One Week To Go!

Wow. I really can't believe it's almost here. I'm such a mix of excitement and panic that my emotions are like a rollercoaster ride.

This time next Sunday I'll be married. I'll be someone's wife. I can't wait for it to come, and at the same time I'm nervous. It's hard to pin point exactly why I feel this way. It could be because I feel nervous when making any big change in my life, and as far as life-changing decisions, this is a huge one!

I am so excited though for this new adventure and chapter in our lives together. I really can't wait until the day is here and we are husband and wife.

Alec's ring arrived - I just love it. It's platinum and has some gorgeous facets in it.

My mum and I stayed up late on Xmas eve making the programs. They took foreeeeeever. I really hope people actually read them and like them after all the effort!

 

 

My Bridal Shower & Hens Day

My dear friends Shelley and Rosalie threw me a fabulous bridal shower / hens day on Saturday.

We started with high tea at 3pm at the Park Hyatt in The Rocks. We were given a private room overlooking the water, so we had plenty of space to wander around, and it was quiet so we could chat.

The girls put together an amazing recipe book for me with their favourite vegetarian / dessert recipes and a pic of the two of us. It was so sweet and thoughtful.

After the high tea we kicked on with cocktails at the Blu Horizon Bar, at the Shangri-La Hotel.  The girls shouted me numerous cocktails while we sat first in the genie room, and then in lounges overlooking the amazing city view.

Beck and I finished getting ready at her place and caught a cab into the city.

With the youngest party-goer, Chiara. She's a wild one.

 

Group shot with most of the girls.

 

With Ro - organiser and book-maker extraordinaire!

 

Partying on into the night with the new Mrs Johnston.

 

With my mum and her friends, enjoying their high tea.

 

I was initially uncertain about having a hens party. The thought of having all of the focus on me is actually quite frightening. I feel a lot of pressure to make sure everyone has a good time and find it hard to just enjoy myself. This time, however, it was a lot of fun, with everyone just so happy for me and looking at me with so much love all day. It was wonderful to be around the women who are closest to me for a day of eating, drinking and much talking. Thanks to all my wonderful ladies who are always there for me.

Pre-wedding Photos with the Dogs

Somehow I managed to get Alec to agree to a pre-wedding shoot with the dogs. I was super-keen to get some really nice photos of our little family as I have few if any that are really nice quality, and the pooches can't be involved in our wedding at all.

We met our wonderful photographer, Vincent Lai, at Bicentennial Park for an hour of pooch fun.

I just love the photos - here is a small selection of my faves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Guest Box

I'm not a fan of traditional guest books, so I've ordered one of these from Just Wright Boutique on Etsy.

Parasols!

I'm concerned about the wedding day being super-hot, so I bought three of these parasols from Pink Frosting for me and the girls to use. I think they'll look gorgeous in the photos if nothing else, plus keep us from getting burned if we are out in the sun for an extended period.

 

3 Weeks To Go!

Now I'm counting down in days till the wedding (21!!), it's getting really close and making me a bit highly-strung. Not panicky, but just aware of how much I still have left to do. With Christmas just around the corner, it really puts on the pressure to finish everything quickly. What's getting really tough is I have a similar situation at work with things going a bit nuts pre-Christmas, so my biggest challenge is balancing work and wedding planning. Trying to care about work with my wedding just three weeks away is proving completely impossible.

We had a wonderful wedding tasting lunch yesterday which made me realise that the main things are taken care of, and even if I don't get to the rest of the things on our list, it will still be a fabulous day.

We have our engagement photos being taken on Tuesday with the wuffs - I'm so excited about that as I have very few good photos with us and the girls in them. If they can't be in our wedding, they can be present through beautiful photographs.

Wedding Tasting Lunch

Yesterday we had our tasting lunch at the Gunners' Barracks. They served Alec and Lisa the two alternate regular meals plus served me the vegetarian meals I selected.

They had a table set up waiting for us - with wine tasting notes ready for us to begin sampling. Five glasses of wine later, you can bet we were more than a little tipsy.

Super-exciting seeing our names on the wine-tasting menu.

Cheers to us!

 

It was such a beautiful day - gorgeous weather and company. Fingers crossed it's exactly like this on our day in three weeks.

 

Outside the venue. Last time we will be here before we get married!

 

Stunning day!

 

Thank you Lisa for coming with us :)

 

Could you get a better view or day than this anywhere? I totally <3 Sydney.

 

Being there made it all suddenly real and exciting. Both Alec and I were so psyched for our day to hurry up and come! Amazing venue, location, view, food and wine. Add fabulous company and you can't ask for anything else to make a perfect day.

Personalised Stickers

I designed these custom-made sticker seals at zazzle.com.au to seal envelopes.

Wedding Ring

I ordered my ring online from Tiffany & Co so it matches my engagement ring. My brother has picked it up and will deliver it to us just before the wedding. Fingers crossed it fits!

Penguin Cake Toppers

I bought these randomly from Etsy ... not entirely sure where I'm going to put them!

One Month To Go!

I woke up today, looked at the date, and realised it's exactly one month until the big day.

I'm so excited and happy ... and strangely relaxed! Although I will possibly get more stressed as it gets closer to the day, so far I'm in a great state of bridal zen. Everything is under control, the major things are done, so I can finally enjoy just being engaged!

I haven't reflected much about what it means to me to get married. Mostly because I haven't thought about it much at all. I can't see how I would feel any different. I already feel secure in our relationship and our feelings towards each other. I know we have the same life goals and are committed to each other. I can't describe why I'm so excited ... and I am really looking forward to everything that's going to happen and change with this day.

I'm looking forward to Alec being my husband. I'm looking forward to being his wife. I'm looking forward to the day after the wedding when we wake up, married, and get to spend a few days together relaxing on the beach before coming back to reality. I'm also looking forward to us becoming parents, as super-scary as that is. I really can't believe I just said that - I always thought I would be the least-likely person to have kids! I guess it just took a while to find the right person to bring out those feelings in me.

Anyway, here's hoping my zen state lasts the next month, and I don't turn the bridezilla below as the day gets closer and my stress levels rise!

Fans To Beat The Heat

After the recent Sydney heatwave I ordered a batch of these cute fans from Weddingstar to keep guests cool if we have a scorcher day. I love the stickers that can be personalised with our names too!

 

 

Food, Glorious Food

Something I've been struggling with this week is what to serve people to eat. I've been a committed vegetarian for over two years now, and was off most meat for years before that. I feel very strongly about the ethics of eating meat and have been really struggling with the thought of serving meat to 80-odd people at our wedding.

So why don't we just serve vegetarian food to everyone?

Two reasons:

1. There will only be one other vegetarian present and a lot of the carnivores are bound to complain.
2. The venue doesn't do great vegetarian food. The suggested menu they sent me to choose vege selections from is really uninspiring and for the cost per head we are paying for this venue, the thought of serving everyone really boring food they're not going to enjoy seems to me to be a total waste of money. This is actually the most important point for me, as we're paying a TON of money to have our wedding at our venue.

Even though I feel like the choice is made because of the points above, I'm not sitting well with it. I really dreamed of having a cruelty-free wedding with no animals being sacrificed to celebrate the day.

2 Months Till We Get Married!

I'm both excited and freaked out to realise I only have eight weeks exactly, today, to finish planning the wedding. I'm even more exciting that in exactly eight weeks Alec and I will be married. I'm excited about that thought more than anything else.

On the organisational side, I'm pretty pretty prepared.

Here is what I've got left to do:

• Lock in flowers for table decorations (have a trial this Sat)
• Lock in final menu and wine (have testing booked in)
• Place cards (waiting on RSVPs)
• Order of ceremony - design and print
• Menus - design and print
• Table place settings sign - design and print
• Table numbers - photograph, design and print - also buy stands or frames
• Table seating arrangements - waiting on RSVPs
• Buy jewellery - hair etc
• Buy gifts for bridesmaids
• Order ring (waiting for exchange rate to go back up)
• Choose string music
• Finalise ceremony & vows
• Choose ipod music
• Borrow guitar

When I write it down it still seems like a lot to do! *Panics!*

Wedding Lessons

Since becoming engaged three months ago, it's been a huge rollercoaster ride of joy, stress and chaos.

Something that has made the whole experience really enjoyable for me is the overwhelming feeling of love I've felt from friends and family who have really stepped up to help me plan this big day.

Some have been completely unexpected and have overwhelmed me with how much they really care about both me and Alec, and others have just confirmed what I always knew - that I am so lucky to be surrounded by some of the most amazing people I could ever hope to have in my life.

Big thank yous to come later on with photos :)

Wedding Invitations - Finally Done!

The wedding invites ended up a much bigger drama and effort than I had imagined. After hearing how much it would cost to have them professionally done, Alec and decided to cut costs by doing them ourselves.

We enlisted the help of a dear friend from work, Fadhila, who volunteered to design them for us. She created the cutest design with a tulip and frog to represent us, and Alec and I did the rest. A huge thank you to Fadhila for her time and talent. She's so creative and an amazing friend!

Neither of us has much experience at invitations like this, so what we thought would be super easy and take one weekend, ended up taking four weekends in a row and a trip to the printers when we gave up on printing the envelopes.

Lesson learned - yes we saved a lot of money, and yes they are personal and represent us. But wow, what a huge hassle and stress. If I had it to do over would I pay to have them done from scratch - I'm still not sure!

Alec gets down with the guillotine

First stage done - ready to be mounted on green card

Wedding packages complete - ready for envelopes!

Hair Trial

Had my hair trial today with the lovely Simona Janek. Completely happy with my hair - loved how the curls dropped throughout the day to look natural and wavy.

Wedding Dress Fitting

Had my first dress fitting! The dress is about 70% done - and it's just perfect :) I'm so excited to wear it and just so sad I'll only get to wear it once.

Musicians

I booked my musicians today also - a very productive day. Sydney Ensemble were recommended by our celebrant, and I was most impressed with their demos online, as well as their professional site. We are hiring a string trio for the ceremony part of the day. No idea what we will have them play yet though!

Videographer

Alec and I tossed up having a videographer for a while, and polled our married friends on whether or not they had a videographer, and if they did, if they thought it was a good investment. For my part, 100% of friends who had the video created were extremely glad that they did, and hearing their reasons why really talked me into having the video.

My photographer recommended a videographer he works with frequently, Troy from Encore Media. After checking out his videos online, we met him today in Hornsby. We were most impressed by his working style and laid back attitude, so we booked him on the spot. Yay!

Florist Appointment

I made Alec visit a florist with me, the lovely Katrina of Petals and Leaves at Smithfield.

I got a great vibe from Katrina, but poor Alec really doesn't care about flowers, so to make it up to him we stopped by Krispy Kreme afterwards for coffee and donuts to revive him.