I Do... Love a Wedding

I was never a girl who spent hours mentally planning my dream fairytale wedding. I went to a lot as a young child, having lots of cousins tying the knot as I grew up. I always appreciated the aesthetic pleasure of a pretty party as well as the romantic symbolism of marriage itself.

I still adore weddings. The main things I love about them are:
a) traveling, a wedding is sometimes a little holiday!
b) dressing up, always a good excuse to roll out the accessories
c) free food and booze, who doesn't?
d) catching up with family and friends

Recently a friend from uni, who along with her fiance has become one of C and I's best "couple friends", finally got married. They decided on the Gold Coast for their venue and the bride being a lady who knew what she wanted from the start, had planned a beautiful day and night for their nuptials.

The wedding was at a church in Southport. The bride arrived in a vintage car and of course, looked stunning in her beautiful ballgown dress. 



We then retired to Palazzo Versace for the reception, which was a bit of a show-stopper of a venue. The reception was lovely, and the champagne flowed easily.

We took an apartment at Main Beach for the night, and in the morning I wished we could have stayed a few days longer! Coast living really appeals to me. I had a cup of tea on the balcony in the morning and was just seduced by it all.

It has left me wondering... when's the next wedding please??

What was the last wedding you went to? Do you love them as much as I do?

A year of wedded bliss

Today, C and I have been married one year. 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days. Many hours. Lots of minutes.

To be honest, to me, time has flown. It seems only yesterday I was cramming my gigantic train into the truck (our wedding car was a F150) and trying to calm myself before walking down the aisle.

Our wedding celebrant sent us a card, isn't that nice?

I have little to say about the institution of marriage that hasn't already been said. Except perhaps that it is quite different on the inside than it appears on the outside. Same goes for long-term relationships: whether you're married or not, it's always about love and compromise. The love part gets tested by the compromise part. I asked hubby if he had any wisdom to share about marriage for this blog post and he shrugged and grunted. So there you go.

For our anniversary I tossed up going out to a fancy dinner. Then I realised that would be something C wasn't into but I was. So in the end I settled on a movie date - but a posh one.

So Gold Class it was. I must admit the Gold Class lounge was pretty intimidating - all top shelf alcohol and dim lights. There were couples sharing bottles of Champagne. But then some more folks showed up in shorts and thongs so I relaxed a bit. After all, if you can buy a ticket to it, it's not that an exclusive club is it?

We saw the new Die Hard movie. It was pretty good. I thought the action sequences were some next-level stuff. And the fact we could enjoy it from the comfort of big puffy armchairs and have a waiter being us fries with truffle aioli made it just that much more enjoyable!

What was your best date ever? Do you celebrate anniversaries?

Baa-leted

We had a local council election this weekend. Annoying after just having voted in the state election, yes, but I was rather looking forward to checking out people’s voting day garage sales.

Unfortunately it poured down rain and my enthusiasm was dampened (I borrowed a little pun from my twitter there, it was so good I just had to repeat it, sorry. I’m not witty very often). Instead I stayed inside and pottered about doing housework. I also seized the opportunity to do a few things I have been putting off to do with wedding photos – ie. Email them to people as promised and also upload a heap of the professional ones to Facebook.

I continue to be overwhelmed by my friends’ and family’s interest in my wedding photos – they were THERE for goodness sake. But I get it, I get it. They didn’t get to see the bridal shoot so I have emailed some of the prime ones off. I also put a heap up on Facebook.

Within an hour I was deleting a Facebook comment for the first time. While this may be a familiar action to many of you who run fan pages for your blogs (though I hope to god people don’t leave nasty comments on them regularly!) it was a first for me, and remember this was my personal page.

I posted this photo:

It cracks me up. We were supposed to be taking a shot of us kissing with the silhouette being the feature. C was making me laugh by making shadow puppets, and the photographer captured him doing a barking dog. A friend commented – “what was he doing? Is he insinuating you’re a bitch?”

I’m sorry – WHAT? How do you even interpret that from a fun, lighthearted photo. FROM OUR WEDDING DAY. Anyways, I responded by explaining no, he’s just making me laugh. Then deleted her comment. I didn’t want my family reading that!

Whenever I delete a useless email at work I say obnoxiously “BAA-LETED!”. I must admit I did it with this comment too. I have no idea where I got this from but I still find it amusing.

When was the last time you deleted a comment? Do you exercise your right to moderate your own Facebook or blog?

New post on Surely a Bride

I finally got time today to sit down and put together a post about the wedding! You can find it on Surely a Bride here.

Its oh, so quiet

I haven't blogged lately, but I have a good excuse...

I got married! And life has been crazy right up to and even after the big day. I have so much to share with you all BUT...

I'm going on my honeymoon tomorrow! So we'll play catch-up when I get back next week.

Mwah! Xx

Neglect

[image source]

I have a feeling I'm going to be neglecting this blog over the next 2-3 weeks. Not because I don't have stories to share, but because my life has been consumed by The Wedding (yes, in capital letters).

So everything I'm doing and thinking about has to do with all things bridal, and you know what that means? I'll probably be blogging (possibly sporadically) over on Surely a Bride!

If you want to join me for the last 2 weeks (eep!) of bridal preparation, follow me over there :)

Things are happening

The Tender Centre - warehouse of second-hand dreams

Things are happening lately. Mostly wedding things, but it's strange to be busy. My normal days involve work, cooking dinner, tv, maybe internet, sleep. Then repeat. Weekends are for housework and rare visits to the shops or library. Though none of these busy things are worth individually blogging about (except some of the wedding stuff, keep an eye on Surely a Bride in the next few days), they are worth mentioning.


In the past few weeks I have:

- had to say goodbye via Twitter to my dear friend B, who went back to the UK after a month's visit to her native land

- been to my parents' farm twice

- attended a scrapbooking day (bliss! And I won first prize, a new album!)

- bought my wedding dress

- sorted out our final wedding guest list (ANGST)

- made and posted invitations

- shopped for and bought a suit for C

- gotten wholly addicted to the Song of Ice and Fire book series (again)

- been to the movies (The Muppets)

- won two tenders at Tender Centre (in Toowoomba, as I always get questions about where this marvellous, wonderful place is. I won a French market basket and a huge framed botanical print)

and...

- bought "shapewear" for the first time in my life. I understand it is also known as Spanx or Nancy Ganz.


On that point - seriously, women wear this stuff frequently? I bought it to go under my wedding dress (to pull in my little tummy and avoid all those embarrassing "Oh is this a shotgun wedding?" remarks. Related: NO I'M NOT PREGNANT). And it is painful. What it does do is hold everything in, which is the point, but I'm not sure how I'm going to breathe in it. Hmm. I'm sure I'll adapt.


So what have you been up to? Do you wear shapewear?

Surely a Bride - honeymoon hiccup

I'm blogging on "Surely a Bride" today. We've had a bit of a honeymoon hiccup.

Click on over and read all about my lack of organisational motivation messing things up a bit.

Life, love and the damned heat

I keep thinking at random moments lately "oh, that would make a good blog post". And then I forget all about it. I also have this fixation now where I like to include a picture of some kind whenever I blog, which is silly because it's the words that matter, right? But I really like blogs that include personal photos, makes things more interesting. Gives you a little window into the blogger's life.

Life is pretty awesome right now. I said to my fiancée the other day (still getting used to that word) that things are really looking up for us. I had a great birthday party, and got lots of presents. We got engaged, and I get to wear the most beautiful ring on my finger every day. C finally got his truck repaired (mostly) after 3 years off the road. The weather has been pleasant enough (finally!) to swim. C's parents came to stay and spend some time, and much as they drive me around the twist, it is always great for C to spend time with his father (the only person in the world whose advice he will listen to!).

Next on the agenda is organising the engagement party, and after that... the wedding! Which is kinda freaking me out at the moment, but that's a whole 'nother post...