Missing something?

Brian just told me that I never posted the third installment of the wedding recaps, skipping straight from the ceremony to the dinner (whaaaa?) So I've just published the post, but it got inserted way back among the June entries - if you want to go back and fill in the gaps, you can check it out HERE.

Sorry it's been a bit quiet on the bjourn front lately, but never fear, things will pick up again. In the last few weeks, we've attended two wonderful weddings, so look for an OFT post about those soon. And yes, more bacon is on the way (only 2 shipments left) ...

Wedding Recap Part IV

After a small bjourning hiatus, we have collected almost all photographic records of the wedding (yes, including the much-awaited professional shots!) so I am ready to finish up the recaps.

I'll post a bunch of photos in this entry, but if you want to skip the narrative and go straight to the photos, you can find them by clicking here. We posted our favorites from both the professional batch and the ones collected from friends and family. There are many pro pics (287, to be exact), which, trust us, is just a subset of what we got. It was hard enough paring down to what you see - we still have to pick our favorite 80 for our album! Any suggestions?

Now on to the conclusion of my wedding thoughts and memories. All photos in this post are from Lee Simmons, our photographer. I believe we were last seen heading into dinner...

11. It's really difficult to eat when you're constantly grinning ear to ear. Despite swearing up and down before the wedding that I was going to eat my fill at the reception, and being ecstatic that we were able to do the "Night at the Castle" food stations (we weren't sure we'd have enough space at one point), I barely touched anything the whole night. There were too many people to hug, too many happy tears to shed, and too many songs to dance to. All accounts of dinner were highly positive - there were a lot of compliments for the cheese, the lambchops (I did have some of those, they were excellent), the risotto, the shrimp, the sushi (which got snapped up faster than tickets to a New Kids on the Block concert in 1990) and the desserts. It's no secret that food is important to us (if you don't know that, you should get the idea by reading through this bjourn), and hotel banquet food is always a bit of a gamble, so we were really glad that everyone enjoyed it. (That may be my largest regret of the whole wedding, not enjoying the food more! I can live with that.)

12. It's nice to get toasted. No, I don't mean *that* kind of toasted. I mean, it was so amazing to have people who know us so well and love us so much get up and say all sorts of nice sweet things about us. (Once again, my trepidation at being the center of attention went right out the window on the actual day.) All of the toasts were full of memories and good wishes, and they just may have brought a tear or two to my eye (who are we kidding). I think the pictures capture a lot of how we felt while we were listening to them.

Jon's toast contained some slightly scandalous but fully hilarious stories

(that's right, we were spanked for being bad as children):

and a heartfelt acceptance of Brian as his own brother:

Donald's told of contrasts between our two sibling relationships ("not so much play fighting [as Jon and I did], as Brian chasing me angrily up and down the stairs"), and how Brian had changed and opened up with his family over the course of our relationship. I was just laughing at how hard Brian was laughing the whole time:
Heather's toast was a funny reminiscence of our elementary and junior high school days together, including her brilliant turn as campaign manager in my successful run at the student council presidency (what did I do in office that year, anyway?!):

Mike talked about his friendship with Brian throughout grad school and how important it was to both of them. Hoo boy, I am getting a lump in my throat just thinking about the toasts again:

13. We successfully avoided kissing to clinking glasses. Brian and I may have disagreed on many things about the wedding, but one thing that we absolutely were in sync about was that we did not want to give in to this wedding tradition. I was worried people would be disappointed when we announced at the outset that we would not succumb, and there were a couple of respectable attempts to make us do so, but somehow we avoided it all night. It likely had a little something to do with the mad skills that Jon displayed as emcee of the evening. He creatively made everyone work for our kisses. Among other things, he had people suck on super sour candies he made magically appear, and he had one couple from each table show us how it's done.

As long as it wasn't at the clinking of glasses, we were happy to oblige:

14. All the time and effort that went into the details was worth it. At some points, planning this wedding felt like it would be my early demise. If I didn't bleed to death from a thousand x-acto knife pricks or papercuts, I thought I would surely go blind from all the time I spent on my laptop researching flower wholesalers, cardstock suppliers and labware supply stores. It might be a bit surprising to some, but I really had very few concrete ideas about the wedding itself before we got engaged (ok, yeah, except for the favors. Yes, it's true, I decided to make candles for the favors many many years ago, and as Heather said in her toast, I began stockpiling supplies as early as 2005.) So a lot of what ended up in the wedding was the result of much consideration, and even more trial and error. As the wedding neared, I also started to worry about how it would all come together - so much was done piecemeal and at a distance, I didn't know if it would truly work. And I wouldn't know, until the wedding. Yikes! But looking back on pictures like these, I would do it all over again. The scariest thing? I would probably do even more. (But only if I once again had the help of my amazing friends).

15. People dig a dancefloor. Though we don't go out dancing very often (ok, like never these days), we used to be pretty good at shaking our groove thangs at our college formals and the odd club outing. More recently, weddings seem to be the only place we really get down, and it's always so much fun because pretty much everyone can be convinced to get up and dance. In case you're trying to deny that you were there, here's some photographic evidence:

And, finally...

16. The night ended too soon, but the rest of our lives had to begin sometime... Yes, we were exhausted from a week of sleepless nights leading up to the wedding. Yes, we had been not only on our feet but also on our best behavior for 15 hours. Yes, our faces were sore from smiling, our eyes were tired from tearing, and our lips were dry from kissing(!) But if I could have, I would have willed the night to go on forever. Getting married in the midst of our friends and family was the happy culmination of not just 15 months of planning, but the last 12 years of our lives. 12 years of living apart but learning and growing together, filled with some downs but so many more ups. We had been looking forward to the celebration for so long that I wanted it to last forever, though I also knew that the wedding was just the start of things, or really, the continuation of what we had already started. May 17th, 2008 was the best day of our lives so far. But in the end, what we did on that day - marrying each other - was just setting us up for bigger and better things. The wedding may be over, but we have so much to look forward to. For the rest of our lives, we will have "best days," days that break personal records and days that compete with our memories of one amazing weekend in Banff. The very best part of it all, though, is that we will have them together...

So, dear friends and family, that ends my public recap of the wedding (because you can bet that I will relive it over and over again in my head for eternity!) Thank you for being there, whether in the flesh or through these posts. Be sure to flip through the new photos (linked again here so that you don't strain your wrist scrolling all the way to the beginning of this novel :) ) and let us know what you think. Here are a few more teasers for your viewing pleasure:

We will now return to our regularly scheduled bjourning about more normative events in our lives. OFTs, bacon, not-so-deep-thoughts and general silliness in the Windy City and beyond.

Wedding Recap Part III

Oooooops, I forgot to post this before I moved on to the conclusion! Better late than never...

Previously, on Wedding Recaps... Let's see, I got through the ceremony, so it's on to the cocktail reception!

9. Cocktails were a very "happy hour." We were originally going to have the cocktail hour in the side hallway of Mount Stephen Hall (where we dined and danced), which I was happy about at the time, as it is a cute area with character and a lot of cool benches for seating. However, when we decided to change from a plated dinner to the Night at the Castle food stations, we had to change venues because a couple of food stations would be taking up that area. At one point it looked like our only option was in a totally separate part of the hotel, far away from the Petrak (ceremony) room and Mount Stephen. We hated that idea, and for a while it looked like that was going to make the plated meal vs. food station decision, which was sad (we were all rooting for the Night at the Castle). We also didn't like sending people too far away from Mt Stephen, thinking we might lose a guest or two before dinner! But then when I was talking to the coordinator at the hotel one day, she told us that she had noticed that the Riverview Lounge had freed up, and that she had booked it in our names. We were really excited, because not only was it right next to the Petrak room, but it is an absolutely lovely room with huge windows that look out into the tree-scattered mountains. As I said before, we took bridal party photos before the ceremony so we could enjoy this time with guests, which was one of the best decisions we could have made. Cue photos!

The view out of one of the windows of the
Riverview Lounge (Amy F)

Here are some of the big armchairs that keep the castle
theme alive in the hotel. L to R, that's Andrea, Jen,
Sindy, Alisha and Lara (?)

Danny and me. He was so adorable, trying
not to come to close because his mom told
him to be very careful of my dress! (Amy A)

10. It was a blessing to have extended family at the wedding. Weddings are about friends and family, and before ours, people told me what a great excuse they were to have bring everyone together in one place. When we were creating the guest list, it was exciting that our families would be coming together not only symbolically but literally, too. As I mentioned before, we know each others' more immediate families pretty well. Over the years, we've also been able to meet other family members when they were in town to visit in Calgary, Vancouver, LA and San Francisco. The wedding was a great opportunity to truly join our two families, and it was lovely to see aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents again, or meet new faces. Our photographer did a great job of taking larger family photos, but we haven't gotten them yet, so I'll just post some smaller group pictures here. I'm sorry I don't have photos of everyone, but hopefully more are on the way! My family's covered (a pretty small contingent), but I'm missing Ruby, Andrew, Brian and Miguel, as well as Brian's Dad's side of the family - they contributed photos but aren't in many of them!)

My cousins Di Yi, Cheung Dat, Li and Kam (Li F's camera)

My cousin Allan, Uncle Steve, Uncle and Aunt Ho Fai (Li F)

Brian's mom's side: Ah Ma and Ye Ye in front, then
2nd row L-R is Peggy, Aunt Wendy, Ah Ma's sister and her
sister in law, Aunt Winnie, cousin Michelle (who's getting
married to Jesse, standing behind her, in August!)
3rd row L-R is Ginny, cousins George and Sean (hiding behind),
Uncle David and cousin Nolan (Wendy S's camera)

Up next, we move from the Riverview Lounge into Mount Stephen Hall for a dinner full of laughter, tears and grooves...

Wedding Recap Part II

A continuation of my thoughts and memories of the wedding...

6. I didn't stuff enough tissues down the front of my dress. Anyone who knows me (or has watched TV with me, more accurately) knows that I cry. I cry involuntarily, sometimes the tears just fall and I hardly even realize it. always at cheesy sitcoms (the "very special" episodes get me everytime, like when Carlton took Will's speed pills and ended up in the hospital, or when Stephanie's friend tells her his Dad hits him, and she tells Uncle Jesse, or when that doctor/nurse/patient almost died on ER... oh wait, that's every episode...). Sporting events are fair game (even if my team wins, I cry because the other team lost and they look sad) and occasionally, I cry at the passing of an ambulance, because I know that it's on its way to someone who's hurt. So, it was just an accepted fact that I would cry through the whole ceremony, if not the whole weekend. What I didn't count on, however, was how emotional other people were. During the ceremony, all the guys were teary, not just Brian! It was really hard to find a place to focus my gaze, because if I looked at any of them it would set me off. I only had 2 tissues in my dress, and boy, was that a miscalculation. I was drippy and teary the whole time (luckily none of the pictures we've seen so far catch any inappropriate fluid trails, which believe me there were, and our photographer assured me he got photos without me covering my face with tissue).

Some evidence of fluids, from both of us! (Alan Y)

7. Writing the ceremony ourselves was a really good decision. At first we were going to do a really quick ceremony. In fact, it was going to be very small, only for close family, and a few minutes long. We saw it as just a legal necessity, and were even slightly resentful that we needed to pay a stranger to tell us that we were married. But as wedding planning went on, and I reflected on weddings we've been to in the past, I started to think that the ceremony was something I wanted to share with people, and that it could be a very personal, beautiful thing if we wanted it to be. Brian took a little convincing but I *think* he's glad we did it the way we did, in hindsight!

Writing the ceremony was really intimidating. Our officiant gave us a 3-page template, 90% of which could be changed. We had free reign, and I wanted to make sure it was meaningful, reflective of our personalities and respectful of the depth of our relationship, but fun and interactive at the same time. In the end, we were really happy with how it went, and I think all the parts and pieces spoke to different aspects of us and our relationship in a wonderful way. My favorite parts were: Sharon reading an excerpt from a supreme court ruling on gay marriage; the ripples of laughter from the guests when the Mayor asked if we would create a home filled with good food; us reading from "I Like You"; everyone blessing their buttons; Ashley and Donald fighting tears while performing "Annie's Song"; Mike and Misha's heartfelt blessing; and of course, kissing my new husband.

Wait, that's pretty much the whole thing... yes, a really good decision. Here are some pics from the ceremony:

The handsome boys walking in (Li F)

Here come the girls! (Li F)

Now everyone's waiting for me... (Alan Y)

I'm here! Let's get this party started... (Natalie M)

Donald and Ashley performing (Alan Y)

You may now seal your commitment with a kiss!
I love this picture (Li F)

Another gratuitous kissy picture (Alan Y)

Walking out as husband and wife, with our
happy Dads on either side (Li F)

8. Music matters. People always say how smells bring back memories really easily, but for me I've always found music to be a really strong touchstone. If a song speaks to me, I have a habit of playing it incessantly, so it gets inextricably tied to a certain event, time or mood in my life. Brian already posted about our dinner and slideshow playlists, but we also put a fair amount of time into choosing the ceremony music too. Like everything else with the wedding, we wanted the music to reflect us and to be meaningful and fun. A big highlight for me was of course hearing Ashley's cherubic voice singing "Annie's Song" (which already has a sort of ethereal feel when John Denver sings it) while she was playing the piano and being accompanied by Donald on the viola. The day before the wedding, Ashley and Donald were practicing in the Ceremony room (they hadn't played together yet!) and when I walked in, it was so lovely that tears just started to fall (I'm telling you, darn my overactive tearducts). Brian later told me that even before he saw me crying, he had gotten emotional at that same moment. Speaking of Brian, a big kudos to him for choosing our recessional music - walking out to the theme from the Calgary '88 winter olympics was a nice nod to our separate but parallel childhoods, and just a really fun, upbeat way to end the ceremony (even if only a handful of guests recognized it!)

That's it for this installment, I'll leave you with some pictures from the Friday night rehearsal...

At the rehearsal, practicing walking down the aisle with
my parents, complete with practice bouquet (Jen D)

Fumbling our way through the ceremony (Jen D)

I'm getting married tomorrow! (Jen D)

Wedding Recap Part I

I started to write a narrative recap of the wedding, but most of you who read this bjourn (all 3 of you) were there! So I thought instead, I would just make a list of favorite moments and realizations, enhanced with pictures, of course. It looks like it'll get long so here's the first installment... names in parenthesis at the end of a photo caption indicate the photographer. We're still expecting more photos but these are some of the ones we've gotten so far. I love looking at photos of the wedding - it's wonderful to get other perspectives from the day.

1. We had an amazing bridal party. Since almost every element of the wedding, from all of the flowers to the table centerpieces, the stationery and signage, the guest welcome bags, and the bathroom amenity baskets were done by us, the days leading up to the wedding were really busy. Everyone came early to Banff and stayed together in a condo where we put them to work, cutting and arranging flowers (under the wise tutelage of Sharon), scooping gummy bears, tying ribbons, etc. I even made Jen wash the buttons for the ceremony! Also, since things looked to be pretty hectic on the actual wedding day, Brian and I put together duotangs with very detailed schedules and diagrams for everyone (what's a duotang? click here to find out). When we went over them in painstaking detail and took everyone on a tour of the Banff Springs hotel, nary a complaint was uttered. Sharon, Ashley, Jen, Heather, Ben, Jon, Natalie, Donald, Mike, Misha and Val were the best team we could have had supporting us during the whole weekend. We got a lot of compliments about them and their work from other guests and even the coordinator at the Springs. The best part of it all was that everyone got along really well - I think we kind of 'tricked' them all into working so hard, by masking it all in laughter and fun. There are even talks of a bridal party reunion sometime in the not-too-distant future... at some undisclosed cabin somewhere or maybe on a cruise ship :)

Unfortunately, I don't have a good picture of everyone
all together. But here are Jon, Sharon, Heather, Ben, Donald,
Ashley and Mike, watching the photographer do his thing
with Brian and I out at Bow Falls. (Jen D) And here are Misha and Natalie at the girls' dinner at the
Spaghetti Factory (Jen D). Jen and Val were a
little harder to capture, so pics of them will come later.

2. We have amazing friends, in general. Before the wedding, I was pretty nervous about spending the whole weekend at the center of everyone's attention. I mean, 90 people were coming to Banff for us, to watch us get married. It felt odd, rather self-serving, and, frankly, a little scary. (Anyone who knows me knows I'm not that good at being 'proper' for long stretches of time...!) But in the moment, it was incredible. When the doors opened and I joined my parents to walk down the aisle, that all melted away. Seeing everyone's smiling faces, feeling all the warmth and love in that room, it became less about people being there because of us, and all about them being there with us, sharing in this incredibly important event in our lives. We have been together for so long that it was really meaningful to bring together people from all different parts of our lives, who know us as individuals and/or as a couple. This was one of the most overwhelming parts of the weekend for me.

A gaggle of girls at dinner during the boys' bachelor party.
From front to back on the left to right: Angi, Sharon (hidden
behind Angi), me, Jen, Ashley, Lara, and from back to front
on the right: Alisha, Sindy, Natalie, Misha, Tina, Esme
(the baby) and Erin (JenD)

Some California crew at the cocktail reception: Lara,
Alisha, Sindy, me, Brian, Amori, Dana and Robin (Robin T) Farid, John and Roby at the ceremony (Angi C)

3. We have amazing families. It's been so many years that I *almost* forget what it was like when we first started dating, but we both know that our respective families made us feel welcome from very early on. The very first time my parents met Brian, he was delivering the valedictory speech at our high school graduation. What parents wouldn't want that for their daughter?! They swooned, he got automatic approval, and here we are. During college, I became an annual fixture at Brian's family's holiday gatherings and got to know not only his parents and brother, but his aunts, cousins and grandmother who also live in Calgary. We are so grateful to our parents for their support during the wedding planning process (and always). We are also both blessed with one brother each, in my case Jon is older and in Brian's Donald is younger. Luckily, we have been able to live in the same city with each of them at different points in our lives (Jon was at UBC med when we were at UBC, and Donald is currently at Northwestern, like Brian). They provided so much of the emotion and laughter at the wedding, a lot of people told us specifically how much they enjoyed meeting them and how great they are. We wholeheartedly agree.

Brian's parents, looking very dapper as they walk
down the aisle (Robin T)My parents and I (Robin T)

My brother Jon and his beautiful wife Natalie (Li F)

Brian's brother Donald (Misha C)

4. The weather gods smiled upon us. The week or so before our wedding (seriously, May 11) there was a knee-deep dump of snow in Banff. After we left Calgary (May 21), it rained for several days. But for the wedding weekend, the days when most of our guests were in town, it was gorgeous - sunny, warm and mild. Growing up in Calgary, we know that the weather in the spring is fickle as can be, so we gave only brief consideration to having the ceremony outside. But on this weekend, we totally could have. We are just so glad that people were able to enjoy the beautiful scenery without wearing parkas! This is what we got to enjoy:

(Robin T)(Jen D)

5. Our efforts to actually spend time with people paid off. Since traveling to Banff was no easy feat for most people, we wanted to make sure that we maximized the time that we spent with guests. With plenty of extra-curricular activities (the boys' bachelor party/girls dinner, drinks at Earls, Sunday brunch), we felt like we got more "quality time" with more guests. Also, we made 2 good decisions that helped with this: 1) We opted to take bridal party and family photos before the ceremony - this freed us up to actually attend the cocktail hour afterward, rather than running off for a couple of hours; and 2) We stuck around Banff for a couple of days after the wedding, which gave us the opportunity to hang out with those who were still in town in a more relaxed state. Of course, we didn't get to spend enough time with everybody, after all it was just one weekend. But we have our lifetimes to build and strengthen our friendships. And now that there's no more wedding planning, we'll actually have time to!

More wedding-specific details and pictures to come in the 2nd installment...

Wedding Muzaks

Thanks again to everyone who attended the wedding, and made it such a memorable event. We really wanted the wedding to reflect our personalities, and this guided many of our decisions during the planning process. We had a few positive comments about the music we chose for the wedding, so I thought we would share our song lists.

Dinner Music

For background music during the dinner, we wanted to play songs that we would play if we hosted a party in our house.

In The Waiting Line - Zero 7
Somewhere Only We Know - Keane
Omaha - Tapes 'n Tapes
The Crane Wife 3 - The Decemberists
Swimmers - Broken Social Scene
The Golden Age - Beck
Rebellion (Lies) - Arcade Fire
Swallowed In The Sea - Coldplay
So Here We Are - Bloc Party
Details Of The War - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
I Will Follow You Into the Dark - Death Cab For Cutie
I Feel It All - Feist
Robbers - Cold War Kids
Even Tho - Joseph Arthur
If The Brakeman Turns My Way - Bright Eyes
The Radio's Hot Sun - Handsome Furs
This Love - The Magic Numbers
Wheat Kings - The Tragically Hip
Change Your Mind - The Killers
Young Folks - Peter Bjorn And John
You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb - Spoon
This Heart's On Fire - Wolf Parade
Chicago - Sufjan Stevens
The Calendar Girl - Stars
Mr. Tough - Yo La Tengo
Missed The Boat - Modest Mouse
These Are the Fables - The New Pornographers
Leap Year - +/-
Reckoner - Radiohead
Old Soul Song (For The New World Order) - Bright Eyes
Such Great Heights - The Postal Service
Vox - Sarah McLachlan
Energy of Death - Apostle Of Hustle
Phantom Limb - The Shins
Lebanese Blonde - Thievery Corporation
Friendship Update - The Go! Team
One Time Too Many - Phoenix
Introducing Angles - Destroyer


Slideshow

Forever Young - Youth Group
Requiem for o.m.m.2 - Of Montreal
Heartbeats - Jose Gonzalez
First Day of My Life - Bright Eyes

I cut and faded the songs using GarageBand. If anyone is putting together a slideshow, I would be happy to help, but in hindsight, I would not recommend putting together the slideshow for your own wedding. I don't know why I was so stubborn, but I should've accepted help when it was offered.

We're married!

Hi everyone,

We're back from our super awesome 2 weeks of wedding prep, wedding activities, post-wedding recovery, and Montreal mini-moon. We have a lot to update and share, and while we're sad that the wedding's over, we're excited to get back to more normalcy and OFTs and exploring Chicago. It's back to work for us tomorrow, but here's what you can look forward to in the very near future:

Wedding recaps (with photos) - it was such a fun and emotional weekend, there is a lot to say and describe! Professional pictures won't be in for a while, but we will post others in the meantime. We got some great photos from some of you at the brunch, but many of you have mentioned that you had more to share. Please comment below or get in touch with one of us if you have pics from the wedding that you'd like us to have.

Montreal minimoon recap (with photos) - our post-wedding travels were built around relaxation and food (what else?)! Who won the battle of The Newlyweds vs. Poutine? You be the judge. How was the foot of the pig at Au Pied de Cochon? Only photos will tell.

More OFTs - now that the weather is warming up and our nights and weekends are not automatically dedicated to wedding tasks, we should have regular fun things to report on.

Bacon updates - If you're keeping count, we still have 5 months of bacon to go, so the tasting and ranking continues. We had to postpone the May delivery because of the wedding, so we should be getting two batches pretty close to each other (yikes!)

So stay with us, and you know we love it when you chime in, so feel free to leave comments anytime!

-The Drs. Yeh

P.S. Here's a little teaser photo, taken by our lovely friend Jen!