Despite having a very small wedding, I've asked three of my friends to stand with me on my wedding day, and so far all of them are completely in for traveling to Florida with us! I'm so excited to visit Disney with these three girls, I know we'll make so many memories on this trip
First up is my
maid of honor, Ashley. We met in the summer of 2007, when we were both working as summer students in the oil sands of northern Alberta. We immediately bonded over our mutual love of 90’s boy bands. We were 19, dumb and made so many memories that summer that we decided to do it all over again the next summer! We even went and got matching Industrial piercings in our ears that second summer… Eventually, I made the permanent move to Alberta in April 2010, and we were both living back in Fort McMurray again when we decided to move to Edmonton together that summer – where we’ve both been ever since. I had the privilege of standing up as Ashley’s maid of honor at her wedding in 2015, so now it’s her turn to do the same for me!
Next, is my
bridesmaid Steph. I met Steph in our first year of university, back in 2006. We were living in the same residence – and would have had a bunch of classes together if I had actually went to class… I like to think I’m her “bad influence” friend – Steph held my hand while I got three out of four of my tattoos, and I held her hand when she got her second set of holes in her ears and her belly button pierced. We lived together (along with five guys) for eight months in 2008-2009 – and without her I would have never survived that experience…
And last, but certainly not least, is my other
bridesmaid Lauren. I first met Lauren in my second year of university, in 2007 – except I refused to believe her name was actually Lauren, and kept insisting it was Julia. We quickly became friends, and went on our fair share of adventures (all of which have photographic evidence, and are quite enjoyable to look through). I’m never bored when she’s around – Lauren can always come up with the best party themes! It’s just too bad our days as a songwriting duo never panned out…
Ashley and I both live in Alberta, but Stephanie is currently living in Ontario and Lauren is living in Nova Scotia. Ashley has never even met the other two girls, and won't do so until we're all in Florida for the wedding. I haven't seen Steph since 2014, and Lauren since 2015 so I can't wait to see them again, the three of us always had hilarious times when we were together!
Right now, Luke's side of the wedding party is not fully set, but it will be mixed gender. I believe his sister Jill is going to be his best woman, and his friend Lisa a groomsmaid (I think those are the proper terms for that?). We're still waiting to hear back if his friend Devin will be able to make it to the wedding - if he can, he will be the other groomsman.
I decided to have all the females in the wedding party dress similar, so as I mentioned above, I asked them all to buy a full-length black flowy dress. I knew there would never be a chance to get everyone together to go dress shopping (my girls live in 3 different provinces, and Luke's sister lives in Manitoba - so that means our wedding party is spread across four different provinces...), so I've completely left it up to them to get their dress. In order to differentiate my side of the wedding party from Luke's, my plan is to have my three girls carry bouquets of flowers, while the girls on Luke's side will wear wrist corsages.
I've asked the girls to send me a picture once they actually purchase their dress, so I can start buying their jewelry. It will be costume jewelry, and I'm leaning towards something brightly coloured and chunky (but it will depend on the neckline of their dress). I might even end up making it myself - it's been years, but I used to make my own jewelry all the time.
In addition to a room being booked at Old Key West for Luke and I for 11 nights, my dad now has a room at OKW booked for 7 nights, and so does Luke's mom and sister (both using rented DVC points). Ashley has a room booked for 5 nights at OKW (also on rented DVC points). Everyone else is dragging their feet and can't decide where they want to stay...
Disney offered a Canadian discount on tickets last fall, and we were able to save quite a bit of money on our park tickets for this past January. It just recently came to our attention that these tickets don't actually expire (we were under the assumption they had to be used by December 31st, 2017 same as the Disneyland discounted tickets), and the offer to purchase them was just extended out to May 20th. I've created a spreadsheet showing the cost savings, and we've been encouraging everyone to purchase their tickets before the offer expires. It's a huge savings! I purchased one of the annual passes that can be used at both Disneyland and DisneyWorld at the end of January, so I'm covered for park tickets, but we'll be buying Luke's within the next month or so (we just purchased his Disneyland ones for our upcoming trip in November).
A few weeks back, I hit a patch of ice and slid into a ditch with my car. I wasn't going very fast, but I landed on a broken tree in the ditch which caused a lot of damage to the underside of my car and it ended up being written off. So now, I need to buy a new car and go back to having a car payment (my car that I wrote off was fully paid for, I just had to pay insurance/gas each month). So that will eventually hurt our wedding budget a bit....