a big weekend!

So I'm rattling this off quickly, before slipping into my warm bed after a busy weekend...

Yesterday was a big day for us! It was the future hubby's first baseball game (which they won! 11-3), the future hubby's birthday celebrations (much fun was had!) and most importantly for a wedding-related blog - I handed over our contract for our venue!


Attempts were made to get a shot of me holding up our paperwork, outside our vevue. Apparently I looked like a school kid holding up an assembly award in every other shot...So this shot wins!!


Though this proves said attempts!

We had a lot of fun - I showed my MoH the reception room, then we and my little brother went for a wander and a play around the grounds. Annie took some great panoramic shots that I might share a bit later, and my brother took some gorgeous artsy shots in the grounds. There were lots of bees!

Love this shot of our Chapel (although not so much of me!):



We also found this gorgeous little corner of the grounds, that we're going to let the photographer know about - there's this gorgeous little brick bridge with a lovely old lamp post...and on the other side of it are a number of gorgeous trees (where unfortunately a couple were sitting so we couldn't really take any photos) that backs onto a lovely big field. I got quite excited imaging my future hubby and I sitting underneath them and the sunlight filtering through the leaves... *happy place*



All in all, we had a fun morning traipsing around the venue, only to return home for a very busy, but fun filled night and evening with my future hubby. Today (after the clean up from yesterday...still not completely finished mind you!) I have given my browser's "bookmark" area a work out, with the number of cool DIY projects I have found! Now to go through and cull...Will update soon on, but I think I've found our Save The Dates!!!

back to the venue

So. I feel like I have almost caught up now on what we have already done, wedding wise, and can start moving on to the bazillion ideas I have found while spending my time happily lost in wedding blog heaven.

But I feel like before I share some of the ideas that I have already fallen in love with and hope to use on our day, I should share a little more about our venue. As much as we love it, it has presented some issues!

Starting from the top, I guess I should start with the lovely Chapel. Do you remember it? Looks a little something like this:



Cute, quaint and almost barn-like inside, I fell in love with this little Chapel and when we walked inside it just felt *right*...

...Which is a problem. Mostly because the Catholic Church won't allow a priest to marry us there, when there are so many Churches in the local area. *cries*

All is not lost though. While my family is Catholic, the hubby to be's family are Christian. My family are quite happy with a Christian based ceremony, since they are really so similar. So now the hunt is on for a Christian priest who is able to marry us outside of a Church location. Luckily, my future sister-in-law has a family friend who is a retired priest. He was recently allowed to perform christenings for our nieces and nephew in my BIL/SIL's backyard. Hopefully (with all fingers crossed) he will be allowed to perform our wedding ceremony.

The problem is, the future hubby and I had to make a decision before signing our contract as to whether we would be booking the Chapel or not. BEFORE finding someone to marry us. By this stage, even though there are so many lovely local churches, we had fallen for the Chapel (and it's GORGEOUS view outside the window...hopefully more on that tomorrow!). So after much discussion, we have decided to book the Chapel and hope we can find a priest...otherwise we will be holding a civil ceremony, with Christian based readings, etc. It's not quite the same, but we had to come to a decision. As Catholic/Christians who don't regularly attend Church, it feels almost false to change our wedding just to have it in a Church. We came to the decision that as long as our ceremony recognises our beliefs and that we will be living with a believe in God, as a couple, we felt that this was right for us. Has anyone else found it difficult to make a decision similar to this?

The fact that a big draw to the venue for us was having everything in the one spot, also affected our choice and we are happy that we have managed to maintain this. The ladies and myself will be staying at the venue the night before, for one last single lady sleepover :), and many of our guests will have the opportunity to stay at the venue if they wish. Given that we will have people who have travelled, this is a great plus.

We also loved the fact that the venue offered so many photo opportunities - the gorgeous big lake with it's fountains, the lovely old trees and the beautiful windows in the rooms within the resort are only a few of the options...there's even a lady who will lend her Shetland ponies for photos! (She has a moving restaurant...yep, it's a horse-drawn restaurant and I REALLY want to give it a go!)

The only other bump we almost hit was when I entered the Gazebo room for the first time. I fell in love with the spaciousness of the room, the floors, the windows, the very exciting separate dance floor (all the other rooms had very limited dance space in the middle of the room)...but the one thing I wasn't keen on was the back of the room.

To give you an idea, the Gazebo room is also used as the Gazebo restaurant - there is a kitchen area out the back and the room is filled with chairs and tables when not in use for a wedding and is used to host the morning after breakfast bunch for guests. So at the back of the room, there are some kitchen-like benches (Excuse the bad photography, mobile phone again!):



It was the only thing about the room I didn't love! However, we've decided to still go with the room, and we've worked out ways to utilise the space. We're going to decorate this area and use it as the guest book/wishing well/present area. Since we are using a thumbprint tree (more on this later!) the dark bench tops at the left side of the area is perfect for this set up - it makes me worry less about staining anything! The rest rest of the space we are going to decorate with various elements of the wishing well/present area (I have so many ideas still to narrow down...family wedding photos, telegram tree, etc. still to come!) with consultation with our wedding co-ordinator. Myself and lovely friend Laina, (remember the discussion about her gorgeous soy melts?) have already started making plans to fill that little shelf up top with candles of varying shapes and sizes...I think the light reflecting off the tiles will look quite pretty!

The rest of the room is fantastic - there is an island in the middle of the room that we will also be decorating with flowers and candles...Hopefully it all works out as I have visualised it!

I'm so happy that the boy was excited about the room...I had a feeling he would be, but took him around to all the other rooms in the venue first. If he had preferred any of the others, we probably would have gone with what he liked, but I had had a feeling he would prefer the open space of the Gazebo room.

Hopefully we will be able to get some pictures of the room tomorrow, but just in case we can't, here's a little view of the room:


From the back looking forward...


From the front looking back...


Corner table (cake table was displayed here on the day)


Bridal table...


Dance floor space...

The only other fear I hold is not being able to customize the wedding enough, to make it feel "different" from every other wedding I've attended...I had lots of little details I want to add, but I have concerns about what my limitations may be for things included in our package! From speaking with our co-ordinator, it appears that they are very open to ideas and don't limit you to specific choices, rather they give you a budget within your package for each section (and left over can roll over to other sections)...but I still worry. I don't want a cookie-cutter table setting, for example...

Has anyone else had room obstacles to overcome, or worried about how individual you are able to be, while working within a package?

my ladies!

Ok! I've shown you how I asked my lovely girls to be my bridesmaids, so now I'll introduce you! With nicer pictures, since the one in the last post was thanks to a mobile phone and terrible lighting!

I should note that the future hubby has not yet asked his groomsmen, we are thinking of a cool way for him to ask them as well. However, I handed the ladies their dolls on the 26th of March, at the Parramatta Bridal Expo, since I knew it would be the one time I would have them all in the one place! And it was good fun...although a very squished expo it was, with none of the pretty dress shows we were hoping for! But that just means we get to go to more... :)

SO! Onto the ladies...

First up...my sisters :)



To the left, is my baby sister Danielle. As you do with sisters, we've had our ups and downs growing up but she's always been my "fairy princess" little sister. Now the mummy of my gorgeous little nephew, I couldn't be more proud of her then I am today. She's grown into a beautiful young woman and I would never dream of not having her by my side on our special day.

To right, is my beautiful NEW sister, Justyna. Juzzie married my younger brother, Christopher, in a gorgeous ceremony in January this year. She also honoured Danielle and I by asking us to be her bridesmaids. We had an amazing time sharing in their special day, and I hope to give her the same experience :) We spoil our little nephew rotten together, and love it. (Hey, we have the right! We saw him take his first breathe in the world :)... )

Next up is the Three Musketeers - I could never do anything without these three ladies by my side. They have supported the future hubby and I through our good times and bad, more then most people would know. And they have always done it with loving and open hearts.



The gorgeous blondie on the left is the lovely Romana. The crazy lady in the front is the amazing Annie, my bestie and MoH. In the gorgeous polka dots is Miss Kylie.

The 3 of us all went to the same senior high, but Romana really entered into the lives of Annie and myself a couple of years back. It seems like we've known her for a life time! Now the mummy of a GORGEOUS (almost) 2 year old, Violet, Romana is a beautiful lady with a wonderful kind-hearted soul :)

Miss Kylie and I met in senior high and shared a love of dance...we also may share an obsession with shoes...(mmmm shooooooes....) Newly wed herself, having just celebrated her first wedding anniversary, Kylie is a wonderful dancer, an excellent teacher and an even better friend!

Last but not least, is my bestie and MoH, Annie. Annie and I first met when we were iiiiitty-bitty tots, way back in preschool. Yep, that's our preschool picture below!



Anywho, Annie and I were friends all the way to primary school - until she changed schools (and her school was in my school's parking lot...lol). We then briefly ran into each other randomly in high school at sport (of all things...we are not sport people. We were bowling!). Reuniting in senior high (only to discover we had shared friends all along!) we've been bringing out the worst, I mean BEST in each other since. An amazing artist and a great teacher (even with the crazy students!), Annie is the lovely lady who suggested I start this blog. Mostly I think so I stopped bombarding her with random ideas...partially so that I could have a record of all the cool things I keep finding for her!



So that's them. All my wonderful girls. I can't wait to share this time with them, have crazy days dress shopping, and lots of catch ups over pizza and magazines! Love them all with all my heart and so glad they have accepted to go through this special time with us :)

bridesmaid project

So while all this searching for a date and venue was going on, I was working on a special project for my bridesmaids. Now I am very lucky to have many amazing women in my life, so it was quite a task for me to choose who would stand beside my on my big day! And I ended up with more ladies in my bridal party then I ever thought I would...AND I still could have had more!

But before I introduce you to my lovely ladies, let me show you the project I had worked on for about a week and a half/two weeks before officially asking them all to stand by our side.

While looking up venues, I stumbled head first into the amazing world of wedding blogs. One of the first things I came across, that I loved, was this post at Once Wed (one of my favourite wedding blogs!). Immediately falling in love with the idea, I checked out some of the real life versions that other brides-to-be had created. Upon doing so, I found Heather's gorgeous version of these dollies, on her blog "he asked. i said yes". That's it, I was sold and set about making my own version for my special ladies!

Below are pictures of the finished product. They are much fiddlier then they look, but so much fun and worth the effort :) The ladies seemed to love them!

Ps. If you have time, definitely have a read of Heather's blog, she has some amazing ideas and her craft work (including her GORGEOUS hand-made save the dates) is stunning!!!












...All the little dollies lined up in a row...


My lovely ladies!

finding the venue

So after we got engaged and enjoyed some celebrations, my thoughts turned to setting a date (much to my future hubby's despair). In my head, I knew that if we set a date and a venue ASAP, we would be much more likely to get the date we (read: I, lol) wanted and the rest we could take our time with...

I had my heart set on a September wedding...for no other reasons then it sounds pretty, and the end of September is probably one of the few times of the year where there is limited stuff on, family-wise. The beginning of the year was always going to be a no-go zone for us, and winter weddings (while I love winter!) are just too cold...

The OCD part of me really didn't like the sound of 2013...I needed a nice even year to get married in and 2014 seemed waaaaaay too far away. So, September 2012 became our time (after much discussion with the future hubby!) and the twenties our time frame (either 22nd or 29th - a Saturday wedding).

Finding a venue ended up happening a lot faster then I thought it was! And it was all purely by chance...

I started looking around for venues online, comparing packages and pictures...

The first place I looked at was one we had driven past on the way to my brother's wedding in January 2011 - Loxley at Bluebell Hill. While the venue looked lovely, something just didn't feel right...While I am most definitely a Mountains girl, my boy is not so big a fan. And I definitely wanted it to feel like "us". Nevertheless, I keep it in mind to check out.

One of the other options I really liked was Lauriston House. I loved the vintage look but at the same time...it was almost too "done". Something still didn't quite feel right.

The last two options I had narrowed down to was the Eschol Park House and Cropley House. After speaking with my mum, I discovered that Eschol Park house was where my aunt had gotten married...so it was ruled out straight away! Not because I don't love my aunt and would love to share where she got married...but I was flowergirl at her wedding. And that place is haunted. No joke. Myself and the other little flower girl refused to go in a particular corner of the house, as did the house cat...turns out that a lady and her baby had fallen down the Great Staircase in the middle of the house and died in that particular corner. Not something I want to be thinking about on my wedding day!

So that left Cropley House, and the future hubby took one look at it and said it looked like a Government building...guessing he didn't want that one then!!

That leaves the one place that stood out from the most, package wise. The Sebel Spa and Resort in Windsor. On paper, this place sounded fantastic and I kept going back to it...I loved the idea of have all of the day in one place (no travelling for the guests between venues!), having the day spa on site for lovely relaxation for the ladies the day before and the golf course for the boys, and the picture opportunities that the site offered. Somewhat fatefully, the Resort was actually hosting a Bridal Open Day on the 20th of March, about a week and a half after I stumbled across the information packages...

So I signed up, and mum and I went to check it out...



And loved it :)

There were 3 room options, plus the Chapel, but despite the beauty of the Ballroom and the other rooms I feel in love with the Gazebo room with it's big open windows. It had a spaciousness that the other rooms just didn't have and I felt that it would be lovely of a night.



The Chapel was also stunning...(although not a fan of the topairy or arch)







So all that was left was to get the men's approval...so we booked a time with the event coordinator for the next weekend and on the 26th of March at 11:15am we traipsed over - myself, the future hubby, my parents and my little brother. After showing the boys around and asking a million questions we decided this was it. The place we wanted to get married! And, as fate would have it...the 29th of September 2012 was available! As soon as the boy heard that the 29th of September was available, he rolled his eyes - my dad's response? "I guess that's the date then, by the look on his face!"

I'm reluctant to put any of the rather bad photos I took on the day up, since it was raining and I'm not the greatest photographer. But this weekend I will be going out to the venue with my little brother, who is bound to take some amazing shots I can share. We received our contact last Wednesday, the 30th of March, and I will be dropping it off at the Resort, signed and sealed, on Saturday.

I still can't believe that it was that easy...and that we booked the first place we looked at in person! Did anyone else book the first venue they sighted, or did it take some time to find the right place?

...girlie night...

About a fortnight after getting engaged, some of my lovely ladies took me out for a night of wonderful pizza, cocktails and catching up. Great fun was had and some ideas started to be shared! I also got my first wedding mag from the lovely Romana!







A few of my lovely bridesmaids are hiding in these shots...but more on that later!

One of the lovely ladies in these pics, Laina, had just started her own Soy candles and melts company (highly recommended, check out her Facebook page here). I had previously made the suggestion that she could possibly help us make a signature scent for our wedding...well Laina took the idea one step further and suggested we not only have a signature scent, but that we use the scent to create wedding favour melts or candles for our guests to take a little piece of our wedding home with them!

Well of course I fell in love with the idea and suggested it to the future hubby. He loved it...as long as the smell could include vanilla and cinnamon (sorry Laina! She hates vanilla). This night was the night we received some vanilla and cinnamon melts to try, and started making suggestions with what we could mix with it...

So far we have had one trial batch (the cinnamon/vanilla overwhelmed the other scents...but made our house smell yummy, like doughnuts!) and have also found a few other scents to trial. More on that later, as we work our way towards our signature smell!

Has anyone else ever tried to create something "signature" (scents, music, cocktails?) for their wedding?

a closer look...

The following photos of my gorgeous ring were taken by my talented little brother. He's currently in the process of gaining experience to start his own photography company and let me say, he's going to do a lot with himself! Check him out on Facebook - Autumn Wind Photography.

And now, the jewel of the moment...

it was the 10th of February, 2011...

...our 6 year anniversary.

We had planned to go into the City for the day, exploring the shops and Darling Harbour and having some lunch at the Rocks. After checking out the big comic store for the future hubby and wandering through the new Sydney Westfield looking at pretty things we can't afford, we headed up to the Rocks to find somewhere to eat for lunch.

Now those who know us will be aware of just how difficult this can be - future hubby has a health issue which basically means he can eat no fat and no sugar...so it's slightly ironic that we should end up having lunch at Guylian Cafe!

I should note here that I really should have been suspicious that future hubby was rather blaise about the price of the menu and what was actually ON the menu - to me it was just a normal lunch so spending a lot of money seemed silly but he didn't seem to mind...he was also very eager to pick somewhere and get to it!

But we ended up having a lovely lunch at Guylian's, which served a lovely salmon salad with baby capers for the boy and delicious cape seed ciabatta with sun dried tomato, sautéed mushrooms, roasted eggplant and pesto for me. After a very filling lunch we didn't really have room for dessert and the future hubby couldn't have any of them anyway, so I headed off to freshen up and we had planned to wander back to the Harbour and possibly to the Botanical Gardens for a bit of a wander.

Change of plans.

I got back to my seat and the waitress bought out 2 complimentary Guylian praliné hot chocolates (here's me thinking the boy must have mentioned it was our anniversary) and THEN, a lovely dessert especially for me:



Meanwhile, as I'm admiring the dessert, still oblivious and thinking it was just for our anniversary, the boy switches on his phone to play "Don't Want to Miss a Thing" by Aerosmith. I look up to check out what he's doing, only to see him getting down on one knee next to the table. Immediate tears as he asks me to marry him, to which my response was "Are you serious??" A laughing, "Yes" followed by an "Oh my god" from me and a big hug...only for me to realise I should probably actually say yes! So I do, and the whole restaurant (suddenly there were more people in there then I had originally noticed...I think the kitchen staff had been told what was going on and sneaked out!) burst into applause.

Many tears and hugs and kisses followed, as well as a lot of congratulations - in particular from the two businessmen having a meeting/lunch next to us. I think they got more of a lunch time show then they expected!!! This photo was taken just moments after he proposed:



I downed my hot chocolate, which was amazing, and the boy even had a sip of his. My dessert was very delicious (a tart covered in strawberries, bottom layer of the tart was praliné chocolate) but after our huge meal I really couldn't finish it. Looking back, I really should have asked to take it home, but I was rather overwhelmed and didn't think of it. Upon our leaving, the girls behind the counter offered me a very big "Congratulations Amanda" (I think they got a kick out of making the dessert!) and a bag of Guylian chocolates of us to take home.



After lunch we were too excited to stay in the city and headed home on the train. This is a picture taken on our way home, of my gorgeous ring from my amazing boy. I had fallen in love with this ring a number of years ago - a friend worked for the company who made it and as soon as she showed it too me (when it first came in!) I fell in love with it. Art Deco style with old world charm, it's the perfect match for me. My boy remembered and bought it for me - along with matching earrings!



I should probably note that the reason I was so oblivious throughout the day was because he had given me the earrings as a gift in the morning...I thought they had matched the ring I liked and assumed that I was getting the earrings now and the ring at a later date. We had previously discussed getting engaged and the future hubby had indicated that it would be "by the time we're both 26:" - ie. my 26th birthday in July this year. So I just thought the earrings were for now and the ring was coming later! I didn't realise how quickly! :)

I called my mum on the way home and organised for my family to have dinner at my parent's house that night. We didn't make any further phone calls at that stage as we wanted to catch people in person. My brother, sister and my sister's boyfriend all noticed my ring when I reached my parents house (waiting for my parents and brother and sis-in-law to get there) but didn't say anything...When my dad arrived he went straight into the other room because he felt like he couldn't be in the same room as everyone and not say anything (future hubby had already asked his permission - back in 2010!). We told them all, they were all expecting it, however my sister-in-law was by far the best reaction - she arrived and I asked her if she wanted to see what Graham bought me for our anniversary. She said of course, so I pulled back my hair to show her my earrings...with my left hand. She was commenting on how lovely they are, and went to say something else (I later learnt that it would have been, "Aren't they like the ring you like?"), then realised what was on my finger...and SCREAMED!!! It was classic, I wish I had gotten it on video. I had tears from laughter but it was by fair the best reaction...

Later that evening we called in to see future hubby's dad and sister, then called his mum, youngest sister, brother and sister-in-law. I held off telling my best girlfriends (a very difficult feat!) until the next night, as I was seeing them for dinner and wanted to tell them in person. The earring trick worked again :) The only exception was my bestie, (and MOH) who we called because she wouldn't be at dinner. She stopped in our place for a visit not long before we went to my parent's for dinner.

It was an amazing day, which I'll remember for the rest of my life...How could I say no when our engagement included my favourite things: my boy, chocolate and strawberries :) <3

the start of a new obsession

At the insistence of my MOH and encouragement of other friends, this blog has been formed and is likely to become my new obsession! The good news is, I was bombarding everyone with exciting ideas for the organisation of my wedding anyway...now I can save them all in one place and those around me can choose if they want to peek or not :) At last, a venting outlet that can't scream, "enough!"

Before I start recording my ideas and findings though, I should start at the very beginning...

Our engagement story...