My husband and I are in St. John’s, Nfld. until June 29. One of my closest friends is getting married and I’m her Matron of Honour. We’ve been friends since we were 12 and have been through a lot together. Darleen and Mark’s wedding is going to be so much fun with lots of friends and family together celebrating.
This is going to be a rather busy week for us, but hopefully there will be time to relax here and there. I’ll be helping Darleen with various wedding things and of course helping her to stay relaxed before her big day. The bachelorette happened this past weekend and wow, we had a hell of a time! If you’re ever stuck at a party for a game that involves a lot of people, seriously consider playing Dirty Pictionary. Trust me, everyone will have fun and be laughing all night long.
During the bachelorette, I also incorporated some video into the evening that involved the groom. Normally at a bachelorette, you’ll ask the bride questions about her groom and for every question she gets wrong, she has to drink. In my past experiences, a groom normally answers these questions by email or sits down with a bridesmaid and answers them before the party. I decided to take it up a notch and instead video the groom’s responses the day before so that we could play them for Darleen after she provided an answer. There were some technical difficulties that came up (and caused me a lot of stress!) but it all worked out in the end (mainly because one of the groom’s sisters is awesome and provided on-site tech support). I also set up my new point-and-shoot, a Canon Powershot SD970 IS, on a tripod and videoed Darleen answering the questions. I’m hoping my friend Steve can help me edit the videos to mash up both Mark and Darleen’s answers to be something fun they can watch together.
I love coming home to visit. Newfoundland will always be my “home” no matter where I live. It’s hard to explain, but there’s just something about being here that puts your soul at easy and leaves you feeling connected to the land.
On Saturday, Darleen the bride, along with two of the other bridesmaids, Stacey and Sabrina, and I took the bride out to spend the day doing some fun things before the Bachelorette. We went out for lunch and then headed out to Logy Bay to visit Memorial University’s Marine Institute. This is a beautiful area, but you have to be so careful if you try to go near the water. It looks lovey and you want to go down on the rocks and get close to the crashing waves, but if you get swept up or slip and fall in, it’s unlikely anyone will find your body.
At the Institute, they have seals (four to be exact) and you can come and watch them play and splash around. We didn’t stay long because it started to get cool, but I was able to grab some decent photos with my Canon 55-250mm lens. It’s a great zoom lens for the price and I’ve been able to use it in a number of situations (including last year when my husband was Dragon Boating).
We have exactly one week left here and I plan to take a lot of photos and possibly video as well.
Speaking of video, I recently created my first video that ideally will be part of a continuing series. Feel free to take a look and provide feedback and suggestions. I’m also planning to try and get some footage while I’m home to have for future use and probably another video.