The Wedding: Photos + Details

And here we go…. some wedding photos and details (below)…

Venue: Revival Bar
Groom’s Suit + Shirt: Suit Supply, Shoes: Paul Smith, Socks: Happy Socks
Boutonnieres: The Little Red Button
Bride’s Dress + Bolero Jacket: Elisabetta Franchi – Headpiece: HT Headwear Jewelry: Stella and Dot necklace, JCrew bracelets, Rings: Fine Jewelry By Collette
Bridesmaids: Their own dresses
Lanterns: Luna Bazaar
Catering: Rustico Fine Foods
Photographer: Marcin Moka Photography
Make-up: Katie Dack + Julia Dorosh (Kirsh Cosmetics)
DJ: Bellosound
Cake + Cupcakes: Flour Studio
Flowers + Bride’s Bouquet: Pink Twig
Gelato: Hotel Gelato

Holly Berry Love Morse Code

I hope you had a nice weekend. I still think I am getting over jet lag. For some reason, I still feel extremely sleep deprived and groggy in the mornings but I think by tomorrow, I will be fine.  It’s a good thing too as I am heading on my honeymoon later this week.

This weekend, the weather took a turn for the colder in Prague. It was hovering between 14-18 degrees and quite dreary with grey skies and rain.  The weather certainly did not make our weekly farmer’s market shop enjoyable.  Even though the sun came out on Sunday just before dinner, I felt like taking out a blanket and curling up in front of a movie all day Saturday.

Speaking of curling up, have you seen the colourful Love-Morse Code blankets from Holly Berry in the UK?

I love her woven blankets.  They are called Love blankets because her blankets spell “love” using the Morse-code.  Her blankets are woven in Scotland and would make a beautiful addition to a living room with a fireplace.  I am a sucker for wool, what can I say?

Photo Source: Holly Berry

Love This!: P-Vine Travel Guide Books + Welcome Beyond

I am getting set to do a bit of travelling in the next couple weeks and in my research, I stumbled across these lovely travel guide books from Japanese publisher, P-Vine Books.

Photo Source: P-Vine Books

Even though I cannot understand Japanese, these look like cool books to have on a coffee table.  The illustrations and photography are beautiful and would still be helpful, no doubt.

On a separate travel related note-  has anyone used or seen this travel site for booking unique apartments and boutique hotels?  I just found it yesterday and I am in loveeeeee. It’s called Welcome Beyond “Hand Picked Paradise.”  Had I found it earlier, I may have used it to book some of my honeymoon stops.  The properties on this site are unbelievable.  Most are apartments/houses to rent but I did see a handful of smaller, unique hotels on the site as well.

It is interesting to think about why we find things when we find them.  Welcome Beyond is not a new site, but I only learned about it yesterday.  I wonder what led me to it.

If I could re-book the hotels on my upcoming route using Welcome Beyond, I would look at saying at:

– L’ancienne Post in Provence

– 42 Rue Victor Hugo in Languedoc-Roussillon

– Alemanys 5 in Girona, Spain

Apparently, I’m not the only one who thinks that Welcome Beyond is neat:

1. Yatzer: Welcome Beyond + interview

2. Flodeau: Welcome Beyond Hand Picked Paradise

3. Happiness Is: Welcome Beyond

4. Miss Moss: Welcome Beyond

Enjoy travel dreaming, dear readers! I hope this has provided some inspiration.

Wedding Day: Getting Ready

What does it mean to get ready the day of a wedding? Here is a sample of what my day looked like last Sunday.

8:00 AM Wake UPPPPP!!! We’re getting married today.  It’s time to get a move on.

9:00 AM My fiance and I started off by having a quick breakfast of pancakes and muesli at the George Street Diner on Richmond Street in Toronto.  We figured we might as well have at least one good, full meal, considering the rest of the day was only going to be scraps of food here and there.

12 PM Following breakfast, we ran four errands before returning to the hotel including picking up extra fishing wire to hang lanterns (just in case), little Kleenex packages for anyone who needed, Sharpies and a guest signing book for the bar plus a couple other little just-in-case items.

We packed up all the things we needed to take with us for the day, then hopped in the car to drive across the city to Parlour Salon on Ossington where my bridal party and I had our hair styled.  The team at Parlour was wonderful and fast.  I sought them out originally because they were open on Sunday and just down the street from the venue.  In Toronto, it can be rather difficult to find a good salon that is open!). I may have started in curlers but I ended with straight hair.

2:30PM After all the hair washing, drying and curling was complete, we jumped in a taxi and headed over to the venue on College Street (Revival Bar), where we got straight to work building the chuppah (out of PVC pipes and ribbon), watching all the paper lanterns get hung on the ceiling, getting our make up done, and enjoying the hustle and bustle of people arriving, waiting, clearing, moving, and organizing wedding event “stuff.”

5:00 PM After the rest of our family members arrived, we got dressed and handed out photo props for the upcoming photo session before the ceremony.

6:45 PM After we took our last photo, we were ready to start the first part of the wedding ceremony.

Photographer: Marcin Moka

Stay tuned for more wedding photos plus a complete list of day of vendors.

Hope you are having a good Wednesday! We just had an unbelievable sun shower in Prague and now the rooftops are glistening out my window.  What was your pre-wedding wedding day like?

What Does a 21Euro Reindeer Burger Look Like?

I can show you…. I ate one in the Helsinki airport’s Restaurant & Deli Fly Inn two weeks ago en route to Toronto.  Believe it or not, the primary reason I chose to fly Finnair from Prague to Toronto was to make a stop in the Helsinki airport for a reindeer burger; that and I had read somewhere that the Helsinki airport was one of the better, more enjoyable airports to layover. So why not give it a shot, right?  We booked our flights and I waited for two whole weeks in anticipation for this burger.  Was it going to taste gamey?  Would I like it?  Was I really prepared to eat Rudolph, as my husband teased me?

Before I get to the burger, I will say the airport is aesthetically beautiful.  It is wood, wood, wood and more wood.  Modern, shiny, minimalist, and full of design objects.  The lounges and restaurants are furnished with Finish designed products such as Iittala plates, cups, dishes, mugs and I even found a few very comfortable Eero Aarnio Bubble chairs (Finnish Designer) to sit in!

The burger was served on a fresh bun with lettuce, tomato, mustard and cheese.  It was cooked medium rare and was the type of messy, gooey, drippy burger where you pray for hand wipes or several napkins.  I was surprised by how un-gamey the reindeer tasted and quite enjoyed my lunch.  The only drawback was of course the price!  We paid 21 Euro each for two burgers.  Yikes!  However, after consulting with a friend from Sweden, he said that 21Euro is not outrageous for a good burger in a Scandinavian country- that and of course the price was marked up given that we were eating it in an airport.  What can you do when you are held captive in an airport and determined to try reindeer.  Suck it up.  The other cool thing about the restaurant where we dined on reindeer burgers was that it overlooked the runway so you could watch planes fly in and out.

Some final closing comments on this experience:

1. The airport is indeed beautiful with its sleek, Finnish design, Paulig Coffee and Marimekko and Stockmann boutiques BUT- it is an incredibly expensive.  Noticeably expensive.  I was sad to see that the Starbucks was under renovation because its menu price list could have helped me prove its high cost of goods relative to other cities.

2. Outside of a cafe or three, a bar, and one expensive restaurant, this is not the airport to be hungry in.  We both felt that the food options were sparse and unsatisfying, which is why we were lucky enough to retreat to the lounge to find a few more snacks.

3. Finnair put us on an old Boeing 757 with the drop down TV screens and zero leg room on a transatlantic flight that was packed.  Not the most pleasant and it reminded me of a discount flight that you take to the Caribbean, but I can dig it.  What annoyed me the most was the lack of accommodation for take on luggage. I had a full out argument with two Finnair staff members when they gave me an ultimatum, as I was boarding the plane over whether I was getting on the plane or not when they told me I had to check my carry-on luggage (regulation size) at the last minute which contained my wedding dress, shoes, veil and jewelry.  I was not prepared to deal with the emotional stress of having lost bagged in Toronto and ended up emptying the bag (and checking an empty suitcase) and carrying all my wedding gear on my lap for 9 hours back to Toronto.  Sorry Finnair… my business will be taken elsewhere on future transatlantic flights. Brides be warned!!

4. The reindeer burger was awesome + worth it for the experience.

Anyone have a similar experience with cool airports, interesting airport food or beautiful lounges?  Would love to hear your thoughts.