She Said Yes, Now What

Guest book plans

I've been to a couple of weddings over the past several years that had a Polaroid guest book. They had a big book and a Polaroid camera. Guests would take a picture of themselves and paste it in the book and write something witty or poignant or funny. I thought it was a pretty cool idea for a guest book, but the thing was that Polaroid is very hard to find. Apparently they are going to stop making it, so I was stuck until I discovered Fuji makes an instant camera. So I bought a Fuji Instax on eBay. It works pretty much exactly the same way as the Polaroid, but instead of those square pictures they are rectangular in roughly the same proportions that you're used to from a regular camera. So when you're at the wedding remember to find the guest book, have your picture taken.

Golfing

Daphne's Mom asked me to post up a notice to anyone who might be planning to golf on the day of the wedding to make sure they get an early tee time as to have plenty of time to finish their round and make it to the wedding. Lake Blackshear has a golf course, so it would be easy if you're staying at the resort. Green fees are US$27 according to their website, plus $13 for a cart. The course opens at 8 a.m., so you should have plenty of time to finish your round, though I'm not yet sure about the precise time for the wedding. It will likely be late afternoon. I don't golf, so if you were hoping to get in a round with me before I get married, you're out of luck. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do for the day of the wedding. I'm thinking of bringing my bike down from Ottawa, so maybe I'll head out for a ride if you've got a bike.

Conflicting Dates

We quickly learned after picking Nov.1 as our wedding date that it was the day of the Georgia-Florida football game. It also is the day of the Michigan-Purdue game. I guess that's what you get for picking a Saturday in the middle of college football season. But now I've learned it is the date of the Don Gibb Retirement Celebration and Gala. Gibb is a journalism school professor at Ryerson. One of the best. As a broadcast journalism student at Ryerson I didn't take any of his classes, but did work with him later when Canadian Press brought him in as a writing coach. Anyway, I won't be able to make it to his dinner and that's a bit of a shame.

Registry

Emily Post is probably rolling over in her grave somewhere as I write this post, but I'm going to go ahead and keep writing anyway. Daphne and I went and registered a china, flatware and crystal pattern at William Ashley in Toronto on the weekend. I was unsure whether we should register as we don't really need anything, but as Robert Williams, our sales guy at the store said, people like to celebrate with gifts, so we might as well receive things that we really like ourselves. William Ashley is sort one of the oldest and most established places in Toronto that you can register your patterns at. It is a slice of old Toronto establishment known for its Wall of China and customer service that makes you feel like you are the most important customer in the store. I've never had a bad experience shopping in the store and our guy Williams didn't disappoint. Never did I feel like we were being pressured to add things to the list or being upsold anything. He made us feel good about every choice we made and as if we had excellent taste even if secretly he thought we probably lived in a trailer park by the choices we made. Apparently his mother had her registry done at the store by Mrs. Ashley herself. That's the sort of place it is.

But history and tradition isn't why picked Ashleys even though it is in Toronto. The first is that they have an online service. A large portion of the people we're going to invite to the wedding don't live in Ottawa and also don't live in Cordele, so online shopping was key. They even set up a website for us that people can browse if they want. The second is that, despite being a place that carries some really high-end stuff, they also are very competitive on price. It isn't that they are cheap, but you are unlikely to find better prices on the things that they carry. Anyway, our basic china pattern is Jasper Conran by Wedgwood. It is plain white, but we've also put down for some of the Jasper Conran Blue Butterfly plates that we can use as an accent to the plain white if we want to add some colour. We are both very happy with the pattern. I wanted white, but Daphne wanted something with some blue in it. The pattern we picked is both. For flatware it is a pattern called Diamonds by Spendide that was suggested by Williams. It was the first one he laid out and though we looked at several more, we kept coming back to the Diamonds. The crystal is the Reidel Vinum,with the Syrah glasses for red and the Chablis/White Burgundy glasses for white. Barware is the Naxos old fashion and tumbler glasses by Atlantis. I love the old fashion glass. It feels great in the your hand. Properly heavy. Nice size if you want ice in your drink.