happy halloween!

And Happy 31st Wedding Anniversary to my parents! Hopefully we can have half as wonderful a marriage as they have had...

In other news, our wedding certificates from the Births, Deaths and Marriages Office came and I spent most of today officially becoming a Mrs. with my bank, various store cards, online logins/stores and insurance. Tomorrow is my phone bill and Friday will be Medicare (health) and work. Next week I apply for my unrestricted license and will change my name over with the Road and Traffic Authority at the same time. Then hopefully it's most things done! The only snag is that AFTER next week (because there's no way the new one will come in time for my driver qualification test!) I have to head to the BDM to have our certificates fixed because there are a couple of mistakes on both our standard certificate and on our commemorative one...the hubby's address is wrong (despite it being the EXACT SAME address as my own - go figure) and our witnesses last name is spelt wrong. Luckily for me, my details are all correct, as are the wedding details, so I can still use it to change my name. Yay!

Halloween isn't a big thing here in Australia, but we do still get Trick or Treat-ers, and the hubs and I always get a kick out of decorating. We decorated my parents abode this year (admittedly with limited suppplies) just for the day, with my little nephew who had SO MUCH FUN. He was giggling away at the idea that the decorations were going to "Rawr" (scare) people. I then picked up my god daughter and her Mum, and we, my nephew, sister, her sister-in-law and son all went Trick or Treating for the first time with the kiddies. They had a lot of fun and only encountered one rude person.

Wedding recaps heading your way soon! I promise! Wading through 700+ photos to try and pick out favourites to share is HARD. But we have finalised our album now and I cannot WAIT for that to arrive to see our photos in print!

I hope everyone has had a "Spooky" Happy Halloween!

officially introducing...

...our Bridal Party!

I thought the best way to start our Wedding recaps, whet your appetite if you will, while I get started organising our photos into more manageable amounts that will make sense as blog posts, would be to officially introduce our Bridal Party to you. Below are the couple portraits that we took in between the ceremony and reception, while our guests were mingling, shouting about a football game (more on that later!) and receiving canapes and drinks!

I think they all turned out lovely and I'm so thrilled with how everything pulled together. You can see hints of the girls' dresses and flowers here, as well as the boys' suits, and our little people's attire! Enjoy!

Garth and Danielle, Justyna and Chris, Brenden and Kylie,
Hayden and Romana, Mark and Annie

Page Boy - our nephew Aiden with his "Pa" (Poppy),
Flower Girls - our niece, Tamzyn and my god-daughter, Emily

apologies...

Well... I've been a little remiss in starting my recaps... Instead of blogging I've been meeting our groomsman, Brendan's new little Princess, Sienna, who was born on the 4th of October while we were on holidays (we got to meet her on the 14th)... I've been trying to get our stuff somewhat organised (this is very much still a work in progress!)... I've been farewell-ing my MIL (she left us to return to the States on the 13th)... I've been helping my MoH move into her first home (excitement plus! It is AMAZING!!!!)... and I've been going on a first date with my man - our first official date as husband and wife.

In between all of that I started back at work and I feel like I haven't had a chance to take a bloggy breath!!

The good news is, that because I took so long to start with our mini-moon recaps, I can actually put those on the back burner because...

*drum roll please*

Yesterday we received our disks with all our wedding photos! To say they are amazing would be an understatement. They have made us laugh, smile, get all teary and mushy and be SO thankful that we found the perfect person for US, the perfect person to capture OUR special day.

So, if you can forgive a little more absence on my behalf, I'll start on working on some blog posts - right from the beginning all the way through...with Sandra's wonderful photography to share our story along the way. I plan to take my time with each post as occasionally I'll get a chance to share a DIY I couldn't or didn't get a chance to before, but mostly because this is my chance to really remember our day - with everything that happened right after our wedding I feel like we didn't get a chance to really sit down and unpack it in our minds afterwards. So I hope you don't mind if I do that here. With you.

See you soon!

Mrs LR xox

a sneak peek

So I plan to start our mini-moon recaps on my RDO on Wednesday! But for now...a teaser of our wedding photos! This sneak peek was posted online by our wedding photographer merely days after our wedding, while the hubs and I were in Queensland. I messaged my Mum and MoH to let them know a sneak peek was up...and my Mum made the mistake of looking at it while in the middle of a shopping centre. Our Best Man and his wife are witnesses to the fact that she cried, right there in the middle of the shops!

We love it :)

Just tonight we were provided with a further sneak peek of about 20 photos, with the promise that the rest will be available to us in the next 1 or 2 days! We're so excited! I got all teary seeing tonight's photos, they are simply amazing - Sandra has captured our wedding in ways I could only dream of...and we have only seen a snippet! Unfortunately I can't share those ones with you yet, as they were provided to us in a phone app format. But for now - the first picture we were shown! See you for recaps soon!

courtesy of sandra henri photography

where to begin...

Wow. I can't actually believe that I'm at the point in my wedding blogging experience where it's time for recaps! I truly can't fathom where the last month and a half went. (not to mention that it is inconceivable to me that this Saturday we have been married for 2 weeks already...with everything that has gone on in the last 2 weeks it feels like a mere blink of an eye)

I've decided to wait for the professional photos (which should be coming very soon!) to start the wedding day recaps, despite the fact that there are literally THOUSANDS of guest photos (including at least a thousand from my little brother's camera!). So I think I will do what a lot of people have done, and start with our "mini-moon" recaps.

I realise that throughout the planning process I never spoke about our honeymoon or what we would be doing after our wedding...and that's because we're not going on our actual honeymoon until next year. My husband (yep, still getting a kick out of saying that!) is in his final semester of study, which started back up again after a 2 week break - on Monday. So, we only had a week after our wedding to work with, before he had to go back to class. We still wanted some time off to ourselves straight after the wedding though, and so our "mini-moon" was born...

We headed to Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast, Queensland for a week!

But more on that in the posts to come. For now, I leave you with a wedding teaser. This picture was the brain child of my sister-in-law (my brother's wife) who saw something similar on Pinterest and decided we HAD to do it. She made up the signs and we took this shot on her iPhone and sent it through to my Hubby-To-Be. Some time later, not long before our ceremony, when we were sure all the guests had pretty much arrived at our location, she then posted it on Facebook! Everyone LOVED this and I'm so glad she decided to do it. Hubs thought it was awesome, he loved it. He still has it on his phone...Our photographer tried to capture the moment that he received it but she was trying to be subtle about it and every time she walked down to his room his photo wasn't going off - it took forever for the picture to go through! So I don't think she managed to capture his reaction...but he remembers :)

Did you have any unusual moments before the Big Moment? Send each other letters? Have a first look? Anything to build up suspense?

we're back!

Well, we did it! We're married! And have been for a little over a week now. To say that our day was the most amazing day of my life so far would be an understatement. I wouldn't change a thing. Not even the crazy wind that froze us during our photos!

But sadly, our time of happiness has been tinged with grief and for this reason it has been difficult for me to get online and write this first post. I think once this one is out of the way, I will be able to move forward with our recaps but until I could get up the courage to write these words, I couldn't face starting...

My husband and I returned from our holiday after our wedding to the heartbreaking news that our Best Man's little daughter, 3 month old baby April, had died of SIDS during our absence. Passing peacefully in her sleep, April has left behind her triplet siblings, Evelyn and Connor, as well as her older siblings, our Godson Logan, Riley and Brody. I can't even begin to describe the sadness that surrounds us all at this time, as we get ready to farewell such a beautiful, long-awaited for princess tomorrow. I can only say that we feel truly blessed to have known her, held her and loved her, even for only the short while that we did. And we are truly thankful that we got to have her at our special day, before she said goodbye.

After tomorrow I will hopefully feel up to starting to give you all a bit of a taste of our wedding, or at least our mini-moon, before we receive our professional photos, as well as a bunch of projects that I didn't get to blog about before the big day (and those I couldn't blog about due to prying eyes!). But until then, any thoughts and prayers for our Best Man and his family would be much appreciated, especially through what is sure to be a difficult day tomorrow.

Much Love,

(for the first time)

Mrs. LR xxx

one more sleep!

So! Tomorrow is the big day! I can hardly believe its here already! I had all these plans to add posts this week of the little last minute projects and DIYs I have worked on, a post on our rehearsal night and a few other things, thinking I would have at least *some* time, being off work all week. But nope, I haven't had a chance to do any of it! At least it will give me a chance to have something to write about while we wait for our professional photos though, so I promise I'll get around to all the things I wanted to record (I have been taking pictures as we go, although I'm sure all look back and wish I'd gotten better ones!)

I'm writing this on my iPhone, as I lay next to my sleeping fiancé for the last time. As a result, there will be no pretty pictures, nothing spectacular but probably plenty of heart.

Today we take the last of our things for the ceremony and reception, all of our clothes and make up and shoes and the kitchen sink (just kidding) over to our venue, check into our rooms, meet up with our friends - our wonderful bridal party - go shopping for some food for tomorrow, work out where we all want to share a meal for the last time together tonight and then...

We separate. Tomorrow, when my Graham and I see each other again, it will be to make promises to each other, to share our love with our family and friends, to exchange rings and a kiss and to become man and wife.

I cannot wait.

I am not nervous in the slightest. Neither, he tells me, is he. We are ready. We can't stop grinning. And hugging. I can't wait to see him waiting for me at the end of the aisle. Whatever happens tomorrow - whatever the weather (rain today, clearing tomorrow with a 30% chance!), whatever goes wrong, whatever is missing, whatever changes... All I care about is kissing those lips after exchanging those rings and leaving that Chapel his wife.

Tonight I'll distract myself with my ladies. Tomorrow morning I'll have fun getting ready and giving the girls their presents. But tomorrow afternoon, 1.30pm - that's the time I'm really looking forward to...

See you on the flip side!

My last time signing off as Miss Amanda xxxx

storymix media blog feature!

So thanks to everything that went on, I'm a little late in posting this, but I was a guest blogger over at the StoryMix Media Blog! You can check out my blog post here.

Thanks again to StoryMix for letting me guest post, and for Laura for hooking me up :) I'm looking forward to using the WeddingMix app NEXT WEEKEND! :)

Yep...that's when you know things are close...

a wedding catch up post

So I've dropped out of Blogging Land for a bit, but with good reason. Outside of everything mentioned in the last couple of posts, I've also been dealing with tonsillitis for the last 7 days, (which I've been trying very hard to get rid of before next week!) attending baby showers, birthday celebrations and concerts (I saw Hanson with my SIL for my belated birthday present...my 12 year old self was in her happy place!) AND we have been working very hard to knock a bunch of things off our To Do List!

Following my countdown checklist post at the one month mark, I created a thorough "To Do" list of things left. We've managed to cross a good many off and by tomorrow, a good many more will be gone!

Included in this was making our favours and candles with the lovely Laina on the 5th of September - it was a lot of fun and I managed to sneak in some cuddles with the pretty Miss Talei as well.

I also managed this quick mock up of our ceremony table with my Mum. Please excuse the exercise equipment in the background and the lack of table cloth (we picked that up the next day!). There is also a distinct lack of signs. The Program sign was made a while ago but I still have to make the signs for the two hat boxes (they aren't actually hat boxes, but that is the way they are shaped and it's just easy to refer to them as such!). It's also hard to see how pretty the tealight holders are in this picture - there will be close ups of them later I'm sure!

Today I visited both our little flower girls to make sure their shoes fit them, started making all of our placecards, made a mock up of our ceremony programs (we still need to decide on one more piece of music before I can finish them off and start making them all!) and had a relaxing, much needed coffee break with my MoH. Tomorrow I have my pre-wedding hair cut, I'm buying all the cardstock for our programs, spray painting 1 frame that's a little scratched up, spray painting our chandelier and decorating it, going jewellery shopping with my Mum, hopefully picking up our rings and finishing off our placecards. If I have time, I might get a chance to get started on decorating/writing up our seating chart!

I just realised I haven't told you our entertaining ring story...well, it would be less entertaining if we hadn't (luckily) had time to sort it out. I had received a phonecall to say that both my rings had arrived, but the future hubs hadn't yet (when we ordered mine, we ordered my eternity ring at the same time - it was too good an opportunity to pass up. I won't be wearing it, it will be in the hubs keeping until the right time!). Well, when I went in to try mine on, the future mister came down and they double checked his wasn't there. Turned out it was, but the girls had thought that it WASN'T because the supplier had sent the complete WRONG size - it was SO BIG that the staff had thought that someone had simply put a display ring in the bag to mark that one had been ordered (as they sometimes do that during stocktake and they had just completed stocktake). Oh my. There was no way this ring was fitting my poor guy's finger. And because he has ordered a Tungsten ring, they are not able to be resized, new rings have to be ordered when you want a new size. So the store had to contact the supply and tell them off for their mistake, alert them to the fact that our wedding was 3 weeks away at this point, and get them to send out a new ring. They apologised and I was told on the 12th that the ring was apparently shipped on that day (I dropped my e-ring in for cleaning and re-dipping on the 12th). So it should be arriving this week for us to pick up with my e-ring and my band. We purposely left my band in store to collect them all together. SO, the plan is to do all that tomorrow. *fingers crossed* Otherwise my poor man will be wearing a stand-in ring from the store on wedding day...

....SINCE today we are officially 10 days out! Oh my! Where did the last few weeks go? They certainly snuck up us! It's so exciting yet so surreal at the same time...I have one day left at work, then 3 glorious weeks off. 2 of which will be spent chilling with my new hubby. Can't wait!

my lil fur baby...

As it turns out, Friday got worse. I haven't mentioned her on her before, but I have a little fur baby, Eowyn. And on Friday night she had a stroke.

I sat with her, stroking her poor little head while she still tried to flick her little tail and snuggle my hand. Two hours later, she had passed on. She was almost 10 years old. Thankfully, she seemed to be as comfortable as she could be... I just wish I hadn't been so busy all day that I had taken her presence for granted, not knowing it was my last day at a chance for a cuddle.

My Dad had bought her for me at market near my grandparents, from a kid selling kittens from a box... when she fit into the palm of my hand, the last little black kitten with big blue eyes, when we thought she was a he, and my Dad thought he hated cats...

Both things were wrong.

Rest in peace my kitty. I miss you curled up next to me while I work on projects already...