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Tag: wedding

Today, I so cannot be arsed

Posted on September 25, 2006 By admin 7 Comments on Today, I so cannot be arsed

I admit it, I can't be arsed to do anything today. It seems that I've finally reached my limit of wedding organization and planning and doing and emailing and calling and stressing. The good thing is that it's almost done. The bad thing is that it's *not* done and I still need to do it. The stress vein on my forehead has now become my constant compation. This does not please me.

Slept like ass last night. Katy zonked out like a light, but I couldn't stop my brain from overthinking stuff and I just couldn't relax enough to fall asleep. The cat jumped on my chest and demanded some fuss, which actually helped a bit. I slept quite badly though, and the whole left side of my body is tense and sore, another sure sign I'm wound rather tightly at the moment.

Right now, I'm trying to organize the reception music, which will involve mixing and burning about 15 CDs, while at the same time re-tagging a large of Katy's MP3s so that her ipod will actually be usable. This will be brain numbing, brain damaging scut work that I hope to write code to do and prevent me from going quite mad and potentially punching a hole through the screen of my laptop. I hope.

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Rough day

Posted on September 24, 2006 By admin

Today didn't really go according to plan. I wanted to sleep in late, work on the music for the wedding and cook at a leisurely pace for dinner tonight. Instead, I had to wake up earlier than expected to go with Katy while she got various bits and bobs waxed, then go into town while she got her haircut (for 4 hours!!!) and then get dinner done (though that, at least, went according to plan and was quite nice).

Right now, I'm hiding away upstairs while Katy is getting merrily blotto with Anna, Rho and Rita on her hen night. I hope they have fun. I, in the meantime, will take this time to catch up on my book and just relax in a bit of peace and quiet. Sounds like a plan.

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Finalized wedding menu!!

Posted on September 23, 2006 By admin 5 Comments on Finalized wedding menu!!

At first, we thought we wouldn't have enough food. Then, we thought we'd have too much. Now, with the fabulous chef from Chilford, we've gotten something that should hopefully please everybody :) Plus, except for one or two things that can't be changed, I can eat it all, mouahahahahahahah!

CANAPES ON ARRIVAL WITH RECEPTION DRINKS TO INCLUDE:-

Cocktail Sausages
Wild Mushroom Bouchées
Crab Mayonnaise on a toasted crouton
Parma Ham and Melon
Quails Eggs wrapped with Gravalax
Tuna Fish Barquet
Caramelised Red Onion and Goat Cheese Tartlet

BUFFET @ 2.30 PM

Ciabatta Rolls (Egg and Cress, Chicken & Mayonnaise, Tuna Fish & Cucumber)
Baby Rolls (Filled with Ham and Cheese, Brie & Cucumber, Prawn & Mayonnaise, Beef & Dijon Mustard)
Beef & Asparagus Rolls
Choux Buns filled with Avocado and a spicy Cream Cheese
Salmon en Croute
Roast Vegetables in a Filo Pastry (Sweet & Sour Sauce served separately)
Skewered Brie with Black Grapes
Leek & Mushroom Vol-au-Vents
Baby Quiche with Spring Onions
Cheese Scones
Indian Selection
Crudities
Fruit Kebabs
Cocktail éclairs and Small Cakes

7.00 PM BUFFET

Sausage Rolls
Mixed Veg Dim Sum
Spinach & Stilton Filo Parcels
Pork Pies
Fruit Scones with Strawberry Jam and Double Cream
French Bread Pizza with Chopped Tomatoes & Goats Cheese
Cheese Board with Biscuits, Grapes and Celery


We should have enough food, don't ya think? :)

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Back in the UK in one piece, albeit a tired one

Posted on September 4, 2006 By admin 2 Comments on Back in the UK in one piece, albeit a tired one

Where to begin.

The flight back to the UK was the most unpleasant one I've ever had. The flight itself was fine. Security was fine (although it seems that while you can bring liquids on the London-Ottawa flight, you can't do so on the Ottawa-London leg) and the flight itself was on time and turbulence free. What made it hell on earth was that there was the ubiquitous Screaming Child™ that was 2 seats to the right of me so I couldn't accidentally give her a good thumping. That kid is the poster child of bad parenting and why there should be muzzle and leash laws for children.

Imagine, if you would, a hyped up 5 year old that is running in the aisles and jumping on the seats. That's always a good start. Then imagine that she starts screaming her blond-tressed head off as soon as the airplane starts taxiing to take off and does not stop. For 5 hours straight. She finally fell asleep about an hour before landing and slept through it. Bitch.

I had earplugs and my ipod headphones crammed in my ears, and still I could hear her. Her parents were completely oblivious to it. Even the stewardesses were commenting (my favourite quote being I've never heard anybody scream for that long, normally they stop after a while).

Anyway, I made it to Heathrow without killing her, for which I am quite proud of myself. I breezed through immigration, got my bags and went to meet Katy and Mel. Fast forward a 2h drive to Leicester, lunch and a 2h drive to Cambridge and there you go. I was home and completely traveled out.

I've been spending the day catching up on my email and trying to get my website up again. I am seriously unimpressed with the tech support of my webhost. It started with having their whole server farm hacked, to then losing the backups and then finally creating two different accounts for me to use to recreate my website (I was given two distinct IPs and two sets of DNS servers to use). Joy. Anyway, the good news is that I seem to have everything back again, with only one or two LJ pictures lost to the ether. The moral of this story is to always make sure you have your own damn backup for your stuff, kiddies.

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A long and massive update

Posted on August 31, 2006 By admin 11 Comments on A long and massive update

I've been a bad blogger recently. I've been keeping up to date on the reading part, but the writing part has suffered. I blame [info]sbourge's keyboard. I'm writing this entry on my laptop and it's sheer bliss to be able to blind-type again, instead of having to peck at keys on an AZERTY keyboard. Those things are just evil, but I digress. I've been keeping all my thoughts on paper so I wouldn't lose them, so now I just need to type everything up. I missed my keyboard. Good keyboard *pats the keyboard*

Our story starts on Saturday night, when Stephane convinced me to go out with him and some of his LJ friends to an 80s night at a club he knows on the Plateau. I quickly realized that I'm an old fart. Going out to clubs was never really my thing, but now, hella no. I fail to see the fun of getting shit faced for its own sake in a poorly ventilated bar where the music is so loud that you can't understand what the person that's screaming in your ear is saying. Most people in the club were not born when the music that was being played was made. I was more excited by his description of a cosy tea room that we were going to try out later in the week.

I'm old; I'm pretty good at accepting it gracefully. I sometimes wonder how it happened and how I should feel about it, but most of the time I'm glad to be where I am and how I am (though more teenage sex would have been appreciated, but hey, what can you do…).

On Sunday, I got wet. As in, soaked-jeans-clinging-to-your-legs wet. Not once, but 3 times. I think I caught a cold cause I've had a crap throat all week. I met up with [info]eniran and [info]ashre79 for breakfast. I was waiting in line to get in to Eggspectation at the corner of Drummond/Maisonneuve when I called them to see if they wanted to join me for brunch. Sara said that it would be easier for her to park at the old Forum, so I told them I'd meet them there. Walking there was my first soaking.

I was shocked to discover that the Forum Eggspectation is no longer an Eggspectation, but something called Burgers and Benedicts. The food was tasty but horribly from a health perspective: eggs benedict with bacon on waffles. So good, but damn! It's a good thing that my diet has generally improved in the last little while, cause this week was sometimes painful for it :)

Sara and Em wanted to go to the old port to run an errand, so I tagged along and then we went book and DVD shopping. I'd forgotten how annoying it is to have to factor sales tax to every thing you buy. I went to all my old haunts: Indigo, Chapters, Metro Video. I didn't find any DVDs that were screaming at me to buy them. In fact, the only thing that really caught my eye was some over-expensive hentai porn (but that was mostly for the giggle factor of seeing Sara and Em give the evil eye to a creepy old man who was trying to browse the porn rack without actually seeming to do so).

I headed over to Indigo, where I ran into an old co-worker that I had a bit of a crush on when I was working at the hospital (no, not the crazy german girl!) before having a good perusal of the fantasy and fiction section and finding a few interesting titles to buy for the trip back.

I walked Sara and Em back to their car and got soaked. I was supposed to go have dinner with Michel at Bishoku, but it's closed on Sundays so we went to Weinstein & Gavinos instead. Got soaked walking there. After a really nice dinner, we played count the whores along our usual post-meal walk and I actually won a round!

Monday was an expensive day. I bought 3 pairs of jeans (which isn't too bad, considering that I paid the price in canadian dollars that I would normally pay in british pounds) and bought some shiny, pretty and expensive things for Katy at the old port and Marche Bonsecours. I got lost trying to get to the Studio Tranchefile (where I took my bookbinding course) but I finally made it and spent an hour or so putting in a custom order for a wedding photo album.

People are going to think I'm a bit nuts for the amount of money I'm going to spend on that album, but I think it's going to be worth it. It's going to be hand-bound in burgundy leather and will have red marbled paper inside covers, one cream paper folio (for signatures), 12 black paper folios for pictures and a cream paper envelope (to put scrapbook stuff). It's also going to be embossed with our names in silver on the cover. I've seen their work and it's amazing.

As I was making my way back downtown, I ran into Chu, the head lab tech while I was doing my master's. He's still as nuts as ever :) I had sushi for dinner with Stephane at Mikado and Michel joined us for a spot of tea at Camellia Sinensis, the tea room that Stephane had mentioned on Sunday. It's really nice and I can't wait to bring Katy there. We had a nice evening just chatting and laughing about this, that and a few raunchy other things.

On Tuesday, I went to work with Stephane and said hello to people at Ste-Justine then went downtown to meet Shibl and Ata for lunch (Bishoku!!!!!) and then I putzed around a bit downtown before going to Michel and Isabelle's condo. I told them that I'd cook them a proper curry dinner, which was quite well received. Spent a nice evening chatting on the terrace on their roof and then had a quiet walk with Michel while heading back to the metro.

Quote of the day for Tuesday: “I'm more annoyed that you went to sushi without me than I am that you want to go to the strippers”. I love my sweetie :)

I had a lazy day for most of Wednesday, because my week was starting to catch up with me. I had a pisser of a headache for part of the day, but that was taken care of with some advil and other herbal medicines. I cooked a thank-you curry for Stephane and headed to POs place for a night with the boys. Amusingly, when I got to his apartment block, I pushed the wrong apartment buzzer and the person who answered the door was an old friend who'd moved in next door to PO and didn't know I was in town. I got an O-face, which was unexpected and really funny.

The evening was a smashing success. We played a game of Risk 2210 and a game of Knights of the Round Table, which I'd never played before. I hadn't had a night like that since before I left for England. It had all the essential ingredients for a good boys' night, including St-Hubert take-out (club sandwich, white meat, hold the tomatoes, extra cheese, with the chip gravy in a separate bag). Went to bed at 2am and got up at 7:30 with PO and Sonia and headed to the bus station to come back to Ottawa.

All in all, a very satisfying trip to Montreal. I did most of what I'd set out to do and saw all the people I wanted to see.

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Put "wedding" in front of anything and double the price

Posted on August 9, 2006 By admin 1 Comment on Put "wedding" in front of anything and double the price

It's a really annoying trend, but it's true. For the same exact service or product, simply putting the word “bridal” or “wedding” in somewhere in the description will double the price.

Example: a car hire service normally leases its cars for £35 per hire. If it's for a wedding, they now charge £60, for a minimum of 2 hours. If you're doing multiple stops, it now goes up even more. And even more if you're getting married on a weekend (as most people are, except us weirdos).

Have these people no shame in the amount of price gouging they can inflict?

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Wedding planification, as it stands :)

Posted on August 2, 2006 By admin 2 Comments on Wedding planification, as it stands :)
Item Paid (£) Still to pay (£) Total (£)
Bride dress 250 250
Bridesmaid dress 100 100
Cake 75 300 375
Car service & taxis      
Disposable cameras 100 100
Flowers 110 110
Invitations 60 60
Katy Hair & makeup 100 100
Katy Spa days 200 200
Reception hall 500 1250 1750
Registrar (Ceremony) 270 270
Registrar (COA) 135 135
Registrar (NOI) 60 60
Suit rental 180 180
Tickets to Canada 920 920
Toasting round (wine) 125 125
Weddign rings 1150   1150
3710 2175 5885
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I clean up well when I want to

Posted on July 31, 2006 By admin 6 Comments on I clean up well when I want to

I went to get measured for my suit for the wedding this weekend:

I wanted to take a few pictures to show my best man what he'd be wearing. I keep threatening people with kilts (and if I had a shred of scottish blood in me, even a teensy bit, I'd do it, but alas I'm french canadian as far as the eye can see…), but I settled for a classic cut morning suit.

 

I'm going to be wearing a red waistcoat with an ivory cravate and Michel is going to be wearing an ivory waistcoat with a burgundy cravate. We're both going to have white rose bouttonnieres. The shirt lapels are going to be a bit different from the ones in the picture (they didn't have one with the collar style I want in my size when I went to get fitted), but it's going to kick ass.

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Flight details

Posted on July 26, 2006 By admin 4 Comments on Flight details

We've finally made the plans for our trip to Canadia:

Departing Gatwick, on Thursday 05 Oct 06 (14:15) arriving at Ottawa (16:40)
Departing Ottawa, on Saturday 21 Oct 06 (19:30) arriving at Gatwick (07:10+1)

In a word, part-ay!

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It's hot and it's wet

Posted on July 3, 2006 By admin 3 Comments on It's hot and it's wet

… you know the rest.

The air conditioning in the shed is straining to keep us all alive and not roasting at the moment. It's forecasted to be like this all week, joy.

A few random thoughts, in no specific order:

– Peppercorns, salt and mace makes a really, REALLY good dry rub for a beast roast. We tried that last night on a prime silverside roast and it was glrmph! Roast beast that tastes like sausage!

– People have started receiving the invitations, yay!

– We've sent off a cheque for the wedding cake, so that's one more thing that's settled for the moment.

– it's too friggin warm to think straight.

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