THE BEGINNING

Ian and I met in Ottawa on the baseball diamond. After one of the games I mentioned to some of my teammates that I had a group of people that got together to play beach volleyball regularly and if anyone was interested.Ian was. We exchanged email addresses and phone numbers so that I could fill him on the details. The first game was rained out so he invited me to go out for dinner instead. Our whole conversation seemed to be made up with all the things that showed how much our lives had paralleled and all the things we had in common. It was almost scary, I wasn't sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing but I guess we figured that one out! Some of things include both having spent the same number of years in Ottawa attending both Carleton University and Algonquin College, having approximately the same amount of student loans (that part hurts!) at the same bank, the same credit cards, we both were the eldest of 3 children, our parents are the same age, we both have had stitches in our chin.the list goes on. We also shortly came to realize that we even had the same toothpaste in our bathrooms and the same ice cream in the freezer.

He was quite upset when I left days later for a preplanned trip to the east coast with a friend but when I came back we were almost inseparable. Three months later, I was laid off of my job and then subsequently offered a job in Toronto. I was at a point in my life that I thought I was ready for a change, Ian had agreed to move with me, and my family was encouraging the move as I would be closer to them, so I took the job. Days before I was to move down (a month before Ian did) Ian decides that he is going to surprise me with a ring. He figured that since I was turning his life upside down, he would do the same for me. My first words were "shouldn't you at least meet my parents first?" Needless to say I shocked a lot of family and friends with all the sudden changes in my life, I had a relatively new boyfriend who was now a fiancé, I was moving to Toronto and starting a new job all at the same time. When we did go down to my parents a few weeks later, it was indeed a shock to them and when I say my father was speechless, believe me that is no easy feat!

THE PLANNING

After about 6 months, we decided to set the date. We went through the list of dates that our siblings and parents were married and July was the only month without an anniversary so that decided the month, as it had to be in the summer (I am a sun lover). July 1st was decided as the one by Ian. He figured that way he can't ever forget the anniversary and it will always be a holiday. For some reason Canada Day is also one of his two favourite holidays in the year.

Then the fun began.we decided that the wedding would be held in Niagara as that is where most of my family lives and my family would be dominating the guest list. Ian's family lives in the Toronto area and Scotland and most of our friends are from Ottawa but they don't mind the travel.

The first step was the hall; we saw several different types of options from Legions to banquet halls to hotels. I had decided that I didn't want people to have to worry about finding hotels and driving afterwards so I opted for the hotel. I fell in love with Niagara Suites particularly after I saw the honeymoon suite that was included in the price! The catering manager was particularly helpful and it made the decision easy. The price was a little more than some of the other options but a lot less than many others.

Next was the church.I had always wanted to be married in the same church as my parents were and in which brought a lot of memories of my grandparents and attending with them when I was a child. My grandfather had even formed the choir there when he first came to Canada. We booked it but after we had met with the current priest there we decided that we would have to make another choice. Neither of us liked him at all, he had no personality whatsoever. We finally decided on a church that my other grandparents attend that is beautiful with a priest that had gone to school with my parents.

Now for me, the hardest part about the whole thing, finding a photographer. As a photographer myself, I was being very picky, ask Ian! I was dragging him all over Toronto and he couldn't figure why I even brought him along; this was my thing so he said. But soon he started getting into it and asking questions and offering opinions. I saw many photographers but few really stood out for me though the ones I liked best were the ones that Ian was not with me for and I really did not want to make the final decision without at least some input from him. We finally made a decision and went with Mariuz at Where Heaven Meets Earth. He was very friendly and helpful, the prices were good and we liked what we saw.

The other big search was for a dress. I was not having any luck finding THE dress. I tried on many that looked great but they weren't right. I had almost given up hope as I was hitting the four-month deadline when I went into Classic Collection, the first dress I tried on there was THE one. It was perfect and the price was good. I had been having a hard time justifying spending so much on one dress when I am usually extremely frugal when it comes to the price of clothes. The other clincher was that they said it would only take 3 months to get in unlike the 4-6 that I was hearing from everywhere else which I did not have anymore.

I am also into making cards with rubber stamps so I decided to make my own invitations. Many trials later, I finally came up with a template that I liked that included a bit of our heritage (the Scottish, the Dutch and the Canadian) that I was planning to incorporate in the day. A lot of man-hours went into the making of these cards but I have had so many compliments that I can't complain but I wouldn't have been able to manage without a lot of help.

I did a lot of the things for the wedding myself with the help of many friends and family. In particular my sister, she was unbelievable. She made all the bridesmaids dresses (7), the two flower girl dresses, my mother's dress, the ring pillow, bloomers for me, and the wedding cake! She literally only slept about 6 hours in the last three days before the wedding. I did not think she would make it past dinner but she survived right until the very end. The girls were each told to pick out what pattern they wanted for dress and we would pick out the material.

The last few days were a flurry of trying to get all the last minute things done. I think I tried to take on too many things to do that were left until the end and I was really starting to think things weren't going to be done. Some things did not get done quite the way I wanted them but it couldn't be helped unless an extra week got added into the schedule at the last minute!

THE DAY

The day started out earlier for some than others, the groom, the ushers and a few others were due on the golf course at 7am! I was sharing a room with 2 of the ushers and my maid of honour so I was awoken early and I really couldn't get back to sleep. The girls all met up for breakfast around 8 as the hair and makeup people, two of my cousins in the business, were to show up around 9. One of my close friends who I had handed off my camera to was also in attendance to document the preparations and the day. Little did I know that she would break any records I had for #of rolls taken at a wedding - 18!! We now have loads of pictures to remember the day.

As we were all getting ready and last minute touches were being put on the dresses, our flowers arrived. They were so beautiful. I did not really have any ideas of what to expect as I had left it in the capable hands of my aunt and cousin who were doing them. I was told that they were not able to get heather, thistle and tulips which I had wanted to represent the two heritages but at the last minute they got all of them. The girls were to carry tall glass candleholders with flowers around the base and they turned out really well. The effect was wonderful.

Our biggest challenge that morning was to ensure that we did not meet up with the guys when they came back from golf. I had gone down to the hall once I was finished to check last minute details and of course it was then that they all decided to return so we had to do some maneuvering to ensure that Ian and I were kept apart.

THE CEREMONY

I arrived exactly on time but I found out afterwards that the wedding before was very late and the people were still leaving at 2:45 (ours was at 3pm). The problem was that this put the priest in a cranky mood because he stresses highly the need for punctuality. A few things that we did differently were that I had Ian walk my mother up the aisle and his brother who was best man walk their mother up. They walked up so quickly that it threw off the timing for everyone else in particular the musicians. The bridesmaids starting walking up the aisle during the first song Ave Maria instead of at the beginning of Canon so in turn I had to start early so that there wasn't a huge break but it all worked out fine. We had hired a piper to pipe us out of the ceremony. During the ceremony, he could be heard quite clearly warming up outside, another thing to ire the priest as he started preaching louder. The ceremony otherwise went off smoothly even with one of the readers having to hop up to the podium as she had sprained her ankle the night before and Ian constantly stepping on my veil. One of my bridesmaids sang beautifully for 3 of the songs and another friend played clarinet for the opening songs.

After returning to the hall after taking pictures, we quickly (okay not so quickly) had a receiving line with the parents and ourselves. The piper was to pipe us into the hall but he was not a happy piper. For some reason he though he was supposed to be there for 5pm and it was now almost 7pm. He complained about how we had wasted so much of his time. Needless to say I was not impressed with him.

Dinner was wonderful, I wish I could have eaten more of it! Speeches were fairly short and sweet, just the parents, best man, maid of honour, my sister and us. When Ian got up, he said a few words then called my sister up, (originally she was supposed to have made Canada flag boxers for the guys but ran out of time). He asked everyone to pick up their Canada flags, the DJ started playing "Oh Canada" and he told my sister that she would have the "honour" of telling the guys in the wedding party that they had to do the kilt thing properly and "Drop them". The hooting and hollering was tremendous and with a bit of hesitation the guys got up on their chairs and dropped their boxer shorts! It was a hard act to follow when I did my speech. (One hint, make sure you write down all the people that you need to thank. When I got up there to do it I had forgotten some of them and I felt badly afterwards when I realized.)

Halfway through the evening we announced that we had a surprise for everyone and that since we were causing everyone to miss out on fireworks displays we would have our own. We handed out sparklers to everyone on the way out the door to the back parking lot where friends of mine proceeded to light up the night with fireworks.

When we came back in we did the cake cutting, the garter throwing and bouquet tossing. I knew that Ian had something up his sleeve (actually it was up his kilt) for the garter so I decided to make his life difficult. My sister made me Canada day flag bloomers and just before Ian was to go in search of the garter, I made him close his eyes and I paraded around the room with my dress hiked up so everyone could see what I had on underneath. It was fun seeing everyone's reactions and then seeing Ian's was even better. Ian had a flashlight tucked up in his boxers but he had problems getting it out so it looked quite humorous as he fumbled around under his skirt. He then used it to find his way under all the layers of my dress. For my bouquet to be tossed, I had the florist loosely tie the flowers together so that I could pull them apart before I threw them so that different people would get some of it. She had even tied tartan ribbons to each stem. Dancing went on till the very end with a full crowd still on the dance floor. From what I heard and saw everyone had a wonderful time.

VENDORS

DJ - Spirit of Sound - they did a wonderful job playing what we asked and keeping everyone dancing.
Photographer - Where Heaven Meets Earth (Mariuz) - very friendly and helpful and did a great job
Hall - Niagara Suites (Thorold)- Paul Hicks (catering manager) - Food, service and facilities all awesome
Piper - Lindsey Kirkwood - I would not recommend him at all, he was slow at returning phone calls and quite rude
Flowers, ceremony music, cake, seamstress, wine, hair, makeup, transportation - friends and family and they all did an amazing job, can't thank them enough
Dress - Classic Collection/Dixie Outlet Mall - Friendly and efficient service, good prices
Fireworks - Big Bang Canada - very helpful

THE EXTRAS

• We put rolled scrolls on tables for people to put their predictions for different things in five years including the price of gas and how many children we would have.
• For favours we made up goody bags with noisemakers, Canada day pins, little bags of scotch mints, red and white jelly beans, and tulip centered shortbread cookies.
• Bubbles with a sticker of the flags of the three countries (Holland, Scotland, Canada) wrapped around them
• Canada flags were used for place cards. We wrote each person's name on one along with our name and the date and the table which they were to be sitting at.
• The tables were designated with Canadian musical artists/groups.
• Programmes - We created an 8 page programme with ceremony details, pictures, quotes, trivia about the wedding party, and a crossword puzzle
• We set up a board with pictures of all the pre-wedding events i.e. showers and the stag & doe
• We set up a table with the wedding pictures of our siblings, parents and grandparents.
• The guest book consisted of a scrapbook made of the handmade paper and I had cut up navy cardstock like we used for the invites for people to write on with gold pens.
• We made up welcome packages for the people staying at the hotel for the weekend with small bottles of homemade wine, chips, peanuts popcorn and fruit
• Ian's brother created labels for the wine with the Campbell crest and motto on it