Wedding Archives - WHOA lansi

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Wedding \ Getting Ready – The Girls

On February 25, 2015

The morning of our wedding, I woke up at the condo my parents had rented. N & I had opted to spend the night apart. Our wedding party would be joining each of us at our respective parents’ houses, making things pretty easy for both of us.

There were seven of us getting our makeup done, so our day started significantly earlier than the guys did. We were all at my parent’s condo by 10 am, whereas the guys didn’t meet up until 1 pm. Until I booked hair & makeup, I had never thought about how much time goes into getting seven girls ready for a wedding. It’s a little bit crazy.

We started our day with bacon, eggs, & coffee. No surprises there! It seemed like the day flew by from there. Somewhere in there we had lunch, cracked champagne, & exchanged gifts.

I gifted each of my bridesmaids (& my mom) a kimono robe. They turned out adorable for our pictures together & were perfect for keeping our hair & makeup in place. N’s mom also stopped by as I was getting my hair done. She gifted me a tiffany bracelet (something blue!) & a favourite French perfume we had all received a few years ago (as a something borrowed). It was a really sweet surprise.

The girls all did their own hair since they mostly prefer to wear it down. I think they all did a beautiful job. For my own hair, I wanted to look like myself so we started with loose waves, but added a couple braids for a half updo. Kris at Inspirado Designs captured exactly what I had in mind. It felt special without straying too far from my normal look. I was equally pleased with our makeup artist, Bri. Both ladies were so professional throughout my whole experience & we all looked beautiful.

With our hair & makeup ready to go, we popped champagne for mimosas & opened the last few cards & gifts. N’s gift to me was a beautiful pair of Tiffany earrings that match a favourite necklace of mine (complete with handmade card). We moved on to some photos in our robes before it was crunch time. These are some of my favourite photos with the girls. Can you really go wrong with a mini photo-shoot with your best girlfriends? (Made even better with our mimosas!)

We’d been pretty low key up until this point. As Carly (half of the wonderful 3 haus team) worked to keep us on track, we all got dressed. It definitely felt like crunch time by then as we were running a bit behind (of course). Right until the moment my mom zipped up my dress, I was a little bit nervous that it might not fit. Aside from a couple tricky clasps, it was perfect. That first moment in my wedding dress was really magical, but my dad seeing me for the first time was even more so. There are so many special moments on a wedding day & so many are captured here before the ceremony even began.

We did some final shots with the girls & my family at the condo before it was time to get in the limo & head off to Summerhill for the ceremony.

Six months later, I’m still having trouble narrowing down my favourites from our day. Thanks for letting me share another bit of our wedding with you!

Wedding \ The Weekend

By whoalansi

On January 26, 2015

In Uncategorized

I’ve been meaning to blog a little bit more about our Wedding, but have been going back & forth about how I want to discuss it. At first, I thought it would make sense to try & give some tips based on what we learned. As I’ve distanced myself from the day, however, I’ve realized that that’s never been the intention of my blog. I’m not an expert on wedding planning by any stretch, just a girl with a lot of opinions. & this blog has never been of the advice-giving kind. I’m more about sharing stories. So let’s get back to that.

Many of our wedding guests had to travel to our wedding. In fact, the majority of our guests had long drives or flights to join us. While it wasn’t what you’d typically picture when you hear “destination wedding”, it really was one. & it’s for that very reason that we had things planned for the whole weekend. Our Sunday wedding worked out perfectly for organizing a true summer weekend in Kelowna.

N & I set out for the interior the Wednesday before. We would leave on our honeymoon immediately following the wedding, so we were pretty eager to say goodbye to work for a few weeks & start our vacation. We couldn’t think of a better way to kick things off than by joining our friends for a quick visit in the Shuswap. We spent Thursday boating & hiking & learning new skills behind their beautiful boat. Our lovely hosts provided the perfect start to our weekend with good food, amazing company, & our favourite lake activities. We were so grateful for their invitation, & so glad we decided to take the extra vacation day.

A day on the Shuswap with some great people – photo from H

Wakeboarding & Wakesurfing

H showing off her skills while I’m just happy to be up!

The boys had a golf game scheduled early Friday morning in Kelowna, so they packed up the car & set out pretty early. We couldn’t check in until the afternoon, so we took our time packing the cars & making the drive. Friday was pretty low key. We had lunch & drinks on a patio, settled into our accommodations, met extended family, & enjoyed the perfect Okanagan weather.

Saturday was a bit busier for the wedding party. We started the day at our venue, Summerhill Pyramid Winery, for our rehearsal. My parents, our commissioner, our party joined us to rehearse the ceremony for the first time. I blubbered through our I do’s in typical Alanna fashion. It was ridiculous, but no one there was overly surprised. We left with explicit instructions to drink a lot of water & the knowledge that we were definitely going to forget parts of what we’d just practiced.

We had most of the rest of the day free to enjoy the weather (or finish up some last-minute crafts, as I think my mom did…) so N & hit the pool at his parents for a couple hours before convincing my dad to take us out on the boat. We both wanted to have one last wakeboard before the wedding, so a bunch of us loaded into the boat & went for the tamest wakeboard ride of my life. I don’t think there could have been a more perfect way to spend my last day as an Adair.

Just hanging out inside the wake

Our rehearsal dinner that evening was on Earl’s patio downtown. N’s brother had worked at that location so he was able to get us good spot for dinner. N’s mom even got to come by early & add some decorations. It was a great choice, as the patio overlooks the marina downtown. It’s got one of the best views in Kelowna!

We shared a bunch of appetizers, & had some great summer drinks & a lovely meal. There were even a couple little speeches. I was so impressed with N’s. He has a way with words that surprised most of the Wedding Party, since that’s not a side he often let’s anyone see. I even managed to get through the majority of mine without many tears. The entire Wedding Party still had money on me crying through the ceremony. I can’t really blame them.

After dinner, N’s mom had planned a party for everyone at the house they rented. She wanted to give everyone a chance to meet each other & mingle before the Wedding. We arrived to find the backyard set up with lights, coolers full of drinks, & even the cutest s’more roasting station. It was a really relaxed evening with everyone before the big day & gave us a chance to welcome our guests to Kelowna.

Adorable Smores by N’s mom

At the end of the night, I said goodnight to N & caught a ride back to my parents place. We’d decided to spend our last night apart.

(Some of these photos are mine &some of them are from Instagram or Facebook albums. All of them are marvelous!)

Wedding \ priorities

By whoalansi

On September 26, 2014

In Uncategorized

Summerhill Pyramid Winery

Well that was an unexpectedly long blogging break, even taking into account my planned hiatus due to our Wedding & Honeymoon. Just goes to show that life doesn’t think much of your plans – well thought out or otherwise. Last week, I unexpectedly had to fly to Toronto & despite my best intentions, that didn’t lead to much writing. Luckily, it did lead to a little bit of photo-editing & a little bit of tumblr creation. So while I get back into the swing of writing & updating this blog on a regular basis again, you can check out my new photo-blog (I’ve decided that’s a word – roll with it), WHOA lansi. It will consist primarily of photos, so if my writing was never your jam, maybe my photography will be. I took almost 2000 photos on our honeymoon so you’re bound to stumble across one you enjoy, right? (Bear with me though while I figure out this whole tumblr thing. It’s a different world, guys!)

N & I have been married over a month now, which makes me an expert on planning a wedding & marriage. Ha! I actually can’t take all the credit for my wedding. While it was exactly what I wanted, the perfect execution was thanks to my mother. She took our personal styles & organized the logistics – something I’m certain she was born to do.

Now, that’s not to say I had no role in the planning or execution. I’m not one to sit back & let anyone make decisions of any kind for me. I’m just a little bit opinionated when it comes to what I do & do not like & am usually happy to share my views. What I did do was decide what was most important to me & focused on those things. For the rest, I gave my mom a lot of free reign. She knows my tastes better than anyone else so I wasn’t too worried & only spoke up here & there about details. It helps that she’s a talented Interior Designer.

I said I’d post a little bit about planning a wedding once ours was over so I figured I’d start with the very first things we decided: what mattered most (besides actually marrying N, since that piece is the most important). I picked three things that were important to me, personally. I obviously wound up weighing in on other aspects of our wedding, but these were my top three. (They may not be the most important things for everyone, but they were my priorities.)

1. People
2. Venue
3. Photography

People were the most important piece for both N & I. We each easily chose four of our best friends to stand beside us on August 24. The hard part for us was the guest list. We obviously wanted to celebrate with everyone in our lives, but we quickly realized that wasn’t realistic. (We’re far too popular & N has a large extended family.) I can’t recommend starting the guest list early enough. We put a lot of thought into ours & made some decisions pretty quickly in order to include as many important people as we could. At the end of the day, we decided what was important to us & compromised in other ways to make our vision a possibility. There are a million suggestions on how to create your own guest list & we didn’t do anything groundbreaking there. My best advice is to decide who absolutely has to be there & be prepared to laugh off the last minute changes that will inevitably pop up.

For me, the venue was so important. I’ve been called a foodie many times so I needed a beautiful venue with incredible food. From the moment we got engaged, I started scoping out wineries in Kelowna. Having dined at & visited a few, I knew they would have a fantastic menu in a breathtaking setting. I quickly discovered that not only did neither of my favourite wineries host weddings, but there actually aren’t many in the Okanagan that do. While I was hunting for our winery, I was given suggestion after suggestion for beautiful golf courses. Although I’ve been to many stunning weddings in such a venue, I knew it wouldn’t be my wedding. I can’t help picturing those awful patterned carpets that seem to be synonymous with golf course banquet rooms. I also don’t particularly enjoy golf, whereas I consider myself a bit of an oenophile.

We found everything we were looking for at Summerhill Pyramid Winery. They created an organic & locally grown meal for our guests for which we’ve received many compliments. If there’s one thing I love more than enjoying a delicious meal, it’s sharing it with friends & family. It was the perfect fit.

My final major decision was the photography. As someone who loves photos & takes more than her fair share, I knew I wasn’t willing to settle. For me, it’s the one thing you have left after the last macaron has been eaten & your guests have stumbled off into the darkness. It’s all over so fast that I knew I’d want to be able to look back on the day & remember it forever.

Lucky for me, I know a wonderful husband & wife team who were willing to travel from Edmonton to shoot our wedding. I’d been following their wedding photography for a few years & knew they were who I would ideally want for my own wedding. I thought since we were getting married in Kelowna, it wouldn’t be possible. I talked to them about doing an engagement shoot & mentioned how I’d love to have them do our wedding & was surprised (& elated) when they told me they could make it work for us. Carly & Boe from 3haus Photographics are the lovely couple who photographed our Wedding. Their beautiful images have been featured on this blog over the past year, & we are so excited to see how they captured our day. I can’t recommend them enough.

So there you go, the biggest three pieces of our Wedding & a little bit about how (& why) we came to those decisions. (I know it’s probably odd that I haven’t listed my dress as one of my priorities. I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted, & since it wasn’t strapless, I didn’t have to look through thousands of dresses to find it.)

If you found this useful, let me know in the comments. Now that we’re all done with the wedding (& subsequently, with the planning), I have substantially more time to discuss what was involved with our day.

#llamarama

By whoalansi

On July 28, 2014

In Uncategorized

That was an unintentionally long blogging break. I knew this blog would take a back seat to Wedding Planning & I don’t really expect that to change over the next month either. Speaking of which, we’re less than a month away from the big day. A month, guys! Isn’t that crazy?!

I haven’t blogged a ton about our wedding or the planning – there are more than enough blogs out there that can tell you how to plan a wedding & I am no expert here. Maybe once it’s over, I’ll talk a little bit about what we did. It’s turning out to be a big mix of DIY & non-DIY. Let’s talk about the first “wedding event” though, shall we?

Last weekend was my bachelorette. We kicked things off at Hotel Arts on Friday, grabbing some cocktails by the pool despite the somewhat blustery day. The patio around the pool belongs to Raw Bar, which H & I were really excited about. We tried their Beef Short Rib Steamed Buns & they were awesome. We also ordered cocktails, all of which were delicious. I’d really love to try more of their menu sometime.

Raw Bar Cocktails

As more girls arrived & dinner time approached, we headed up to our room & ordered pizza from Bocce. None of us had tried it yet, but they were one of the few upscale pizza places that deliver so we went for it. Personally, I was quite impressed with their pizza: the crust was good, they had a good assortment of options, & they came right to our room. I’d definitely try them again. We ordered the Margherita, the Funghi, the Boschetto, & the Calabrese, I think (I didn’t do the ordering myself). They were all really good, but I think the Funghi & the Boschetto were the biggest hits.

We spent the rest of the night listening to music, chatting, playing games, & eating. We even took a little swim break right before the pool closed. We just had to get in there once over the weekend! It was a great start the weekend.

Drinking Games & Raspberry Fingers

We mostly managed to sleep in the next morning, rolling out of bed around 10:30 am (although we had been woken up pretty early by some loud hotel construction that the front desk apologized for. Still – jackhammers at 7 am?) & heading down to brunch/lunch at Yellow Door Bistro just before noon. I decided to prepare for the day’s activities with steak frites – not your typical brunch fare, but it was pretty much lunch anyway (& the steak at Yellow Door is delicious).

Yellow Door Steak

After we ate it was pretty much time to get ready. People started to arrive to join us for drinks & some primping & before I knew it, it was time for the limo. The girls had rented a limo bus for two hours to start things off. We’d done the same for H’s Bachelorette & it was one of my favourite parts of the evening. We actually had the exact same limo driver as we did two years ago & the experience did not disappoint. We drove around Calgary, blasting music, dancing, making speeches, & sharing drinks. We stopped for pictures in Crescent Heights & took a bathroom break at my Matron of Honour’s parents’ house before our second photo op at my High School.

Drinking Moonshine & getting ready

Lovely MOH & I

Starting the limo ride with champagne for all!

Laughing & dancing & drinking

Crescent Heights

Bridesmaids (without gaux)

Toasts

Abe

When the two hours were up, the limo dropped us off at WURST for dinner. We were downstairs at a long table in the beer hall. It’s really the best place to be – there’s an oompah band on Saturdays & they never fail to entertain. After dinner, they came over & had me standing on the bench, drinking my boot, as they played Here Comes the Bride. It was quite hilarious.

Das Boot

Oompah dancing

Sufficiently full of “German” cuisine, we hopped in a couple limos & headed to our next stop: Cowboys. For most of us, it had been a long time since we’d been inside Cowboys. Most of the girls hadn’t actually been to this third iteration, since it was more our style when we 18 & 19. It ended up being a really great time. There were a few more shots (mostly at the insistence of the Cowboys’ managers) & a lot of dancing. H & I stayed until the lights came on & then headed over to Tubby Dog for a “night cap”. I called that one. It wouldn’t have been a proper bachelorette without Tubby Dog at some point.

Limo to cboys

Ready to dance at cboys

Speaker Dancing

The Bachelor Party I danced with

It was an incredible weekend! I felt so spoiled the whole time (& a bit like a celebrity with everyone wanting to be in photos with me!). It had been a while since I’d had a girls’ night, let alone a girls’ weekend. I definitely need to do that more often. Sometimes girltime is the best time.

Thanks to all the girls who made my weekend such a success, & especially to my amazing Matron of Honour & wonderful bridesmaids. I love you ladies!!

(Some of these photos are mine & some of them have been added to our communal Facebook album. All of them are marvelous!)

Road Tripping: May Long in Kelowna

By whoalansi

On May 31, 2014

In Uncategorized

In just under three months, N & I will be saying I do in front of our friends & family in Kelowna. We chose a beautiful winery in the Okanagan for the wedding so we spent May long simultaneously celebrating his birthday, doing hair & makeup trials, tasting wine & food, meeting with different vendors, checking out the venue, & enjoying the beautiful Okanagan Valley. It was a busy weekend to say the least, but we left feeling pretty great about our decision to spend our august weekend celebrating with our closest family & friends.

We headed out to Invermere Thursday night to get a head start on the drive to Kelowna. My parents have a place another 30 min down the road, but we stayed with my girlfriend this time. Her house is a stone’s throw away from Lake Windemere. I feel so lucky to have these opportunities to wake up, throw on my shoes, & go for a run near a lake – be it Windermere, Columbia, or Okanagan, I love them all dearly.

We stopped for lunch just past Sicamouse. There were already people heading out house boating for the long weekend. Sometimes BC is a different world from Alberta. We frequently get snow on May Long, whereas they plan boating trips.

We arrived to 32 degrees in Kelowna, a pretty big departure from the weather we’ve had so far in Calgary this spring. We had some time to kill before checking into our hotel so we hit a patio. What else is there to do when it’s that gorgeous out?

My hair & makeup trials afterwards went great. The girls I’ve picked are lovely & they both did a wonderful job. We look quite a few photos, but I’ll keep those a surprise for now.

That evening, I took Nathan out for dinner at the Hotel El Dorado. We had a fabulous meal together in celebration of his 27th birthday. There are so many great food options in Kelowna, but I’m so happy I settled on this one. Not only was the food wonderful & the service attentive & pleasant, but the space is also wonderful. It’s an older hotel, worn in all the right ways, that sits right on the lake. They’ve got a marina and docks out back so you can go for a walk along the lake or park your boat. It feels a little bit like it belongs to another era – right up my alley. Not surprisingly, it was actually my second choice for our wedding venue. I had my heart set on a winery, but this would have been an equally stunning choice.

The next day, we had some time to kill before our next meeting, so we headed downtown for lunch on the Earl’s patio. It overlooks the brand new marina in the heart of Kelowna. Nathan’s brother worked here until very recently so we’re pretty familiar with it. It’s hard to compete with their patio view & cheap raspberry mojitos.

We wandered the new marina & downtown a little bit before running off to our next meeting. I think I’ll always be a bit of a BC girl – as the weekend progressed I was more & more enamoured with our decision to wed in the Okanagan.

Our next meeting was in a beautiful French pastry shop. Sandrine’s is perfection. Everything here is delicious, but the best part for me is that she’s from Lyon. I couldn’t have planned this any better.

Our last stop of the day was at our venue – Summerhill Pyramid Winery. Again, beautiful venue; I’m so happy with our choice. We scouted out some good photo ops for our photographers & wandered the property before doing a wine tasting & finally sitting down to dinner.

We started things off with the cheese board, as per N’s brother’s suggestion. It was fantastic. Dried cherries from the orchard down the street, some of the best honey we’ve tasted (also from the area), & roasted nuts (again, from nearby) accompanied a beautiful selection of cheeses – brie, port wine gouda, & a blue.

Our main courses were equally delicious. I tried the beef, while N went for duck. Both were cooked to perfection & the presentation was gorgeous. We didn’t taste our exact menu, but our meals left me feeling confident that the chef gets it.

Desert was French toast with a homemade gelato. Not too shabby at all.

The company was pretty fantastic as well.

On our way back, I made N stop at Dave’s Goat Walk. It’s between Vernon & Enderby on highway 1 & is one of the most hilarious stops, in my opinion. It’s just so typically random of small town BC. I swear this province is littered with the funniest “attractions”.

This cracks me up every time. For a quarter, you get a handful of corn. You throw it in these little buckets & the goats use the wheel to pull the bucket it up & feed themselves. Yes, this is a thing. As N was taking the photo above, the goat was trying really hard to get the half a handful of corn I’d already dumped into the bucket. I love it. (They also have some great honey & other products in the little store attached).

All in all it was a great weekend & I’m even more excited for our upcoming wedding. We’re down to double digits so things are getting quite real at this point.

a proposal

By whoalansi

On November 18, 2013

In Family, Personal

Kelowna was the final leg of our vacation. We’d planned to meet up with some friends and run the inaugural Kelowna Wine Country Half Marathon on September 7th.

When we’d first signed up for the half marathon, N’s parents, his sister, and her boyfriend booked flights out to Kelowna for that weekend. At the time, I didn’t think much of it since N’s brother also lives in Kelowna. N explained that they thought it would be nice to spend the weekend together as a family vacation of sorts.

Race morning, I woke up not feeling so great. I’m sure the ridiculous amount of vacation type food had nothing at all to do with it. Planning to run a half marathon after 10 days of wonderfully rich food and drinks was not my most brilliant plan. We’d eaten more wheat in that week than we probably had all year. I’m sorry, tummy. You were understandably upset.

Nonetheless, we grabbed breakfast in the hotel, met up with our friends, and got in line for the bus to the start line. It was a long wait to get on the bus, but we all nervously chatted and jumped around to keep warm. We were the only veteran half marathoners in the group. Their nervous anticipation reminded me of my own before I ran Montreal. We finally got on a bus and made it to the start line with all the other runners. It was by far the smallest race I’ve ever run but our friends’ excitement, coupled with that of it being the inaugural race, was contagious.

It was the perfect day for a half marathon too – overcast and cool with a little rain. N and I generally run together for the first 12 km and then he takes off on his own. He’s a faster runner than I am, but I’m better at pacing so I reign him in and he reminds me that it’s supposed to be fun, at least that morning. I had some serious doubts that I was going to finish that race. My stomach was angry and my legs didn’t feel ready for the constant pounding from the huge amount of downhill in the race. In hindsight, he was probably pretty worried with all my talk of not finishing.

At 12 km, I was still going though and we parted ways. He reminded me that I didn’t need to run a best time and also mentioned that I should look for his family near the finish. He said his sister had made signs and his mom would have a surprise for us at the end. I was doubtful that his sister would be awake and slightly confused about what his mom would have for us, but I still didn’t think anything was going on.

As soon as he left me, things got much worse for my stomach. I started worrying that I really wasn’t going to finish the race and desperately needed to find a washroom. Of course, there were none to be found. I had switched to from 20 min of running and 1 minute of walking to 10 minutes of running. Every time I took a walk break, people encouraged me to keep going. All the people cheering along the half marathon routes are doing such an incredible thing for the runners. I’ve often wondered if I’d have made it through a lot of my races if it weren’t for them!

At 15 km, I gave in to my upset tummy and made a pit stop. It was definitely something I should have done earlier since I felt so much better afterwards and the rest of the race was a lot of fun. It finished along the boardwalk so for the final kilometer I could hear the announcer naming the finishers. I heard one of our friends finish and got pretty excited, considerably picking up my pace. I still hadn’t seen anyone from N’s family as I approached the finish line though.

A couple hundred meters out, someone unexpected caught my eye, waving a sign with my name on it – my mom. I had no idea she was going to be there so I waved excitedly and then took off for the finish line as fast as I could. She was standing right before the finish line so I didn’t notice much else besides the key to the end of my run.

As soon as I crossed I saw N standing at the finish with a rose. He gave it to me and probably said a few other things. I was pretty out of it from my final all out spring and exhaustion from the race itself so I don’t remember exactly what either of us said. I do remember, however, that he asked me if I’d seen the signs. I started telling him that I’d seen my mom holding a sign and had no idea she was going to be there.

N: “So you didn’t see the other signs?”

A: “The other signs? No? What?”

N: “Well you need to see the other signs.”

So I turn around and our families are holding signs that read: Alanna, will you marry me?

As I turned back around he got down on one knee and pulled out a ring. I can’t honestly remember what he said besides “will you marry me?”. I’m told I said yes pretty quickly afterwards. Tears, hugs, and laughter followed (on top of a lot of people asking if they could take our picture). It was pretty surreal.

It turns out both our families had been in on it the whole time. My parents and brother stayed in BC after our friend’s wedding so they could be a part of the proposal and N’s family had planned this weekend trip around it. He’d picked out the ring months earlier and had everything planned out so it would be a total surprise. I’m so impressed that not even a whisper got back to me or any of my friends.

I couldn’t have asked for a more thoughful proposal. He totally nailed it. While we waited for another friend to finish, we re-enacted the proposal so the rest of the family could get photos. That’s the photo the wound up on instagram and facebook a few hours later.

There was also a wine tasting for the runners so once everyone had finished up the race, we headed over to that. We enjoyed a few samples of wine, took some more pictures, and then headed back to our room to clean up. Both of our families met up at Earl’s for lunch and some drinks. It was nice to talk some more and hear stories from the few months previous: N and his sister picking out the ring, his mom keeping it at their house, N secretly driving out to my parents’ house to ask their permission. There were a lot of great stories.

The rest of the weekend involved a lot of great food with N’s family and lots of drinks and toasts and typical Kelowna things. We spent Saturday night celebrating with far too many drinks at Roses’ with his siblings and their boyfriend/girlfriend. It was an amazing weekend.

a moveable feast

By whoalansi

On November 13, 2013

In Uncategorized

I follow a lot of blogs – fashion blogs, lifestyle blogs, design blogs, cooking blogs… I love them all for different reasons. I’ve been following Megan Gilger of The Frensh Exchange for a while now and her post today got me thinking about a lot of things. One of those things is Paris.

It’s funny because Paris is both the reason I first found Megan’s blog and part of the reason I’m blogging today. Her post struck a chord with me for a few reasons. I love her and her husbands work and the way she talks about creating always inspires me to be better creatively. Following through on that is a work in progress, but it’s the kind of work in progress I’m happy to be doing. I’m learning it’s important to me to create things as well as tell my story and I think she hit the nail on the head today. It isn’t all business and we are definitely more than just our work. That’s what I want this blog to be about. My story. And my story should definitely include Paris.

So back to that. As Megan said in her post,

The biggest thing, if anything you should take from this whole chat, is that you never should say no to Paris….ever. Paris is always a yes no matter what. Never say no. (Megan Gilger)

I couldn’t agree more. We’re in the process of planning our wedding and, as a result, our honeymoon next year. While Paris was never my home, I adore it. J’adore Paris! I know there are many people who would disagree that this city is great, but I am not one of them. I don’t know what it is about Paris and I’m not sure I can properly put it into words. It’s just a feeling. And maybe you just have to feel it. Maybe you just have to find your Paris, your France, your place that will always feel special to you.

France in general makes me feel so many things. It’s such an inspriring place for me. I can wander around Paris or Lyon for hours, people watching and taking in every detail. I can’t imagine ever feeling differently about either one. Even after living in Lyon for 7 months, walking down the same streets everyday, catching a glimpse of the Basilica on Fourviere at the end of my street every night, I was still taken away by the humble beauty daily in that country.

I want to share this with N. I want to show him my Lyon, show him all of the amazing things I love about Paris, Lyon, France. Share this feeling I get while I’m there.

I hope he’s as excited as I am.

If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast. (Ernest Hemingway)

WHOA lansi

francophile, oenophile, logophile, turophile

Tag: Wedding

Wedding \ Getting Ready – The Girls

Wedding \ The Weekend

Wedding \ priorities

#llamarama

Road Tripping: May Long in Kelowna

a proposal

a moveable feast

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