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!