Tag: travels

After one year of tho and fro planning this day, it was finally here! We were so excited!! Speaking to people that have celebrated their marriage, they’ve all said ‘be as much present as you can as the day will pass fast’ and ‘have a substantial breakfast’. So we did. We ordered a really nice breakfast in our room as we wanted to quietly enjoy our morning before the busyness of the day.

Since the seating plan was only finalised a few hours prior, the table number and seating cards needed to be written. The man with his nice calligraphy was put to work. No more re-jigging of the tables. It was sealed. While he was writing the cards, I quickly went to see my parents and his parents. I could see my brother in the background busy putting the final touches to master plan of the day. Little did I know…

Continue reading “The day has finally arrived…” →

We are almost there. One day to go till the celebration. It was time to pack everything up and drive to the Ripplecove in Ayer’s Cliff.

There was still a few things to sort out like getting the flowers (yeah I know… it should have been done already), writing the names of guests on the cards, finalising the ceremony details, etc. There was no time to do so before we arrive at the Ripplecove. Go with the flow right?

We departed from my brother’s on time to collect the Irish in-laws in Montreal. Simply driving in and out of city was an adventure. To the grievance of the Montrealers, the city is going through massive roadworks rejunevation.

Apparently, the previous administration did not invest enough in rebuilding the roads and they are currently playing catch-up. This meant that getting out of the city was not as smooth as I would have expected. There has been so many changes in the layout of the roads (especially around the Champlain bridge) that I got a bit confused. I made a few mistakes and ended taking the wrong roads. The GPS at this time was no help at all.

Continue reading “Leading to the celebration… part 3” →

Did I sleep the night before… not really. My brother, sister-in-law, the man and I ended chatting and drinking… and chatting and drinking… and some biscuits. This time the biscuits were just for me. I didn’t take a photo, sorry…

The morning was bright and early.

Continue reading “Leading to the celebration… part 2” →

The celebration was in a few days and there was still a few things to do. What was good is that when we flew in, it was direct from London, Heathrow. No fuss. Yeah! When we got on the plane, we realised that it was brand new. It smelled like it. There was more space for the legs (happy man). The boy spent the whole flight watching movies. I wished I had bought some water before we boarded as I was very thirsty and feeling dehydrated. I had to ask for more water all the time.

Once arrived, we had a very tired boy.

When he saw the customs and the line of people, his first reaction was: ‘No way!?’. I couldn’t help but laugh. Poor thing, with the 5 hours difference he really was tired. It took us longer to pass through as we went to wrong lines. While waiting my brother was texting from the other side telling me that there was a competition between him and my nephew ie. who will see us first. I thought, our boy would see them before they see us…

Continue reading “Leading to the celebration… part 1” →

A few years ago, my husband and I did a low key civil marriage with the expectation that we would celebrate later… that was more than 10 years ago! Last year we decided that the time was right to celebrate and go ahead in gathering our close family and friends to take part in our renewal of vows.

By experience, I know that organising events can be challenging at times but doing it from abroad adds an extra layer of complexity. I realised that if I wanted to stay sane and enjoy the experience, I needed to learn to let go and quickly! Not easy for a control freak like me. With the strong intention of not letting things upset or stress us, I decided to follow the motto ‘Go with the flow’.

It paid off!

Not only we allowed flexibility for things that we couldn’t control, it made the journey more profound than we expected. We have been surprised, amazed and inspired. Our North American trip had exceeded our expectations. If we had to pick a word to describe the journey, we choose ‘Epic’.

In the next few weeks, I will share some of these experiences.

I would like to share with you a podcast that my long time and dear friend Caroline Frenette was inspired to produced. She talks about what ‘Go with the flow’ meant for us and how it had help us find peace in the not_so_sure_moments.

Next up: Leading to the celebration… part 1