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For years, The Ring has been discovering the wedding gems hidden throughout Huron County from the gorgeous, countryside venues to the beaches and parks. Not to mention the unique style and niche services of some of the finest wedding experts among it all. So, as our repertoire of Huron County wedding experts continued to grow, we decided it was time they got their own Wedding Ring. With a list of already fabulous wedding vendors in Huron County, we’re excited to jump in and find more.
The new Huron County section of The Ring will be filled with interviews and reviews on the experts, bride-savvy tips on anything and everything you need to know to plan a Huron County wedding (including our famous line-by-line, detailed budget spreadsheet) and inspiring Reality Wedding Stories that showcase real brides on their big day. Another reason to love being a Huron County bride. Join The Ring.
This Saturday takes The Ring to Woodstock Ontario for the Better Living Essentials show where we’re sponsoring the Bridal Boulevard portion of the show. The show expects about 100 brides and has some really fun events going on throughout the day. Should be a blast!
From there we head to Kitchener’s Welcome Wagon show, held at City Hall on Sunday. This is always a good show. It’s short, sweet and comes with a bridal fashion runway show.
Simultaneously, we’ll be at the Simcoe Bridal Show in Simcoe on Sunday. This weekend will be fun because it’s the first time we’ll be covering events on video for showing off on RingTV!
This past Saturday was a big day in The Wedding Ring family. Our much-loved media manager, Ryann Pauzé, married her soul mate, Mat Blenkiron in Kitchener Ontario. The wedding was untraditional, creative, and had most of the two hundred guests either laughing or crying with the bride and groom throughout the day (we cried like babies during the vows).
The theme of the wedding was red & black and rock & roll. The wedding party walked down the aisle to Can’t keep my eyes off of you and later shared cocktails with guests to Beatles’ tunes. Ryann and Mat’s friends and family toasted to the couple with a mixture of comical and sweet speeches. Their friends also created a slideshow using a collection of photos that stretched from childhood (Mat playing with the barn cats on the farm, Ryann proudly holding a Star Trek poster) to the present (dating, hanging out, celebrating…). Guests came from all over the world including the Persian Gulf and Western Canada and it was obvious that they were there to support and celebrate Ryann & Mat’s new marriage.
When all was said and done, the one thing that stood out even more than the music or the open bar was how close this large group of people were. It was obvious they all adore Ryann and Mat. The wedding theme that resonated louder than any other that day was of friendship, family, and true love. Congratulations Ryann & Mat Blenkiron!
details
theme :: Red & black, rock & roll, family & friendship
officiant :: Don Perron
hair :: Cecilia @ Excell Salon
make-up :: Karen Adourian, Mary Kay
invitations, signage, stationery :: Ryann (Pauzé) Blenkiron
manicures, pedicures :: Chameleon Hair Studio & Spa
bridal gown :: Taylor’s Bridal Boutique
bridesmaid gowns :: The six girls wore dark, gorgeous black gowns in individual styles they chose themselves.
music :: Merv Keyes @ Magic Tunes Entertainment
decorating, details :: Ryann & Mat’s friends and family
ceremony & reception :: Concordia Club
wedding cake :: JoRa Wedding Cakes. It was three tiers of round, white wedding cake with subtle red accents. Cake designer, Joanne, came out to cut and serve the cake personally for Ryann and Mat – as a special gift as a friend.
This stay-at-home calculator is a real eye-opener. Take Chatelaine Magazine’s online test to see if being a stay-at-home wife or mom is realistic for you. http://en.chatelaine.com/english/life/article.jsp?content=20031103_170458_3560
Staff at The Ring wanted to thank all of the vendors, sponsors, media and gorgeous brides (past, present & future) who supported The Brides’ Ball in Kitchener on the 23rd and then in London on the 29th. Both events were awesome, and the dance floor was hopping in London until after 1am.
[Photo above by Boulevard Photography and Fine Things @ The Kitchener Brides' Ball]
In the end, we had two events, 70+ sponsors, 200+ prizes, and the online auction is still going strong (at about $3100 as of Friday).
As soon as photos come in from Barebonephoto, Ralph Heinze Photography, HRM Photography and Boulevard Photography and Fine Things, we’ll update the blog and post them. Video of the Ball to come shortly to ringTV courtesy of MatriMovie and Etched in Time.
For Facebook fanatics, there’s plenty of pics of the Ball popping up all over the Facebook world.
- Jenn @ The Ring
The weekend before Halloween is one of my most favourite weekends of the year. Brian and I pile the kids into the van and make the trek out to Kim-Glo, our favourite country ‘haunt’ & pumpkin patch.
My four year old, Liam, gets all big-eyed and adorable, dying of excitement over the mazes and hayrides. After playing in every single childhood attraction the farm has got that year, Liam, Des and Callie run through the pumpkin patch to choose their favourites. Because they can never decide (and because they’re always competing), the kids pile more pumpkins than any one family should ever need into those red plastic sleds, drag them to the hut where we pay a whopping $10 or $20 (crazy cheap) for the lot, and then load them into the van and head home to decorate.
Halloween is one of those holidays, where if you are willing to put on some cat whiskers and trick or treat with the best of them, you can’t help but feel young again.
That said, you couldn’t pay me enough to clean out a pumpkin.
- Jenn @ The Ring
A couple of times per year, the very hot topic of free speech on the internet comes up in The Ring, thanks to our local Bridal Chat forums. The debate - usually spurred on by the deletion or editing of negative posts regarding local companies - takes about ten seconds to go from a luke-warm status to an on-fire status.
- Brides don’t want their posts to be moderated.
- We don’t want them (or us) to be sued.
- Reputable vendors don’t want to be trashed without just cause.
- The few actually horrible vendors that exist don’t want to be trashed either (who have lawyers ready & waiting because they’ve likely been through this before).
Chat forums give a false sense of privacy. Brides in The Ring form lasting friendships so it’s only natural for them to feel safe venting to their peers. But, the internet isn’t anonymous anymore, and it hasn’t been for a long time. When you post something controversial, you may as well be standing in the middle of the street, shouting your complaints because the result is the same. Your message has the power to make (or break) a business.
We’ve gone to bat (legally) in the past on behalf of brides in The Ring, simply because we felt a responsibility to brides to do so, thinking they couldn’t afford a lawsuit on top of a wedding. We learned a unjust but true lesson from that experience, Slander is only slander if it’s not true. And if it’s not slander, you better be prepared to prove that it isn’t.
So the bottom line here is that an online wedding forum offers the opportunity to use a huge source of bridal girl power for good. The right to freedom of speech on the internet will be argued for years to come. Unfortunately brides (or vendors or The Ring for that matter) aren’t likely to win the argument today.
- Jenn @ The Ring
This past weekend was the Bingemans Wedding Dreams show. As always, it was big. There were a number of vendor displays, the fashion show was pretty good, and we got to see a ton of brides from The Ring.
Becky, Ryann and Linda came out to run TheWeddingRing.ca booth (decorated by Custom Elements) Saturday and Sunday allowing Anne and I to scope out some of the newest trends in flowers, photography, videography, fashion and decorating… As usual, Jirina was giving out tasty cake across the walkway from us, testing our will power all weekend. The show also marked K-W’s first chance to check out Bridal News Magazine, which was definitely exciting.
If you didn’t make it to the show, the next one on the calendar is ‘A Bridal Extravaganza’ at the Paris Grand Country Club, November 17th and 19th, 2007, from 11 to 4pm.
We recently ran into Tamara of Classique Decor and learned that she is moving out of the country. Her husband’s company has an office in the U.S. where he will be working from. Even though Tamara sounds excited about the new direction their family’s life is taking, she admitted that she’ll miss decorating for local weddings. Tamara has decorated plenty of weddings for brides in The Ring over the years. “Hopefully I’ll be able to keep in touch with my brides… I’ll definitely miss them!”
As for Classique Decor’s scheduled upcoming weddings, the company has been sold to a new owner who will be taking care of the wedding days to come – though Tamara is still helping with the transition at this point. The company web site http://www.classiquedecor.ca/ shows the old phone number and email address, but Tamara wants to be sure everyone knows that inquiries, questions and feedback are forwarded toTamara & the new owner.
After over seven years, two new businesses and four children between us… it’s official - Brian and I are engaged!
He popped the question at home, in front of our kids, extended family & friends after Thanksgiving Dinner. True to our inside joke (which you’d only understand if you had four kids and a mountain of bills), he did it with a dollar store ring. It was sweet. You’d think I wouldn’t be surprised but I really, really was.
I can see the headlines now. Editor turns bride-to-be, loses all objectivity, and proves that some girls really do deserve the title of bridezilla.
- Jenn @ The Ring, Editor & Bride-to-be
Okay, so I recently made the decision to join the BlackBerry generation.
My membership – made obvious to the world by a series of beeps (emails), honks (facebook messages) and Calypso jingles (actual phone calls) – is just two weeks old, and life-altering nonetheless.
I now have handheld access to email at all times (the biggest selling point for me). I can officially be supermom, superwife (Brian, stop laughing) and wedding guru (brides, stop laughing) at the same time, thanks to this little wonder of technology. And I’ll be the first to admit that the minute I answered my first email message sans-laptop - on what has to be the world’s smallest keyboard - I was hooked.
Okay… Not just hooked. Obsessed.
Whereas I used to find the volume of email I receive to be overwhelming, I now get annoyed if more than two minutes passes without one. My husband is already convinced he has to email me to have a conversation with me and I’m quickly getting dragged into the art of ‘Pinning parties’. If you don’t know what a Pinning Party is, get a BlackBerry. You will.
So anyways, I finally get it. The obsession and addiction that people experience with the purchase of a device that gives total email & live messaging connection at all times. I also ‘get’ the implications that come with it AND I completely understand every bb-related argument a bb-user has had with their spouse. So while I now have the ability to address last minute problems and concerns at the click of a button, I also have an entirely new bad habit to break.
Wish me luck!
Oh, and if you want to know more, you’ll probably have to Pin me.
- Jenn @ The Ring
I try not to look to the stars for inspiration and wedding trends if at all possible. After all, we have very cool brides right here in Ontario. But every once in a while, I get weak. I can’t help it. The glitz and the glam of Hollywood wedding budgets call out to me from afar. Here’s today’s celebrity wedding fix:
http://www.instyleweddings.com/instyle/weddings/celebrity/gallery/0,22612,1051460,00.html
- Jenn @ The Ring
I love this blog. Is that wrong?…
http://godawfulweddingcrap.blogspot.com
Author, ‘Riona’, describes her Godawfulweddingcrap blog as “The worst of the gougables hawked by the wedding industry. Seriously, there’s nothing so godawful out there that they won’t slap a couple of doves on it and shove it up on The Knot.“
‘Riona’ also brings us such equally bitter but sweet blogs as Domestigeek, My Annoying Neighbor, and I run Seattle. lol
- Jenn @ The Ring
This weekend we were in London for Western Fair’s bridal show on Saturday and Sunday in addition to Toronto for the Sears Registry event at Yorkdale Mall.
I’ve gotta say that London won hands down - for total number of brides, atmosphere, vendor happiness level, and overall bridal show fun factor.
The Sears event, on the other hand, was nice enough to invite us to attend and their store looked beautiful. The mall was busy, the staff was friendly, and the brides were…. elsewhere?
During the four and half hours of the event, we chatted with the Sears girls… read a lot of wedding magazines… finally figured out how to program a blackberry My5 list (thanks Rogers booth guys! you were awesome!)… pinned other Wedding Ring staff for entertainment… met roughly half a dozen brides?… went shopping…. went home. I don’t get it… Sears is well known & well loved. They have an amazing gift registry program and they stole the show at the National Bridal Show because they gave out these adorable not-so-little towel-wedding-cakes all weekend, sooooo seriously brides, where were you?!
- Jenn @ The Ring
We’re just in the midst of scheduling some new Reality Wedding Video Stories to put onto RingTV. We’ll be interviewing newlyweds and then showing their real, local wedding stories online! It doesn’t get much better than this, does it? I love The Ring today. More.
- Jenn @ The Ring
Wanted to write a quick note about the amazing photos at the top of our blog. The two bouquets were created by Carrie Lynn Weber, the amazing designer that she is (http://www.kwweddingring.ca/vendors/florists/carrielynnweber.html). The bride running on the beach is a photo by Photography by Yvonne (http://www.londonweddingring.ca/vendors/photographers/yvonnelong.html) who I’ve had the pleasure of working with for about eight years now, both at weddings and through her review in The Ring.
Okay, so we just sent The Ring’s first official magazine to print. We’re supposed to be getting a few samples today but I’m not holding my breath. Okay I am. And vibrating just a little bit.
Somehow, thanks to some in-house talent (Ryann, you’re a god!), Anne (no one can do as many magazine meetings in two weeks as you can!) amazing brides (you know who you are – Alicia, our firefighter wedding story couple & more) and vendors who are always willing to pitch in at the last minute, the magazine was booked, written, laid out, and sent to print in less than two weeks.
Now we’re waiting… I’m not very good at that.
- Jenn @ The Ring
Calling all brides (and vendors and otherwise cool wedding people)…
Everyone at The Ring has decided to invite brides to contribute their own tips and articles to The Ring. We want as many first-hand stories and tips as brides (or vendors) can handle writing about. If you’re a bride or vendor in the wedding industry between London and Toronto, Ontario, send in your first article
It’s official… I am ‘blogging’. And I’m told, it’s about time!
In my little foray into the world of online commentary, I hope to use this power for good. In this Editor Blog, I’m hoping to share some of my favourite weddings things, shows, news, events and vents and the odd wedding planning secret or two, as picked up from our experts - brides and vendors.
If you have any cool stories, links, or feedback, don’t hesitate to send them in.
- Jenn @ The Ring
