Back and married! (bam!)

Thank you! Hope everything's going well with your planning!

Congratulation!

you were such a beautful bride!

enjoy married life

Thanks Fikayo! Can't wait to hear more about your wedding!

Congratulations!!! Wow, so so beautiful.

Thank you Carolyne! I wish I could wear it again! I love my dress! Do you know when you're going to go dress shopping?

I know I’m overdue with the details of my BAM but there’s so much to say so I’m actually going to break it up into a couple posts. (I’m sorry it’s so long but I feel like without the details, it won’t make sense. I honestly love hearing about how everything went and promise to read your BAM after the wedding!) I guess I’ll start with when we arrived in Canada.

My sister/MOH flew out from NY and drove up to Vancouver with my mom and all of our wedding stuff a week before the wedding. It was so nice not to have to worry about shipping everything up there or bringing it on the plane and that way my mom didn’t have to rent a car.

We flew in on the Tues and got a rental car. Our first stop was White Spot (of course) for food and then we went to pick up our marriage license! We got it through an insurance company and the woman was not super excited that we were getting married. Haha come on lady! You deal with insurance all day! Isn’t a marriage license fun? She had a little bit of a hard time finding my husband’s birthplace (it turns out it was under United States, not United States of America) but she finally found it and we received our marriage license! It was so surreal when she asked if we’d been married before. Nope! First time!

We stayed at my aunt’s house for a couple days before checking into the hotel for the wedding and as soon as we arrived, we started working on assembling our welcome bags and folding our programs. I just wanted everything done! I definitely was not anticipating how stressful it was going to be in the days leading up to the wedding. My husband and I were on the same page but having to juggle so many family members and personalities was one of the hardest things ever! It was like everyone had forgotten all of the details that we had gone over and our families were not on the same page as us, I think they were in completely different books! Add in the stress from the election and it was really tense.

The major thing that happened and that will have a lasting impact on our families for a very long time was that my husband’s brother,his best man and ONLY groomsman missed his flight and therefore missed his bachelor party. They were supposed to arrive on the Thurs in the early afternoon and we were having our joint bachelor/bachelorette party that night. We found out from my MIL that they had left something at home and went back to get it and wouldn’t be arriving until after 9 pm that night. I was inconsolable. His brother had not been supportive throughout our entire wedding planning and his one and only job was to show up and he couldn’t. If he can’t be there for us on the most important day of our lives, what does that say about our future as a family? All of the other guys that my husband had asked to be a groomsmen couldn’t make it to the wedding for various reasons so he only had his brother. (Their dad passed away a few years ago and unfortunately I never got to meet them.) Luckily my husband’s cousin had planned his bachelor party since his brother couldn’t handle it but now he wasn’t even going to be there and he didn’t bother to tell us. I am just so tired of my husband giving and giving to his friends and family and them not valuing him and being there for him in return. It was heartbreaking, especially coming from his brother. I honestly didn’t even know how I was going to let him stand up there for our wedding.

The bachelor/bachelorette party was still amazing! The girls went to Earl’s and got pitchers of mojitos! One of my bridesmaid’s moms had made these awesome Disney shirts for us and I was so excited to finally wear them! My groom’s side went to a brewery and they had a great time. Then we all met up and went to an improv show. We were able to reserve seats in advance so we all sat together. It was an all female cast and they saw me in my Disney bridal hat so they actually called on us for the final skit of the night and “recreated” our relationship! It was so great! They asked me to describe Collin in one word (punny) and he described me as “forward.” (Thanks dear) It made for a great sketch though! They reenacted our first date which was mini golf and the woman playing me was like “oh look! My putter is my favourite colour…..purple!” We all lost it! We couldn’t believe that she guessed right! And then they got to the part where Collin proposed and they had me propose instead because I’m so “forward!” Such a special night and I’m so glad that we decided to do it “joint.”

Bachelorette shirts

Improv Show

The next day we went back over to my aunt’s house so that our extended families could get a chance to meet and hang out before the rehearsal dinner. BIL and his wife and son were there and they were definitely acting like it was no big deal that they missed their flight. BIL also told MIL that he was upset that my husband went to get his tux without him the day before. (I was like “Oh hell no! He should have gotten his a$$ on a plane then because it is more important that the groom’s tux fit properly!”) They ended up going to get BIL’s tux together and my husband had a chance to talk to him about what was going on. They are so different and it really didn’t even occur to his brother that this was a big deal. When they got back, his brother snuck away and pulled me aside (without my husband’s knowledge) to apologize. His brother is not a man of many words and he even got emotional so I appreciated the effort and the apology. It helped me to make it through the wedding.

Later that night we had our rehearsal and then the rehearsal dinner at Cactus Club-Coal Harbour. It was a gorgeous location and it was so nice to have everyone together in Vancouver! We had told my bridesmaids that if they did want to say something, that they could speak at the rehearsal since the wedding would just be for the MOH, BM, MOG and MOB. I was floored that they all said something! It was so sweet and there were lots of happy tears. As a surprise to my groom, I had one of his friends who couldn’t make it record a video for him that I played during the dinner and he was so surprised! I knew that he had really wanted to have his friends up there that had known him for a long time and could speak about him so even though they couldn’t make it as groomsmen, I wanted to make sure he still got to have that! We were supposed to set up our decorations for the reception the night after the rehearsal dinner but we ran behind and by the time we got there, everyone was gone. I was a little worried and disappointed that my husband and I wouldn’t get to set up together but decided to get up early and set up with my sisters in the morning.

Cont... https://community.weddingwire.ca/forums/bam-wedding-day--t1445

The "No Service" fiasco actually sounds like soemthing out of a sitcom! It might have been funny to be a fly on the wall for that!

I'm so happy all of the kinks worked out smoothly for you! I am enjoying your stories

Haha yeah I am such a perfectionist so I wasn't sure how I would be on the big day but it was just like "oh well!" As we were leaving the hotel room to head down to the ceremony the maid was at our door and was like "do you want service for your room?" and we were like "no we're going to get married. It's fine" and she wouldn't let it go and was like "what about the other room? If you want to have service, you need to remove the 'Do Not Disturb' sign" and we were like "yes, we know, we don't want service" and I'm standing there in my dress with my bouquet waiting for the elevator all ready to get married and I was yelling down the hall "NO SERVICE!" I said to my sister/MOH right before the ceremony "I'm sorry if I got cranky" (because I was a little worried since we were running a bit behind to the ceremony and only had an hour to take pics afterwards so I was rushing!) and she was like "you were a dream!" haha so that was reassuring. During the ceremony, I whispered to my groom that I forgot my veil and he was like "are you ok?" and I was like "yeah I'm great!" and he said that's how he knew that we were having the best day ever!

And it worked out having the ceremony run a little behind because my aunt and cousin stroll in 15 min late and we're waiting to all walk down the aisle while the slideshow was finishing up and if we'd been on time, they would have been walking in in the middle of the ceremony! The wedding party was trying to rush them in and she's like "I was told it was was 3:30 pm and not 3 pm" and we're all thinking "well how is it that EVERYONE ELSE got the memo? Did you not check the invitation?" They're lucky I was hiding down the hallway so I wouldn't see my groom otherwise I would have been like "no you are late and you have to sit in the lobby until the ceremony is over."

Thanks Emilie! I will definitely check that out once I have a moment to catch up!

I was really happy with our cake and even our vendors were saying it was the best they'd ever seen, which was a huge compliment. And we managed to cut it without destroying it haha! And our little (almost) 3 year old nephew came up and my husband fed him a bite and it was the cutest thing! I did not make the paper flowers. I wish I had that skill! I got them from More Paper Than Shoes off of Etsy. The seller is truly amazing! We also had some individual flowers sprinkled on the tables and everyone raved about them and our book centrepieces all night! (and luckily no one took the books so we were able to get them all back! That was one of my big concerns.)

Oh I super did love all that purple!!! I can only imagine how you feel because I don't know how I'M going to be able to wait until you get them back... so I can only imagine how you feel

I'm happy your hard work paid off- I can't wait for more pictures!

It is also a big relief that the "oops" moments won't matter. I lose sleep over the what ifs!

Sam these are so beautiful !! congrats over and over again !!! your day loooked perfect just as you did !!! You dress oh my gosh simply stunning ... lace envy for sure over here !! simply it .. thank you for sharing and congrats again

Congrats Sam!! Very happy for you two! It looks like you had an amazing day! I love how your bridal party colours match together even with the men's suits! These pictures are truly magical!! You could post them in our Real Wedding section, here's how you can do it: How To Share Your Real Wedding Story Your cake turned out amazing!! It's beautiful! I also love your paper bouquet!! Did you make it yourself?

Aw thank you! I thought you'd appreciate all the purple. I don't know how I'm going to be able to wait until we get the rest of the pics back!

Aw thank you so much Melissa! It truly was a perfect day. Everyone who says that little things will go wrong but it won't matter are so true. We put so much work into the little details and it was so great to hear from our guests that they noticed it all! Definitely made it worth it.
I'm so glad you liked the dress! I was definitely in love with the lace and I was so excited to finally be able to show him my dress. I can't wait to see what you end up finding for your dress!

OMG this is the best!!! All the details are so freaking amazing, your dress is damn gorgeous and I LOVE your hair You both look so happy! And I am in love with your purple sash

Congrats!!!

Ahhhhhh this is exciting!!!! It looks like everything turned out perfectly for you both! You look absolutely beautiful! Congratulations again and I wish you the best!!!

Sam these are beautiful! You look amazing, your new husband is so handsome, everything looks so perfect! Every single picture has turned out fantastic You look stunning- a truly beautiful bride

I had another fit of envy over the scalloped lace hem of you dress too