On Saturday, June 26th one of my closest friends Sarah Hutchison got married to her fiance Johannes Elter. I was honored to have been asked to be in the wedding party which gave me great insight into all the behind the scenes planning which go on during a wedding. Many of these insights will help guide Dave and I on our big day. It was such a wonderful day and Dave and I wish Sarah and Johannes all the best as they start their lives together in Germany.

Oh yes! Yesterday, June 26th Nathalie and I attended the wedding of Sarah Hutchison and Johannes Elter.

Nathalie was a bridesmaid (looking good) and Dave... well, I was telling typically horrible jokes from the sideline with Geoff Hamm.

Congratulations Sarah and Johannes!

... more pictures to come....

I believe that the key to a successful marriage between Nathalie and I will be my ability to make sure that I provide a consistent supply of "slummin' it" chocolate to Nathalie.



You see, there are occassions in which high quality, expensive chocolate will not satisfy Nathalie's need for chocolate. Instead, she must consistently have cheap, dirty, low-brow, slummin' it chocolate to get Nathalie to her happy place :)

Attention to detail is everything.

On Saturday we had our friends who will be helping us out as volunteers and wedding party on July 24th for a BBQ and a "casual drink".

The result...

Too much food, a few extra drinks, and a lightsaber.

Here is the visual evidence.

Nick Dargus and his invisible beer...

Special thanks to Bitch Liam who came all the way from Philadelphia to spend the day with us... He will be the emcee on the 24th, despite his irrational loyalty to the Blue & White.

Lindsey on the left will be our bartender on the 24th, she's tremendous so bring your wallets and tip the bartender!

Quote Nathalie LaCoste: "Gimme... Gimme gimme gimme" ... She loves her lightsaber and can't stand Kate taking it away from her.

Once again beer proves to be an equally effective tool to a death weapon from the future.

Special Delivery of the Day... Cam delivers an ironic death to The Dudar.

Inappropriate? Perhaps.

Perfectly sober.

Defender of the bedroom.

A special thanks to everyone who came out, it was a crazy amazing awesome night!

I would like to thank the group of swimmers that I coach at Toronto Swim Club and all their parents for an incredibly generous series of gifts for Nathalie and I for our wedding!







I know what you're thinking... "Dave, you wear that Seahawks jersey in a lot of these pictures".... and I'll tell you that you're right, it's very comfortable and it's a Matt Hasselbeck jersey and the shelf life of Mr. Hasselbeck is not all long so I better wear it out before it's completely irrelevant.

On a more relevant note... Nathalie and I are looking forward to seeing my swimmers out at Knox for our wedding on July 24th. They will be the good looking kids that will be respresenting as my extended family!

Nathalie and I would like to thank everyone who attended her Bridal Shower and supplied us with the gifts to go to The Bay and purchase beautiful new towels.

We could not be any more excited because these towels are super fluffy and comfy!



Yes... yes, we went with family brand loyalty. The quality of these towels is fantastic, we can not recommend them highly enough.

Thank you all so much!!

This will be the final installment of this series of Introducing The Wedding Party, as I have given a proper (albeit long winded) introduction to The Dudar, Nicholas Dargus, and Benjamin Caplan and now finally and I will introduce you to my Brother, Scott Ling.

SCOTT LING

Not everyone is as lucky to have a sibling as awesome as my brother.

No one is perfect but to me Scott is about as perfect as one could expect. As an older brother I'm sure my brother was treated with ample disrespect as a child but Scott rolled with the punches the whole way... sometimes those punches were metaphorical... sometimes physical... Typical childhood brothers stuff.

For years we swam together at COBRA, Brock, and finally the University of Toronto. I consider myself exceptionally lucky that Scott chose to follow me to UofT, it's must have been tough given the footsteps he had to follow, it's never fun to be considered the second person to do something but I don't really feel that Scott was ever truly considered to be "Dave's little brother" for any significant amount of time.

Scott truly is his own brand of Ling brother. After recently graduating from UofT with a Masters in Architecture this Spring, Scott is ready to embark upon his own wedding this September to his beautiful fiancee Emily. Way to go Brother, I look forward with great anticipation to being with you on your big day. BTW... pictured to the right is not Scott with his fiancee but certainly he looks pretty happy...

On the 24th of July Scott will stand right next to me at Knox and he will get his opportunity to speak at the reception. Certainly this will be Scott's opportunity to unleash his great equalizer... a keen wit and a unique sense of humour that most might not get upon first blush but certainly a humour that makes sense to me... and that's all that matters.

Thick and thin. Scott's been there through it and for that I thank him but certainly not as much as I should thank him. And to be fair, below is a picture of Brother with Emily....

Brampton. St. Catharines. The Palace. And to the future. Thank you Brother.

Over the past several months I have been researching flowers to use for our wedding. Since I knew very little about flowers I started learning about some pretty simple classic flowers and then moved on to more exotic and seasonal flowers. I have included some of my favorite ones here.




This bouquet is made primarily of white orchids and hydrangeas. Orchids are a beautiful exotic flower which are expensive but elegant looking.








What I love about this one is the mixture of flowers. There are green cymbidium orchids, crysanthemums, roses, and lots of greenery. It is so vibrant and colourful!








Orchids, roses, and fresias. Again, the greenery is so pretty mixed in with the flowers.









These flowers are called Fresias. They are very popular for weddings as they are white and elegant looking.







While I do not wish to give away exactly which flowers I have decided to go with for the wedding, but I imagine you can guess at least some of them by looking at the pictures throughout the blog.

Aside from my Brother, Ben is the member of my half of the wedding party that I have known the longest and I am truly lucky to have a friend who has been there for me over about 20 years to now have at my side on my wedding day.

BEN CAPLAN

I met Ben in St. Catharines while we were both swimming for Brock Niagara Aquatics during the 1990s. A lot has changed over the last 20 years, although Ben's feet are pretty much the same size, and Ben and I have been through it together all over that time.

Swimming proved not to be Ben's deal over the long haul (despite his brilliant form shown below) but our friendship transcended the pool and moved to the pool halls, and from there we went to school together, had a hilarious time working at 3 for 1 Pizza together, moved to Toronto at roughly the same time, lived in The Palace together, hit up the Zen Lounge countless times, worked at the UofT pool together, enjoyed Crazy Strings at the Silver Dollar Lounge while swilling prohibition era quality beer, we've watched a number of UFC shows together, Sunday night beers and pool at the Fox & Fiddle, and most recently he moved in with Nathalie and I for a short while this year. There have been many more moments beyond that as well and let's just say that there are no half-baked ideas that I would not buy into if Ben asked me to get involved in.

Currently Ben is fully entrenched in an art career and I could not be more proud of his evolution in this pursuit (you can see one of his pieces below). At one point in time art was a hobby for Ben much like playing the guitar, shooting pool, or relentless womanizing but now it should be considered that Ben has gone pro in two in those pursuits, the first being art and the second... well, if you don't know him then you will and let's just say his billiards game is not what it once used to be.

I have grown up with Ben, much in the same way that Nathalie has grown up with Veronica, and our friendship has endured our crazy teenage years and sadly now our 20s that are in our rearview mirror. I will always be there for Ben and I'm confident that he will always be there for me and on July 24th he will be exactly where I hoped he would be and that's in the wedding party.

Thanks Ben, I deeply appreciate your friendship.