Wedcap: Prettifying for the Big Event

I barely slept the night before our wedding. While our bed was incredibly comfortable and I dozed off pretty early in the night, I found myself wide awake at 3AM. I couldn’t get back to sleep. Not wanting to wake Lenore up (she was sleeping next to me), I just laid there in the dark and tried to shut my eyes. They stayed open. I took my iPhone out and passed the time on Twitter, tweeting about my lack of sleep. Thankfully, a few familiar faces from my wedding-buddies circle were also up at that ungodly hour and I was able to chat with people who have gone through the pre-wedding jitters before.

At 4AM, Lenore got up to go to the washroom. When she got back, she noticed that I was still wide-awake. Bless her little heart, my MOH, who was still clearly half-asleep, stayed awake to keep me company. We talked about our cats and the bands we used to listen to when we were younger. We laughed at old memories of crazy shenanigans that we got ourselves into in our decade-long friendship and cracked some jokes about how lame we were being, reminiscing about them on the night before my wedding. It was fun. I highly recommend that brides have a girly sleepover before their wedding to calm their nerves.

By 5AM, the dozing off Lenore offered to make me some tea to help me sleep. I accepted her offer and the tea worked like a charm… well… almost. While I was finally about to fall asleep, my bladder began to protest. Tea may be calming, but it’s also an excellent tool for cleansing your bladder. I must have gotten up six times to pee in a span of two hours. Next thing I knew, it was 7:30AM, the sun was rising and my hair/makeup artist friendor Jenni Evil was sending me text messages informing me that she was on her way to the hotel. So much for sleep!

By 8:30AM, the hotel room was buzzing with activity. Scott and Ramona arrived bearing wonderful gifts of Tim Hortons breakfast bagels and coffee. Our wonderful photographer, Calla Evans, her assistant, and our videographer Mark Zanin arrived shortly after to document the prep. Jenni already had my hair in curlers and I looked like a middle-aged angry asian stereotype.

The rest of the morning flew. With everyone running around, I barely had time to really sit down and take in the whole concept of getting married in just a few hours. While I was physically exhausted from the whole week, I just fed off everyone’s energy and went crazy with it. I probably talked everyones ears off (sorry guys!).

I spent a lot of time distracting myself on Twitter. I got plenty of lovely messages from friends sending well-wishes and reminding me to relax.

Once my hair and makeup was done, it was time to get into the dress. My friendor and dress-designer Ashley of Provocouture Studios was on site to help me into the corset. Once the dress was on, that was when it finally hit me: I was getting married in less than an hour.

Let the show begin!

More photos from the bride’s room during prep time:

These beautiful curls only lasted for all of twenty minutes. My hair likes to protest against curls much to Jenni Evil’s dismay.

These series of “prettifying” photos of Lenore always makes me giggle.  🙂

Our wedding on the interwebs

Whoa. Married two months already? Still no recaps? WTF?

Sorry about that guys. The holidays kind of ate me alive. We haven’t even sent out our thank-you cards yet, we’re so busy (I’m so sorry, wedding guests! Please don’t take this as us being ungrateful! We love you and the thank you cards are coming and we promise it will be epic!).

Anyway, to make up for the lack of updates, I give you two fun links to fantastic wedding blogs that have recently featured our geekfest nuptials. Thanks for featuring us, guys! We’re glad that we were able to share great memories from our special day with you!

Rock ‘n Roll Bride – A great wedding blog that I wish I had stumbled upon A LOT sooner. My photographer, Calla told me about this amazing blog. I was so stoked when Kat contacted me about being featured on the site! It made my Holidays!

Offbeat Bride – Offbeat Bride was my wedding bible when I was planning my wedding. Ramona gave me a copy of Ariel’s book when I first got engaged and it got me through so much planning stress (it was also a VERY entertaining read!). The Offbeat Bride blog and online tribe were also great sources of inspiration for us. It’s nice to be able to give back to the community that reassured us that it’s OK to have graveyard wedding cakes and zombie RSVP cards!

OK… now be right back after I re-adjust to normal life!

Happy Four Year Dateaversary, Mr. Zombie!

Dear Mr. Zombie,

It’s been four years since we’ve met. Four years since that cold, snowy night when we argued about David Cronenberg, shared an awkward racist moment and you declined to buy me a bagel at Timmies even though it was my birthday. Looking back on it now, that date really could have ended horribly, yet here we are… married, with a brigade of four spoiled rotten cats, creating a lot of art together and still very crazy for each other. Let’s keep up the love, yes?

A proposal for today: since they’re shutting down our beloved first date theatre, the Carlton Cinemas this weekend ( those bastards! Damn them all to hell!), I propose that we re-create that hilarious movie night (minus the cronenberg) where it all began. My treat (and no, I won’t hold this against you like that bagel I mentioned earlier… )! Sound snazzy? Yes?

I love you, Poopie! Happy dateaversary!

– Mrs. Zombie 🙂

Rehearsals, lunches and a sleepy stag & doe night

The day before the wedding was pretty difficult to get through. It was nearing the end of an incredibly busy week of last-minute wedding projects, entertaining out of town guests who were slowly trickling into the city  and an exceptionally large array of non-wedding-related activities*. Not only were we physically and mentally exhausted, but both Mr. Zombie and I seemed to be fighting a bug trying to take over our immune system. We weren’t the only ones fighting off the sick. My dad had to bail on the rehearsal because he came down with tonsillitis. Yikes!

The morning began with our rehearsal. Since our ceremony venue is a fully working movie theatre, we had to have our rehearsal earlier in the day before the first screenings begin. At this point, all Mr. Zombie and I had as a point of reference was a rough draft of the written ceremony and a couple in our wedding party who recently got married and knew roughly how these things were supposed to go. We took a look at what the venue and figured out what it had to offer for us: two aisles, rickety stairs and a tiny, sketchy stage. While Mr. Zombie and I had performed on that same stage countless of times, it still took us a few trial and errors to get everyone and everything we needed to fit into that little stage.

Our sleepy wedding party on the stage. They all JUST fit!

In a very rare instance for these particular close friends and family, I also put on my director pants (or skirt?) and started to act all official… and… stuff. I guess that film school tuition didn’t quite go to waste, huh, Mom?

It took a bit of time to figure out the logistics of the walks, especially since we only had our iPhones with tiny earbuds that played our ceremony music. Eventually, we found a good rhythm that we were all content with and it was finally time for lunch.

Our rehearsal lunch took place at 7 West Restaurant, a cute little 24-hour place that served mostly Italian food and breakfast-themed meals. Mr. Zombie and I discovered this place only about a year ago despite having lived in the neighbourhood for nearly four years. The restaurant had a very quirky decor, with the third floor resembling an old church with its stained glass wall art and vintage pews. After a delicious lunch, we all parted ways for a few hours in the rain to run separate errands before checking in to our hotel.

We checked into our hotel room at the Holiday Inn Midtown (just a five-minute walk from the Cinema) in the afternoon. As soon as we got in, Lenore and I crawled under the covers of the king size bed and took a power nap before heading out to our manicure appointment. The manicure appointment was a milestone in our decade-long friendship. It was by far the girliest experience Lenore and I shared as best friends! It brought us great relief that the manicure place was playing the cheesy Governator classic “End of Days” on their TVs, watching cheesy horror (if you can call it that?) movies was one of our favourite passtimes.

When Lenore and I got back to the hotel, Mr. Zombie, Brother (and Best Man) Zombie, Scott and Ramona were already there, waiting to grab dinner and begin what we had all planned to be a really hoppin’ stag&doe night (which may or may not have included strippers).  Unfortunately, Mr. Zombie’s health was starting to fade. He was in a daze and was definitely running a fever. We opted to find a place to do takeout instead, so we went to a good ol’ reliable Canadian chain for dinners-to-go: Swiss Chalet. We brought the food back to our room and ate on the floor in silence. People started to doze off right after. Mr. Zombie felt like he was dying. By 8PM, we realized that this stag&doe night was not going to happen. We needed sleep instead. After a unanimous decision to postpone stag & doe night to after the wedding, we all retired to our separate rooms and Scott and Ramona went home for a well-deserved rest.

But wait!!!!

It was around 9:30PM when I realized something: Mr. Zombie and I still needed to write our vows! While we had originally planned to write different vows and have them be a surprise to the other during the ceremony, Mr. Zombie and I simply didn’t have the mental strength to come up with something on our own, so we decided to just combine our tired efforts and write our vows together. While he soaked in a bubble bath in a lame attempt to break his fever, I sat on the close-lidded toilet seat with a complimentary hotel paper and pen in hand and we wrote our vows together. It barely took a few minutes and we only read it through maybe once or twice before finally calling it at night. I emailed our vows off to the officiant, kissed Mr. Zombie goodbye (until the wedding at least!) and walked down the hall to my own room. Lenore and I watched an episode of some Paranormal reality show and dozed off rather quickly, excited for the big day coming up ahead.

* To give you an idea: We performed a Halloween-themed shadowcast show just two days before.

Professional Photo Preview

Our wonderful photographer, Calla Evans has presented us with boxes upon boxes of proofs of our insanely fantastic professional wedding photos. I can’t stop looking at them, they are so beautiful and she and her camera assistant Ryan really captured the awesomeness that was our wedding day perfectly. Above is a teaser pic, which is hands down my favourite photo from the entire set. There’s nothing like a good boob grab to welcome someone into the married club.

Anywho, now that the photos are in… let the recaps commence!

Who doesn’t love Grover?

I just wanted to quickly share this clip from Sesame Street that I found absolutely adorable. Grover, I love you!

When it finally clicked

Mr. Zombie and I had been co-habitating very early on in our relationship. As a result, the leap from single to married life seemed almost non-existent. Everything still felt the same after we got married, so the concept of actually being married didn’t quite click in our heads right away. It didn’t quite click to me specifically until a few days into our honeymoon, when an unfortunate accident led me to realize, “Sweet Zombie Jebus… I really am married!”

It all started with a bubble bath. Our room at the B&B came with a large hot tub complete with massage jets. Having only a stand-up shower in our loft at home, having access to a bath tub was a huge luxury for Mr. Zombie and I. We really took advantage of it by hopping in the tub at least twice a day, every day. On a quiet Tuesday evening, I had been particularly glued to my iPhone, tweeting away my honeymoon bliss and talking to a friend of mine from Toronto through Ping. I left my phone on a face cloth beside the tub and hopped in. After a half hour cooking in the hot water, I hopped back out since I started to feel light-headed. I left the phone beside the tub. Mr. Zombie, who was also starting to feel quite faint from the hot water decided that he was going to soak a face cloth with cold water and rest it on his forehead while he sat in the tub for longer. So… there he was… reaching for the face cloth, not noticing that my iPhone was sitting on top of it.

SPLASH! Goes my iPhone.

To anyone who owns an iPhone, you would understand how horrific this situation was. We desperately blow dried the phone, sifted through Apple forums and whispered sweet-nothings to it in a lame attempt to revive it. Alas, my phone did not survive its bath.

The next morning, we high tailed to the nearby Apple Store to get my phone fixed at the Genius Bar. Mr. Zombie had set up an appointment for me the night prior. We stood in front the Genius Bar and checked out the screen to see where we stood in the cue. I looked for my name. “Miss Zombie. There is no Miss Zombie…. but who the hell is Mrs. Zombie?”

“That’s you. Mrs. Zombie,” Mr. Zombie said.

“Oh, right. We’re married now.” It finally clicked.

My iPhone was replaced after paying my “I’m a moron” penalty fee. I also signed a form with my brand spankin’ new married signature. We were so excited about this momentous occasion that we had to play tourist and take a photo.

So there you have it: it all finally clicked in the middle of the Apple Store in Montreal. I suppose that given the geek factor, this was probably the most appropriate situation for everything to sink in.

I’m now Mrs. Zombie!

The Montrealmoon of Gluttony

Mr. Zombie  and I had been looking forward to our minimoon for months now. Not only was it a well-deserved vacation after a stressful few months, but the minimoon also meant consuming copious amounts of wonderful Quebec food that we only get half-ass versions of in Ontario. Given the amount of food babies we both conceived during this six-day trip to Montreal, we officially dubbed this minimoon “The Montrealmoon of Gluttony”.

The Bed&Breakfast we stayed at, Le Petit Prince really delivered when it came to breakfast. Every morning between 8 and 10AM, Pam (the most awesome B&B host ever!) made us a hearty and healthy breakfast to start our day. On some days, we ate downstairs in the dining area, but for most mornings we had it sent up to our room so we could have breakfast in bed. Breakfast usually consisted of one freshly baked pastry (ie. muffins, scones and mini-croissants) appetizer, an epic main course (ie. French Toast, waffles, omelettes and quite possibly the best homefries I’ve ever had) and a huge serving of fruit. For drinks, we had freshly squeezed orange juice and a choice of either coffee or tea. While Mr. Zombie savoured his coffee, I opted for pomegranate and echinacea tea, which tasted wonderful.

When we were full of yummy breakfast, Mr. Zombie and I headed out to explore the city through its art, architecture and most importantly, it’s food. Montreal is home to some of the most delicious comfort food! Let me show you:

Quebec Cheese. OK, so, we ended up not taking photos of us actually getting Quebec cheese from the Jean Talon Market. We were too busy trying to keep control and not spend all our honeymoon money on fromage. The woman at the Cheese Shoppe gave us tons of yummy samples. We came out of the store with our top two favourite cheese to take home. It’s now sitting in our fridge, uneaten. It pains me to be sick and not be able to eat it right now.

Cafe Myriade Coffee and Tea. A friend of ours insisted that we try to find this place since it was owned by a good friend of his. It turned out that this little coffee shop was only a couple of blocks away from our B&B. They’ve got tons of wonderful tea, my favourite of which is the “Flu Fighter” which really got me through those couple of crappy sore throat mornings. What’s the best drink to get here? Try either the hot chocolate or the Cafe Mocha. It’s made with real melted dark chocolate! I now know what they mean when they compare chocolate to sex. This chocolate was wonderful!

Mini Cannoli. Pam suggested to pick these pastries up from this little Italian bakery just south of the Jean Talon Market. These mini cannolis were just the perfect size and sweetness! We bought a few more, plus a variety of Italian pastries.

Montreal bagels. There were two bagel shops just a couple of blocks away from each other that were competing for the title of the Best Bagel Shop in Montreal.

St. Viateur Bagel had the most awesome all-dressed bagels I’ve ever had. They were light, they were fluffy… and they taste like onions. Mmm. Onions. This was Mr. Zombie’s hands down favourite.

I was on the fence on this one. Fairmount Bagel had an awesome texture to their bagels. It was a little bit heavier, but still really good. We took a half dozen bagels from each bagel shop home.

Montreal Smoked Meat. Schwartz’s on Rue St. Laurent is a must-see in Montreal. It’s a smoked meat deli restaurant that is so good, there’s constantly a lineup out the door for them. We were lucky to arrive there during their downtime (which was still quite crowded, but there was barely a lineup this time around). Mr. Zombie and I each ordered a small plate of smoked meat. It came with some bread and a bottle of mustard.

Mr. Zombie turned into… well… a zombie after eating at Schwartz’s. His food coma didn’t go away until the next morning.

Bar B Barn Ribs. Mr. Zombie was very excited to eat here. His dad used to take him to this old rib restaurant when he was little. He described the ribs to be like something you’d see from the Flinstones. He did not exaggerate. I thought I was going to pass out when the waitress plopped the full rack of ribs in front of me.

And finally… the Number 1 must-eat in Montreal:

Poutine. *drool*. You would think that the concept of fries, gravy and cheese curds is too simple to perfect, but no one has ever done a better job on making poutine than the French Canadians. It was a good thing that La Banquise, THE 24-hour Poutine place in Montreal was a bit of a trek away from our B&B, otherwise we would have had this twice a day, every day (we only went a total of two times during the trip).

The faces of pure, artery-clogging bliss.

How to fight the sick

Now that the wedding and honeymoon are over, my body is now in pure vedging mode. It also seemed to allow itself to do what it’s been trying to do for the past month: catch a bad cold. While I’ve been suffering through the sore throat, runny nose and general unpleasantness that come with being sick, I’m actually kind of relieved that I got this now, during my extra downtime at home before going back to work instead of say… I don’t know… during the wedding?

Anyone who knows me will probably agree that I’ve got the shittiest immune system. If there was a cold going around, I was bound to catch it. Between being around friends and family who were sick, the Canadian fall weather flip-flopping drastically and running around constantly trying to finish last minute projects on top of a bazillion other things, I was absolutely terrified of getting sick around the same time as our wedding. As a result, I became almost OCD when it came to taking health precautions weeks before our big day. It had helped me greatly. I didn’t get sick*.

Aside from the usual eating healthy , upping the vitamin intake and washing my hands frequently, here is the one essential thing I swear by to avoid getting sick for the wedding (or in general… because really, who likes being sick?).

Oil of Wild Oregano. You can find them at any health food store. It is a natural healing superhero in a bottle. Just take a few drops of this baby under your tongue, gulp it down with a big glass of orange juice and that’s it. Truthfully, it does take like ass (hence why you have to gulp it down with juice), but it works really well.

I had been taking oil of oregano drops twice a day in the weeks leading up to the wedding. When I forgot it at home the night before our big day, I ran to the nearest health food store to get a new bottle. It saved me, Lenore AND even Mr. Zombie from the dreaded worsening sore throat that we all started feeling the day before! It also saved us from getting sick during the honeymoon… we even shared a tender moment with the woman running the B&B when we all took oregano drops together after breakfast (she had a Costco size bottle).

So make sure you’ve got oil of oregano in your bride kit. It’ll save you from the sniffles (well, at least until everything is done and you can afford to vedge in bed with your box of Kleenex and a bowl of chicken soup)!

* Save for the weekend before when I managed to get a really mild cold and pink eye from the annual zombie walk. The Oil of Oregano and some special eyedrops saved me out of that one in less than 48 hours!

We’re MARRIED!!!

I did it! I married my BFF on Halloween! It feels pretty freakin’ sweet.

I’m sitting on the floor of my honeymoon suite in a cute little bed and breakfast in Montreal. Mr. Zombie is still asleep, so I’ve snuck on the computer to write a quick blurb about how insanely perfect our wedding day was.

When I was little, I barely gave weddings a second thought. My bridesmaid, Eponine (not her real name, but she LOVES Les Mis :D) and I figured I’d be the last to get married… that is… if I ever got married. So, to answer the common question “is it the wedding you’ve always dreamed of since you were little?” my answer would be: I would definitely imagine so. While I didn’t think about weddings as a little girl… there were many elements in this wedding that I’ve definitely obsessed about ever since I was little: the passion for film, the love of Tim Burton, Halloween, technology and most importantly, finding someone who could share these little bouts of geekery with for the rest of my life. So yes… I do believe that this was the perfect wedding for us!

I won’t go into too much detail as I do want to write a bazillion recaps of every aspect of this awesome day. I will leave you with a few quick highlights that stuck in my head about our day. ANDDDD GO.

– Thanks to my awesome friendors working on my wedding look, I looked so freakin’ burlesque, I gave everyone a lot of side boob tease!

– Mr. Zombie looked hot. Very very hot. So very hot. Hot. Hot. Hot.

– Someone has to upload the video of Mr. Zombie walking down the aisle to THE BATMAN THEME. I missed it, but from the cheers I heard from the lobby, it must have been epic.

– I had never heard so much laughter during a ceremony before. Even our officiant couldn’t hold it in! This is what made our ceremony so perfect… it was genuine, lighthearted and a lot of fun.

– I have the best bridesmaids in the world. Each of them really came through for me from fluffing my dress, to chanting “DEAD BABIES!” with me when I was trying to keep calm minutes before the ceremony.

– The groomsmen looked so hot. Especially Mr. Zombie’s groomsgirl, who was a good sport and wore her tie over her dress with pride!

– epic wedding cake of epicness. That is all.

– I thought I had reached my crying limit when my mom did her speech at the reception. Then I danced with my dad. I was even more of a blubbering mess after that dance.

– Our Repo! shadow cast screamed “EVERYBODY! EVERYBODY MAKE YOUR FIANCE YOUR SPOUSE!” right before Mr. Zombie and I were announced as husband and wife. We love you guys!

– We were so exhausted by the time we got to Rocky Horror… but man was it ever so much fun! Thank you Excited Mental State for ending our wedding day with a bang!

– Seeing all these people you love from different aspects of your life was truly a wonderful experience. Thank you so much for coming, guys!

Mr. Zombie and I have started a Flickr pool for guests to submit their photos from our wedding. Please add to them!

Alright… I think it’s time for breakfast! 🙂 Recaps to commence after the honeymoon!