Monthly Archives: March 2018

Planning a wedding in six months – Part 2 – Engagement

The PolyBlog
March 10 2018

Of the 16 categories I mentioned in the first post (Planning a wedding in six months – Part 1 – Early planning), one thing that makes almost no sense at first blush is to have an engagement heading. After all, aren’t you already engaged if you’re planning the wedding together?

For us, the answer was yes and no.

As I mentioned in the last post, we kind of “decided” this was the year we were both ready and we would move forward with a wedding. We’d been together six years, were already living together and had bought a house together, but we hadn’t gotten married yet. Without getting too far into personal details, my wife is a lot younger than me, and while she was ready for the rest, she wasn’t ready for marriage and I wasn’t pushing. So I didn’t want to spring an engagement ring on her if she wasn’t ready. Then we decided we WERE ready, and we were planning a date, but she had no ring, since we kind of “discussed” our way into it, it wasn’t a “fun and spontaneous” moment.

You also might have noticed in the previous post, that one of my MUST-HAVES was a ring for my wife-to-be. I wanted her to have the engagement ring, to enjoy it, to enjoy the experience of getting it. Yet I knew it wouldn’t exactly be a surprise, so some of the “fun” part of the experience — the stories that people tell for years — was missing. And I didn’t want her to miss out on any part of the “wedding” or “engagement” experience.

Choosing a ring

Lots of people go and look at rings before they get engaged, get some idea of what the woman wants to have in terms of design, the guy figures out his price range (and then often doubles it), and then the guy chooses the ring. In many ways, that process seems fun and exciting, but as it will likely be the most expensive jewellery that the woman ever owns, shouldn’t she have a bit more say in it?

In our case, my wife’s aunt is a private jeweler in Toronto. In month one, we went up to Toronto, looked at a bunch of cut but unmounted diamonds, and basically freaked myself out. There were all these stones rolling around the desktop, $5K, 10K, $20K each. A couple fell on the floor at different times. I couldn’t keep them straight, which was which. We got a feel for what my wife-to-be liked, chose something approximately, and then my fiancée (hey, cool word to use! let’s use it all the time!) left while I chose the ring and mount. All good. The aunt said it would take about eight weeks.

After we got back to Ottawa, I had a small regret. Yes, my wife-to-be got to choose her stone and have a say in her biggest jewellery piece, but would she feel surprised when she got it in two months? Would she be excited? It bothered me that she didn’t have the “real” engagement experience, the fun part, essentially. And I started thinking deviously. What if we told her it wouldn’t be available until May 24th, but it was actually available May 8? We could slip down to Peterborough for Mother’s Day or so (and her mother’s birthday), I’d work some magic with the aunt, and I’d have the ring ready to give her as a surprise two weeks early. Great plan.

Except I didn’t tell the aunt it was going to be a total surprise on timing. So about two weeks before May 8th, the aunt said in an email to both of us, “Good news, we’ll have it ready for the 8th”. Dammit! I blew it. She now knew the date again. Shoot. No surprise.

Unless…

Unless I somehow got the ring from the aunt BEFORE the 8th, and didn’t tell my wife. Maybe by courier. It sounded like a plan to me, but the shipping with the full insurance was exorbitant. Hmm…what if I drove to Toronto and picked it up? Then I would have it early, and she would then be able to show it off at Mother’s Day. Hmm…would that work?

Discussions of logistics with the aunt proved it was possible, but how would I drive to Toronto and back without my wife knowing where I was? We work in the SAME complex, she would know something was up if I didn’t go to work one day. I devised a plan. I would take a day off, but tell her I was going to a conference instead. That way, she wouldn’t suspect. We got up that morning, started getting ready, I put on my suit to go to the “conference” (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) and then when she went to the shower, I grabbed some casual clothes to wear on the drive, jumped in the car and I was off to Toronto!

For those of you not familiar with the Ottawa to Toronto trip, it’s about 4.5 hours. I got there, had lunch with the aunt, hopped back in the car, and I was off again!

It was Thursday and we were going to Peterborough on Friday. Which meant I had Thursday night to get her the ring. Sure, I wasn’t nervous about her answer, but I wanted it memorable. I called her from the car, suggested we go out for a nice dinner, sounds good, right? Nope, she said we had some leftovers we needed to eat up. Leftovers were NOT special, was my thought.

I suggested a nice dinner instead, since I was already wearing a suit (supposedly, at least, for the “conference”, nudge, nudge) and I had just accepted a new job, a little celebration. I wasn’t looking for super high-end, that would have been suspicious, but there is a Keg Manor in Ottawa that’s in a historic old house with a nice garden next to it. She said, “Okay, sure”. She wanted to change first though, so we went home, got ready, headed out.

After the plan of “drive to Toronto and back in a single day”, I didn’t really have anything further in mind. We wandered around the garden, looked at some nice flowers. I was debating what to do…one knee? Something memorable to say? My mind was relatively blank (a common occurrence, to which she would likely attest). In the end, I basically said I had something for her to celebrate our “two month anniversary of being engaged” (March 8 to May 8). When I pulled out the box, I said, “this is for you,” (I know, really memorable, right?) but she was all giggly and surprised anyway. “How did you get my ring?”. When I told her I didn’t “really” have a conference that day, she was like, “You DROVE to Toronto and back all today? How???” and then she had the ring in her hand and it didn’t matter any more how or why or when. Jackpot!

And she got the chance to call people and tell them, and then to show them the ring that weekend too. Not exactly traditional, but it worked for us. ** Spousal edit: My wife reminds that I also forgot my wallet when we went for dinner and she had to pay.

So what was on my hidden part of the tracker?

  • Get engaged (Week 1)
  • Tell parents (Week 1) ** Spousal edit — My wife informs my memory is faulty…we actually waited two weeks to tell the parents in person.
  • Tell family (Week 1)
  • Tell friends (Week 2)
  • Buy ring – engagement (Week 3)
  • Give ring / propose (Week 8)

In most cases, people would only have the “tell / tell / tell” headings under their Must-Haves-For-Us headings. Of course, while we were picking out her engagement ring, we also looked at wedding bands too. Some people might do those under the ceremony heading, or here. As long as they’re being tracked somewhere, it doesn’t matter!

But if you thought you were going to get off scot-free on this heading, you’d be mistaken. Because there are a few other things that you might need to do:

  • Choose wedding date — Yes, we had a notional date, September, but with only six months on the clock, we needed to choose a date immediately. With a backup in case a venue wasn’t available. September 13th would be our date, screw the superstitions of 13 being an unlucky number;
  • Put an engagement notice in the paper — Some families do this, particularly if it’s a small town, it’s just tradition;
  • Publish banns in the church — if you’re in a particular religion (like Catholicism), the churches “publish the banns” (i.e. notices) before the wedding to see if anyone objects, again for tradition if you care;
  • Engagement party — Some people want to have an engagement party to celebrate, but for us, that was way down the list of “nice-to-haves”, and maybe if we had a year or two, we might have done it, but we pushed it off a bit (and later it morphed into something else);
  • Pay for rings — I mentioned you could track the engagement ring and/or the wedding bands here or under ceremony, but wherever you track them, you also need to pay for them and put them in your expense tracker;
  • Introduce the parents — lots of people get married and their parents already know each other well, by circumstance, by schedule, or by planning, but in our case, they didn’t, so we arranged for them to “meet” (there were only three, it was easy to arrange a quick lunch or dinner, I don’t even remember which…or was it a BBQ? ** Spousal edit: My wife reminds me went to a restaurant in Peterborough.); and,
  • Discuss any big questions that are outstanding.

I threw this last one in here because a lot of people “think” it is already done before they get engaged in the first place. But many churches suggest that before you get married in their church, you should attend a pre-marriage counselling. Think of it as pre-marriage boot camp. Why? Because they want to know and they want you to know that you’ve addressed most of the big questions that can lead to divorce later on. Like for instance, how many kids do you want? If you have kids, will you take them to church? How will you handle discipline? How do you feel about who takes care of them if Mom goes back to work right away?

I know, you love each other, none of these questions are deal-breakers for you, right? Until you trip over one that is. Wait, what, you expect me to TAKE YOUR NAME? You want FOUR kids, not TWO? Everybody is different. And something you never thought about could prompt a discussion you’re not expecting or ready to have with your spouse-to-be.

For us, we didn’t particularly feel like we needed that discussion to be with a religious leader, nor did we have one handy in Ottawa to do it anyway. Nor did we feel we needed anyone facilitating the discussion, although some people we know think it was a fantastic idea. Instead, we downloaded a bunch of questions off the net and we both went through and picked a few that were important to each of us. Then, over time, we discussed a few of them. Nothing earth-shattering, partly as we had already had many of those discussions earlier.

One that was an interesting one for us was last names. But not in the way you might think. For me, I thought it was ludicrous that she might take my name after marriage. I dated her as Andrea H—–, I fell in love with Andrea H—–, I was marrying Andrea H—–, and then she would be Andrea S—–? That made no sense to me. Or her, which was the important part. When someone asked her if she was changing her name, her response was, “Yes, I’m thinking of Elizabeth.” I’ve always loved that response. Now, don’t get us wrong, we don’t care what other people do, but it made no sense TO us, FOR us. So that was normal for us.

And when it came to the possible last name of our future children, we glossed over it at the time, but for me, I just assumed they would have her last name. So no real issue for us, and in the end, that’s what we did. We stuck my last name in as a middle name, but I didn’t feel strongly about it.

Most people get spontaneously engaged for love, which is exciting, but the actual marriage is more about the sober reflection side of life. And running through some of these questions can be eye-opening, even if only for the ways in which you discuss things and communicate. You’re planning a life together, this is a good little test for yourself to see if you can work through things that are a bit more challenging than what restaurant you want to go to tonight.

However, for most of the items above, the schedule is relatively flexible. It’s up to you to decide if they are must-haves or just nice-to-haves, and when you want them to happen.

Planning a wedding in six months – Part 1 – Early planning

The PolyBlog
March 10 2018

My wife and I are going to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary in just over six months, and so this weekend marks a bit of an occasion on it’s own. We decided to get married ten years ago, planning on a short engagement of six months, rather than a long engagement, for a number of reasons.

First, everybody we know who had a long engagement (or at least from the time they set an actual date to the actual date itself i.e. not including those who got engaged but didn’t set a date right away) basically filled every waking moment with wedding planning. I’d like to point to couple x or y as examples, but that wouldn’t be fair to them, nor potentially accurate since we were only observing from afar. But for certain couples, it was just flat out stress. Over and over again I’ve seen couples get to the wedding itself and quite frankly, they just want it OVER. They’re just so sick and tired of talking about it, they want the damn thing done. I didn’t want that.

Second, I in particular didn’t want a huge wedding. So by limiting the timeline, we were also limiting some of the pomp and circumstance that would go with it.

Third, not for nothing, we’d already been together for awhile, I wanted kids and for me that meant within a marriage, and I wasn’t getting any younger. So a small time pressure. Yeah, yeah, I know, you’ll say lots of men have become fathers later in life, but I wanted any children to arrive when I was young enough to enjoy them. Some of that was personal preference, some of that was my past experience with my own father, but I wanted to be under 42 or 43 at the latest. In an ideal world, I would have been only 35, but that ship had sailed.

So we decided to get married.

For some people, that’s a down-on-one-knee sort of world. A formal proposal, hearts beat, time stops, there’s a shock moment, and then joy, kissing, etc. For my wife and I, it was a bit more relaxed than that. We both wanted to get married only if we both were ready, and we both weren’t up until then. Then, while exchanging late Valentine’s Day cards (March 8), we talked about the future and decided we were ready. We talked a bit about what it would look like (the wedding), and set an approximate time. September.

If you’re doing the math at home, that’s six months.

Lots of people were like, “Wow, are you pregnant?”. Umm, no, we’re just getting married in six months. Many of those people had planned their wedding over the course of a year and felt they had to rush things, and here we were embarking on trying to do it in six months.

Within 36 hours, we basically had the outline for what our wedding would look like.

We had some advantages. First of all, I’m a planner by nature. I make lists, I set goals, I think like a planner. Doesn’t mean I execute like a planner, but I think like a planner. I’ve taken huge delegations overseas, never lost anyone. Equally, my wife is analytical by nature too. Which means we’re fairly compatible in our approach to planning. I’m way more anal about it, but it wasn’t like trying to combine one analytical planner with one social squirrel. We could do this.

Second, we also recognized that certain things would have to change from a “average/normal” approach if we were to do it in six months. We agreed early we would pay for virtually all of it ourselves, and we would control the planning so that it was “our” wedding, not a social-business outing where we would invite a business contact of our uncle’s or a seventh cousin whose mother invited my mother to a wedding a few years ago. We weren’t anticipating such requests, but wedding planning does strange things to people. We would also keep the size reasonable. Equally, we wouldn’t be able to necessarily have everything “perfect” in terms of venue, reception, guestlist, weather, blah blah blah. We recognized there were essentials for everyone, must-haves for us, and nice-to-haves for us.

Essentials

We recognized upfront that all we really needed were me, her, an officiant, two witnesses, a wedding license, and a pen. Most people’s immediate reaction to that is, “Well, sure, but my parents and sibling have to be there. And a church. And a dress. And….”. But really, no, you don’t. You may get disowned without those other things, you may cause friction, you may not “live the dream” you had when you were six, but they’re not essential. A couple, an officiant, witnesses, and a license — these are the “must-haves” for everyone. If you have all those, you’re golden.

And guess what? You already have the biggest one. The couple.

Must-haves for us

For us, must haves were immediate family. My five siblings and their families, her sister and family, my mother, her parents and grandfather.

For her, she wanted a dress and her sister as maid of honour. It was a small mental debate as to whether her aunts / uncles / cousins were must-haves or potentially just nice-to-haves, but once we decided on size, it was easy to consider them must-haves.

For me, I wanted something during the day to recognize my late father, an engagement ring for my wife-to-be, writing our own vows, and some nice photos.

Nice-to-haves for us

If you look at the three categories, you’ll see that the first is generic — what everyone needs. The second and third have the extra “for us” phrase added on. Because tons of people have views about weddings, and lots of psychological scripts that people follow without really questioning if that is important to them. And then 22 choices later, they have a wedding shaping up with a bunch of stuff they don’t care about and all of it takes time and energy away from the things they do care about.

When you read the first two categories, did you see something big that was missing? Something TONS of people want/need/say is a must-have for them? A church.

And it is one of the two biggest obstacles to doing a wedding in less than six months. If you have to book a church, and more likely a specific church, there’s a good chance it might be booked on the day you want, or at least have constraints around the time of day that works well for the schedule you’re envisioning.

For us, it wasn’t a huge issue. Nice, but not a must.

The second obstacle a lot of people have is they often have a specific venue in mind for a reception — and equally, with six months notice, there’s a good chance it’s already booked. If those are in your ESSENTIALS or MUST-HAVES, well, you’re likely screwed.

And this is probably the biggest lesson learned of planning a wedding — the more inflexible you are on something big, the more flexible you may have to be on EVERYTHING else.

Getting the planning going

We did three things right up front in our planning.

First, we told some people. Who first? The same people who were our must-haves above. Of course, we wanted to share our good news, but we also wanted them to know there was a wedding in September so they would keep their calendars open while we firmed up a date. Plus it’s an easy way to find out if cousin Bob has THEIR wedding planned for the same weekend and just hasn’t told anyone.

Second, we brainstormed venues. We’re both from Peterborough even though we live in Ottawa now, so we debated a wedding in Ottawa vs. Peterborough. But, in the end, our lives are in Ottawa and we wanted it here. So what would we have available? A church? A chapel? An open-air park? An university venue? Hotel? Municipal hall? Legion? We knew most “big” places would already be booked, so we started thinking outside the box — non-traditional venues.

Third, we went online and looked at generic planning guides, lists of things that had to be done for a wedding, etc. and downloaded them. Many of them were aimed at planning a wedding in 12 months or even 24 months. But that didn’t matter, what mattered was coming up with a bunch of key headings to think about for OUR planning.

Here was our list:

  1. General Planning
  2. Engagement
  3. Ceremony
  4. Reception
  5. Honeymoon

Nice, simple. Useless, to be honest. It wasn’t too long before we needed a bigger master list, or more accurately, unpacking some of those headings into smaller and smaller ones:

  1. General Planning
  2. Engagement
  3. Accommodations
  4. Invitations, order of service
  5. Gifts
  6. Website
  7. Flowers and Decorations
  8. Transportation
  9. Photography
  10. Showers, bachelor(ette) parties
  11. Rehearsal
  12. Ceremony
  13. Reception (including catering)
  14. Brunch
  15. Honeymoon
  16. Thank yous

Those 16 categories kept us relatively on track for the six months. And they are the 16 categories I’ll use below to talk about some of the things we focused on for each one, although I plan to change the order somewhat.

1. General Planning

It might seem at first that a heading of “planning” makes no sense for what is essentially all planning, but it is about having some little tools for yourself to help you through the process. The list itself — i.e. the 16 categories and all the things under them — was the main item. Every time we thought of something we “wanted” or “needed” to do, it went on the list. It made sure things didn’t get missed. Which sounds a bit obvious, right? But the reality is that most people have multiple lists, written down all over the place. They don’t put them in one place so BOTH of you know what’s being done and when. I know lots of guys bail early on the process, some just don’t care as long as the essentials are met, but for me, this would truly be a “joint” project — OUR wedding, not her wedding with me as a guest.

So we set up an activity tracker in Word. We created a table of about 28 columns and 16 categories down the side. The first two columns were “categories” and “activities/tasks” and then there were 26 columns for the approximately 26 weeks up until the wedding. (For those in the know, you’re basically creating an informal Gantt chart, but that’s not that important to know). Some people just go with six columns (one for each month), but having the 26 let us plan things with a bit more precision (and divide up the work a bit better rather than a huge list each month). While the list might be long, the important thing is to figure out which week (or month) it needs to be done by or alternatively a good week when you’re not quite as busy.

The second thing we set up was an expense tracker, although it was as much a “payment” tracker as anything. It was a quick way to keep track of deposits, amounts, etc. and match it to our budget to make sure we weren’t going crazy. And to remember when certain extra deposits were due and to put THEM on the activity tracker.

We also put a third thing in this category, partly because it didn’t seem to fit anywhere else as neatly. We tried to think about what the role was of certain specific guests:

  • Matron of Honour
  • Best man
  • Parents (Mother, Father) of the Bride
  • Parents (Mother) of the Groom

Why those four? Because often those four groups will be the ones helping you on your activities. And while it wasn’t a concern for us, lots of people online noted that the sooner you figure out some things you WANT them to do (and give them a role), the easier it is for you to avoid them doing things on their own that you DON’T want them to do. Plus delegation is fun, didn’t you know? 🙂

Essential: A list or several lists (Week 1-16)

Must have for us: A tracker (Week 1-16)

Nice to have for us: An expense tracker (Week 1-16), roles for specific guests (Week 2).

Reading “Big Box Reuse” by Julia Christensen – Chapter 10

The PolyBlog
March 10 2018

Chapter 10 is interesting in that it goes in an entirely different direction — not the use of a Walmart by another big retailer, or a completely different business, or a community group even. Instead, it focuses on the reuse in Kentucky to open a mini-mall of second-hand stores. Micro-businesses, in the parlance, or in this case, flea markets.

But with an innovative twist — a central check-out. All the vendors sell their wares just as Walmart has little divisions. Yet they are no competition for Walmart, so Walmart loves them. How many individual vendors? One store had over 300. The central checkout handles all the finances for them, along with most of the transactional paperwork. I think it is brilliant. Ripe for disruption, of course, but brilliant.

And the store renovation is as minimal as they can make it…splash some paint and they are good to go. Nobody cares, they just want an indoor space to sell their goods. The lower the overhead, the better. Even some of the original signage is still in place.

In the long run, however, the mini-malls are doomed to fail…once the main lease runs out, and the lease restrictions ease, larger retailers can come in, take the space, and increase the revenue for the site owner, just as it did with the race track in an earlier chapter. Yet, in the meantime, it’s a very different way to take over the space.

Reading “Big Box Reuse” by Julia Christensen – Chapter 9

The PolyBlog
March 10 2018

Chapter 9 is a somewhat starker chapter, as it looks at Chalmette, Louisiana, after Hurricane Katrina devastated the area. And it isn’t like the other chapters, as it is not really about reuse of an abandoned building.

Instead, it is the use of the Walmart parking lot — the only local place large enough to hold a small medical centre made up of a series of large double-wide trailers all connected together. Supported by non-profits, for-profits, religious groups, FEMA and Walmart, it got going in the aftermath of Katrina, and at the time of writing (3 years afterwards), it was still running, while the Walmart remained closed. Walmart even let them open a small pharmacy onsite to meet local needs.

However, what I find interesting and for which I wish there was more coverage in the book (admittedly, it is beyond her scope), is the description of how Walmart used its existing large distribution network to help relief efforts. Not unlike nationalization of some industries back in WWI and WWII, from the descriptions.

Yet in the end, the main reason for their use of the parking lot? Location, location, location — it has good transport networks leading to it, everyone can get to it, and it’s easy to find. The same reasons any user would choose the same location.

Reading “Big Box Reuse” by Julia Christensen – Chapter 8

The PolyBlog
March 10 2018

Chapter 8 struck me as the oddest of all — converting a Walmart into a chapel in Pinellas Park, Florida. Now, admittedly, it’s a Calvary Chapel plus a whole bunch of other things, not your traditional wayside chapel of Catholicism, for example. Yet, when you realize that the parishioners are not “local neighbourhood” residents, but cross the county, it isn’t surprising that they would choose a building with built-in parking and a virtually unlimited size meeting space (i.e. auditorium). How big a congregation? Services for 700-1000 at a time are for slow days, normal hits at about 1500, and potentially 3300 are part of the congregation.

When Walmart was looking to vacate their space, the Calvary Chapel was already in a smaller old Winn-Dixie store. They bid on the new space, and Walmart agreed. The part I find a bit confusing in the story is that the author seems a bit puzzled about Walmart’s decision, even though there were potentially higher bidders. The Chapel credits divine intervention; the authors wonders if it was PR, or that the Chapel had a good business reputation for reuse, etc. Yet the author already spoke of the most likely reasons way back in the earliest chapters — when Walmart vacates, they want to know that whoever takes over the space is not going to compete with them for business. And they often have huge lease and/or sale restrictions to prevent it. With the Chapel? No such concerns.

The renovation is extensive, of course. Even the roof has been modified to have a huge patio. Inside, they have sports areas (courts for basketball, dodgeball, etc.), recreation areas (pool tables on a second floor), some small theatres, lots of offices, some educational spaces for schooling, etc. And of course, a temporary auditorium for 1500.

I can’t help but feel there is some irony between products for the masses and a commercial approach to religion, but that is my own upbringing showing through I suppose. But the renovation of the exterior wasn’t a big concern for the church, they are all about the congregation and having a tool to help serve them, not the extensive aesthetics.