"my marriage was a smashing success"*, part 1

hello everyone: post my marriage and so-called honeymoon, i'm here to finally endeavour to describe and comment on the above-mentioned events for your reading pleasure. hopefully i'll have enough time during the following days to keep at it, before something else/busytimes happens again and gets me off-track.

this post will try to catalogue and structure to some extent the stress i went through in order to present as a 'woman getting married' on my marriage day. so, you know, items of clothing and jewelry and blah, the way i like to do. given that i already had to brainstorm and explain every part of this at least 20 times ahead of The Day (advantage of having friends/family abroad: it helps you listen to your own thought process), this may sound like a sudden info dump, but what can i do.

the biggest problem i had was the balance between making it a momentous day and making too much fuss about it. i couldn't see myself the bride in a 150-person ceremony, with a shiny train dress etc. but i didn't want to just go in jeans and sign a paper and that's it - at least wear a dress, i like dresses. in the end, i felt it didn't matter at all what i wore, but i still liked knowing i put some effort into it and ended up with some very nice clothes and accessories, which can all be reused.

1. dress: c/o lustre boutique, "pure heart ivory dress"

the way it happened was, i decided to shop for a dress even before we had a fixed marriage date, just knowing we wanted to set it "as soon as possible", and imagining it would be a long, arduous process. i checked out pinterest, etsy, blah, then finally one february evening i went window-shopping, starting at st laurent close to rachel, i.e. very close to my workplace that i'd just walked out of. my idea was that i'd check out Boutique 1861  https://1861.ca/collections/robes, but before getting to it i passed in front of another small local boutique and went in on a whim.
i looked around at dresses, on the sale rack, trying to just casually spot anything that would look close to what i was looking for (mid-length, fit-and-flare, off-white, simple) - and there it was! in a Large. at that point i was 0% invested, so ok, let's try it on.
then it was funny, cause i laughed out loud in the changing room and the owner came to see what i was laughing at. "i think i like it!" (she still wasn't getting it.) "i think this might be it!"
so ok. i didn't buy it on the spot, but i went to look at other stores for like an hour an think things through, then i came back. total time looking for wedding dress: under 90 minutes. there were some adjustments to make, mostly to pin in and lift up the waist, but the owner/designer was very nice. i also loved the name of the dress, very ASOIAF, no? when i came back home i looked up the boutique online and i found it on etsy, including this dress, but the model has been discontinued since. 

2. shoes: brako, "annie yellow flowers"
http://www.shoefun.com.au/brako-annie-yellow-flowers.html

i went shopping for shoes together with b., at the infamous plaza st. hubert. i don't think i'd bought shoes for myself there before (i tend to be more frou-frou: clarks, campers, ecco, that sort of stuff) but i knew there were lots of shoe stores on the non-expensive side, and some decent ones, some entrepots etc.
 for myself, the dream at the back of my mind had been to find a second-hand/entrepot-y pair of white Doc Martens with flowers. throughout the past decade i have on-and-off obsessed about Doc Martens while never owning any, because they SEEM that they'd fit me so well as aesthetic etc, and then i go and try on some pairs...and they don't. first impression at the store has always been of too big, too stiff, too shiny and...obvious. i know i need to break them in, but haven't managed to convince myself that it would work. the hope was that gently used ones would look more natural on me (also less expensive).

well, that remains a dream. the story about the actual marriage-shoes is that b. sort-of found them for me. that was after 2 hours of entering every shoe store on the plaza, including the horrendous wedding-specific ones, with the pointy toes, shiny fabrics, sequins and impossible-to-walk-in heels. as usual, i don't think i expected to find something  that day, was  just happy that b. had bought his, but i was like, let's walk down to  rosemont and at least know not to look here again.
the store we found them in (might be called Max Shoes? not sure) looked pretty obscure, but had some good models in the window and b. pointed them out. again, my guidelines were pretty clear: something with color (preferably flowers), close-toed, with just a bit of a heel. apparently this store is THE seller of Brako shoes in Montreal - seriously, have you seen this brand anywhere else? they are good spanish  leather shoes, some with amazing detail. i tried on 2 or 3 pairs before spotting this one, but when i saw the yellow flowers "i knew".
also: my shoes cost more than my dress."but of course," will say pretty much everyone who knows me.

from marriage day.

also: i love the mustard yellow of the back, but it created considerable matching problems in the long run. you would think mustard/golden+ ivory would be a pretty easy color scheme to work with, right? right? this is what i thought at the end of february. two months later, not so much. 

3. handbag : matt&nat, "daisy" clutch in ivory
http://www.be-ecocentric.com/s/35700_216937_vegan-luxury-iris-clutch-matt-and-nat-daisy

sadly can't find a good/proper image online (it's an older style), but i think the mauve-colored one gives you an idea. i've loved matt&nat ever since i lived in vancouver and my friend sonja had an olive m&n handbag, gently used, which at some point she had no choice but to give me, cause i was slobbering over it i guess. (it must be in romania now!) 
i can't remember much of how i thought back then, but m&n was probably one of the symbols of montreal for me from afar: stylish to the bone. i wasn't very concerned with the eco-conscious part, and dammit to this day i would rather wear leather for years than change non-leather bags every month. still, this is interesting: all matt&nat products are vegan.
so in montreal i was coveting them: i saw them everywhere in the street and on metro. but, like the Doc Martens, it somehow didn't make sense to invest in a bag. first of all, they are pretty pricey if bought new, and i buy one bag every about 2 years, so too much choice stifles me. second, i like softer-texture bags. and also am not a satchel person, and most of what i saw was satchels and clutches (not a clutch person either).
boom! day-of-marriage approaches and i finally have a chance to be a clutch person. matt&nat was the first choice in my mind, and actually easy to find at Winners (60% of store price, and lots of discontinued models; official distributors will only sell the latest collection). so yeah, bag-buying was not much of an adventure, i just wanted to brag.

 ah, bonus: you can fit A LOT of things into it. i had papers, wallet, camera, tissues  and rings all in there and could still close it no problem.

4. earrings: cristophe poly
christophepoly.com

i chose the ones with the amber stone. i like that there are two different-colored metals in it, cause i love the idea of mixed metals in jewelry making. i have no problem with them being non-precious metals, since most wedding jewelry is horrible shiny cheap stuff anyway.
again, not much of a story: i knew cristophe poly since 2010 when i had no money and was walking around the old port staring at the souvenir things i couldn't afford, and CP had a stand somewhere in a store in the area. i keep coming back to the idea of montreal-made, but yes, the style of his jewelry strikes me as both unique and quintessential quebecois. i looked him up and, voila! he has a small shop in rosemont, right at the end of plaza st hubert. i went there and tried EVERYTHING on for about an hour.
my requirements for earrings: long-shaped rather than round, there has to be some gold in there to match the color scheme, shiny but not too shiny. in the end, all it took was framing my face well. these are not too obvious earrings, and, like everything else i bought for the occasion, they don't scream "wedding!". i am looking forward to wearing them under more normal circumstances, i.e. with summer dresses etc, though they are a bit longer than what i wear usually.
i had some qualms about them not being too visible in pictures. i.e. when my hair is down, but they are visible when the focus is on my face, so whatever. also i tried on dozens of other earrings in various boutiques AFTER buying these, and had some lovely options to borrow, but in the end i went back to them. 

5. jacket: tristan - i don't remember exactly the name, it might have been the "fluid perfecto" in white/ivory. currently out of stock, but here's a version in black
https://www.tristanstyle.com/en/women/jackets/fluid-perfecto/9/fv110c0828z/ - although i doubt that mine has sidepockets, but i'm too lazy to go and check right now.

these are pictures from changing room, on the day i bought it, which was the week before due date. thinking back, it was a pretty tricky buy.
i hesitated a lot over what exactly i would wear on top of the dress (cardigan, shawl, mid-length trench coat, light-colored leather jacket were serious candidates at various points). i knew  it would depend a lot on the weather, and end of april in montreal is rarely springtime (actual temperature on April 22nd, 2017: 9 degrees C in the morning). i decided to go with a jacket because the rest of the ensemble was shaping up to be quite conservative/"fancy". so i went very mainstream, thinking which of the big downtown stores would have worthy jacket offerings. i tried le chateau, club monaco, simons, and ended up with tristan as the most serious contender: in their store they had 3-4 styles that could have suited me, and they also have a good entrepot on mont-royal, a lot cheaper but sadly nothing worked out there.
now this jacket was expensive, and this was my first problem. b. was like, whatever, in india you would have to buy 3 different wedding dresses, so you can spend some money on a jacket. the second problem was that its texture and color were too much like the dress(!!!!): ivory, sligthly pebbly fabric - so i was afraid it would look like a costume, especially since the dress has a high collar.  the third problem...a bit tight in the upper arms. not that it felt uncomfortable, but that i SEE it in pictures, and once you see it it can't be unseen. basically this is meant to be worn with sleeveless tops/dresses, which is probably how i will proceed from now on.
my dream top would have been mustard/yellow and a bit more casual. but on the positive side, this jacket is absolutely gorgeous. and, not even exaggerating, i like the zipper style so much that i ended up buying one other zippered jacket, from Winners. now i have to try and dress up a bit before it gets too hot, so everything gets its fair share of wear:)

for a better view of zipper/collar detail

6. scarf: le chateau
https://www.lechateau.com/style/browse/productDetail.jsp?productId=346763&selectedColor=Mustard

i bought this the day before the marriage, and had to go to 3 (three!) le chateau stores to find the exact color. i hadn't bothered to purchase it before because i visualised it exactly, and knew that le chateau has a very well-graded display of pashminas, so i got a bit frazzled having to actually spend time looking for a 15$ thing i was taking for granted. but yeah, it was easy. and i love it! i kept wearing it every day the week after, and even took it on holiday, although it didn't match a lot of what i'd packed. i've always had a good yellow scarf (a dear one gifted by my friend cristina in 2005), but this one feels heavier, softer and more luxurious. i can tell i'm going to enjoy it a lot. 

7. bouquet - lol: c/o mademoiselle gateaux cakeshop on villeray

the story is that i didn't want a bouquet. my general mantra was "it's a marriage ceremony, not a wedding", so a bouquet seemed superfluous. also, everywhere i looked online, it cost around 45$, which made me indignant. b. said he would buy me one (yellow?) flower to hold, but also i already had a clutch to hold, so, why, really?
so, we go to order a cake. the girls at the shop were very nice, but as we filled in the quiz of "what would you like on/in your cake", they looked more and more disappointed that we didn't want any special ornaments, anything written on, any crazy things. in the end, they were like, surely you'll have flowers and fruits on it? so i say yes, and decide on yellow small flowers and some berries, but not a lot (i repeat this several times). ok, order made. the day before ceremony, they call me to say they bought my flowers but will not put them on the cake, as they would wilt in one day, but i should put them in water and place them on the cake myself.
yes, you guessed it, they never made it on the cake! thank you, nice french girls, for my 13$ bouquet. 

8. wedding rings

the jewelry store is called Giacomo, on st denis. we just walked in, b. said, can you do 2 rings in white gold 18k, this-and-this width? how much would that be? ok, we'll have them, thanks.
my jaw kind of dropped. we walked out and i started explaining to him about the concept of shopping around - obviously he would have none of it. the price was reasonable, he said, and rings are easy - it's just a band. what else did you want?
well, fair enough.
mine looks like a doll ring, it's a size 4!! i could have had it a 5, as i'm afraid i'll get rashes in summer. so far i keep moving it from one ring finger to the other, and b. plays a lot with his.
another funny thing: they look almost like silver, but a duller shine. on b's hand, the color looks exactly like silver. with my skintone, and right next to an actual silver ring, i can see a slight yellowy glow, but just a bit.
yes, we have had the conversation "are you sure this is gold?"-"nope."- "how can we tell?"- "no idea". 

9. haircut : fildas salon, on jarry
these are portuguese ladies, linda sent me there 2 years ago and i've been returning since. it's sort of a no-brainer because i'm lazy, the place is close to me, price is adequate...and i don't need much done, just an occasional trim. this time i went shorter than i had had my hair in years. i'm not going to do "before" and "after" pics, cause there's enough of them floating around for you to see. when i went for the haircut my hair was probably at its longer, limper limit, so the change looked pretty drastic, in the good way.

10. hair styling and make-up: linda
this took 3 (three!) meetings, a bunch of tryouts, some drinking/smoking, with the addition of a borrowed bracelet, a few nail polish suggestions, a hair mask etc. also it made me 15 mins late to the meeting i had set in front of Palais de Justice on marriage day, and caused me to act like a bridezilla in a white Uber. also these meetings were the closest thing to an actual bachelorette party that i had, so thank you, linda. 

final result: a couple of hours of posing, after a couple of months of first world problems