new one, we got on the plane (our guests started clapping, my mom was crying), and before we were even buckled in, the plane took off. I am not making this up! (Funny enough, my husband added in his vows that he promised to carry my passport for all of our flights haha -he still does)

Phew, we thought that was the last of the mishaps, but we were wrong.

Generally, the few days leading up to the wedding went well.

When the day before our wedding came, we packed our things to head to the hotel, upon packing, we realized, we did not have our wedding rings -they were missing from our bag. I started to cry, from all the stress and now even more, and my husband (the savior) said he would go out and buy new ones while I had a day of getting pampered. So off we went, with no further contact as my phone wasn't working (I completely smashed mine 2 days before our first wedding and hadn't had time to get a new one.) I enjoyed my day with my bridesmaids and my wonderful husband went and bought new rings. In the evening we met with our family and wedding party at the venue for the rehearsal. When we arrived, my mom was so excited to inform us, she had found the rings in her luggage with some wedding decorations. Great! We had our rings back, we just lost more money and now wasted a day, plus had 4 wedding bands. Nevertheless we had an extra glass of champagne to settle our nerves and still have the extra wedding bands sitting in the jewelry box!

So back to our rehearsal, did I mention our officiant didn't show up? So my godmother ended up conducting our 'rehearsal' it was just the icing on top of our day! We relaxed afterwards at the rehearsal dinner with a few cocktails!

On our actual wedding day, everything went according to plan. We were a little behind schedule (of course) but no major problems. 

One of the best memories I have of our wedding in Canada is the top tier flipping off our cake when we cut into it. Nothing like every single guest capturing the expression on our faces haha. My husband just picked the tier back up, plopped in on top and we still fed it to each other as if nothing had happened.

At the end of the night, we had hired limos to bring our guests back to the hotel and one at the very end to pick us up. Just after midnight some guests wanted to leave, only to have searched around the venue for an hour to find no limos. They never showed up, and we had paid in full weeks before the event. 

Yes -not only did that mean our somewhat drunken guests had to arrange rides home for themselves, but my husband and I didn't have a ride back to our hotel! Thank goodness for my godmother who generously made a few trips and brought us to our hotel (although we fell asleep in her car before we got there). 

As I said, these memories are some of our favorite and while they're not picture perfect, we laugh about them all the time. As I am a type A personality (with OCD for details) most people thought I would freak out at the slightest mishap -but I didn't, I rolled with the punches because I knew I did everything I could to avoid them (crazy detailed planning). So to all you type A brides out there, make as many detailed charts, lists and plans. Ignore the eye rolling or comments from people about your micromanaging and relax on your big day knowing you've done all you could have!!

Xo

Wedding story -Part 1

Naturally, I have to start off with a wedding recap since it is, after all, what inspired me to start 2 years ago!

Our weddings were so wonderful and crazy! First off, let me add that it wasn't just A wedding. We had guests from Canada in Germany for nearly a month (think having to sight see and be in vacation mode while doing the final touches on our weddings) then had a wedding in Germany, only to fly to Canada the day after with a dozen Germans and Canadians to do it all over again. We were in full on mode for about a month. Needless to say, our honeymoon was well deserved.

I have split the wedding posts into two posts because they deserve their own spotlight. These pictures are of our wedding in Dresden, we had around 50 guests and it was such a perfect amount, intimate and celebrated with those closest to us. My husband and I met at the church before we had the ceremony to get a few pictures, it was such a special moment for both of us. After a few pictures there we drove to the wedding venue where our guests were waiting. After the ceremony we had coffee and cake (so German) and the guests had a few activities planned while we took pictures. From there we had dinner, followed by a night FULL of dancing! I have never seen some of our friends and family let loose like they did that night. It was a blast and we truly did not want the evening to end.

Of course, there are too many details to go over in one blog post, so I will let the pictures do most of the talking. Enjoy! xo

I'm back!

Hello blog world, I am back!!

I can't believe it has taken me this long to feel the blogging itch. I guess life has just gotten in the way and I finally have inspiration again!

Needless to say, our wedding has already happened and we have had a few other surprises come about in the last year and a half, so be on the lookout for some updates!

I know I started this as a wedding blog to remember every detail about out wonderful (and whimsical) time as a newly engaged pair, but I have decided to change it up a bit. I am going to keep the name of this blog for two reasons, I think life is both wonderful and whimsical and I want to share my lifestyle with you all, second, I don't just want to forget the stories I have already posted.

So a few years from now I will be able to look back (and you with me, hopefully) and see how things have changed since January of 2014 -which seems like forever ago!

I can't wait to share so many new things with you all.

The new blog will include a wide range of topics, think, healthy (and sometimes not so healthy) recipes, fashion trends, makeup and beauty tricks, work out routines, and general life adventures!!

I am so looking forward to getting started!

xo

Our wedding

I haven't written on the blog in a long time but I have been feeling the need to write something as of late and today, I was really encouraged as my emotions about the wedding have been so overwhelming, on several aspects.

We have come so far with our wedding planning and everything has been so exciting! We have been to Dresden to arrange everything from flowers to meal plans and have almost everything figured out for the German wedding. We will go back a few times before the wedding to arrange the little details before hand of course and I cannot wait to see everything come together!

I was also in Vancouver for four weeks this summer to arrange everything for the wedding there. It was difficult not having Sven with me to make decisions. But with help from my amazing friends and my mother, I was able to do everything I had hoped and the wedding is going to be wonderful!

It is so crazy to think that we have come so far and have already been engaged for 8 months and we have only 8 more months to go! I seriously cannot wait to marry Sven and celebrate with those closest to us!

Although the wedding planning has been so exciting and fun to see our dream day come to life. It also comes with some serious headaches!

One being planning the seating. We have a maximum capacity at both venues and are about two people short of maximum capacity at both weddings, that's just with our close friends and family, no guests. Therefore, it makes it hard to figure out where everyone will go and how to say no to people when they ask if they can bring their partner (although it states on the invitations exactly who is invited).

The second thing, and this is a BIG headache, is people giving us their opinion. I of all people am one to have an opinion, but as I am an adult, I know that my opinion is not always welcome. I'm not just talking about suggesting that we have smaller center pieces or inviting that long lost cousin, I'm talking telling us that we should not have invited so and so, or that the colours that we chose are NOT suitable for weddings, or the latest, it is completely rude not to allow boyfriends or girlfriends to come to the wedding. I get it, that is your opinion, but please keep it to yourself. This is our wedding, we want the people we love most there, whether or not you like them, love them, or live with them is none of our concern. If we feel they are special to us, they will get an invitation, if not, they won't. As we are nearing maximum capacity, we want only those there who matter most to us, any partner that you would like to accompany you is more than welcome to come once the dancing starts, as we won't need to be seated anymore.

Lastly, it is irrelevant what you think of our wedding colours. It is, after all, our day and we have to do what we think will make our wedding day our dream day. Sven and I have made every decision together and we support each other's opinions and thoughts about the day, not every other persons. Of course we want our guests to have the best time at our weddings and to thoroughly enjoy themselves, but I'm sure you can still have a good time if our flowers are white and our dresses are black.

Although I strongly feel that we don't have to justify ourselves, as it is, after all, our wedding. I do feel that I have to get these thoughts out of my head, or else we will change plans all together and elope somewhere (just kidding mom..)

In the end, we cannot wait to marry each other and celebrate with all of the people we love, in both countries. These moments will not spoil the excitement of planning our wedding and we will continue do make our decisions how we have been and we are sure that our guests will have a great time at both weddings!

xo