Wedding

My husband and I got married on Friday the 13th of March, 2009. Rain threatened, but I had faith it would hold off and we were rewarded with the most gorgeous of days...

The following is what I wrote on weddingbycolor.com the day before, day of, and day after (with photos added for your viewing pleasure...)

DAY BEFORE

Disaster strikes?

No bridesmaid dresses 1 day to go

So the dress guy meets me today and says he won't be able to finish them. Uh-oh. I was kind of expecting it and actually wanted to laugh, but he looked like he was going to burst into tears so I didn't.

Luckily before he told me, he had talked to my MOH and one of my BM's, and they had already gone and sussed some dresses at a department store. So he left, we had lunch, and then went to check out the dresses. We decided on a really nice strapless, fitted dress, and they look gorgeous in it. The only problem was the store only had 4 (5 BM's), so we had to ring a store in Sydney (3 hrs away) and they had a small size for my smallest BM, and one of the groomsmen brought it down with them this afternoon.

Phew! Hope it fits! haha

Wish me luck ladies!

(The Pre-Drama to this post was that I received my dress from my dressmaker 3 days before the wedding...)

DAY OF

Today is the day!

woohoo

It's 8.19am here now, I have to leave in about an hour to meet everyone at the hairdressers. Then my smallest bm will try on her dress that *may* be too small for her, fingers crossed it fits!

I slept ok last night, woke up pretty early and couldn't get back to sleep, I think I was feeling nervous. Then I got up and there was a hot air balloon fiesta thing happening right above my house, so I just watched the balloon for awhile and that was nice an relaxing =) Also some China Jasmine tea has helped!

About to hop in the shower now, then as I said off to hairdressers, then back to my mum's for makeup, meeting up with the boys for photos, then it's ceremony time!

Better get off this damn internet, have lots to do before I go... FH is still asleep in bed!!

Happy Weddings ladies until I return =)

DAY AFTER

It was a really REALLY good day.

here it is blow-by-blow:

My last post was telling of getting ready to go to the hairdressers....

So I get there a little late, everyone is there (with the sushi YUM) getting their hair started.

My dad arrives with the flowers and Lisa's dress (the one coming from Sydney). Firstly, the BM's bouquets are perfect, the grandma's corsages are beautiful, but my bouquet is ugly as hell. It was my fault, because I wasn't specific enough about what I wanted, I got to the point where I said to the florist "I'm sick of making decisions, make it sort of this size and with these colours and surprise me." Not a good idea... It looked like a beehive. Not what I wanted at all. (I regret not taking a photo of it!)

Then Lisa tries on her dress... and it doesn't fit! HMMMM.. we ponder over whether a seamstress will be able to take it out in the next 2 hours.... so Lisa and one of the hairdressers go running through the city, dress half done up, hair clip in her hair, trying to find someone to help. They went to an alteration place and they said there was nothing they could do, no way they could fix it... then they came across this little old lady who said she could do it but she didn't have the right machine here, and she started prodding and poking her, managed to do the clip up at the top and actually just zipped it right up! So poor Lisa couldn't really breath, but they did it up! So she left it on for awhile to stretch it out then we knew we'd be able to do it up again later. Lucky the stitching was quality otherwise it may have bust open!

So I sat down and got my hair done, he did a really really great job, I was very happy with it, exactly how I envisioned

We then went home, and had more snacks and nibbles, and I took my bouquet apart while my girls got their makeup bases done... one of my BM's helped me, we took off all the outer layers of leaves (which were folded over and looked kind of dumb), then the masses of blue orchids which made up the main "beehive" shape, then found some absolutely gorgeous black and white calla lillies in the centre! So we rebuilt from there, putting just one stem of orchids in front of the lillies, and three green leaves in behind everything. Then I just wrapped left over ribbon around and around the stems and secured it all with coloured tipped pins. It looked AWESOME. much much better, and I'm so glad I did it. Disappointed I didn't take any "before" photos to show the difference though!

Then I still had some time before I needed to get my makeup done so I made 2 more flower arrangements to go on the certificate signing table and the drinks table, out of parts of my original bouquet, some left over palm leaves and the big bunch of flowers the dress guy gave me to say sorry for screwing up with the BM's dresses. They also turned out really well =)

Then I got my makeup done, and it looked totally hot. VERY pleased with it, and I knew she would do a fantastic job as I'd used her a few times for photo shoots before.

I put my dress on, and we were running slightly behind schedule (about 10 minutes) so I sent the Photographer off to meet the boys at our first photo location, then the girls also, while one of my BM's stayed to help stick my dress to my skin =P Then my dad drove me, my BM, mum and aunt, and dropped my BM and I off to get photos taken. We were there for about 20 minutes, then went to the park to meet up with everyone.

We get to the ceremony site and take a few quick shots with family, there were a few guests already gathering so they saw me before the ceremony, but I didn't mind, it was nice and casual. Then we're about to start, and we get told we just need to wait for a few minute cause my friend doing the music was still on her way... she had been AMAZING setting the whole place up and had to race home to get ready and come back again, so I didn't mind at all, we just took some more photos.

Then it was time to go, and it all went swimmingly. Except my little flower girl niece wanted to walk with me down the aisle instead of going with her little sister in front of my parents! But that was fine, and very very cute. I think a lot of people cried during the vows, and a couple of little speeches my friends did. It was a really nice ceremony, and we had fun.

Afterwards we let the dog off the lead to run around (he was the ring bearer) and later found out he actually jumped in the lake and had to be rescued by one of John's friends! silly dog =P He had fun though.

We mingled for awhile, then took a few more photos, then everyone started to pack up for us and we wandered back to the cars. We had to take our time as we were meant to arrive at the reception 15 minutes later than the guests.

Once we got to the reception we had our first real hiccup, again my friend doing the music was running late (because after the ceremony had been packed up she had to take everything home in a big truck then come back again), which was fine, but we had no music to make our entrance to. It didn't matter in the end, we just walked up and everyone clapped and blew bubbles over us. My dad did his speech which he did very very well, it really was lovely. Then we mingled some more, had some canapes and drinks, and went inside for entreés.

After the entreés we did our father/daughter dance, with John and his mom dancing also. That was nice, but I always think it's a tad boring, which is why we did it early on. Then my BM Lisa (my oldest friend) did a speech on behalf of the BM's, she was so nervous I think she was going to vomit haha, but she did beautifully. Then Hart the Best Man did his speech, it was lame haha, but in a good Best Man sort of way.

Then we had our main meals, which I couldn't eat because I felt so full! But everyone said they were really really yummy so I'm glad about that!

After the mains we did our thank you speech, which turned out funny because I had written something quite short for us to read taking turns, but on his first turn he went on and said all this wonderful stuff (he's good at public speaking) and I said afterward "well he sort of diverted from what's written here but I'll just read my bit anyway", then he did it again for the next bit! haha it was funny but lovely.

Then we did our dance! It was a real hit with everyone, so many people said it was their very favourite part of the whole day, but I am disappointed because I know I could have done it better... I got really nervous legs and stuffed up a couple of times, and no one even noticed but you could probably see it in my face...... OH WELL. Apparently it looked good, everyone was gushing so I guess that's the main thing =P

Then dessert was served (again YUMMO), and later we did the bouquet and garter toss, which were both a bit anti climatic and we could have left them out completely, but it was a bit of fun.

People danced a lot, my little 3 year old niece was the superstar of the night, SO cute, she cracked up laughing during Hart's speech when everyone else was silent, which made the whole room explode with laughter, and she danced all night long, til about 11.15pm!

We had a photo booth also which was a total hit, we had a competition for whoever could take the ugliest photo, so we have some hilarious pics of people pulling the funniest faces. We have all the photos in an album and all the guests got to take a strip home with them too.

Everyone loved our Pacman cupcakes, and they were really yummy too!

Probably almost half our guests left just before us, around 11pm, and we made out exit at 11.30pm. We just stood at the doors and Hart announced we were leaving, and to farewell the bride and groom, and we waved and everyone cheered, and we left! Simple as that nice and easy =) My mum organised to get all the presents and pack the whole place up, she's a gem.

I drove us to the hotel we were staying in, and there was come random concert playing in the Lobby that kept us awake and was quite annoying, but never mind.

Today we got up and got dressed, and realised I hadn't packed any shoes for John, so like a bum he wore no shoes down to the shops to get some breakfast from the bakery =P

He then dropped me at my BM's house for her surprise baby shower (she lives about 20 hours drive away, so we had one while she was down for the wedding).

Then we went to my mum's house for a bbq and opening of pressies! 3 of my BM's and their partners, and 2 of his GM and their partners came, along with a couple of other friends, my grandma, my godparents, and other good family friends were there, it was really nice. And boy oh boy did we score big time! Everyone was super generous, I think we got most of the things off our gift registry list, as well as lots of cash (thankfully as we've got no money left for our honeymoon haha) and lots and lots of gift vouchers for Bunnings (hardware/garden store) to landscape our yard when we get back, so we are really really lucky!

Now I've spent the last 45 minutes typing this up when I should have been double checking lfight detaisl, typing an itenerary for the honeymoon for our parents and packing! So I'd better go, our flight leaves at 3pm tomorrow, Bali here we come!!

Again, happy weddings ladies! xox



And there it is... Perfect day =) I'll post about the Honeymoon another time!