a wedding related post, dun dun dun

I've been thinking I should post about the wedding planning process for awhile now since I'd like to have some memory of it in a few years, but have been far too lazy. December can do that to a person. Tonight we went to see "Seven Pounds" and one of the previews just happened to be for "Bride Wars" and it pushed me over the edge.

I know, I know, this movie is supposed to be funny because it's so over the top and ridiculous, but I just can't get behind re-enforcing and even encouraging the trend for crazy, over the top, weddings that have nothing to do with getting married and everything to do with status and showing off.

Right after (and who am I kidding, before) we got engaged I started looking at wedding blogs & websites for ideas for our wedding. It didn't take me long to figure out this is essentially the female equivalent of porn. It's just all so pretty! I mean, who doesn't love a perfectly decorated room, with matching linens, gorgeous centerpieces, matching letter pressed menus and a "lounge" area with new furniture and accessories. If you're not careful, you could even start to believe that this is totally normal and even expected for a wedding.

Until you make up your budget of course. Make up your budget and then figure out just what that dollar amount gets you in wedding-land. If your budget looks anything like ours, it's not a whole heck of a lot. The real brain blowing part comes when you try and calculate what the cost of these "Real Weddings" featured across the interweb must be. This part, this is where my brain explodes. These "Real Weddings" rarely come with a price tag less that $50 000, and I think in many cases that's a very conservative estimate.

Not only do they cost ridiculous amounts of money, but they are all about "the invitations," "the cake," "the florals," etc. There's a piece of the trailer for "Bride Wars" where the vendor for the hotel asks both brides if they'd like to consult their husbands to be about the date they are choosing for their weddings and with barely a hesitation both girls give a firm N-O. Because clearly the fantasy wedding that happens at the Plaza after receiving the ginormous Tiffany's ring clearly has nothing to do with their husbands at all. They are simply another accessory that will be perfectly decorated for the day.

I don't know how anyone justifies spending the equivalent of a serious down payment on a home on one day. There are some who say if you have it to spend then why not, and I agree with this to a certain extent. I understand being too lazy to shop around, too busy to do some things yourself, but the sheer waste on one day still doesn't make any sense - especially when many couple put themselves into serious debt for their weddings. We all know where those $3000 invites wind up, and just how many days does $5000 worth of flowers last for anyway?

Don't get me wrong, we are putting some effort into making things look pretty. It is however, more comparable to the kind of pretty you'd make your table for Christmas or someone's birthday, just slightly larger scale. Also, I love paper, so the whole "need to make invites" thing is right up my alley to obsess over - just not in the $3000 obsess kind of way. But what am I really expending all my wedding related brain energy on? How to have a ceremony that's meaningful to us. How to spend as much time as possible with our guests. How to properly celebrate with those people who are close to us the commitment to one another that we are making, the beginning of our married lives and just how much we appreciate the support from everyone present that helped us to this point. Oh yes, and of course, how to do this on budget.

You see, I can't help but think that if we thought a little bit more about the marriage, and a little less about the wedding our marriages on the whole would be a little more successful. Or at least that's what I'm hoping for.

tales of engagement

I had absolutely no idea how wonderful getting engaged would be.  I mean, I knew it would be a pretty fabulous event in the lives of H and I, but I neglected to imagine just how excited everyone else would be for us.  There was a whole lot of congratulations, hugging, screaming, and even some happy crying going on.  If you combine all that with the whole actually being engaged (!) thing, yeah, pretty awesome.

One group of people who I didn't expect to be excited or even really care was my students.  I knew some of the girls would be excited, but as a whole I just assumed my engagement would go largely unnoticed.  Boy was I wrong.

It was adorable.  My grade 10s had already heard from another teacher, and they entered class Wednesday practically dying of curiosity.  Student after student entered offering congratulations and wanting to know all about it.  Even the boys were totally interested in all the details.  They wanted to know all about H, all about our wedding/life plans (I was continually reminding them that we had just gotten engaged, and no, have not planned out the next 5 years of our life), all about colours, dresses, family, you name it.

At some point in the conversation they asked me if I was going to change my name.  I answered that yes, I was planning on changing my name (groans all around at the prospect of having to call me something different).  So of course they wanted to know what my new name would be.  I told them.  Another questions was asked, and then one boy put up his hand and very sheepishly asked

"Mme, what kind is he?"

I just about fell off my chair laughing, as did the rest of the class.  Several students admitted they were trying to think of a polite way to ask the exact same question.  After I stopped laughing we had a mini history lesson on H's family history, which concluded with another kid exclaiming in an exasperated tone,

"You guys, he's brown!"

I suggested they maybe needed to request some supplementary vocabulary from their history teacher as it's clear it's lacking...  Then I remembered who their history teacher was, and could imagine myself having this exact same conversation with him so, I suppose that explains a lot!

the terms of engagement

This past Tuesday marks an awfully special day - the day H decided to ask me to be his wife!  Of course I (quickly!) has to ask myself if I really wanted to spend the rest of my life with someone who:

• brings me supper every Thursday when I am working.
• has a mother who insists on filling our fridge with food at every available opportunity.
• makes me put my clothes away.
• plans and cooks fabulous meals several times a week.
• suggested we take ballroom dancing together.
• is wonderful to travel with.
• wants to travel.
• re-watches movies a billion times, no matter how terrible they were the first time.
• makes my lunch.
• watches all "my" tv shows with me, even the ones involving dancing.
• uses google calendar for everything - including things like picking up our dry-cleaning.
• washes the dishes at least once a day.
• likes all my friends and family.
• always gets blog posts done faster than me.
• takes care of me when I am sick.
• indulges in my need to pretend to budget.
• bought me season tickets to Persephone just a month after we started dating.
• insists on having no less than 30 bottles of wine on hand at any given time.
• has fabulous friends who have welcomed me into their circle from day 1.
• is always up for a concert, a ballet, a walk, and anything really.
• is worth getting up 20 mins early to go for breakfast with.
• listens to me blabber on and on and on and on about my job.
• supports me unconditionally.
• puts my water glass away before I'm done with it about 3 times a day.
• cracks his knuckles constantly, even when he sleeps.
• tells me he loves me before we fall asleep every night, when we wake up every morning, and multiple times a day.
• is so much more than to me than I can express in a bulleted list.

The answer of course is YES.  Yes I want to be your wife, yes I want to spend the rest of my life with you, yes this post is way to sappy.

Clear your calendars for Oct 3, 2009 folks, that's the day I will officially be a wife!

some random observations about the windy city

H did such a bang up job blogging about the rest of our time downtown I'm going to save myself some time and suggest you go read it here. We totally didn't pay that much attention to detail when we were there - our handy dandy Go Chicago! books filled in some details I think. Instead of paraphrasing I'll take some time to share some of the quirky things we noticed while in Chicago.

The first thing I noticed were the French people everywhere! Les francais, les quebecois, they all seem to have been visiting at the same time as us. I'm not sure what exactly makes Chicago such a hot spot for the French inclined, but it was sort of fun hearing them everywhere we went.

Also, and I'm sure I was supposed to know this and not be surprised by it at all, was the number of black people in Chicago. Yes, this is probably like me being surprised by the number of Asians in Vancouver, or Ukrainians in Saskatchewan but sometimes I forget things while I'm busy living under my little rock.  Visually seen, about 50% of Chicago's population is black.  Nifty.  

People of all races are stupid over Apple stuff. I am a lover of almost everything Apple makes. I own a nano, a macbook, and if my budget allowed I would likely own many more toys from the Apple family. I however, cannot understand how every single time we walked past the Apple store there was a huge lineup just to get in the store. I understand why Apple would want to limit the number of people in their store (hello Vegas Apple Store, you could take a hint here) but I don't understand why you would stand in line to look at stuff you can buy at any larger chain store. Unless of course they give out cookies while you shop, then I would totally understand (and be a little sad I didn't stand in line.)

Marketing has really been taken to the next level in the States.  Wednesday morning before we got started we were too full for breakfast but were looking for a coffee before we headed to the museum.  There was an ING cafe right across the street from our hotel so it seemed easiest.  This cafe totally did its job of making me want to bank with ING.  The baristas and *insert name of male equivalent of barista here* were actually all bankers in disguise.  Friendly  - and one French - bankers.  They cut their schpeel on ING rather short when they realized we couldn't become customers, but they were still super nice and even offered to let us use the free internet.  As we were doctoring up our coffees a regular customer came in for coffee and they knew her name and what she wanted to order.  If my bank wanted to buy me coffee everyday I think I could get behind that!

So I think I should wrap this up here as it's taken me two weeks to finish this post...  I'm definitely looking forward to returning to Chicago and would highly recommend it as an American holiday.  Ok, done now.

downtown - day 1

Tuesday morning we awoke fairly early to catch the 930 train into the city. I knew we had started our trip off right when the train showed up on the opposite platform we were standing on - we had to book it with our luggage over to the other side Amazing Race style. To be fair we were in better shape than the several families with young kids and strollers and the elderly couple to be making such a dash. The train has (likely several) "conductors" on it to sell you your tickets - he was fabulously cliche as he hollered "ALL ABOARD" and patrolled his cars reprimanding teenagers and punching tickets in his conductors cap.

We arrived without other incident at Ogilvie Station and took a cab to our hotel not wanting to deal with walking or public transit and our luggage. We stayed at the Sofitel Water Tower Hotel and were very pleasantly surprised to find our rooms ready for us way before check in time. Our room was pretty crazy - the bathroom was about the same size as the room itself and was 80% marble. The bathtub and shower were separate and there was a speakerphone by the toilet. No saving the planet here by reusing your towels either - they didn't just replace them daily, but twice daily! Once in the am and then as needed at turndown. Seemed a little excessive, but it was fun that they cleaned up the bathroom so often.

As soon as we had ditched our bags and found a restaurant to have a reasonable lunch at (not our hotel!) it was time for our sightseeing extravaganza to commence. We underestimated distances a bit while planning - my guess at a 30min walk turned out to be much closer to 45. Tired of searching for the planetarium, we stopped to take in the Shedd Aquarium. Chicago only appears to do one size - huge. The sheer size of the place was likely the most impressive part, maybe I'm getting cynical, but between Marine Land and the Biodome there wasn't really anything new to see in terms of species or display. We also missed the dolphin show not realizing that they only block off the majority of the entrances to the viewing area but not all. We did run into the people sitting in front of us on the train on the way in to town proving that no matter where you go it's bound you run into someone.

After the Aquarium, we were up for continuing our walk to the Adler Planetarium. It didn't hurt that we clearly saw the planetarium from the inside of the aquarium and were much more confident that we could finish up the last 5 minutes of the walk. The Adler Planetarium was also gianormous with several theatres (two with domes) and all sorts of exhibits and things to see. We rested our feet and took in two shows - one on the seasonal stars above Chicago and one on cosmic collisions. We didn't spend a tonne of time looking at the exhibits as we closed the museum down and they didn't seem too keen on extending their hours for us. The planetarium boasts the best view of the downtown, so we hung out appreciating the skyline and just how far we had walked before hopping on a bus back to the Water Tower area.

This was really the only day we figured we'd have any time to do any shopping, so we started by hitting up Michigan Ave - The Magnificent Mile as they call it. Neither of us had much luck, so we headed over to Macy's since Jeff raved about it on their trip to NY. I've always thought I hated department stores, Macy's solidified my hatred for the gigantic monsters. Unless you're looking for homestuff or make-up, finding anything amongst the 8 floors is just way too frustrating for me. Macy's organises everything by brand instead of by type of clothes. Seriously? You want me to peruse 6 floors of women's apparel for a dress without even sort of grouping like styles of clothes together? As if. H had a little more luck in the adjoining mall and picked up some shirts at Abercrombie and Hollister. I have no idea what they make their shirts out of, but the fabric feels like heaven.

Our last mission of the day was to find someplace to eat. This seemed like it would be a pretty simple task since we were staying in a very busy area. Oh right, simple things rarely are while on vacation. We walked for ages, stopping at every restaurant we saw to look at the menu - it all looked delicious and was priced accordingly. It also all seemed to follow the HUGE rule. The size of the steaks on people's plates as we walked by? About the same size as my head. We also saw a couple with a quarter of a carrot cake, not a short one either, one of those totally ridiculous 4 full layer cakes. Not really what we were looking for... I finally convinced H that the Cheesecake Factory we saw right at the beginning of our trek would have something reasonable and delicious for supper. Not wanting cheesecake for supper he was pretty skeptical, but happily it didn't disappoint. It was huge, but reasonably priced, and H even said it was the best burger he's ever eaten. Point - me. Of course our waiter convinced us to share a dessert and we left to pack it in for the night feeling uncomfortably full.

suburbia here we come!

So we've had an awesome time so far during our trip. H has really been showing me up in the blog department - no real surprise, but he likely has the nanny to thank for finding him some spare moments to update and to edit his photos.

We have been staying in the picturesque town of St. Charles - a suburb of Chicago which boasts rather large, very gorgeous houses that have small parks as backyards. It helps that no one here has fences, and there seem to be pretty strict rules about yard upkeep. Even the houses that are empty and for sale only have weeds in the flower beds and the lawns are still mowed. I'm pretty sure I'd fail the test that lets you into the neighbourhood based on my gardening skills alone.

It's been a bit of a shock to the system to be staying in a house with three kids under the age of 6 - they never stop! To their credit they are insanely cute and aren't nearly as devilish as their mother makes out. This likely half due to the fact that we're new faces and they just LOVE playing with us and half due to the fact that this is temporary so it's okay to have three kids using us as human jungle gyms for a couple days. Since none of the kids have met me before, they seem to be especially smitten with having a girl to play with - you know, between getting scared by their uncle and watching Mickey's Christmas. Until today the youngest (just turned 2) was calling us both "mit-chel" when asked who we were. Tonight when going to bed he did say goodnight to his "Uncle Month" - secretly I hope "mit-chel" sticks.

Since we arrived on Friday, we got a chance to do some family friendly tourist things on the weekend. Saturday everyone but the youngest packed up to go to the Museum of Science and Industry. The Museum is so massive there's an entire airplane and the captured German U boat, among other things, right in the museum. The girls' favourite part by far was the kitchen galley in the sub.  After the museum we drove around downtown a little bit - past Obama's house, through the hood, and to Oprah's studio.

On Sunday we packed the whole family up and headed to the Kane County Fair. The weather was a little intense - these crazy brown people seem to forget that us fairer folk get a little crispy when out in the 30 degree heat for several hours! We started off looking at the animals and taking the kids to the petting zoo where we almost had a casualty when one of the girls got taken out by a couple of goats. After we had an awesome time taking the kids on the rides. I think I'd forgotten how lame most of the little little kids rides are - different vehicles moving either in a circular or oval pattern. Watching them try out some of the more "grown up" rides was hilarious - mostly because of how concerned H and his sister were while the girls were having a total blast screaming and waving their arms around.

Monday everyone was back to work, including the nanny so H and I had a relaxed morning and then went to a nearby box mall to try and find some sandals since I had failed in this mission before leaving home. We went several places, and were eventually successful - I managed to find a pair of flip flops at DSW that I thought would be comfortable enough to make it through our trip into the city. I also might have developed a little crush on a store called Crate and Barrel which sells all sorts of things I don't actually need but sure do think are pretty (and sometimes practical, you know, for those occasions in my life I need a punch bowl). Monday evening we just hung out and visited. H also pulled out his "big camera" (I'm not the only who complains he's always got that thing in my face!) and got some fabulous pics of his nieces and nephew before we headed off.

All in all a very successful visit to Suburbia!

beware my single friends

My mother may try to set you up on a blind date. She won't ask what I think or anything, she will just contact you out of the blue with a gentleman in mind. People will talk to people, and before you know it you'll be going on a blind bowling double date with my mother and her boyfriend. Don't get me wrong, my maman and her gentleman friend are swell people. Going on a date with my mom? That seems all kinds of wrong.

Giddy from hearing this hilarious news, I had to contact Rach ASAP. I have yet to contact HAS, the subject of my mom's scheming, to find out full details. As Rach and I giggled and squealed over this delicious bit of gossip (which is only going to get better, I just know it). Rach had some very pertinent questions.
1) HAS agreed to this?
2) your mother knows single young men?
3) a double blind date with your mom and her man?
4) is her tumour back?

I think number 4 sums it all up folks...