The Little Wedding that Grew

GC and I originally planned on having a very small civil ceremony, maybe one step up from eloping. But during our five-month engagement we kept adding little upgrades. Like family, food, booze, cake, flowers, balloons, photographs, a poem, homemade wedding favours, cupcakes, a candle ceremony and media. And, when we were totally caught up in the spirit, we promoted our witnesses (my sister and GC’s brother) to matron of honour and best man. We even added a wedding procession at literally the last minute.

As we careened towards our wedding day, we were torn between wanting more time to get ready, and wishing it was over already so we could stop obsessing about it. At first we were able to offset each other’s occasional panicky moments, but in the final few days, we found our panic was starting to merge and accelerate. By Saturday morning we just wanted to get it over with.

Fortunately, other people didn’t see it that way. By the end of the day we felt genuinely happy, and grateful to all the people who went out of their way to make this such a special day for us.

Some highlights:

• Michele and the staff at The Running Stitch were wonderful – they offered their quilt store as the venue, and it was the perfect place for a wedding.
• Ali, who works for The Running Stitch, has tons of energy and enthusiasm, and she took photos and handled all the media stuff. The Running Stitch had told us they were putting out a media release but GC and I didn’t think any media would actually show up. We were wrong – the Kanata Kourier, the Ottawa Citizen, and CBC all came! While being interviewed on camera, I babbled nervously, and then hoped Kate Middleton would have her baby so our wedding would be bumped. But she didn’t, and it wasn’t. Fortunately they did a super editing job and cut out most of my incoherent babbling.
• My sister Debbie, despite living in a different city, helped with everything, every step of the way, from dress shopping to the surprise shower. She gave a terrific speech at the lunch. If you’re ever looking for a matron of honour, I highly recommend her.
• Our officiant, Floralove Katz, designed a lovely ceremony for us, one that was warm and meaningful and inclusive and fun.
• My son, James – the only person besides me to attend both my weddings – bought his very first suit just for this occasion. My niece’s husband just happened to bring a knife to the wedding, and he removed all the external labels from James’ new suit.
• GC’s sons, Jason and Daniel, told a reporter “We wouldn’t call them quirky, exactly, but they are a little unusual.” (This was edited out of the video, but my sister overheard it. It was my favourite line of the whole day.)
• Chelsea was the most adorable ring bearer ever.
• Duncan gave us our first wedding present of the day: a warm mouse. So many people gave us other warm and thoughtful gifts and cards and filled our facebook walls and blogs and twitter feeds with good wishes.
• People came from all over the place to be part of the day – our Montreal families, our Orangeville and Toronto families, Rob’s son from Edmonton, my brother and brother-in-law from Lanark. They all gave up a perfect Saturday of golfing, tennis, fishing, or whatever, and drove to Ottawa to celebrate with us.
• I learned that you can plan and prepare for a wedding, but once it’s underway it gets its momentum and energy from everybody else. It’s the people who make it what it is, and our people were outstanding! Our families finally had a chance to meet, and they seemed to like each other. Yay!

After the ceremony, the interviews, the luncheon, the speeches and cake, GC and I went home, kicked off our shoes, put on our comfiest clothes and heaved a big happy sigh. Not only was it over, but it had been good!

That night, we went out for pizza at Za Za Pizza (we had a gift certificate we’d won from Apt. 613 during Fringe Fest), and it was the best pizza ever. I’m not even kidding, it was amazing. Then we went for a little walk in the Glebe and ran into Pat, who is a bartender at Irene’s. She was getting into Dean’s car.

“What are you guys up to?” Pat asked.

“We just got married,” we said.

She and Dean got right out of the car and marched us into Irene’s and bought us shots of tequila, which was the perfect end to a perfect day.