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Thursday, August 22, 2002 - We're finally married! All in all, everything was super-fantastic and we feel so blessed to have shared it with such wonderful friends and relatives. We have a few photos uploaded to share with you! There are lots more coming, but these should tide you over for now! Incidentally, if you have photos from our wedding, please contact us ~ we'd like copies! Thanks to everyone who helped out and thanks again to everyone for coming! Eventually our web site will go from strictly wedding stuff to more general stuff about us... and the wedding part will be culled down into the essentials. We'd like to eventually have a report card for all our vendors and an advice page for engaged couples. Wednesday, August 7, 2002 - Three Days and we are Nuts
Please note that the deadline to reserve a room for special rates at the Glenmore Inn has passed. You could still reserve a room there, of course - if there's one available - but the discount for our wedding is no longer available. Any questions, please contact us. Tuesday, May 28, 2002 - Invitations & General Planning Update
Kent's kilt, my tartan sash, and all the related paraphanalia have been acquired and we're almost ready to go. My dress will be taken to the seamstress in a couple of weeks for final alterations & fittings. As well, the bridesmaid dresses will be all finished by the end of June! I know the next few weeks will just Whiz by!!! June will involve final meetings with our photographer and d.j, as well as finishing projects like centerpieces and favour wrapping. Hopefully we can get everything done with time to spare! Saturday, March 23rd, 2002 - Website Re-Launch In other news, today is our cake-tasting day! We're making an excursion to Cakeworks, up in the north end of the city. We're pretty excited. Thursday, March 7th, 2002 - Hotel Rooms Sunday, February 24th, 2002 - Marriage Preparation Retreat Saturday, February 9th, 2002 - Bridal Registry The rest of the planning is coming along nicely. The kilt and accessories are nearly all aquired. The order is in for the bridesmaid dresses to be made, and they will be ready by June for final fittings. We are in the process of printing off invitations, and we will soon be reserving hotel rooms for the guests who wish to stay at the Glenmore Inn. Flowers and DJ will be reserved by the end of next week, and we'll be going for cake tasting this month, as well! We're getting very excited. Also, our Marriage Preparation course will take place in two weeks from now. We will be sure to update the website at that point. Saturday, November 10th, 2001 - Getting Kilt Fitted Wednesday, October 31st, 2001 - Website Moving Day Saturday, October 20th, 2001 - Shopping for a Bridal Gown If you've never been on this particular type of mission, it certainly is unique! Bridal Salons only ever stock ONE of each gown they carry... and you're lucky to find the one you like in your size that you can properly try on. It was interesting being able to fit into a dress that said it was a size 14, but not into another that said it was a size 20! With each dress that didn't fit properly, Vanda would laugh harder at my struggles and I'd just cry out "I'm a freak! I'm a mutant!", laughing all the while. In fact, when one dress finally just zipped up without trouble, I exclaimed "Woah! What was THAT about?? What happened?"... But even THAT dress didn't fit right - there was about 4 inches of material in the bodice that made it too big. We knew we'd have to order one in my size and have it altered anyway, so we weren't discouraged. What were we looking for? Well, plain would describe my tastes best; most dresses have very intricate lace and bead details that just didn't appeal to either of us. I wanted none of that. I also didn't want chiffon or crinoline or any flimsy material that didn't flow or fall naturally. What was great about the sales ladies was, when I told them I wanted no beading or lace, they just accepted it and went about finding ones without it. I really appreciated that. We found a lot of really beautiful dresses - very simple and elegant, figure-flattering and affordable (between $300 and $550), and had quite a successful day.
Just a few suggestions to others planning on shopping for bridal gowns: a) Call ahead to find out if you'll need an appointment. We did this, though it wasn't necessary to make appointments in most cases. We were told that, in January, there would have been 10 times as many people, so it was a good thing we went when we did. b) When you call, ask if you'd be able to take photos. Usually the answer will be no - salons pay their designers and don't want people stealing designs and having dresses made on their own. c) Wear comfortable shoes when you go; you'll be taking them off and putting them on a lot. Salons need to keep their floors clean to protect the gowns and don't want you stepping on gowns and staining or even tearing them! d) Don't be shy. Ask questions. Tell the sales people what you want - we usually were told that the salon could alter any dress to be anything we wanted - you want a detachable train? You got it! A different neckline? You got it! I didn't like beads or lace, and I wasn't brought any gowns with beads or lace! Finally... e) Do your research before hand. Look at bridal magazines. Look on the internet. Find out what's out there and what styles you like. It couldn't hurt to take a quick tutorial on dress lingo... do you want a sweep-, chapel-, or cathedral-length train? Sweetheart, halter, or square neckline? Basque, Empire, or dropped waistline? Also, try to get references from past brides on where they did their shopping and what sort of selection and help they found. Very importantly, have a clear budget limit set. This will keep you from falling in love with a dress that is absolutely out of your price range. Besides, we found dresses for $1600 that we couldn't tell from similar dresses for $320. We had fun and learned a lot. On to the next stages - kilt ordering and reception planning! Saturday, October 13th, 2001 - Engagement/Housewarming Party Tuesday, September 18th, 2001 - Setting Our Wedding Date
Yes, we have also set our date. Mark your calendars - August 10th, 2002. (If you're keeping track, that means less than 11 months for planning left!). It will be held at St. Bernadette's Catholic Church in Calgary at 1:00pm. Don't ask about the reception, we don't know where that will be yet. So what's to come? We still need to book a reception venue and caterer, buy kilts and dresses, finalize the guest list, choose and send invitations, get a gift registry set-up, do our marriage prep course, have a bridal shower, get a marriage license, plan our honeymoon, and keep our cat alive in the process. We are seriously planning our engagement/housewarming party within the next couple of weeks. Saturday, August 18th, 2001 (less than one year to go!) - Kilt Shopping I don't want to take up too much space on this page to go into details, but we were definitely not impressed with what we saw; our experience was so unsatisfactory, Kent and I were compelled to submit a formal letter of complaint. We have decided to go with The Scottish Shoppe on 4th street (we'll probably be ordering within the next month or two). In other news, we are very excited about our wedding and hope to have a date set within the next week or so!!! We're in the middle of composing a guest list and selecting a reception venue. We're trying to compare and explore the different options open to us. Big news in the next little while! Stay tuned! Saturday, July 7th, 2001 - Addition to the Clan
Thursday, June 28th, 2001 - Wedding Site Launch Friday, June 1st, 2001 - Kent's Proposal to Rae A romantic at heart, Kent made his proposal to Rae unforgettable and very very special. It was our third day in our new place; boxes were scattered around the apartment and there was barely room to maneuver around them. Seeing the kitchen would not be functional for a little while, Kent suggested we order Chinese food for Friday night. Rae, having to work late, called Kent from work to let him know she was leaving so Kent could order the food and have it there when she got home. He was cooking his own rice dish when she walked through the door. On the counter were two fortune cookies and Rae was going to eat one of them but thought better of it; she didn't want to spoil the tradition, or her appetite. What she didn't know is that Kent was eyeing her closely to make sure she didn't eat one of them!
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Ein Sīte von Kent & Rae
Monday, July 1, 2002
With just 10 weeks to go, we have added a new page to our site - if you're coming in to Calgary from out of town, then 
Our webspace provider has made some changes and, as a result, our website URL was changed on us... for a time, our site completely disappeared, even for us! But here it is again, and it's got a new look! We've added more links and cleaned-up our graphics. Please let us know what you think by e-mailing us... and if you can think of something we forgot to put on the site, tell us! A photo gallery is coming as soon as we have enough photos to share with you.
We went and registered for our wedding gifts today. We are registered at 
You have probably noticed that we have moved our website off of Geocities. The pop-up windows were just getting WAY too annoying for my taste. They used to be less intrusive, but now they have often been larger than the screen resolution (if you're a web page designer, you know what havoc this can wreck upon your design). Also, they tend to throw error messages in MSInternet Explorer, which just messes you up. Yahoo was getting way too commercial anyway. (Go 
Did we find one that I liked? Well, in fact, we found four that I liked... and one that I loved. You probably want details, and that's understandable, but I'm going to keep that between me and my bridesmaids... but I will tell you this - we went through a lot to track this dress down in my size, and when we finally did, it disappeared on us (the lady put it away without us knowing, and couldn't remember where)... so we had to look for it again. And when we finally got it on... and I finally stepped out of that dressing room... two salesladies, one bride, one mom, and two bridesmaids all stopped what they were doing... and gasped. This is the dress for me. We'll be placing the order this week and it should be in by February, and with alterations and final fittings, I'm expecting it to be finished and picked-up by at least the end of April.
The meeting at St. Bernadette's was relatively brief and informal. Fr. Rudy had some questions for us and helped us fill-out a form. He let us know about the requirements for being married in the Catholic church and helped us by giving us phone numbers and brochures so we could collect all the information he needed (Baptismal certificate, etc...).
The meal was delicious and after the dishes were cleared, Kent brought the cookies to the table and handed one to Rae. She was about to make a joke about Kent choosing her fortune when she simply decided to crack it open instead.
Inside was a shiny platinum 