Not too long to go...

My life at the moment is wedding, wedding wedding. With a bit of house! built in. It is all good fun and hopefully I will come out of the end of it unscathed. There is so much detail floating around in my head and I am worried that I will forget something. Eep!

A quick round up of the week...
Wednesday
I had another dress fitting! For the first fitting the dress maker Nici had made the dress from lining fabric. This time around she had stiched in the feature panel of my dress and it was starting to take shape! I was very excited, I can see now what my dress will be like. I am looking forward to the next fitting.

Saturday
First stop was to the florist to pay the balance. Tick!

Mum and I had a big morning. We headed out to a couple of places in Belmont to pick up some detail. The first was to Sonboniere, a shop stocking all sorts of goodies for you to accessorise the perfect wedding, party, or anything! We had a goal in mind, and that was to purchase bags for wedding cake. There were many pretty things though to distract us from our task.

Next on the list was to head to Whistlers to pick up the bomboniere for the wedding. It was exciting to see and Mum now has custody of them until the wedding. Thanks Mum!

Sunday
We are catching up with the celebrant today, to go over our ceremony and make sure everything is good! I have sent him the reading that we wish to have so that will be another tick in the box for confirmation and planning.

Chad and I are also planning to check out our ceremony venue today to remind ourselves what it looks like and we will go searching for a pair of shoes for him to wear. He wants to trendy himself up!

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RSVP update

Well... we did better than I had expected in terms of the RSVPS! The number of cards did not add up to the 60 I had originally counted, for various reasons, but we received 44 RSVP cards and 11 were not returned. That is exactly the 80% return rate that the optimist in me was hoping for. Wow!

Woo. So now that the numbers are in, we have to figure out who sits where. That will be fun!

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My silver shoes

Last Saturday I made it my mission to try to find a pair of shoes to Linda's specification. I started simple, and went to Harbourtown to see if I could grab a bargain. I found this pair in the first shop I walked into - Williams - and snapped them up. I did the rounds and came to the conclusion that I had the best of the bunch and moved on.

They are a bit higher than I am used to, so we shall have to see how I go! Today I spent an hour tottering around on them. It seemed quite strange to be hanging out the washing in a pair of heels. It probably does not help that yesterday and today I have been running up and down hills and stairs at King's Park and my calves are already tight! Still, all in the name of looking gorgeous.

C and I went to see the dressmaker Niky last week, and tried on our samples. It was all good fun! He didn't bring his trousers or shirt with him so we were guessing where the top of his trousers would be. It would not look the best if there is too much gap between his waistcoat and trousers.

I am definitely getting excited about it all. We just have to organise a few details and then the day will be upon us! I am looking forward to the party.

Roses are white

A sneaky peak of the roses that Mum bought for the top of our wedding cake. So pretty and delicate. They are now safely in the hands of the cake decorator.

Bride on a budget

Lupinbunny of Black Swan Bride has given herself the challenge of planning an imaginary wedding with 100 guests for the princely sum of $8000! It will be fun to see how creative she has to be to keep the budget under control.

She is also located in Perth so I am especially interested to see what ideas and options she comes up with.

Check out her progress here. She has so far covered the budget breakdown, the invitations, the venue and the catering.

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Flower update

Chad and I went to speak to the florist a few weeks ago about our wedding flowers. She rang a few days later to say that she had been to her suppliers and they had confirmed that they would be able to source all of the flowers that she had quoted for us. Yay!

I am happy as I liked the original flowers and it means that I do not have to try and like another combination. I am not sure that I have the energy this late in the piece.

Project Wedding-ism

I was amused to see that the tip this morning for Project Wedding was a Guide to Household items that you will never use. I was intrigued to see what would be on their list! I am sure that for every significant event where there are lots of gifts there will be one or two that raise eyebrows.

The advice however seems to be more about cautioning the bridal couple not to go overboard with their registry, and actually to think carefully about what items they add to their list, rather than foreshadowing any scary gifts from friends and family.

Disappointment! I see that toasters were mentioned, as were toaster ovens. Mum used to have (and maybe still has) one of those! We would eat open toasted cheese sandwiches as children. Oh, memories of childhood.

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A little hiccup

Our wedding cake was to be simple. Fruit cake, with white icing and some flowers thrown in for good measure. It has turned out to be the most complicated part of our wedding.

I did some searching of the internet to find a style of cake that both C and I liked. I focussed on finding something quite simple. What I liked was a white cake, silver ribbon and cascading white roses.

From there it started getting complicated. We kept getting offered choices - what kind of flowers, what colour, what size, what type? There was pressure to match the bouquets and reception flowers to the cake and to match the bridesmaid dresses to the cake.

Phew. My mother came to the rescue for me and she bought us white roses and some ribbon for the cake. All seemed to be back on the simple track when we were derailed by the news that C's Aunt was no longer able to decorate our cake, less than six weeks until our day!

The cakes themselve were made months ago and so we did not want to look at the option of starting completely from scratch. Our path forward was to find someone else to decorate the cakes.

Thankfully his aunt had done some of the groundwork for us and had contacted a couple of decorators. So, we start again! We have spoken to one of the ladies and left her the flowers and ribbon and a few photos. We will not see the cake until the day so fingers crossed it will exceed our expectations!

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Reading inspiration

I had a bit of a break from trying to find a reading for our ceremony. With our date fast approaching I have had to get back to it!

What we are looking for is something that makes sense to C and I. There is a lot out there that is far too soppy for us and I was starting to feel despondant about my chances of finding a reading to suit C and I.

I was hopeful that the Bard would have something relevant in his repertoire, and came across this piece. You cannot go past a sonnet!

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
Oh, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to ever wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error, and upon me prov'd,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare

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Guest favours

After months of procrastinating, I finally ordered bomboniere for our guests! Mum has done some good work for us, talking to various local chocolate makers and I have been through a few concepts and ideas and we have found something now that will work for us.

Earlier on in the planning process I thought how nice it would be to give people something useful. I love a practical gift, and I strive to think of gifts for my friends and family that they can use, rather than throw in the back of the cupboard until the next birthday/Christmas and they need a present for Auntie Ethel.

A few ideas that caught my fancy included a small potted herb, or packets of vegetable seeds. I felt though that our audience for those gifts was quite small and would not necessarily be appreciated, and I could see those forlorn little plants sitting on tables of our reception after everyone had left.

So we have gone back to the tried and true of chocolate. Everyone loves chocolate! Yum!

Exactly what I have ordered though... I will let you guess.

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Bits and pieces

As our wedding draws closer there are more and more little details to organise!

Today we received our 30th RSVP card so now we have 50% return rate. I am looking forward to catching up with everyone on the day and sharing it with our friends and family. Truly. It is all starting to feel a bit real.

On Monday night C and I went to be measured for our wedding clothes. He saw the fabric that his waistcoat will be made from, selected the colour for the back of it and it all sounds really exciting!

Linda from Lin Pin suggested that my shoes were too heavy and that something strappier would suit my dress. I was a little disappointed as I am sure that she does not realise how much of a drag I find shoe shopping! Still, I will endeavour to go again and find a strappier style and I can always make my mind up on the day, right??

They are making up a sample of our clothes first before they cut the real fabric so that will be an interesting process to be a part of. We have maybe a month left in which to gain or lose weight, after that we risk not fitting our wedding clothes!

Bridesmaid ML is convinced that I will lose weight as the day gets closer and the stress mounts. I am not entirely convinced that this will happen - the weight loss I mean, I am sure that the stress will increase - so will be curious to see.

Last Friday I booked myself in for some pampering just before the big day - manicure and pedicure to tidy everything up. I am usually quite slack with these things but figured that everyone will be looking at my hands so I should make a bit of an effort.

I have had a wedding checklist pretty well since we were engaged and have been slowly ticking things off. Now that we are getting into the detail my list is inadequate and I am feeling quite scatty trying to hold all of the information in my head.

Need help. Must ask volunteer bridesmaid to sit me down and make me write list.

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Flowers at last?

Chad and I went to speak to the florist and pay the deposit for our wedding flowers! Unfortunately at least one of the flowers they originally quoted on is not available so it will be a bit of wait and see for our flowers.

I am very keen on the beautiful combination that we first settled on and am especially excited about the red banksia, so hopefully the available flowers will be just as pretty.

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