Ticking Items Off the List

What a week! (or 11 days to be exact). We made it home and back again, fitting in as much as humanly possible into that time. Not only that but Mike and i survived two 9 hour bus rides, two 11-13 hour flights, a trips to Midland and Kincardine, twice to London, AND each other! We both enjoyed seeing everyone we could and wished we could have visited even more.

Yet, alas, I sidetrack from the purpose of this post.

As it turns out I went dress shopping, a lot! I went once with Kathryn, Mike’s sister, to a store in Midland. Well I thought I found a dress! I honestly thought I found the one for me! But seeing as it was my first day of shopping I decided to keep looking.

Two days later onward I marched accompanied by my sisters Julianne, Meighan, and my Mom. Again, after many dresses I thought I found a good contender. It was really nice to try on with veils and to get opinions from everyone. But then I stood in natural light, NOT on the pedestal, and I saw how much work would have to be put into the dress for me to be happy with it. Suddenly my on sale dress was looking like more and more work. Well we broke for lunch aft which Mom and I continued to another store as Meighan and Julianne had to report back to University classes. Mom and I were not nearly as successful at the next store.

So I returned home to Kincardine where Mom and my other sister Heather would set out from the next day for Listowel. This particular bridal shop was the one where Heather got her own wedding dress. Again we try on numerous dresses but then I found one that was.... well more.... I try on more dresses and then return to the one I liked. We try on veils and jewels and things with it. It keeps looking better and better!

I decided I need a break for lunch. After a poutine and soup I decide that yep, that was the one for me! Yea I’ve gotten my dress! So we return to the store and put the dress back on so that I can get lots of pictures and such, so my year in Japan I don’t forget what it looks like.

So home we return, successful and happy, although the little Yaris was rather full with three people and a wedding dress.

So now Mike and I are back in Japan, and my dress sits at my parents’ house waiting for me. However there is a wonderful file on the laptop that is labelled ‘Do Not Open Mike’ which is filled with pictures. *giggles* I like to remind him it’s there and that he can’t look at it. I’m bad like that.

We did more for the wedding, but nothing confirmed yet. So for now I won’t fill you in the many details of our trip home. But we have officially bought our first item for the wedding, and it’s my dress!

Wedding dress – check
A million other details - ....

It`s a work in progress.

Beware the Bridal Magazines

So I live in Japan and I teach English, so as you can guess (from the fact that you are reading this blog in English) that English is my first language. Honestly and truly.... it’s my only language. Sure I have a smattering of French, I can swear in a few other languages, and my Japanese is well... terrible. I can say “It’s cold, no?” and other variations on that mundane and obvious question to state that it’s hot or humid. I can also answer yes, no, and ask for more water. Yep, linguistically I’m not very fast or useful; I am as useful as a unicycle. (Is it a, or an, unicycle? An sounds wrong. Look I can’t even speak on language right!) The point is that I don’t speak or read the language of the country in which I currently reside.
So you may be wondering, and rightly so, why I would waste my money of buying a magazine in a language (or technically three written languages; hiragana, katakana, kanji) which I cannot even begin to read. Why? Why?! Because it’s a bridal magazine and it has pictures!


Yep I’ve reverted to the 5 year old who walks up to a shelf and pulls out the biggest book with the shiny cover and begins randomly thumbing through the pages. I literally picked up magazines and did the finger flip, and as pages sped by me I would quickly discern whether the images were worth looking at at a more leisurely pace, and thus was it worth paying for.


There were a couple magazines that were held closed with some weird yellow criss-crossed rubber band device. I quickly dismissed this as an option since I was not allowed to preview the pages. It was possible that the giant bold type kanji on the front was shouting to me ‘1 in 2 Chance of winning a million dollars Canadian!’. While this is obviously highly unlikely, it didn’t really matter since I couldn’t read a word of it anyway. The only kanji I can recognize is the symbol for minutes, which usually is pre-empted by a number, and is often the clear clue of how long you should be frying or boiling the frozen food I’ve bought.


Yet, my inability to read the magazine I bought, I have continued on to buy more than one. (I think its 2 and ½ because one I bought because it was cheap and local) So now I have these thick magazines, filled with international, and Japanese style, wedding dresses and other wedding paraphernalia. Oh dear.


The issue with this is not singular, there are multiple issues.


• One; Many of the styles in the magazine are high fashion. This means they may(be) beautiful or they may(be) fun to look at, but they would never work into my traditional and less fashion conscious wedding day.


• Two; I’m not sure if this is the type of magazine, or if it is because it is published in Japan, but there are NO models even close to resembling the average body-shape, little alone MY body shape. Between the fashion models and the Japanese models, these girls have no curse or excess body fat. I mean I’m not huge, but I’ve got my curves! So looking at these pictures is not as inspiring as I hoped, and a little depressing.


• Three; This I KNOW is a Japanese thing, they enjoy seeing prices in advertisements and articles. I remember only occasionally reading in Cosmo and finding a tiny bracketed prices as they told you how to get the fashion look ‘for less’. These magazines are selling wedding dresses! Big ticket items! Like one step down from house or car! And they are displaying prices! *faints* Yep, I would see a gown and start to warm towards it, and then BAM 896,050 yen. Now the exchange rate fluctuates and such, but a VERY rough estimate into Canadian dollars is like $8,960.50. Yep, not on my budget.


So yes, while I have enjoyed my momentary day dreaming and fantasising, I think I have deduced that me and the magazine racks should avoid each other. I think I shall return to the ‘Green’ (and cheaper) option of looking at used (or tragically unused but bought) wedding dresses again. *sigh*


But when I go home to Canada... and they have English magazines... *evil chuckle*

Visiting Home for Research

“We were thinking about starting a blog.” Mike and I uttered these words several times well over a year ago, before we both headed across the Pacific Ocean to come and live in Japan. We had originally thought that it would be a good way from friends and family to stay in touch and up to date with us. However it didn’t’ happen, what with it taking 3 months for us to get the internet in our house. Yet life continued and we did our best to keep in touch.

However, now that we are ENGAGED (and if you are reading this then you should already know that wonderful fact) I decided that I wanted to start a blog. My wonderful friend Jen started one after she got engaged and I completely enjoyed reading it.


So here is my attempt to reach out to people, keep everyone up to date, and retain whatever measure of sanity I can while attempting to organize all this from another continent. Should this blog complete even HALF of that I will thoroughly be impressed (and perhaps half crazy). It just all seems like a lot right now.


But enough about the challenges yet to come, let me do as I said I would and “...keep everyone up to date...”.


First Mike and I will be returning to Canada soon, and only briefly. We have 11 days and 2 weddings to attend (sounds like a bad movie). We are thrilled to see our families and celebrate in person our wonderful news together. Talking, laughing, shopping, long car rides, and perhaps some wine is all on the list of things we hope to do with our families. So that’s super exciting!


Yet I really must admit that I also see this trip as a wonderful research opportunity. Seeing as the last wedding I was at was two years ago; Mike was the best man and I the attending date. The only wedding I was ever in, excluding my debut as a 5 year old flower girl, was my older sister’s wedding three years ago. I know little about the actual organization of a wedding, and the unfortunate part is that Mike had no hidden secret desire to be a wedding planner (alas) and thus knows less than I do about it all.


So while we are attending these weddings, one of Mike’s cousin and the other of my above mentioned friend, I will be indeed taking notes and probably asking a lot of questions. So if you see me inspecting flower arrangements, feeling table clothes, asking guest questions, or jotting down notes about the DJ, please ignore me. I swear I’m not crazy, just a little nervous about organizing my own wedding. Fortunately I get to be a guest, and a member of a bridal party, so I get to see both views.


All in all it should be a great trip home; honestly I’m already having trouble sleeping at night because I am so excited. So we will be seeing a lot of you soon!