Wedding plans, installment one.

Ah, the planning of a wedding. Very exciting and stressful. I wonder how many couples break up just over the pressures of planning a wedding. Fortunately for me, I have a fiancee that just deals with it. Stress gets too high? Call Johnny, discuss, regroup, deal with it. Noelia has the unenviable task of spearheading the wedding preparations without me. Oh, I'm not saying that I would make everything a joy, and evaporate the stress, but it would be nice if I could at least be in the same freakin' country! Such is the way of life, I guess.

While I'm at work hacking away at code, ( or, more correctly, fighting with the development environment for 8 of the 10 hours I'm at work ), Noelia's researching. I went home recently, and here's what we did:

Visit three photographers
Visit two halls ( one of them twice )
Go shopping for bomboniere, (although I linked to the traditional definition, in modern days it can be pretty much any gift given to the guests of a wedding)
Go shopping for centrepieces
Pick out my tux, as well as those of the groomsmen

Not too bad for a three day trip. That, of course, was on top of my other agenda items, such as my uncle's birthday party.

So we got a photographer: Excellence Photography, who had the most beautiful and emotional pictures and best quality video. John is a really nice guy, and I look forward to seeing the results of his work at my wedding.

I got my tux all planned out, from Tuxedo Royale, but I'm not going to show you which one because I'm not letting Noelia know before the wedding :)

Now were ever so close to choosing our banquet hall. This one is a sticky one because the closer we get, the slower our progress becomes. We got an absolutely fantastic menu from those at DaVinci Banquet Hall, right at our budget including seat covers. Carmello is fantastic to work with. He's very accommodating, and has great suggestions. We then went to check out Le Parc, who had a slightly better overall look, with the same great menu. Tradeoff? The lobby was too small for us. Granted, our wedding will be small, at about 180-200 people, so some banquet halls have had a hard time finding a room small enough for us. (GEEZ!) After I returned to Seattle, Noelia checked out Mississauga Convention Centre, which we originally dismissed as too expensive. We're still in decision-making mode, so please offer your best in the comment section!
As a side note, these websites are severely out of date. The Mississauga Convention Centre is only 5 years old, and you can certainly tell that the website has not seen any changes since around that time. The design of the page is soooo 2000. The navigation is seriously flawed.... well, I'm an SDE, not a web designer, so I'll shut up about that now.

I was so tired while I was in Brampton that I felt like my vacation was more of a business trip. It was certainly nice to see my fiancee again, though.

Got absolutely nowhere on the bomboniere. This is usually a smallish (<=$10) gift such as a nicely wrapped salt and pepper shaker, candy dish, espresso cups, etc. I face the same dillemma as all the other modern couples: I want to give something useful, but also indicitive of the occasion. I personally don't like little statues and trinkits and such. I'm waaay to messy to have those organized in a little display case or whatever. For my parents' anniversary, I gave espresso cups and saucers. They were really nice, and great for my parents, but they're just not perfect for Noelia and I. Suggestions welcome in the comment section. Centrepieces?

Suggestions welcome in the comment section.
Suggestions welcome in the comment section.
Suggestions welcome in the comment section!
Suggestions welcome in the comment section!!
Suggestions welcome in the comment section!!!!
HELP ME OUT PEOPLE, LET'S SEE THIS FANCY INTERNET THING WORK!
hmmm now wouldn't it be impressive if Google AdSense picked up this blog and then showed some places to get bomboniere? Ah, my love for Google....