Wedding Game

One of our highlights of the evening was the game our maid of honour and best man co-hosted for us. You've probably seen it at other weddings or parties, where the couple sits back-to-back and answers questions without knowing each other's answers. Normally this "shoe game" is played with the shoes the groom and bride are wearing, but we swapped that out with homemade paddles instead.

We want to applaud and thank Laura and Kurt for doing such a fabulous job. They bounced off each other with great energy, had amazing pacing and entertaining questions. How did we do? Well, not that it was a competition of anything, but I'm pretty sure I won the game.

Kurt and Laura started us off with some easy questions at first.

Who owns the most pairs of shoes?
H: Howard
S: Howard
(It's really unfair how many shoes he has over me, but I'm slowly catching up.)

Who spends more time in front of the mirror?
H: Sylvia
S: Howard

Who has better taste in music?
H: Howard
S: Howard
(Sad, but true. Howard picked out all of the ceremony music for our wedding.)

Who is the better dresser?
H: Howard
S: Howard
(Sigh, I know I should try harder, but I really do prefer comfort over fashion.)

Now the questions progressed to be a little trickier.

Who starts the arguments?
Howard: Howard
Sylvia: Sylvia
(We're being politically correct here, aren't we?)

Who is more stubborn?
(Oops, didn't catch what our answers were, but I'm pretty sure I picked myself.)

Who says sorry first after an argument?
H: Howard
S: Sylvia
(Lies! I always go first!)

Who is more likely to be running late?
H: Howard, then switches his answer to Sylvia
S: Howard
(The fact that he took so long to answer should indicate that he's always late.)

We were warned that these questions were more difficult to answer.

Who passes gas more?
H: Howard
S: Howard

Who is the bigger baby when they're sick?
H: Sylvia
S: Sylvia

Who wears the pants in the relationship?
H: Sylvia
S: Sylvia
(I just love the above picture, because I am 100% certain of the answer.)

Who has the craziest family?
We both refused to answer this, in which Kurt told us that technically, we're all family now!

Who said I love you first?
H: Howard
S: Howard

Who says I love you more often?
H: Sylvia
S: Sylvia

Who talked about marriage first?
H: Howard
S: Howard

Who is more romantic?
H: Sylvia
S: Sylvia

Who loves the other more?
H: Sylvia
S: Sylvia

Who is the better kisser?
H: Howard
S: Howard
(I pointed out that you can't tell if you're the better kisser unless you kiss yourself and Howard then chooses to demonstrate...)

We ended it there as we were informed that the questions get a lot more risque after this! Again, thank you to Laura and Kurt for doing such a fabulous job. The photographers caught the best photos from this game. Lots of laughing faces and candid shots of our family and guests. It felt so nice to look back at these pictures and see everyone having a good time.

Most of all, thank you to my bridesmaid Diana who made us the paddles for the game! She's incredibly talented and crafty and made us two grooms and two brides that matched our tux and dress. I love the sweetheart neckline, corset detail on the back, and the poof of my dress. Not to mention that stunning tuxedo lapel!

Wedding Photography: Ikonica | Venue: Auberge du Pommier | Game Paddles: Diana Brown | Wooden Cake Dowels: Michaels

Wedding Programs

We took the wedding programs into our own hands as another do-it-yourself project. This was required some timing and planning as we wanted our programs to be as fresh as possible. Odd? Yes, but our program included a sweet treat with it.

Do you remember our centerpieces from the previous post? Well, I couldn't make those until the programs were finished because I had to use the cookie cutters first.

Two days before, I made the batter for brownie roll-out cookies, chilled them overnight, and baked them the next day.

It would have been pretty difficult to do with the dowels on them!

I needed eight of each number to go with our seating chart. We found these clear 4 x 6 treat bags for the cookies to go in and stapled them to the program I printed.

I designed these double-sided programs and printed them on card stock so that the shape would hold while the treat bags were attached. The back of the programs informed each guest which table they would be seated at for dinner.

I know these programs don't match the save-the-dates or the invitations, but I wanted it to be simple and match the venue. So I stuck with a craft paper background, black, and white, and the cookies would be dark enough to stand out.

We piled it all into a wooden pine crate and put the groomsmen in charge of handing these out to guests when the ushers dropped them off at the terrace.

Of course, Howard and I didn't need one, we knew where we were sitting!

And there's the front of the program where we listed the key people participating in our wedding party, the officiant, and schedule of the evening.

A few guests commented on the fact that they saw the connection between the table numbers and the program cookies. =) And those brownie roll-out cookies are so good, I love how they stay soft and chewy. I think most people would have chosen to go with a sugar cookie, but I find those dry and hard to the point that they'll be too crumbly.

Wedding Photography: Ikonica | Venue: Auberge du Pommier | Table Numbers: Sylvia Chan |  Wedding Programs: Sylvia Chan | Cookies: Sylvia Chan | Cookie Cutters: Fox Run Craftsmen | Wooden Cake Dowels: Michaels | Clear Treat Bags: Michaels | Wooden Crate: KNAGGLIG from IKEA

Wedding Invitations

Alright, so last week I talked about our save the dates, which we sent a year in advance. We decided to send out the formal invitations at the six month mark.

Keeping with the dessert theme, I knew I wanted to do another piece based on photography. Something bright and cheery and related to the wedding venue a bit. And what's a French restaurant without macarons? We picked these ones up from Butter Avenue and started the project when we returned home.

I took out some of my favourite props: a cake stand, a cocotte, ramekins, a beautiful teal plate, and our marble lazy Susan. I laid them out on a sheet of parchment paper on the floor and played around the the arrangement.

Then, positioned the macarons on the edge and filled the containers with sprinkles. I left our two heart sprinkles on the plate thinking that it would be super cute to go along with the text.

Time to take shots from above. The bird-eye view works really well and I was able to try different heights by standing on the floor and the chair. The one above is pulled back so you can see behind-the-scenes.

A close up worked best because it gave me more room to include all the information on that small plate and the rest of the cake stand and marble platter wouldn't look too sparse.

There you have it! After fiddling with PicMonkey again to test out the text placement, we had our final invitation. I had about five versions of it until Howard and I both agreed on this one.

Again, we sent these out electronically instead of having them printed and mailed. We used the free wedding website that The Knot offers to create ours and e-mailed it to all the guests. It was a great way to share all of the information in once place!

Save the Dates

So begins my weekly series about our wedding. I'll be bringing us back to a year ago when we started planning for the big day. And how quickly time flies, we've been married for a month now! The day flew by and so did the honeymoon, I'm wish we were still lounging by the pool right now.

To start it off, the first thing we had to create were the Save the Dates. We sent ours out a year in advance because there was a travel component to it. While we would have loved to do a destination wedding, we knew that there was a chance that key people wouldn't be able to make it. So to incorporate the "destination" part, we opened up what would be considered our honeymoon to be a week long after party.

We sent out the save the dates electronically and to create it, I was inspired by the scripted icing that I spotted on Pinterest. This looked like a delicious way to announce our wedding date!

I whipped up a small batch of royal icing, took out a sheet of parchment paper, and lightly penciled in the cursive words. With shaky hands, I piped out it out in one try! Not bad! But looking back, I wish I made the icing a bit firmer as the loops in the h and e started to blur in. Or at least tried it again on another piece of parchment.

The next step was to decorate around the parchment paper. I poured some dragees into a cocotte (I recommend a funnel, they bounced everywhere). Took out some white coloured heart and star sprinkles and positioned the leftover royal icing and piping bag in the corners.

The next step was the most fun - snapping as many overhead photos as possible. Standing on a chair, I took photos of various angles and positions of the items laid out on my counter top. Then went through them on the computer before choosing one and doing some edits on the brightness.

The text was then added on using PicMonkey (still my favourite online photo editing). At this point, we hadn't decided on a venue in Toronto or a resort in Jamaica yet, so we left the details pretty vague.

But there you have it! We sent these out and even printed a few for family and friends to stick on their fridge.