ARGH!

I couldn't let the year finish up without a single post for December! So I'm just managing to scrape in on the very last day of the year...

Everything has been very quiet with regards to both wedding and fertility matters, but this week I've finally got my arse into gear and shopped for invitation supplies, as well as done some online research into shoes for my junior bridesmaids, whom I hope to take shopping next week while I'm still on leave from work.

Anyway, my main reason for posting today is to upload a pic of an invitation mock-up that I've just done. I don't have a guillotine or anything so this has just been done with scissors, but you get the idea.



Sorry for the extreme censoring, but you can't be too careful. Wouldn't want some randoms from the internet crashing my wedding!

Aside from this development, nothing new to report, except that the bridesmaids dresses (the new and improved second lot) have recently arrived and are actually the correct colour.. fancy that. Plus I have bought jewellery for the bridal party -- it's pretty cheap-o stuff, so I really hope that the necklaces don't leave a green line around everyone's neck, or cause any allergic reactions, or we're screwed. Mum bought me my jewellery this week; it's a combined wedding and birthday present. Swarovski Crystal and white gold plated teardrop earrings with a matching pendant on a chain (which I had to order, but I've got the earrings at least). I'm not sure if I'll end up wearing the necklace, I will be trying it with and without on the day and seeing what looks better. So hard to tell when you don't have your dress and veil on!

(I tried to post pics of all the jewellery, but it was taking way too long, so maybe another time if I remember.)

At exactly three and a half months to go today, everything is starting to seem so real now. I printed up all the invitations this afternoon, and once me and my BM have made them next week, I can send them out and it's all systems go. Woo! Looking forward to (in around eight hours) being able to say, "I'm getting married this year!" Not to mention hopefully getting pregnant, but I won't get too far ahead of myself. ;)

See you in 2012.

Shoes!!

Four months, twenty-five days, according to my forum ticker. Not long, yet still so far. I'm getting a little impatient now, even though I know that I shouldn't wish this time away. There's still a lot to do and two weeks out from the wedding I may be wishing that I put this "impatient waiting" time to better use!

I did tick one tiny little thing off my list today however; I bought my shoes. I have been eyeing them off in Williams for I reckon a couple of months now at least, and today I decided it was time to try them on. When I told the lady I liked them, she said "30% off today as well", so that instantly sold it (although I think I'd decided anyway). So I got a $70 pair of shoes for $49, which is better than I was hoping for for wedding shoes. Here's a blurry pic courtesy of my iPhone:

Please excuse the chipped nail polish. I practiced my "bridal walk" in them, on carpet too.. they don't feel too slippery but at least I'll have my Dad to hang on to if I do have a balance or skidding issue.

I've been researching shoes for my bridesmaids too. It's wayyyy too hard to find gold coloured shoes in stores, so I've been looking at the following website: shoes.com . I've found the following styles which I like, but the actual style will be my BMs' choice:

However I think my girls prefer closed-toe so I will leave the style choice up to them as I said. Additionally even though these are ladies' shoes I love them for the junior BMs:

I am extremely hesitant about buying shoes online as you don't know how well they will fit or look, and if they're comfy enough. But the prices are very reasonable; all the above styles are around the $50 mark, and so much nicer than the hideous ones I see in actual stores.

Gowns, make-up and spermatazoa

Quick post since I've got to get ready for tap class. Firstly, the bridesmaids gowns are finally sorted; they have been re-ordered all in the same style (Dessy 2804), even the junior BMs. It will be nice to have the continuity of same styles, and y'know, matching colours are always good too. Hopefully they wont need too many alterations, and I really hope these won't be too expensive either.

I had my make-up trial on Saturday and I was happy with the result. I was wearing it from around 11am through til when I got home from my cousin's wedding at 12am, and it still looked okay then, so it lasted pretty well. My hair meeting last week was brief, but we sorted out the basics and I'm to go back for a trim on Nov 29th. Plus I have been instructed to start growing out my fringe, which I am really not looking forward to!

Finally, on the fertility front, my poor man had his semen analysis last week, and no sperm were found under microscope. :( I was very sad to discover this, even though I half expected it. Now I am hanging out for our follow up appointment with our fertility specialist, as she made me feel so happy and positive about the whole process last time that I need to be inspired by her again. We have five straws of his semen from several years ago to be transferred across from his old clinic, however I'm not holding out a lot of hope for using these in IVF as freezing sperm can cause DNA fragmentation which means they are incabable of effective fertilisation. I am feeling better now though than I was after the news on Friday. Assisted conception is a sucky journey, but there are many avenues to explore before the bitter end.

Back again already...

... but a couple of wedding-y things happened today. Firstly we went to our second meeting with our celebrant, which turned into my poor man suffering through an hour and a half of me and her gas-bagging about weddings and life in general. But she is totally awesome and I can't wait for our ceremony now; it will be straightforward and simple with nothing particularly original or any extras, but I am still excited. I asked her if we could please try and keep it light rather than overly romantic, as I have a massive fear of crying during the ceremony; I really really don't want to cry cause I'll be embarrassed and self-conscious. I don't care if people expect it!

Secondly, we went to Solid Gold this afternoon as we had to go into the city, and we ordered our wedding rings. The engraving we have decided upon is both romantic and geeky; the word "Soulbound". It is geeky because when you get an item in World of Warcraft that you can't trade or sell, it is referred to as Soulbound, hehe. I am having "Soulbound ~ 14/04/12" on the inside of my ring, and my fiance will be having the date and maybe our names inside his, and the "soulbound" is going to be engraved on the outside in Elven font (Lord of the Rings). His last wedding ring had an Elven wedding verse engraved upon it, and he still likes the design but for obvious reasons doesn't want to replicate the ring exactly. He still needs to email them to finalise exactly what the engraving will look like apparently.

That's it for now. Two updates in two days, some sort of record. :) There probably won't be another one until after my hair and make-up meetings.

Whoa, seriously?

Is it October already?? Well, tomorrow I mean. I couldn't let September go by without a single blog post, so even though I don't really have anything important to say, I had to write something.

Okay, wedding stuff... I've organised a make-up trial for the same day as my cousin's wedding; I'm getting it done at 10:30-ish, so I'll get to see how well it lasts and so forth. And I've lined up a meeting in a couple of weeks with the lady who will hopefully be doing my hair. I hope she doesn't have a heart attack over how thick and annoying my hair is. But then when I've had it done in the past (four times?) it's never been a huge issue to get it looking nice. I have no idea exactly what style I want, so I really need to try and remember to do some research in the next couple of weeks. And remember to ask how far in advance I need to grow my fringe out. I might go and get it trimmed for the last time just before Christmas, then let it go... that is going to be a big challenge for me! I will have to try and remember to get it cut again the day after the wedding if possible; as we're off on honeymoon very very early on the Monday morning.

Annoying issue with the bridesmaids' dresses; three out of four turned out to be the wrong colour when I picked them up last Saturday; obviously the "lux" chiffon doesn't take the Claret coloured dye as well as the normal chiffon, or it was faulty fabric or something... They looked a weird pinkish sort of colour, not at all like the gorgeous deep red that I chose. I tried to look past it, but I was just in denial I think. For the first time something in my wedding organising didn't go right, and I don't think my brain was prepared for that eventuality, hehe. So I took them back, and they agreed with me and said they would investigate for me. I am yet to hear anything. I've got my fingers firmly crossed that somehow I can get the gowns in the colour I want without too much hassle (and more importantly without paying a cent more).

As I stated in my first ever blog post, this is also going to be a place for me to talk about our IVF journey. We had our first appointment with our chosen fertility specialist a few weeks ago, and we really like her. She gave us a lot of hope that the IVF ICSI procedure would work well in our case, and even though I don't want to get my hopes up for an easy ride, it's nice to feel positive about it all. I am in the process of having a Ovulation Tracking Assessment Cycle, which means several times this month I have to go for bloods to work out whether my hormone levels are doing all the right things, and also an ultrasound on ovulation day to ensure that I had a dominant follicle ready to go (which I did). It was very cool seeing all my female bits on the ultrasound... she had a lot of trouble locating my right ovary, but eventually got there in the end after a lot of probing! So I apparently ovulated on Tuesday, and I probably only have two more blood tests this cycle; one this coming Tuesday to ensure my body is producing enough progesterone to sustain an early pregnancy, and then another a week later. This will be a standard pregnancy test, even though we are not even trying right now due to wedding/honeymoon stuff, but even the negative test will confirm that my hormones have gone back to baseline levels again.

Then, my fiance just has to do a Sperm Analysis, which will be interesting and nerve-wracking as he hasn't had one done for several years, so we will find out whether his condition has improved, worsened, or stayed the same. I'm also a little anxious about one of the blood tests I had done the same day as our initial consultation.. it's to measure a particular hormone which will show how high or low my ovarian reserve is. The specialist gave me the impression that early menopause is actually fairly commonplace, so I hope I've still got plenty of baby-making potential left in me. Although we'll be incredibly lucky to even have one baby, ideally we'd like more! Anyway, our follow-up where we get our results is on November 10th, so I'm quite anxious for that. Now that we've got the ball rolling for TTC, we have become extremely impatient and want to get started right away. But logic insists that I definitely do not want to be up the duff for my wedding and honeymoon, so wait we must...

Tiny update...

Our dice arrived this week, and they are perfect. The colour I asked for turned out to be (in the flesh) different shades of deep red swirled together with gold. So beautiful that it's a shame they're only little plastic dice and not some kind of gorgeous ornamental glassware!

Secondly, we hired a cake maker this week from the website I've already referred to. The cake I've ordered is (copying and pasting from the invoice):

2 tier (10" and 7") chocolate and caramel mudcake, decorated with white fondant, diamond embossed pattern with edible gold cachous, dark red ribbon, dark red sugar roses, fondant covered board with ribbon trim.

The cake on her website which provided me with inspiration is below. Basically it's the same cake, only round, without butterflies, with red ribbon instead of black, and gold cachous instead of silver.

So can you picture that? I think it will be nice and simple, incorporate my colour theme without overdoing it... but most of all, be stupendously delicious, with the bottom tier chocolate and the top caramel. I might have to try and sneak a piece of both on the night!

I'm still here...

I just have nothing new to report right now! But I did pay off the balance for the bridesmaids' dresses today, so that was awesome. And my wonderful fiance renewed his membership to Jenny Craig with the wedding in mind as a weight loss goal, so that's pretty great too. It's up to me to help him stick to it, and to motivate him to exercise and so forth. Which in recent times has been a challenge for me too. I've kind of helped myself by joining the gym, but I've been so busy at work that I don't get to go as often as I'd like; my membership is off-peak, which means I can only go between 6am - 8am (impossible) or 12pm - 4pm (only possible when I finish work on the dot of 3, which hasn't happened as much lately). But I couldn't justify paying heaps more for a full membership, even with the added perks of being able to use it any time, plus the pool and classes. Maybe I'll upgrade it in the future when we're "rich", but right now I have my own little cardio routine that's fine for me: 2km on the treadmill walking on an incline, 5km on the bike with level 10 resistance, 2km on the rower, and 2km on the cross trainer.

Should keep me fit enough to maintain my current weight, if not lose any. I'd like to lose about 5kg, but I know my main priority is just to be healthy.

Anyway, I now have names and numbers for hair and make-up possibilities thanks to my ever-helpful Matron of Honour, plus the email and website for a cake possibility courtesy of a girl from primary school who I haven't even seen since the last day of Year 7. She saw me saying something about the wedding on facebook, and sent me a private message to tell me about her friends' cake business. Very nice work; the company/website is called Sweet and Simple .

I'm yet to contact any of these people, mainly because I keep forgetting, and perhaps a little because I'm concerned about it being too early. But I guess in the wedding planning field these days nothing can be booked too early (unless it's something you might change your mind on), so I guess I'd better get on it! I don't want to contact the cake lady just yet though, as my old schoolmate told me that she's going on six weeks' maternity leave as of this month, so I may just leave it for another couple of weeks before I start emailing her.

Other than that, everything is same old same old. I do have the occasional "moment" however, when I'm looking at my ring or talking about the wedding to someone, when I just think, "I can't really believe this is happening". Not in a "Squeeeeee!! I'm so excited I can't believe it!!" way, but more "This isn't actually real". It's weird, I spent so long dreaming about the time leading up to getting married, but because now I'm here, I feel like it's not real, so I rarely get properly excited. If that makes sense.

I kind of feel like I won't truly be excited until the actual day (or maybe for a week or so before). But I do know that when I walk down that red carpet and see my sweet boy at the other end, it will be one of the most amazing moments of my life. :)

What an awesome and productive day!

I am in a very good mood tonight. I had appointments today for both bridesmaids' dresses and flowers, and both were incredibly fruitful; they are now both ordered and have the deposits paid.

I'm like some sort of organised easy-going super-bride from the future.

But seriously. I can't believe how simple all this has been so far. I'm sort of living with this constant feeling of "when is this going to get harder?...." Everyone keeps going on about how stressful it is organising a wedding, but I really don't get it.

Yet. I've probably jinxed myself a million times over for writing that!
Anyway, my beautiful bridesmaids have been fitted out and their dresses have been ordered. I'm more excited about seeing them all looking amazing than I am about myself. I keep imagining I'll just look like everyday-me wearing a big pouffy white dress!

Links to the girls' gowns:
Junior bridesmaid
Junior bridesmaid and Maid of Honour - The junior bridesmaid will have straps similar to the above style
Matron of Honour

The lady from the bridal shop gave me a swatch of the colour, "Claret". Just out of interest I compared it to the colour of the centrepieces, the only other red things I have purchased for the wedding. I thought they wouldn't match as all the candle holders are a deep red-red, whereas the fabric is a burgundy-red, but they actually match pretty well. It's a highly unimportant detail that no one in their right mind would notice, but I'm pleased nonetheless.

I was able to take that swatch to the florist I had an appointment with today. Stacey from Beans and Bunches has a very quaint little "hole in the wall" kind of a shop in an arcade in Northbridge. She took us into her back room where we sat down at an adorable tiny wooden table with matching chairs, and I showed her the bridal party colour and my floral inspiration pics (in a previous post). She scribbled down all the flowers she could spot in my favourite examples and put together a list of the flowers she could include in our bouquets, and how many of each. I was my typical self and agreed with pretty much everything she suggested. And I am so excited now, they're going to be beautiful! The red roses incorporated into each bouquet will match the Claret so nicely as they are a lovely dark red. She had some there just by coincidence, and when I held the swatch up to them they were EXACTLY the same colour.

My bouquet will have: 3 x yellow roses, 4 x red roses, 3 x orange roses, 6 x orange/yellow calla lillies, 6 x red/orange freesias, 2 x orange/red carnations, 3 x orange gerberas, will be edged with camellia leaf and bound with creamy gold satin.

My Maid and Matron of Honour will have: 3 x yellow roses, 3 x red roses, 3 x orange roses, 4 x orange/yellow calla lillies, 4 x red/orange freesias, 2 x orange/red carnations, 3 x orange gerberas, edged with camellia leaf and bound with burgundy satin. The junior bridesmaids will be the same only without the carnations and gerberas.

I think the delivery of the flowers will be one of my "girly bride-y" highlights of the day. Can't wait. :)

Dice!

Chessex got back to me today with two pics of a sample dice they made up from my enquiry. How awesome are these?!

Hopefully our guests find them as cool as I do. Or at least somewhat unique.

Also, we have booked and paid a deposit for the celebrant we met on Saturday. She's fairly young and very nice; I could have chatted weddings all day with her. :)

Where I'm at

It's so easy to get confused with what has and hasn't been done, what needs to be done soon, and what can be done later. I thought I'd sort my jumbled thoughts by blogging about it. Rather boring, but bear with me.

One of the problems I'm having is that every different planning guide I look at tells you to book certain things at different times. For example, one may tell you to book a hairdresser six or more months in advance, while another says to do it just two or three months beforehand. Very confusing!

Anyway, here's what's done according to the "9-12 months prior" checklist on my iPhone wedding app:
- Choose date: 14/04/12
- Choose venue: Rydges Hotel
- Choose wedding party: Maid and Matron of honour, two bridesmaids, best man and groomsman all chosen and informed (and agreed!)
- Start guest list: guest list completed (three or four extras may be added) -- save-the-dates sent
- Choose wedding dress: wedding dress purchased, alterations to be scheduled later
- Reserve photographer: done, my marvellous uncle. :)
- Choose honeymoon: UK honeymoon booked and regular payments being made
- Reserve entertainment: music for ceremony and reception both organised, deposit paid for classical trio
- Choose invitations: invitations matching the save the date cards to be ordered from Vistaprint
- Choose favours: favour boxes have been purchased and contents pretty much decided upon (see below for more info on our secondary favour)

Here's what the app says I should have done by now, but I haven't:
- Book officiant: we're meeting a celebrant tomorrow morning, hopefully if we like her I can tick off this box very soon
- Choose rings: WTF?? Why do we have to choose rings 9-12 months beforehand? This one won't be happening for a while; speaking for myself all I want is a plain gold band, so this can be sorted in the last three months as far as I'm concerned!
- Choose men's attire: once again, this doesn't need to be done for a bit, but anyway, we know that the boys are probably just going to go and check out the range at Ferrari when the season catalogue is released
- Choose florist: I've emailed a florist in Subi that I've seen a few good testimonials for, so hopefully I can schedule an appointment with them soon
- Choose cake: really, again so soon? But I've started researching it a little bit. Will be ducking into the Cheesecake Shop soon to see what sort of thing they have on offer.
- Choose bridesmaids' dresses: this is a work in progress, but we have an appointment in two weeks' time at least.

That's it for now, although I have ticked off a couple of things in the "6-9 months prior" section, which is somewhat encouraging!

Now, as for these secondary bonbonniere I mentioned before, there's an American company called Chessex who make custom dice. Since my fiance is a roleplaying geek, we thought it would be cool to have a six-sided dice with our names and wedding date on the one-side. An example of their work:

Very very cool, and I'm awaiting an email reply from them regarding a quote. They're not very expensive at all, which is awesome. Oh, and ours will hopefully be in the same colours as the one above, since it matches our red and gold theme. :)

Photos-a-hoy-hoy

All my centrepieces have arrived as of Monday, the only thing I need to do now is order a huge smegging bunch of beeswax tealights and pillars to put in them! But because I'm excited that I've finally got all the holders, I'm going to post pics of them anyway. I'll also put the World of Warcraft table name that applies to each one, and why I've made these associations (some of them are a stretch!).

Orgrimmar

These hurricane vases are the sturdiest of all my table decs, and that can be associated with both the solid stone architecture of Orgimmar itself, and the character of the native Orcs, whose motto is "Strength and Honour".

Darnassus:

This city is the home of the Night Elves, who are in very in touch with nature and all things pure and good. The city is situated in a green, lush foresty locale. So the Darnassus table will have these lovely flower holders.



Ironforge:

Well, this one is obvious. I've simply played on the name of this Dwarven city by literally using a wrought iron lantern holder.

Silvermoon:

The beautiful city of the Blood Elves features a lot of domed, Mosque-like roofing and red crystal features, and building interiors are reminiscent of romantic Arabian decoration; red velvet lounges, gauze-y opaque drapes, and so forth. So this lantern fits perfectly with such a theme.

Exodar:

Exodar is actually a crashed spaceship that the Draenei species (who crashed it) have converted into their capital city. This large holder from IKEA is kind of modern compared to the other holders I've chosen, and the most "space-y" in style, so I thought it suited best.

Thunder Bluff:

This city sits very high above its surrounds, atop a huge pillar of rock. It is also made up of several different levels. So three guesses why these tealight holders fit so well!

These six cracked glass holders are the first thing I bought for the wedding, and will be spaced along the bridal table in front of each attendant, with the bouquets forming a central floral arrangement.

A gold and red pair of the flower holders for the cake table, just cause I liked them so much I wanted to use them elsewhere as well.

Finally, here's a mock-up of a bonbonniere box/placecard combo, although the finished product will most likely look just like this anyway.

I've got my dress sorted; it was 50 million times easier than I ever thought possible... obviously as much as I want to I can't post a pic on the off-chance someone happened upon this page, like my fiance for instance! But needless to say I'm excited about dressing like a princess for the day, although I'm sure by the end of the night I'll probably be screaming to get out of it and get into some trackies. :)

Now things are really happening...

My parents are finally back from their two month jaunt overseas, and today we were able to sit down with them and discuss things. I cannot believe how generous they're being with footing the bill for pretty much all of the main expenses, but I suppose I'm their only daughter and this is the only wedding they will host, so I guess it must be a big deal to them.

One of the things I'm delighted that they agreed to was my rather emphatic desire to have Tres Classique play for our ceremony. I discovered the website for these guys years ago, and have wanted them to play at my wedding ever since. So the other day I sent them an email to ask for a quote, absolutely expecting them to be way too expensive for our humble little wedding. I was pleasantly suprised by their quote, and Mum and Dad must have agreed it was worth it, so I am so excited to say that we will be booking them, provided they are still available on our date (as they were six days ago).

Mum likes my inspiration pics for flowers that I posted below. When I told her I didn't want white ones she completely agreed with me. She also likes one of the dresses I have my eye on from Legends Bridal, so hopefully I will be able to try it on on Monday when we go there.

I can't believe I will be legitimately able to go into a bridal store and have the staff fuss over me, even if they are completely fake and unconvincing.

It's all going to start happening now, it's so exciting.

I should have all of my table centrepieces sometime this week; just waiting for a couple of things I ordered from eBay to arrive. I will post photos of all of these once I have them. Sans candles, since I am planning on ordering them in one hit once I work out how many I need and what sizes. I am planning on getting beeswax candles as they are more environmentallty friendly and less carcinogenic.

Oh, and I regret to say that like our geeky cake topper, the Harry Potter invite letters are going by the wayside. My reason being that for the effort I would need to put into them to be satisfied, I was unconvinced that enough people would get a kick out of it, plus I ran the risk of people thinking to themselves "hm, that's a little bit tacky". I know I shouldn't care what other people think, but really, the last thing you want is for people to be thinking any ill thoughts towards your wedding before they even send a reply card. So instead I'm going to be boring and will be ordering the invitations and RSVP cards that are in the matching design to my save-the-date cards. Which I will be sending out this week since I've got some time to get things done. Yay for annual leave!

Flower-spiration...

I realised something a few days ago: I want bright bouquets. For all us girls, including me. Don't get me wrong, white bridal bouquets are gorgeous. But sometimes they tend to get lost in the dress, and are just so... mainstream. And I want to be holding something bright and bold and amazing. So I've been looking for pics of bouquets that suit the colour theme, and make a vivid statement. It seems that red roses and yellow calla lilies are a popular combination, as well as yellow and red freesias, tulips, and a splash of orange here and there. Orange isn't a part of my proposed colour scheme, but I think the bouquets that include orange look pretty incredible, so they might find their way into my wedding flowers.

The following piccies are inspiration and guidance for whichever florist/s I end up meeting with. I have no idea what flowers are readily available in April, but hopefully she'll (he'll??) be able to whip up something fabulous for us. The five bouquets combined will also be bridal table decorations.

After being told by my uni friend that she'd already received a save-the-date card from another friend for our date, I thought I should get my arse in gear and order some from vistaprint.com.au . Here is a thumbnail of the one I ordered last night. They have invitations in the same design; I'm thinking of getting some to put in with the Harry Potter letters just so people have an easy reference and something to stick on their fridge. Vistaprint are so cheap, I love it. I got 40 of these cards, plus plain envelopes, for $39 including postage.



Cake toppers

I mentioned before how we were looking at a lovely porcelain statue of Aragorn and Arwen from Lord of the Rings as our cake topper (or "cake next-to-er", as it'd probably be too big or heavy at nine inches to balance on top of a cake). There is a picture of it here, but at $280 including postage for something that we can't even put on top of the cake, we can't decide if it's worth it or not. It'd be a nice collectable to keep afterwards, however.

But there are two other cake toppers that we like which are made by the same manufacturer as the computer one I posted in a previous blog. If it's not overkill (which it probably is, but anyway) I'd like to put this one on top of the cake to reflect the fact we'd be about to jet off on our first proper holiday together, and then arrange this one below the cake to add the humour/personality flavour. They're still $100 each though, not including postage, so it wouldn't be much difference from getting the LOTR one if we did get both.

Or we could just not have one at all! Lol. It's these little decisions which are potentially expensive and you can't work out how much you or your guests would appreciate them that are the real killers.

Centrepiece inspiration

So I mentioned before that I was thinking of each table having floating candles in IKEA vases. But what I really want to capture in the decoration is my favourite colour, the red glow you get when holding wine up to light. The tealight holder for the bridal table are made of red glass and are perfect. I want to try and replicate this on each table, but using different decorations on each table so it's less boring. The following are links to pieces that have inspried me. In the case of smaller pieces I would either use more than one, or place smaller candles around to complete the look. I still want to use gold acrylic table scatters to create a hint of uniformity among the tables, and to ensure the gold part of the colour theme is incorporated.

http://soymagic.com.au/category/products/decorative-candle-holder
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/180680963594?hlp=false
http://kandlesbykc.com.au/products/Capiz_Tea_Light_Holder_Red-169-24.html
http://kandlesbykc.com.au/products/Kareem_Lantern_Assorted_Colours-239-24.html
http://www.ikea.com/aa/en/catalog/products/70159567
http://www.thecandlenut.com.au/view_product.php?products_id=1851&cPath=0_2_69
http://www.ikea.com/aa/en/catalog/products/40182772

The search continues.....

Geekdom

The following is a list of all the little geeky things we've talked about including in our wedding:

- Harry Potter: invitations - Originally we talked about making our entire invitations replicas of Harry's invitation to Hogwarts, down to the presentation and wording. However, I know that my parents would prefer us to have traditional invitations, and I wanted to put magnets on the back so people can put them on the fridge, which you can really do with a folded parchment letter. So then I had the idea of just doing up Hogwarts envelopes to put our invites into (as described in my previous post).

- Star Wars: Imperial March - This was actually my idea; I've been considering it since well before we got engaged. I think it's awesome when couples have fun with the song or music that they choose to walk into their reception to. The Imperial March I think is hilarious; it's geeky and completely "inappropriate". I'm sure it's been done before, but not at any wedding I've seen.

- World of Warcraft: table names - Alan has been playing WoW for six years, and I started playing just after Christmas. We both spend at the very least a couple of hours a week running, flying and questing around the lands of Azeroth, so we thought it would be awesome to name our tables after some of the cities of this fantasy world, rather than just having boring table numbers. The shortlist of cities we've chosen are: Silvermoon, Orgrimmar, Darnassus, Lordaeron, Gilneas, Thunder Bluff, Ironforge and Exodar.

- Lord of the Rings: cake topper - We both love LOTR (me the movies, Alan the movies and books), and we thought it would be nice if we could find an Aragorn and Arwen cake topper that wasn't too tacky. We found a beautiful porcelain limited edition statue showing Arwen giving Aragorn her Evenstar pendant, but the cheapest price we saw it for was a couple of hundred Euro, so we may not be able to do this one. Failing that, we totally love this cake topper, however despite its appropriateness I don't know how Mum would feel about it! Hehe.

- Earth Angel: first dance - I commented to Alan the other night that we don't actually have "a song" that has any special meaning for us, especially not one that can be used for a first dance. We were in the car at the time, and just a few minutes later Earth Angel came on via Alan's playlist on his iPhone. "We could use this," one of us suggested, then we realised that it would tie into our geek theme beautifully, as it is the song that plays in Back to the Future when Marty's parents share that all-important kiss at the Enchantment Under The Sea dance.

While talking about this song, we then drifted off into the concept of having a card at each table place that asks the guest if they can answer a question about each of the geeky things included in our reception, and to have a guess even if they don't know the answers, because it'll be funny for us. :D We want to keep them as mementos, so we'll put a space down the bottom where people can write a message for us too if they want.

Anyway, that's our ideas so far, and to be honest I can't see us including much more as we don't want to go nuts with this sort of thing. Well, Alan does I think, but I don't, lol.

Noice

We had a brief meeting today with our functions manager Melissa. We didn't talk about anything amazingly important, just about the set up and so forth. The main reason we were there today is because there was a wedding reception set up for tonight, so we got to see things in action so to speak. Wow, it looks sooo much better, not to mention bigger, when it's decked out. Very different from the appearance generated by the conference layout a couple of weeks ago. Also this couple had a red theme, so it was nice to get an idea of what it will look like (although they had floral bouquets in tall vases as centrepieces; not something we can justify spending so much on!).

We really like the very large semi-outdoor terrace where the ceremony will be, because it gives our guests a massive area where they can mingle and chat and get a bit of freah air, or in some peoples' case, escape the noise of the band. Which is something my parents are concerned about as they hate loudness intruding in social situations.

Melissa has invited me back in two Saturdays time to see another layout, which is more appropriate for us to see as it sounds like they are doing what we want to do, i.e. have all our guests on one side of the room and use the other side for the buffet and band, and have the bridal table on the far wall rather than near the dance floor. Also, that couple in a fortnight are having their ceremony on the terrace like us, so I'll get to see that too which will be marvellous. The traffic noise out there was noticeable this afternoon, but Melissa said it's never really proven to be a problem in previous ceremonies, and that any celebrant worth their salt will come early and test microphone and music volumes and so forth.

I got my engagement ring back from Solid Gold after resizing, and it fits so much better now; I don't have to stress about it flicking off every two seconds. But now it seems to have a tiny scratch on one side in the gold which I'm pretty sure wasn't there before. Al says it's a "character mark" now, so I guess I'll have to deal. Like it's not going to get horribly scratched throughout the rest of my life! Hehe.

Tomorrow I'm experimenting with some red and gold paper for invites/stationery. I want to keep it all very simple, since only a couple of people will actually bother keeping them so it's not like they have to be amazing. However the envelopes may be a different story... just quietly (shh!), we want to personalise our wedding a little by having some references to some of the geeky things we both like. One of the things we were thinking about doing is to put the invites in envelopes that look like the Hogwarts invitation letters, i.e. parchment-y paper, wax sealed with the Hogwarts logo, name and address calligraphised in green ink by yours truly. Stamps with owls on them if possible! Lol.

The other few geeky things we're thinking of I'll let you know in the course of the planning. But we want to keep them on the low down in case my mum or someone doesn't approve. They won't be anything tacky, just a hint of fun; subtle references to things. Or not so subtle in the case of our "walking into reception" music: the Imperial March from Star Wars. I totally can't wait for that. :D

The Dress

Okay, so, the dress that I have had my eyes set on for years is a discontinued Alfred Angelo design, which is fortunately still made on the cheap by www.catchthebouquet.com.au, and several of those Chinese manufacturers. The dress is currently not listed on the Australian site however; the business owner has insisted that she can still make it for me, but due can't post it on the site as the price will not always be accurate (something about the price fluctuating on the new lace she's using).

Anyway, here's the addy for the dress on one of the Chinese websites:
http://www.beautifulweddinggowndress.com/alfred-angelo-bridal-dress-1755-96.html

I love it because it is pretty timeless, it's very different from the myriad of strapless, seen-one-seen-them-all "princess" gowns that so many girls choose, it's very "me", and it covers up my skin enough so I won't need to worry about back and shoulder pimples, etc. that I'm prone to getting.

However, I am completely open to the fact that if I do go out trying on gowns, I may fall in love with something twice the size and four times the price.

Oh, and catchthebouquet.com.au have hoop petticoats for around $40, and veils starting at $20. Bargain or what?

Here we go...

Well, I've started this blog to initially share my wedding planning with my awesome bridesmaids if they care to read it. If any other randoms choose to follow (which I doubt), hello, nice to see you and all that. :) Once the wedding is over I may use this as a blog to vent about the trials of IVF, as my wonderful FH and I will be wanting to start a family as soon as we can, and due to MFI we're going to have to take the hard road.

Anyway, that's all in the future. Right now I've got a wedding to plan, which is happening in ten months and four days on April 14th 2012. I like this date because when I was at high school, in a rather boring human biology class, my friend and I were doing silly predictions for each other, and she predicted I would get married on April 14th 2002. I wasn't even 21 by that date, and hadn't even had a serious boyfriend. But a few years down the track I did some research and discovered that the same date ten years later fell on a Saturday. So even though I was single, I earmarked it as the day of my "hypothetical wedding".

Hypothetical no longer. :)

I also like it because it's one hundred years since the night Titanic sank. A weird thing to like, I suppose, and it could set up for some lame anniversary jokes in the future. But I've always been fascinated with Titanic, and the whole poshness and manners of the people at the time I find oddly romantic.

Anyway, that was a much longer spiel about the date-choosing than I anticipated, sorry.

So onto the plans so far...

We have paid a deposit last night, courtesy of Daddy's credit card, to secure our date for a ceremony and reception at The Rydges hotel in the heart of Perth. One may ask why we chose such a generic and uninspiring place for the most significant day of our relationship so far. Well, my fiance actually suggested it as a venue because we got engaged there, in room 711, so it means more to us than some pretty-as-a-picture garden wedding in the Swan Valley or whatever. We went and viewed the reception rooms and the weatherproof terrace where our ceremony will be last week. I was a little disappointed after the pictures I'd seen online, but the function rooms were set up for a conference so it was hardly the best presentation. However, I still liked it well enough, I am just crossing my fingers that Hay St below will stay quiet during our ceremony, and I can come up with an inexpensive and simple way to decorate the area where we'll be standing... does anyone know someone who owns a couple of free-standing, wrought-iron candleabras??

I've been set on a dark, hunter green and gold colour theme for a few years now, but in the space of one night I've changed my mind, and I'm going to go with deep red/blood/wine/burgundy and gold. It's my favourite colour and probably easier to find candles etc. to match. Plus I was too concerned with my green and gold theme ending up looking like a posh Australia Day function.

So, what's been organised so far:

- Ceremony/reception: Rydges Hotel, deposit paid and date secured.
- Bridal party: FH's brother and his best friend are groomsmen, my two older female cousins are bridesmaids, and my two younger female cousins are junior bridesmaids. I haven't actually spoken to the juniors myself yet, but their dad says they'll be delighted, so I'll take that as a yes for now!
- Photographer: My wonderful uncle (the above dad of the JBMs) has very kindly agreed to snap some piccys for us.
- Band: The wonderful boys of the Wesley Goodlet Jamboree Scouts have my date pencilled in.
- Centrepiece idea (yes, let's do the important stuff first, lol): round mirrors with three different sized vases from IKEA, with two red floating candles and one gold, and some gold acrylic crystal table scatters. Simple, small, understated, and probably dwarfed by the huge ten-seater round tables, but meh. My fiance reckons decorations aren't important anyway. Plus there'll be more splashes of colour on the table with the bonbonniere bags. Which reminds me...
- Bonbonniere idea: a red paper or organza or satin bag, containing five lollies which represent each of the blessings traditionally associated with the old "five sugared almonds" thing: health (banana lolly?), wealth (choc coin), fertility (jelly baby), happiness (chuppa-chup, skittles?), and long life (gobstopper). We've also talked about getting some personalised dice made uo so that people also have a non-edible keepsake.

Anyway, I've crapped on for far too long for someone who has ten months of this stuff ahead, so if you read this far, thanks!