29 January 2010

Olive Farm Accessories


Some more pretty headpieces from Olive Farm Accessories, and made in Perth.

28 January 2010

Pretty parasol



via Martha Stewart Weddings

Veil alternative


The felt flowers by A Alicia Handmade Accessories would be a lovely alternative to the traditional wedding veil.

27 January 2010

Some weight loss tips


The West Australian online has published some tips on how to lose the last kilos at the end of your weight loss regime. It seems that there is very much a tradition (or is it expectation?) that the bride will, or will want to, lose weight in the lead up to her wedding, so that she will be as thin and therefore (in her mind) attractive as possible.

The tip that I need to concentrate on is the one that advocates more sleep!! Not just as a weight loss technique but for good health in general. I must be more disciplined...

Photo found on Flickr by kevin_suhao_c

26 January 2010

Australia Day fireworks

I am watching the City of Perth Australia Day Skyworks on Channel 7. It is interesting to see the show from a different angle, and with some depth. What we saw as a clump of fireworks was actually a line! The quality of the picture being shown though is disappointing, compared to actually being there.

It was much more spectacular from the river! We spent the afternoon and evening on C's boat, relaxing, getting a bit of sun and hopping in the water to cool off. We listened to the Triple J Hottest 100 countdown, before switching to a countdown of Australian songs and finally to the channel that broadcasts the Skyworks soundtrack.

It is such a singular experience, the whole river and foreshore are all tuned to the same station and everyone stops to watch the pretty lights in the sky and listen to the mainly Australian soundtrack.

I really enjoyed the fireworks this year. I think that whoever put together the soundtrack together did an excellent job. The last few years has been really lame and cheesy, and this year was much better!

Although I did hear the Screaming Jets song Better at least three times during the course of the day. Not sure why it is supposed to be such a quintessential Australian song!

Destination: Honeymoon II

(See Destination: Honeymoon I.)

Galapagos Islands

The Galapagos Islands are somewhere that C and I have previously talked about visiting. He loves the idea of the amazing variety of marine life, I am fascinated by the fauna that inspired Charles Darwin on the theory of evolution. Oh, as well as the turtles.

Have a chat to the turtles...


...and cool off in the water...


...before lazing on the beach.


Photos from the Unesco World Heritage Centre.


Get around on an active galapagos tour with Intrepid Travel. I am sure that if we did make it to the Galapagos Islands on our honeymoon then we would endavour to include some of the other amazing sights, such as the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu, and maybe experience the Amazon!

25 January 2010

Looking after the bride and groom

I thought this was a really lovely idea - a snack box for the bride and groom, left thoughtfully in their bridal suite! The box here includes caviar, cheese straws, grapes and truffles, and they suggest that a small bottle of bubbly "wouldn't hurt". Hee hee.

Concept and photo via Martha Stewart Weddings

Destination: Honeymoon I

A few people have asked what C & I will be doing for our honeymoon. As yet, we have not made any decisions although we have thrown a few ideas around! I thought that I would discuss a few of the ideas that we have had.

Japan
C and I went to Mount Hotham this winter to get some skiing and snowboarding practice in. While we were still there we started talking about planning our next trip! New Zealand was floated around and also heading to Japan.

Just think, wake up to fresh air...


...followed by a day on the slopes...


...and finish with a relaxing soak at an onsen.


Photos via Niseko Ski Tours

ABC News - Reporting Haiti: no sidelines in hell

I have no words for this article.

24 January 2010

Who to invite...

Here's an interesting debate, at least for the organisers of the wedding. Discussion of the pros and cons of inviting children and unattached partners to your wedding.

Fitness

I just went for a run. I procrastinated for too long, and instead of leaving at 8am as planned I did not set out until 9.20am, by which time it was already 30C!! I am feeling pretty trashed right now! It is all in a good cause though.

Preseason hockey training started last week, although I was not feeling well for the first session after actually looking forward to it. (I must be getting a bit loopy as I get older!)

The route that I usually run is to head down Coode Street towards the river, turn left just before I go swimming, run along the foreshore until I get to the carpark on The Esplanade and run back along the path between the Scented Garden/Boardwalk and the flashy apartments on Mill Point Road. At the traffic lights I retrace my steps back home. I have a feeling that door to door it is around 5.5km but I have not been out and measured.


It's lovely scenery at any rate, and for the most part I do not have to worry about cars. I have found that helps me to settle into the rhythm.

This is the route that I run before work, or on weekends when I am lazy!

The original map is the Sir James Mitchell Park - Function Sites map from the City of South Perth.

23 January 2010

Drink dispensers

I had an idea that it would be nice to serve up some oool, refreshing iced tea at the wedding ceremony. The wedding being in late November, it is possible that it could be quite a warm day! We are having a morning ceremony and lunch reception, so I thought that something like iced tea would be more appropriate than alcohol, and easier to organise.

I had visions of a nicely set up table, with thick tablecloth and 100% adisposable cups. This is where my vision gets hazy, and luckily E picked it up and ran with it to suggest getting a lovely dispenser for the tea.


Buy from Rush Gideon


Bridal shower via Hostess {with the Mostess}


Acrylic by CreativeWare

Traditions

An email in my mailbox this morning from Project Wedding outlining what they see as the 10 Wedding Traditions You Can Do Without. I do agree that none of them are completely necessary, especially No.8 and the wedding vow to "obey".

I was planning to follow a few of them however, including No.6 with Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed and Something Blue. To me this is a sweet traidition, and fairly easy to achieve! My only real question is hold old does the "Something Old" have to be? I will have to investigate...


Image via Martha Stewart Weddings

22 January 2010

Hot chocolate spoons!


Birthday Girl blogged about making something similar to these hotchocspoons made by the Dutch Chocolate Company. Just stir into hot milk and you have yummy hot chocolate!

E suggested these as bomboniere for the wedding. They do look like a lot of fun!

Bridal websites

A new Aussie bridal website Real Weddings has just launched.
It seems that to see some of the content you need to subscribe... at $99 for the year I am not sure that I will bother. Some of the content looks nice but I am already feeling overloaded with the amount of information out there and I think that I will manage to find what I am after!

I also signed up for Project Wedding (for free). They have lots of hints and tips and also a massive collection of inspirational photographs!

Ooh, and I have just signed up to Martha Stewart Weddings. There seem to be some lovely ideas and inspirations on the site.

Another local site, Swoon

21 January 2010

KeepCup


The Keep Cup has been designed as an alternative to the disposable cups you get when you buy takeaway coffee. They come in three standard barista sizes. What an awesome concept! Now that would be an interesting and unusual and hopefully very practical bomboniere.

Cars and things

From the start I maintained that wedding cars were unnecessary and a waste of funds - money that could be spent at the bar after the wedding, don't you know?? However last week I was overruled. It all came about after we spoke to our photographer. He suggested some interesting location shots, including East Perth, King's Park and of course the surrounds of South Perth. I had originally had thoughts of having a few photos between our ceremony and lunchtime reception, however he was enthused about photos after the reception and we could then get to some lovely and interesting locations. Assuming of course that the boys were not too drunk... Anyway, in order to reach these locations, we would require transport, and the thought of driving around and trying to find parking lost some of its appeal.

I did have some influence over what was booked, C initially rang up about hiring a stretch Hummer ($2200 for 5 hours!) but that really did not appeal to me for so many reasons. I could not reconcile the image of a stretch hummer with myself in any way, shape or form, and especially not for my wedding!

Here are a few of the other options around Perth. At this point I will leave it to speculation as to what we have actually booked...

Perth Hummer


Wedding Cars of Perth

Princess Wedding Cars

PS I found these limo sites by doing a search on google... I have no knowledge at all of the service offered.

What season is it?

Walking to work this morning it felt almost like Autumn had come! Cool breeze and not too hot at 19C.

There's a cyclone formed off the north west coast, and this accounts for the drop in weather. I do not understand the ins and outs but I am fairly confident that Tropical Cyclone Magda has something to do with it.

I am sure that we will be back in stinking hot summer territory soon! Until that happens, I will enjoy the cool change.

19 January 2010

Photobooths

E is keen on the concept of a Photobooth. I must say that I think it is an awesome idea too! On a simplistic level, you can achieve the look with a funky coloured fabric backdrop, some strategically chosen props and a digital camera.


The wedding of kelli murray via sitting on a tree


Sarah and Rick’s wedding via Ruffled


Photo Booth Fun! via Frenchie and Flea


Isabelle's Wedding via Dos Family

You can also find some DIY Party Photo Booth {Expert Tips} via Hostess with the Mostess

Southbound!!

My sister-in-law-to-be K and I went down to the Southbound Festival in Busselton over the weekend of the 7th-11th January 2010. I had been to the first three, but had not been to the last two due to a lack of friends to go with me.

This year we camped for three nights, and the festival went for two days with Friday a bonus day of music for those who were camping there.

We decided to be "Lazy Campers" and purchased tickets that included a tent that was set up for you as well as inflated air mattresses. Our little area was staffed around the clock so that if we had any issues there was someone to try and sort it out. It was mostly quiet in our area, and in fact it lacked a little of the atmosphere of the general camping area however I am not sure how we would have done trying to cart a tent and bedding on top of the esky and bags that we had!!  Maybe we should have only taken one change of clothes...

It was very hot during the day at the festival and cool during the evenings, so our survival method was to find a nice piece of grass and some shade and ride it out until the temperature dropped. Copious amounts of water was consumed and lots of fruit as well! We had both come well stocked with fruit.

Musical highlights of the festival included (for me, and in no particular order) Wolfmother, Datarock, Little Birdy, Moby, Sarah Blasko... and more when I can have a look at the play list and remember who else I saw!



I did not see any really tragic acts, and there was always something to watch or do so we were kept very well entertained!

There were definitely food highlights of the festival. One previous Southbound I had discovered the Gozleme, and this Southbound did not disappoint!  We went back a few times to test them again. And again. There were also organic doughnuts, freshly made, twice as big is a regular doughnut and with a wonderful texture... plus the Chai Tent in Basecamp, where we sat and chilled with iced chai. Yum!


The atmosphere was fairly mellow, although it felt a bit less mellow that what I remembered of the 2007 Southbound. The crowd was not too manic or aggressive and everyone seemed to be able to enjoy themselves. We were heartened to realise that we were not the oldest campers or festival goers, and a good time was had!!

Photos from of Sunset Events

Photographer

Last week we ticked another box in the wedding checklist, and booked the photographer for our day.

Anton from C Photography is going to share our day with us and capture the special moments!

I had been emailing Anton last year and finally after Christmas C and I had the time to meet him and discuss our wedding. We both felt comfortable with Anton and we admired the samples of his previous work that we were shown. He had some great suggestions for location shots, and we were able to see examples of those from previous weddings.




Selecting a photographer was one task that I found intimidating. There are so many different choices out there, encompassing a wide range of talents and prices. Most of the photographers that I looked at were referrals from friends' weddings, and I was able to check out photos from previous weddings on their website. E was my main critic, and she had some intelligent words to say regarding each portfolio that she viewed.


17 January 2010

Let them eat cake!

There are so many different choices when it comes to wedding cake. Square or round, chocolate, fruit, vanilla or something more exotic, cupcakes or large cakes... How do you choose?

I love this cake, so simple and elegant:

From blisstree.com

I also love the work of Kayle Mitchison, as documented in her blog, Delicate-Lee. Kayle works for The Cake Box. They made the cake that I had for my 21st!!


Another elegant cake, the Picasso below. According to the babyCakes website this is their most popular tiered wedding cake!

Limit the planning stress...

...by planning your wedding in one week! Check out this post detailing how one couple pulled it off.

16 January 2010

Wedding Planner

My sister E has put much love and creativeness into the Wedding Planner that she made us. I do love it, and need to make use of it more than I currently do.


She has used all sorts of different papers to make a special file for us to record all of our wedding notes and plans. The planner has been broken down into sections so that we can organise our day more effectively. The Engagement Party has been left to the end, as E rationalised (correctly!) that once it was over we would not wish to always be flicking through it to get to the wedding information!


She has individualised the divider for each section relevant to the content. For the Honeymoon section below, she has used the patterns from the inside of envelopes to create the illusion of the ocean!


When I first was engaged I had a few vague thoughts about getting a planner of some sort. I did a survey of a few of my (girl)friends who had recently been married, and the concensus was that they used an Excel Spreadsheet. Noone seemed to own up to having used a planner! Even so, I thought that a planner might be a nice addition to my wedding stationery, as an item more collectable than an Excel spreadsheet. I was more inclined to just buy a nice blank book and make it up myself, rather than some commercially overpriced effort where you are forced to conform to someone else's idea of how you should plan your wedding.

Very early on E asked if we had a wedding planner. When I answered in the negative I think that her creative processes went into overdrive and she transformed a plain tan file into the very stylish and useable planner that I have tried to show in the photos.

PS I do also have an Excel spreadsheet, but it's useless for saving bits of paper and business cards and samples!!

Bridesmaids are individuals

This photo of un-matching bridesmaids was posted on the Veils & Vows blog. I do like the colour combinations!



I will be hoping to achieve a more coordinated approach for my bridesmaids - something to tie them together a little more closely than this wedding. I am after an effect in between this picture and a completely matchy matchy bridal party!!

05 January 2010

Gifts for the bridal party...

My sister E has suggested something similar to these giftboxes from Victor Sizemore as gifts for the bridal party... Such lovely presentation and obvious care taken in putting these together.


Bio plates


My work Christmas function is usually a barbecue on the river foreshore. It's a lovely spot, and they do really well to get the hundreds of hungry families fed! This year the plates that they used appeared to be of an organic nature, and C commented that we should remember the name and get similar for our engagement party. The wonders of google and I tracked down several different versions of plates made from the leaf of the Areca palm. I have ordered a stash of them from Biome, who claim that they are "Totally biodegradable, with no chemicals or synthetics used in the manufacture, they can also be mulched, given for animal fodder, or used upside down on garden beds as a mulch". Hopefully they will be good to use as well!