A BIG Thank You!

I just wanted to thank everyone who was able to celebrate the best day of our lives with us and that includes the ones who were there in spirit. We couldn’t have asked for a better day. Truly a dream come true. I also wanted to thank everyone for all the wonderful wedding gifts and donations. For those of you who gave us money it has all been donated to our ChicagoLovesPits organization. That is a gift that will keep on giving so thank you so much.

This is just a quick and general thank you to all our guests but I am working on a more personal thank you that will be sent out shortly now that we are settling back into our Chicago home.

I hope you all enjoyed yourselves as much as we did and keep sharing your stories and pictures with us. We love it all:)

xox

Our Chicago Engagement Party

 Yes we were lucky enough to have two engagement parties:) I guess thats what happens when you live in two different countries through out the year. Our Chicago family, which consists of our friends, our home away from home, held us a surprise party last summer right before we went back to Canada. Well it was some what of a surprise:) As it was being planned the boys ended their run at Lord Stanley so it was time to pack up and head out for the summer. Since they didn’t know when we would leave the beans had to be spilled. Spilt or not we were surprised and very excited. We had dinner downstairs at Prosecco in the wine cellar with a room all to ourselves. It was beautiful! After dinner we headed out for some drinks and was surprised to be joined by a few more of our friends. It was a great night and we couldn’t thank you all enough for putting that together for us.

We love you guys xox

Travel

Here are a few hotels near by that we have blocked off for our WEDDING:)

 

The Westin: (613)560-7000

This hotel is attached to our venue. 

It’s under the Bickell/Caskenette wedding

$189/night- King or 2 doubles

Additional charges: parking- $35/night for valet with in and out privelages. There is also a parking garage right next door that is ticket parking $1.50/ 30 mins I believe with a $20 maximum for 24hrs. Unless you are going in and out I would park there.

http://www.thewestinottawa.com/wedding15

 

Les Suites: 1-866-682-0879

It is under the Caskenette/Bickell wedding- code: CBW0802

$159/night- Premium One Bedroom Suite (covers up to 4 ppl)

$219/night- Premium Two Bedroom Suite (covers up to 6 ppl)

Must book by Friday June 21st

Additional charges- parking $17/night

Note: If you go on their website and look under the Super Web Rate you may be able to get a better deal. Only thing is that you have to pay an extra $25/person if you want more than 2 people in the Premium One Bedroom Suite rather than the 4 that comes with our rate and 4 in the Two Bedroom rather than 6. So it depends how many people are staying in your room.

Directions from venue-walking

https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=Ottawa+Convention+Centre,+Ottawa,+ON,+Canada&daddr=Les+Suites+Hotel+Ottawa,+Ottawa,+Canada&hl=en&ll=45.425323,-75.687904&spn=0.003885,0.009645&sll=45.42526,-75.68919&sspn=0.003885,0.009645&geocode=FRUetQIdGgx9-yH-arkB2JU0nSkjlo8CAQXOTDH-arkB2JU0nQ%3BFRcmtQId5RV9-yEsLbYIS99FiCmlcebfAwXOTDEsLbYIS99FiA&oq=les+suites&t=h&dirflg=w&mra=ls&z=17http://

http://www.les-suites.com/ottawa-hotels/

 

Lord Elgin: 1-800-267-4298

It is under the Caskenette/Bickell wedding

$139/night for a traditional guest room. You can request a King, Queen or Two Queens if available.

Must Book by July 3rd.

Additional Charges- parking $28/night

Directions from venue- walking

https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=Ottawa+Convention+Centre,+Ottawa,+ON,+Canada&daddr=Lord+Elgin+Hotel,+Elgin+Street,+Ottawa,+ON,+Canada&hl=en&ll=45.422642,-75.692486&spn=0.003886,0.009645&sll=45.425323,-75.687904&sspn=0.003885,0.009645&geocode=FRUetQIdGgx9-yH-arkB2JU0nSkjlo8CAQXOTDH-arkB2JU0nQ%3BFV8TtQIdqQF9-yEnItLSCOrpaCkBFPR9qgXOTDEnItLSCOrpaA&oq=lord+&t=h&dirflg=w&mra=ls&z=17

http://www.lordelginhotel.ca/index.aspx

Flight Discounts:

Air Canada- F4ACU8W1
Go to aircanada.com and enter the promo code in the search panel. Travel period for this promotion starts July 27th to August 11th.

WestJet- W1140
You must contact WestJet Groups Department at 1888-493-7853 and give them the promo code to get 10% off your airfare. Travel period for this discount starts July 27th to August 11th.

I found my wedding dress in L.A.!

NOT! Haha. If you watched me on Brides of Beverly Hills last year, you would have witnessed as I found the PERFECT dress for me, but it wasn’t. Reality shows are far from reality, as I’m sure you know. I’m a good actor right??? haha. In August of last summer My mom, Anne (mother-in-law to be), Ashley (bestest sister-in-law to be) and myself took a once in a life time trip to L.A. to be on a show and film me finding “The One”. Well that might not have happened but I can’t say I regret going. I absolutely loved spending time together just the four of us and bonding over the two families becoming one (contrary to how it looked on T.V. lol. Remember, staged reality! Our families are more similar than we led on:). While we weren’t filming we were touring and when I say touring I mean we spent almost a whole day driving in the wrong direction and getting lost lol (it wasn’t funny at the time let me tell you). We did however go on celebrity and whale watching tours. It was amazing, but the best part for me was watching my mom experience two dreams she’s always had since she was a little girl. Whale watching being one and going to The Crystal Cathedral being the big other. All in all I will never forget that trip and I hope we can do it again soon, minus the weeding dress part of course:)

So I may not have found my wedding dress in L.A. but I did find it (well, my Mom did) at Moscatel Boutique here in Ottawa. And it really is perfect.

However, I did find my shoes in L.A.! At Saks Fifth Avenue, they are a Guiseppe Zanoti Design. You’ll have to wait until my wedding to see them though. 😉

Engagement Photos in Europe!

Now that we’re back from The Czech Republic and the lockout is over, we can finally post a few of our engagement photos that we had taken while we were over there.

Funny story about that… we weren’t sure when the lockout would be over so rather than finding a photographer in Czech Republic, who most likely wouldn’t even speak english, have our pictures taken and then posibly have to leave because the lockout ended before ever getting them we decided to have a friend take them. I received a pretty nice Camera for Christmas last year so we figured why not. I showed her how to use it and just said point and shoot haha. So after a bit of location scouting, we went out and just had fun with it!

Thank You Andrea for being our photographer! And thanks Mailyne for being able to edit a few!

Our Ottawa Engagement Party

The engagement party was organized by Amanda’s mom and two close friends. It was held in Ottawa at Robbie’s Spaghetti House on a snowy evening. Here are a few pictures of what happened.

The Future Bride and Groom

Chatting with the guests

The bottom is a photo of the bride trying to give a speech before crying.

A few decorations on the tables

The Gift Table

Friends laughing and photo op with the future bride and groom

Opening their engagement gifts

Engagement Cupcakes baked by Meg Baldeau

The turtles made by Amanda’s mom.. indicating how slow they were to get married lol

Group photo by Lyne Lahale

Amanda and Bryan, we love you.

The Search For The Perfect Dress Begins

The wedding dress is obviously one of the most important aspects of your wedding, so I took the liberty to find most of the top designers and link you to their websites.

I figured if you find a designer you like, we can search stores that carry their line.

Martina Liana (2012 Collection)

Justin Alexander (Preview 2013 Collection)

Video of 2012 Campaign for Justin Alexander:

.

Essense of Australia

Ella Bridals

Amsale

Jim Hjelm

Kenneth Pool

Lazaro

Hayley Paige

Lea-Ann Belter

Legends by Romono Keveza

Maggie Sottero

Searching for..

Venues between Ottawa and Peterborough. Checked out Gananoque and Kingston. Not much there. The only thing that might be nice would be a cruise ship in Kingston that takes you around the 1000 Islands. Click HERE.

Found two sites that gives a list of wedding venues for Southern Ontario. Click HERE and HERE.

Welcome!

This is Amanda and Bryan’s Wedding Website. 

To be married August 3, 2013