The groom has seen the dress *gasp*…

I am so fed-up of people saying ‘it’s your wedding, do what you want’ and then giving us looks when they find out what we are doing. Sometimes I just want to yell at them a little. But I don’t. Maybe I’ll just go all passive aggressive with the non-married ones and give them ‘oh, you can’t seriously be doing that looks’ when their turn comes around. Seriously though, there’s only so much judgement I can take before I start thinking that maybe we are doing this all wrong.

In particular, I get sick and tired of the looks people give us when they ask or realise that Justin knows what my wedding dress will look like. He helped me pick out the pattern for it. He went fabric shopping me. He pinned me into the mock-up and took photos for me. He pinned me into the lining when we did a fitting for it. Hell, he even helped pin some of the lining to the interfacing. I’m sure there will be many more times he will be involved in the making of the dress too.

I just don’t understand what is so wrong with all of this. I get why the groom usually wouldn’t see the dress, but at the same time I don’t get why people can’t be open minded enough to at least consider the way we are doing things before passing judgement.

We were talking about it the other night, and we both think it’s more fun that we are both involved. It is fun going over to his Mum’s house and lend a hand where we can. We also feel that it even makes it a bit more special that he has been helping out with it.

Am I the only one that thinks that this whole groom seeing the dress thing isn’t the biggest no-no in the world of weddings?

How to get people involved?

As I mentioned in my last post, we would love to have as many of our friends and family involved in the wedding on the day as we can. We think that way it just makes the day so much more personal and special. We just don’t know how to ask.

I know that if someone asked me if I wanted to help out with their wedding I would be delighted. I don’t want to assume that everyone else would be as delighted as I would to help out though. I know we can say “If you are interested in helping out with our wedding…”, but I think 90% of people would say yes even if they didn’t actually want to help out, and that’s not the idea of getting people involved.

We came straight out and asked our Dad’s if they would drive the cars and asked the best man if he would MC. Our best man thought about it for a few days before giving us a response, which I’m very happy about because I now know he’s not just doing it out of obligation, it’s something he decided he wanted to do. I just don’t think that everyone would do that if we straight out asked them though.

How would you get/have you got people involved?

What we want our wedding day to be…

Over the weekend we filled in a questionnaire for our photographer. One of the questions was regarding what we wanted out of our wedding day and what we were doing to make our wedding special to us. I thought that I might share with you what we wrote because I have realised that I have got so caught up in the details that I have never shared our overall ‘vision’. (Not that we have much vision.)

"The aim of our wedding, other than to get married of course, is to celebrate our love and our marriage with our family and friends. To us a celebration should be fun and this is what we want for our wedding. We really just want people to come along and have a really good time. If everyone isn’t up and dancing at the reception, whether they know how to or not, we will be very disappointed! It’s going to be a fairly intimate wedding with only about 50 people at the reception -we aren’t the type of people that have 200 close friends.

Our wedding will be a fairly casual affair. The ceremony will take place in a garden, Amy will wear a ¾ length dress (it’s easier to dance in!) and Justin will be going for the suit jacket unbuttoned, no tie look. We haven’t written our ceremony yet, but it will probably be a fairly simple ceremony. We aren’t the most romantic people, least of all in front of a crowd, so we won’t be writing our own vows or anything like that. We have already picked out some our ceremony music. We have picked songs that we love, not traditional weddingy songs. Hopefully this will add to the fun of that day. Either that or it will give the parents and grandparents a heart attack.

We want our family and friends to be involved in our wedding where possible. We think that this makes it so much more personal and special. Justin’s Mum is making Amy’s dress, our Dad’s will be driving our wedding cars (if we can sort out hiring cars) and the best man will be MC at the reception. Hopefully we can get more people involved along the way.

To give you an idea of the way we want to make our wedding special to us, we’ve decided that the traditional guest book just doesn’t suit our style. Amy reads a lot of blogs and has found a lot about photo booths. We have decided we’d like to set one up, with our camera on a tripod, a simple backdrop and lots of props and blackboards so that people can have fun posing and at the same time leave their own personalised message to us. This will be our guest book. We’ve also got a digital photo frame so throughout the night we can load the photos from the camera onto the frame. That way people can see what others have done and also we can keep the frame afterwards to be our guestbook. We can see the messages people wrote every day, instead of only every 10 years when we think to drag out the guest book.

At the start, we mentioned that we wanted to celebrate with our family and friends. This is also one of the reasons that we have chosen to do a first look. You can’t celebrate with everyone if you are too busy off getting photos taken!"

This also seems like a semi-appropriate time to share a photo of us. I decided that if I was going to post a picture of us on the internet, I may as well make it a terrible one. So here we are, during the making of our save the dates, in all our weird glory (obviously this isn't the photo we used on the save the dates);

The Wedding Party Bus (aka Amy is going insane)

There are still 2 things left I need to post about under “A Weekend of Achievement” but I need to pause from that for a second and throw this post in because I AM GOING INSANE! Wedding cars are killing us.

Ages ago we got heap of quotes for wedding cars. We almost died when we saw the cost of them. Because we are doing a first look and also need transport between the ceremony and the reception, in total we need cars for 4.5 hours… which is expensive.

The solution we had was that we were going to book two Audi A4’s from Europcar. The Dad’s were going to drive them and then we were going to use our ‘contacts’ to try and leave them at a house up by the reception so that the Dad’s could drink. We were going to catch a taxi home and go back the next morning and pick them up. Perfect right? I wish.

So today I called up Europcar to ask a few questions before booking. The lady said straight up that she wouldn’t recommend booking through them for a wedding. She said in one instance there was couple that booked an Audi for their wedding and something happened (I think maybe someone crashed it the week before) and they ended up getting downgraded to a yellow Hyundai Getz because that was the only car available. There are also logistical issues. For starters the A4 is a ‘prestige’ vehicle so the driver needs TWO credit cards in their name to book it. I’m not sure about Justin’s parents, but I’m 99% sure that my parents only have one credit card. I asked if ours could be the second credit card and she said no, it had to be the driver. Next I asked about additional drivers. If we were to be additional drivers would be need to be there at the time of rental? The answer was a big fat yes. We can’t do it the day before or anything. That is an issue because I can not be at Europcar and at my house with the hairdresser at the same time. We could hire them for 2 days but that is starting to get expensive.

So with Europcar ruled out I started thinking of other ideas. Basically the only ones that I think are feasible are either;

• Use our own cars (we don’t know anyone with awesome cars)
• Hire a mini bus. Kinda like a limo… but lamer and cheaper.

So far in my mind the last option is winning. We could crank up some sweet tunes to get in the party mood and call it ‘The Wedding Party Bus’ (get it… it’d be like a party bus, but it would transport the bridal party too).Okay, I have officially gone insane. HELP! Any ideas/thoughts would be appreciated.

Rediscovering the Library

Back in my uni days I wouldn’t have dreamt of buying a book (other than textbooks). If I wanted something to read I went up to my local library and borrowed what I wanted. Once I joined the walks of the employed, I began to buy books rather than borrow them. There’s something nice about reading a nice, crisp clean book - plus I do love the look of a nice full bookshelf. The catch is that buying books, especially non-fiction books, can be quite expensive.

The other day I decided that I wanted a book on bread making. As we are trying to cut costs at the moment, rather than running straight to the bookshop, I thought I might try the local library. My oh my, did I find some treats at the library. I have never noticed before, but not only does the library have books but they have CDs and magazines (amongst other things).

We have pretty much decided that one our wedding invites we will ask guests to choose a song or two that they would like to hear. I have often wondered though what the older people will pick and how much it’s going to cost us to download high quality versions of all of the songs that we don’t have (this is something that we haven’t budgeted for). Now I know that our first port of call will be the local library. They even have an online catalogue so I can search for what I’m after from the comfort of my own home!

I beg of you, before you spend money on wedding books, magazines or CDs, dust of your library card and see what your local library has to offer. Free stuff is the best kind of bargain (plus you give it back once you’re done so it doesn’t end up at the tip or cluttering up your house)!

PS. I only really mentioned CDs in this, but our library has hundreds of books on weddings – more than I imagine that any non-online bookstore would ever have.

Six Months – Eeek!

Holy fudge balls. I will have a husband in exactly six months!

I’m excited about this…. until I look at the to-do list. According to Easy Weddings, we are 8 to-do items behind where we should be at this point. Doesn’t sound that bad right? Wrong – we have only checked off 23 items apparently and counting quickly how many are left on the list I think we have around 85 more things to do.

Six months out and we still have big things left to do that need doing ASAP like; book a cake lady, book a florist, buy/book grooms outfit, book/buy groomsmen outfits, find and buy bridesmaids dresses, find and buy me shoes, book cars… ARGH!

Then there are all the other bits like deciding on the invitation design, making invitations, putting our ceremony together, making centrepieces, finding a cake topper, finding hair accessories… the list goes on forever.

I’m sure it will all come together but I think we need a big burst of progress soon!

PS. I apologise for my lack of blogging of late, and my lack of reading/commenting on others blogs. I’m having an ‘I don’t want to plan a stupid wedding’ few weeks. I’m sure in another week or so all of my enthusiasm will be back and I’ll be blogging like crazy again.

A Wise Man Once Said

There is something wrong with me. Whenever I try and think of love quotes/poems that could be incorporated into our wedding I think of the most ridiculous sources... today it's Dr. Seuss:

“You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”

And because one Dr. Seuss quote just isn't enough:

“Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive that is youer than you.”

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”

“Congratulations! Today is your day. You’re off to great places! You’re off and away! You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself Any direction you choose."

“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living. It’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope, which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.”

“So the writer who breeds more words than he needs is making a chore for the reader who reads.”

Not that I'm a writer, but on that note, I shall finish here.

Give it up for Dr. Seuss!

My fiancé: The pseudo-personal trainer.

I’ve been trying to lose weight for a while now and have been reasonably successful. I’m down 7.5kgs since July last year. I’ve probably lost a bit more than that overall though because I wouldn’t go near a set of scales for the first month or two of weight loss.

From the start of November until the end of March I got stuck on a stupid weight plateau. No matter what I did, my weight would no longer budge. I seem to be off the plateau but I haven’t really seen any real results the last month because we have been super busy and haven’t been exercising all that much.

Anyhow, my lovely husband-to-be cut me a deal. The deal started on Monday and goes for the next two weeks - I have to do whatever exercise he says, but so I’m not exhausted (sometimes it seems like all I do is go to work, run errands, go to the gym, cook dinner, eat dinner and then go to bed), he’s going to do all the cooking for that time. I think this is so sweet because he does all this exercise with me so he has the same lack of free time situation as me. Luckiest girl alive!

Fingers crossed it pays off and some more of that awful fat falls off over the next few weeks!

Etiquette Shmetiquette

How many people these days still follow ‘proper’ wedding etiquette? I know we’ve given it the finger in terms of inviting people. I believe how it’s meant to go is that you invite the same people to the engagement party, ceremony and reception.

Throwing etiquette out the window started when we were writing up the engagement party invite list. We made a list of everyone we wanted to invite, which was more people than we knew we’d be able to afford to have at the reception. The ‘correct’ thing to do would have been to cull the list down to those who would be invited to the reception, but that seemed a bit stupid to us. We had written those people on the list for a reason – because we wanted to celebrate with them. We decided to have a BBQ for our engagement party so that it meant that we could invite everyone we wanted.

Naturally, we also want all of these people to celebrate our wedding with us - so they will all be getting an invite to the ceremony. We are going to have to limit our reception to about 50-60 people because we can’t afford to have one of these receptions with heaps of people, so not everyone is going to get an invite.

We have been invited to the ceremony only of a wedding before. I think it was great that they were able to have as many people as they wanted celebrate with them without breaking the bank. I never expected to be invited to the wedding so I was really excited that I actually still got to witness their marriage and celebrate it with them a little.

I’m still a little worried though that someone might get offended. I just hope that people think about it for a minute and realise that, if for instance they receive an invite to the ceremony only, it’s not that we don’t like them, it’s because it was the option that we took to ensure that we could celebrate with as many of those that we love as possible!

Lessons from the World of Amy-zilla #1

Planning your wedding should be a fun time. However, I do sometimes find myself getting a bit stressed out over things, which really isn’t how I want it to be. I wanted to share my first ‘lesson learnt’ for two reasons. Firstly, I figure if I share it someone out there might read it and not make the same mistake, and secondly I’m hoping that putting it in writing will mean that I won’t make the same mistake myself again!
This lesson starts with Michelle Roth’s ‘Maya’ dress, the most fantastic wedding dress in the world. My future mother in law is making my wedding dress so lately (lately being the last couple of months) I have been searching for white on white polka dot organza with coin sized dots so I can have my dream dress. It started off with me popping into a few fabric stores with no luck. Next I scoured the internet with no luck. At this point I think it became a bit of an obsession and I either looked in or called any fabric shop I could think of in Perth. When this failed, I started looking at ways of making my own (screen printing, transfers, embroidery e.t.c). Meanwhile my future sister in law, who lives in Sydney, was looking for me over there. She sent me a few samples, one of which was exactly what I wanted…. but in yellow. I called up where she had got it from to try and get it in white. They called the manufacturer and sadly the answer was ‘we’ve stopped manufacturing that and white and ivory were the first colours to sell out’. I think this made me even more obsessed because I knew that it kind of existed somewhere out there. I scoured the internet some more and called around some fabric shops in Melbourne, once more with no luck. I was getting so frustrated that I couldn’t find it.
This Saturday I went shopping with my future mother in law to get the rest of the material for the dress. I took my sample with me (even though I’d already been to this particular shop twice and asked them about it), just in case. The lady in the shop suggested a tulle they had with tincey wincey dots on it. At first I declared that tulle was too stiff, the dots weren’t right etc. As I talked to her, I realised that the tulle probably wouldn’t be too stiff given the structure of my dress and when she held it up to me with the white satin underneath I realised that while it wasn’t the funky dress that I had been dreaming of, it was still going to be an awesome funky dress. I bought the tulle and I just feel like such a massive weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I’m back to being excited now and am ready to start looking at other aspects of the wedding (which also will hopefully mean it won’t be another week before I update this blog again). I still would love to find my polka dot organza and I will keep an eye out because I still have time as that will be one of the last parts of the dress to get made. I know now though that I will be much happier if I just casually look but keep in mind that my dress will look great with or without that polka dot organza.
Moral of the story: It’s great to have an idea in your mind of what you would like, but having very specific things in mind will take over your life and not make you happy! It seems so obvious now I’m writing it down but it can be very easy to get caught up in details and forget the bigger picture. With that in mind, from now on I will try to make sure that my ‘inspirations’ are stepping stones pointing me in the direction of what I want for my own wedding, not must haves. After all, our wedding day is meant to be fun and a celebration with our friends and family and I really don’t think that the wrong kind of polka dots have the power to ruin that!

The tulle that I got.

What I wanted (but in white).

Why does makeup stress me out so much?

I think I have been to the website of every makeup artist in Perth at least twice. I check their portfolio, I google the death out of them in the hope of finding a comment on a forum about them, I pick one of them and contact them only to find that they are booked for my day and then I start the entire process over again. This has been going on for months. About two weeks ago I told myself to stop being stupid, emailed a couple, found them to be free, picked one and added 'book trial with makeup lady' to my to-do list.

Today I get home, take a deep breath, dial the first couple of digits of her phone number... then hang up and start googling again.
What on earth is wrong with me?!?!
I finally forced myself to dial the number and have booked a trial in for the 20th of this month. I don't know why, but I am still freaking out and nervous. It's just a trial for crying out loud!

Has anyone else had this sort of indecisiveness about something so stupid?

I will leave you now with the 'cover picture' off the website of the lady who I will be having my trial with (Elsie Makeup Artistry). I really like the picture (even though it's probably been photoshopped like crazy) and looking at it is helping to calm me down a little.

Wish me luck!

My Terrible Realisation

I have just come to a dreadful realisation – I don’t think I can wear a veil for the wedding :’(

My dress is being made by my soon to be mother in law and is inspired by the very beautiful ‘Maya’ wedding dress pictured below. I’m hoping also to team this with a yellow bow around my waist and yellow shoes.



The thing is I just don’t know if I could pull off a veil with this dress which has me a little heart-broken because since we started planning I’ve always just assumed I’d have a lovely flowing veil.

I guess on the upside though I’ll get to wear a funky polka dot dress – I think that wins over a veil any day!