226 days left!! Aaahhh!!! Lots of updates from the last few weeks! I have been working on little things here and there.

She said yes!
For those of you who are married already, you know how stressful the day of the wedding will be. That's why I knew I would need someone who will oversee all the details of the day. Mark and I have decided to ask a very good friend of ours to be our Wedding Day Coordinator - Ate Apple! Ate Apple was married not too long ago herself, so she knows exactly how  stressful a wedding can be. That's why we are so fortunate to have help from someone who's been there first hand. "Thank you Ate for saying yes!" =)

Accommodations
To help our out-of-town guests, we have blocked some rooms at the Holiday Inn Mississauga Toronto West hotel. We were fortunate enough to get a really good rate. Also, the "For Travelers" section of our website is up. Here, our out-of-town guests can find all the information they need for their travel to our wedding.

Winter eShoot pictures
The pictures from our winter engagement shoot with Sarah Goetz Photography are in! =) Check them out at the Photographs section of our website. We couldn't be happier at how they turned out! Thank you again to Sarah for doing this for us!

Next on the agenda ...
We are meeting up with our florist at the end of the week. I hope everything goes well. Also, we will be doing some "park shopping". Ha ha! We're going to look for some places to take pictures after the ceremony. Yay! Everything is slowly coming together.

-Lene

Mark and I have so many things to be thankful for. One of the things that we have been so blessed with is having a lot of Engagement picture opportunities. In fact we were fortunate enough to win an engagement session from Sarah Goetz Photography! Sarah and I have been friends since I was in grade 4! We also used to live at the same apartment building and were obsessed with Backstreet Boys! Ha ha!! So I knew that this shoot was going to be a lot of fun! =)

sarahgoetzphotography.com

We wanted pictures with a lot of snow, but Mother Nature didn't seem to want to cooperate with us. Either way, we still had a lot of fun taking pictures around downtown Guelph! It's funny how you can live at a place for such a long time and never really know what's around you.

Just wanted to give Sarah a BIG THANK YOU for doing this for us and making it a lot of fun! Thanks for being so flexible with all the different locations we wanted pictures with. Thanks for not being afraid to "get down and dirty" to get that perfect shot! He he ... you're awesome! =)

I also wanted to say thanks to my loving fiancé for being such a trooper! Thanks for continuing to smile even though your face was numb! LOL!! I love you!! Just one more ... our wedding day! LOL!

Can't wait to see the pics!!! Eeeeee!!

-Lene

First thing that I saw this morning when I came out of my house ... frost! I thought it was supposed to be fall?

Crazy, I know! This just means one thing, winter is just around the corner. One of the reasons why I am so happy that we finally had our fall engagement shoot (eSession #2) finished.

We had re-scheduled it for yesterday. However, yesterday morning, it was almost cancelled again. Our photographer Andrew emailed me asking if I wanted to re-schedule it for the Spring next year instead since the weather was so unpredictable. The weather network was calling for a cloudy day yesterday, not the preferred weather, but I thought, I'll take it! I told Andrew that it's OK, we would like to go ahead with it. Good thing we did! By the time we arrived for our shoot, the sun had peaked out from behind the clouds! Yay!! God is truly great!

Reasons why we went ahead with it?

     •  I really wanted a Fall shoot since we are getting married in the Fall next year
     •  Mark's off all week for reading week this week, so it was perfect
     •  I had my nails done TWICE! Ha! Ha! I had to get them in the picture.

So anyways, the shoot turned out GREAT! We are extremely happy with how it went. Even with runny noses and numb fingers afterwards, we're happy we went ahead with it. Also, Andrew was great! He guided us throughout the whole thing, which helped us tremendously. Especially getting comfortable with PDA while someone's taking a picture of you.

My main comment for the night, "I have never kissed Mark this much in one day!" Ha! Ha! Can't wait to share teaser pics from this shoot!

Oh, and our pictures finally came from our Summer shoot! =) 

Happy Friday!

-Lene  

Alright, I can't help it! I have been dying to share my engagement pictures from our first eSession with people. Ha! Ha!

So far, it's just our family who has seen them. We are planning on using them for the wedding (Website, Save the Dates, etc.), so I can't "reveal" too many of them. Ha! Ha! But it's hard to keep my excitement in! Here's a few of my favourites. =)

Phew! We made it though our first Marriage Preparation class!

How was it? FUN! It was actually a lot of fun! Ha! Ha!

The class started at 7:30pm, but Mark and I had an appointment to have our picture taken to be added to the church's Parishioner Directory at 7:06pm. Even with the torrential downpour we had to brave, we made it exactly at 7:06pm.

The photo session was actually pretty funny. At first, we didn't know how we should list our names because we aren't married yet. In the end, we decided to go with our first names and Mark's last name. I'm excited to see my name beside his and his last name. =)

As the photographer was telling us how to pose, where to look, etc. he instructed Mark to "lean in more towards your wife". Ahhhh!!! Can you say butterflies?! Ha! Ha! I couldn't stop grinning!

We were about 5 minutes late for our class because we had to choose which pose we liked the best. We were the second last couple to make it and we ended up having to sit at the very front of the class. Right in front of the "teachers". Ha! Ha! There were about 11 other couples in the class - pretty big class!

According to this weekly email wedding report I receive, we officially have 1 year, 1 month, 2 weeks and 1 day until our wedding!! Ahhhh!!!

Ha! Ha! I know, it's far, but today I can't help but be really excited, anxious and nervous! Why? Our first Engagement Photo shoot is today!!

We wanted a place that offered flexibility for our pictures. We knew that Burlington has both the small town feel and it's right by the waters - perfect combination!

So far, it seems as if Mother Nature is on our side. They are calling for 27°C (feels like 30) this afternoon!

Last week has been insanely busy for me, so I didn't end up looking for something to wear until last night - bad idea. Let's just say I was stressing out just a tad bit. But in the end, I finally found something that would work.

top 3 feelings for today

• Nervous
• Anxious
• Excited
• Ahhh!!!

Phew! OK, just needed to get that out! =) ...

I hope our pictures turns out good. Now, I just have to prepare my face to smile for 2 hours! Got to stop smiling now! Ha! Ha!