Pretty colours

So I'm basically inept at all this wedding planning business.
Until veeeery recently I thought a wedding theme was dressing up as Shrek, or having 'tropical' food, or making it look like the 1920s at your reception, but I've since become aware that your wedding theme are the colours.
I thought colours would be easy. I love colours. I trawl through the internet to find RGB (or HEX codes) to put into my range of desktop publishing programs to get all sorts of colours. I love it.
But picking colours for my wedding is just driving me mad!
So without further adieu, these are the colours that I have picked for mine and The Man's wedding in December:

Oyster

Cream

Fern

Ivory

Mushroom

Mulberry

It was going to have more purple, but then I decided to use shades of white.
Now I'm too far into the planning process to change the colours again, so these are how they will have to stay! And there'll probably be a bit more purple and green, but the main idea was to have mostly shades of white that wouldn't clash with the walls at the reception venue which are a pinky colour - like this:

Light salmon

And apparently just saying that my colours are cream and green and purple isn't specific enough.
LOL

Supporting Martha

I just wanted to say that I've bought my first copy of Martha Stewart Weddings because I had money to burn, and I need ideas for flowers and because I need to support Martha's various wedding related enterprises:

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That's all I wanted to say this time.

Wedding dress disaster (literally)

Ages ago (well, who am I kidding, I do it all the time) I used to search through the internet looking for funny things, and ages ago I also loved the movie Titanic, so one day I found this funny website called etiquettehell.com, which I can't access anymore, but the story I want has moved to another website: KissTheBride.com.au - where it can be found here in its entirety:

Titanic Wedding Disaster

But in a nutshell, the bride wanted her bridesmaids to wear dresses like Rose Dewitt Bukater (Kate Winslet) does in Titanic and her mother-in-law said she'd make them. The dresses looked like this:

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except she wanted them with a blue underskirt (not coral). After a while, the mother of the bride realised that it was a month before the wedding and the mother-in-law hadn't done anything towards making the dresses.
The on the wedding day with the bridesmaids, junior bridesmaid and flowergirls waiting at the church for the dresses to arrive. Apparently they did arrive, shortly before the wedding ceremony was due to start. This is what they looked like:

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Isn't it beautiful?

Dress drama

Check me out! I'm blogging from my iPhone. Only took me four years to realise there was an app to use Blogger and I didn't have to do it via Safari. I'm so clever!
*cough* hmmm.
Was half-listening to the news tonight and heard something about a wedding gown shop going into liquidation and hundreds of brides being thrown into limbo.
And guess what?
The shop was one of the shops I went to, to try on wedding gowns. I actually tried on three but none fit and made my ladies (my boobs FYI) look flat. And they are anything but flat because at the time my bub was still booby-fed and well, yeah. They were definitely not flat. And because I was so cut that I had to try on size 54 wedding gowns, I decided trying on wedding gowns was not my favourite thing to do and refused to try on another for six months.
And to think, had the assistant pandered to my ego (which I thought they were MEANT to do), I could have been in the same boat as these brides who are FREAKING out that they have no dress to wear to their weddings.

Airy fairy (lights)

Recap:
The other day I was having a stress because I didn't know how I was going to decorate a huge mega space in which I can't stick things to walls (and rightly so because it is a veeeery old building) and I threw up a few options of what I (*cough* me and the Man) can do to decorate it to make it seem less like a massive room and more interesting. And I feel better about the decoration side - I think I'll be spending all my spare dollars (and time) begging, borrowing and stealing fairy lights and I'll figure out some way to hook them up to make an effect like this:

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The above picture was on another post of mine - Decorating a huge mega space without really knowing how... - which had a lot of my decorating ideas on it BUT the original picture comes from another blog called West Aussie Wedding. I am trying to be good in crediting where I have borrowed (stolen) my pictures from.

This photo was taken outdoors. Our reception will be indoors with the windows open as I suspect that it might be a bit warm. But then again, just because its the beginning of December doesn't mean it will be summery.

But I am getting beside the point.

Today I was thinking that I was almost certainly positive that I wanted fairy lights as the main decoration. Then I realised I had no idea of the dimensions of the reception space, so I had no idea of how many fairy lights I'd need. D'oh!

So as ours is a 'destination wedding' where its not in the same town as we live in, I was wondering how in fact I'd find out this information without having to drive to the reception space with a tape measure. I spent all day racking my brains, then thought 'Ah! I'll ring the people who hire it out! Brilliant'. And so I found my rental agreement form with their phone number and rang them up and the lady on the other end said she wasn't sure. Then she said 'Oh! It's on the agreement form!' and went to get one to look at it.

Then I looked at the piece of paper in my hand.

Which had a floor plan of the hall on it COMPLETE with dimensions.

I felt a bit stupid for wasting my time wondering.

Oh well!

Decorating a huge mega space without really knowing how...

Trying to think of budget ways to decorate the wedding reception like the tables and the foyer and the actual reception space and I don't know what else. I did write it down.
Actually forget BUDGET ways to decorate - I don't know how to decorate it at all!
Because the reception space *thinks* is more than 100 years old - maybe 115... we can't stick things to the wall except for hooks that can be attached to the picture rail.
So basically I have no idea of how to decorate this enormous space.
Ideas I've had so far are:

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Tissue paper pompoms

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Geometric paper garlands

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Origami balloons

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Fairy lights

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Tulle draped from the ceiling (lighting rig)

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 String ball lights (for want of a better/proper name for it)

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Lanterns. I like lanterns. A lot.

This is just decorating the general space. I have a foyer to decorate too for when people are arriving and just hanging out having a beverage before the wedding reception begins properly. 

And the reception has to match the ceremony location (this is not something I've told must happen, it is something that my inner Bridezilla wants - sometimes I have to listen to her).

Then I have the table centrepieces to figure out, and FLOWERS ARE SO EXPENSIVE. Plus 80+ chairs to make look pretty as the current chairs at the venue are about 60 years old (no lie) and *might* be replaced before Wedding Time, and might not be. And usually people hire seat covers for them, and I don't really want to spend $300+ on having someone put a pretty sash on the chairs.

So if anyone's out there reading this blog - do you have any ideas on how to decorate a massive function space where I can't actually stick anything to the walls. 

Help? Help please?

Tutorial: How to make fabric flowers

Once upon a time I was a bridesmaid in a wedding and the bride decided that all the bridesmaids would carry bouquets just like the one you see here.
All the flowers were made of wood.
Have no idea where the bride got the flowers from, and although she told me, my baby girl was five weeks old when I was a bridesmaid and I have no idea of a lot of things that happened at the end of 2010. Even now I find a lot of toys and clothes that were given to us and have no idea where they came from.
Anyway.
In keeping with my Martha Stewart theme, and because I was quoted $210 for a bridal bouquet, I am flirting with the idea of making a bouquet of flowers out of fabric. I am thinking of doing this for a lot of reasons, such as saving money, getting the exact colour that I want, being able to keep my wedding flowers, saving money etc.
I was looking around the internet and I've found a lot of tutorials telling me how to make flowers out of any conceivable material - paper, cloth, leather, metal, cling wrap, old chip packets*, anything and everything.
So I am going to try out a few tutorials to see if the flowers that I produce actually look realistic (as this is a big factor for me) and whether they are easy to make, because while I love to craft, I also don't have enough time to spend a full day to make a single flower.
So the first tutorial that I came across was over at ehow, and it was a tutorial to make flowers that look like roses or camellias. I am a fan of both type of flower, so I had a go. I am going to copy the instructions here after I've translated into Australian-ese, but the original tutorial is here in all it's imperial glory. I've added pictures that I have taken as the original tutorial didn't have images.

How To Make Fabric Flowers

Ingredients:

scraps of fabric, scissors, thread, hand-sewing needle, button (optional), fray-check (optional)

Method:

1. Cut two 10x10cm squares of fabric, two 7.5x7.5cm squares of fabric and two 5x5cm squares of fabric.

As you can see, my squares are not 'square'. Straightness of sides will not matter.

2. Fold each square of fabric in half, then fold it in half again.

NOTE: I did not take a photo of the folded squares. However, you want the squares to be folded into a rectangle and then into a square. 

Why didn't I take a photo of this??

3. Trim the unfolded edges of the fabric into a scalloped shape. (The scallops don't have to be perfectly even to make a nice flower shape.)

The wonky sides on the squares get trimmed off here. It doesn't matter how unevern you cut the scallops (which as far as I can tell is a half circle, half square shape, the shape of a guitar pick), as petals are not all identical in nature.

4. Unfold the fabric, then cut slits between the scallops toward the center of the flower, without cutting the petals all the way apart. These slits will make it easier to fluff out the petals and make the flower more three-dimensional.

The scallop unfolded

I cut each slit to be about half the width of the narrowest part of the scallop. Not sure if it was too much or too little.

5. Place the two large flower pieces on top of each other. Pull the petals of the lower flower up through the slits between the upper petals, to make the flower petals fluffier.

Any the wiser of what it's meant to look like? Me neither. But you can see that this red shape has at least seven roundy petal bits. I angled the petals so they overlapped.

6. Repeat step 5 with the pair of medium flower petals, and the pair of small flower petals.

All of the petals paired up and ready to be assembled into a beautiful camellia/rose.

7. Stack the flower petal pairs on top of each other, with the largest petals on the bottom and the smallest petals on the top. Make sure the petal pairs are centered.

Stacked and ready to go.

8. Stitch the layers of the flower together through the center, using a few small hand stitches. Add a button to the center of the flower if you wish.

I used blue thread for contrast and used about six stitches to secure the petals together. Then I wrapped the rest of the thread around the bottom of the flower to make the petals bunch together and look more realistic.

The finished flower. I didn't add a button this time, but perhaps next time I will.

Epilogue:

I confess, this time I cut my squares the wrong size which threw the flower out of whack. Instead of two squares each of 10cm, 7.5cm and 5cm, I cut the largest at 12.5cm (5 inches), and didn't cut the smallest square as specified in the tutorial. This was due to me wanting to make this flower before going out for a walk with my housemates. If I was to do this again, I'd follow the instructions more carefully. 

I do like these flowers, and I am not intending for everyone at the wedding to go 'ZOMG! Those are not real flowers?' but I also want them to look semi-real.

So what do you think people - do these flowers look OK?

*OK, didn't find a tutorial for making flowers out of chip packets, but I am sure I could find one if I really tried hard.

I'm so crafty...

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Found this today. It made me laugh and I thought I'd share it.

It's true. Making people is a pretty crafty pursuit.

Wedding Meltdown Number 1

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So I am ten and a bit months away from the Grand Event (or Wedding of the Year - both are interchangable terms) and I've cracked the sads over three developments that have, er, developed in relation to my wedding and one that is overall. I'm going to share because they have surprisingly upset me quite a bit. Shall change the names to protect the innocent but as this blog is for me to talk about the wedding I'll talk about them here.
OK, well here goes:
1. The engagement party.
It is true that the Man and me have not organised a swanky cocktail party/buffet/twelve course degustation dinner at the Waldorf Astoria. We were going to do it in November last year but people were too busy, so now we are combining our engagement party with a housewarming so people can check out our new house, but people are not coming. So far seven people have said they'll come, and six of those are family, with my bestie from Melb... I mean, er... Brisbane confirming that she'll come. Have invited thirty people, and seven will come. Poor show. And what does this indicate for when the wedding rolls around - that people will wait for a better offer before RSVPing? Or that they won't bother coming at all? I am racking my brains to find a way to make the Wedding of the Year interesting enough to travel for. I mean, for the engagement party we COULD have hired a function centre and had 200 people there, and had it catered and all the jazz, but we didn't want to. And I (probably the Man was told too) that you don't make a fuss if you already live with your partner, and already have kids (of which we have one). We don't want presents, we just want the opportunity to celebrate with people. And as no one else has thought to throw us a party to celebrate that finally the Man proposed to me after over a year of hounding by everyone, we decided we'd do it ourselves, and even saving the travel effort of our guests by combining it with a housewarming, but so far the general consensus is a big Who Cares.
2. The Dress
This is a quick one. I asked a friend who is a dressmaker to make my dress as I can't find anything that I can try on, let alone that I like and she suggested for cost reasons that I look for my dress on the internet. She probably means well, but if I could find my dress anywhere I'd buy it, but I can't buy it.
3. Miscellaneous
Was going to have three bridesmaids, but now because of family drama I am probably having just two, and even then, I am not sure that I will have two bridesmaids by the time the wedding rolls around.
I know we are all busy but I think I have seen one of the bridesmaids only once in the last three months just because she is busy with her job, and I am busy with the Bub. I mean, the onyl way I talk to her is via Twitter, or Facebook, and even so she says she'll *probably* come to the housewarming slash engagement depending on whether her husband's made other plans. I think of all the sads I have cracked in the last few days this is the biggest sad of all. I just don't understand. When I have been a bridesmaid (once during exam time, and once shortly after the Bub was born) I tried my hardest to help out with the weddings I was involved in - but I am not getting the feeling that people want to help me and it makes me very upset.
4. The overall feeling that no one really cares
It is fair to say that The Man likes to keep things close to his chest. And because of this people have learnt not to push us for wedding details - but so far there were no details TO discuss. But at the moment there are two weddings in the family, and I think everyone has wedding overload and so when I bring up the topic of our impending nuptials, no one cares. Basically that's it. No one cares. Sad hey? If no one cares, I am so ready to pack The Man, The Bub and me up and eloping.
That's not a threat, it's a promise if the current climate of CBF continues.

Blog Repost: Vocabulary Lesson #2 - Papa (or Mama)-razzi

I found this on 'Kiss My Tulle' and it made me laugh so hard that I had to repost it here:

The Ranty Bride: Vocabulary Lesson #2 - Papa (or Mama)-razzi

Papa- or mama-razzi: relatives who think - because they have a digital camera and a Facebook page - they have been ordained to capture every single second of your wedding, resulting in photos of bridal party members and guests looking annoyed, chewing, not paying attention, or just out of focus, like this:

(sorry, Jenna - I tried to stop him)

Or, this:

(note how NOT A SINGLE PERSON is looking at the camera, or doing anything interesting, unless you think the fact that they're wearing an ugly holiday sweater un-ironically in early October interesting)

Or this gem:

(my mother *insists* she is not flicking off my father, but you be the judge)

They do this despite the fact that you're paying - handsomely, I might add - a professional photographer, and, unlike that professional who is trying to capture candid, heartfelt moments in an unobtrusive manner, the papa- and mama-razzi manage to be as obtrusive as humanely possible, including, but not limited to, preventing the bride and groom from eating, talking to their guests, or, you know, getting photographed by the REAL photographer. Additionally, the focus they devote to their photographic duties prevents them from paying attention to things like, for example, your wedding rehearsal, so they will be completely unprepared on the big day. Don't say I didn't warn you.

A la TMZ, their goal is to post BREAKING NEWS of your special day as quickly as possible, so that filter that would normally say, "Eh, maybe not this one," is overridden by their journalistic urgency, causing them to put shit like this on Facebook, captioned, "My son and daughter":

...not realizing that people (ok, me) might think it's gross when people are commenting, "Congrats, you two!!" until someone points out it's a photo of the groom's SISTER creepily clinging onto him (in velour, apparently), and not, you know, a picture of the bride and groom, as the commenters (not just me! Ha.) were expecting.

Sidenote: shout-out and thanks to all the random FB people who pointed out it was, in fact, creepy, so I didn't have to. Also the, "I think it's, 'Look, it's my widdle brother all growed up!'" comment? Not helping your cause. And it's 'beaucoup,' not 'boo coo,' for Christ's sake. That is totally unrelated but REALLY pushing my grammar button today.

Yes, it should have been a warning every time he interrupted your dance recital rehearsals to take fuzzy, poorly lit photos of you and random kids whose names you won't remember twenty years later, and good thing it was the 80s, because now? They'd probably call the cops. Or Chris Hansen.

Reality TV Wedding Goodness

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Have found the most hilarious new* TV show called Four Weddings that I watched for the first time the other night. First The Man was watching it and asked me what it was about and then I sat down and had a squiz so I could explain what was happening and now today I am frantically googling it to see what there is to know about it.
It's hilarious! All these brides who are probably lovely in the real world are snipy and horrible to each other and they criticise EVERYTHING, like one bride had her wedding in the police chapel and one of the other brides said the chapel was a bit boring (or something like that - it was not a resounding pat on the back for the bride's choice of applause for the wedding ceremony venue anyway).
Here is a picture of the boring police academy chapel. Totally average as I'm sure you'll agree. And then elsewhere in the show, one of the brides ordered scallops at the reception even though she didn't really like them and then begrudgingly admitted that they were really good.

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And way back when me and my non-engaged friends were young(er) and well before my bub was ever thought of and before I'd ever even met The Man, I used to go to my friend's place and watch Bridezillas and we'd laugh at the craaazy people on there. I have so many favourites, and again I am sure these ladies (and sometimes men) are perfectly normal, sane, rational people, but TV editing does not do them any favours. There was the chick who made about 20 cakes as centrepieces for the tables at her reception and then thy; the whiny chick from Texas who didn't like her fiance's haircut, the woman who had about 20 bridesmaids and had her wedding in a castle and who was being a princess in all definitions of the word, the man who wanted everyone to be ferried to the wedding in golfcarts for free and the wedding reception people said no. And the money they'd spend. ABSOLUTELY CRIMINAL - 'oh, my budget was $80,000 but I've gone over and now it's $110,000'. What? Where do you get that much money to spend? Where do I go to get this money? Anyway, now that friend is an old married woman and I am an old un-married woman with a baby, and so those days of Bridezilla marathons are long gone. Plus I don't have AusStar so I don't get those good TV shows.



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And the other wedding TV show that I used to love, that I also used to watch with my married lady friend on her AusStar was Engaged and Underage. This one was fascinating firstly because all the people on the show were at least 8 years younger than me and had boyfriends/girlfriends and in some cases babies. Also because it was Bridezillas with children! So much more scope for tantrum-throwing. I used to stream this on my laptop because it was so fascinating to watch. I used to pretend my zipcode was 90210. It was a fantastic show to watch because of the couples seemed so mature and other couples were... um... less so. What I DO remember from this show is that one of the couples started their own non-profit organisation To Write Love On Her Arms which I thought was pretty cool.


*Well, it's new for me at least

Cake Horror

I am petrified that my wedding will end up 'lame'. It will almost be a destination wedding, because the people from my adopted hometown who think driving 20 minutes is ridiculous won't love travelling TO ANOTHER TOWN! And the people from my actual hometown who actually are travelling 90 minutes or more just to see me and the man prance around in fancy clothes,
One of my biggest wedding related fears comes from one of my favourite blogs, Cake Wrecks. The terrible terrible cakes that appear on this blog make me realise that these cakes could happen to me. And oh, God, if I was appalled at the slap-dash effort put into icing my bub's birthday cake, I will be horrified by a wedding cake that's anything less than awesome.
And while all the Cake Wrecks were enough to strike horror into my heart, this one totally freaked me out because the person who made it hd totally no contact with the people who ordered it, then it turned up as you can see, right before the reception, also it tasted awful.
Fail. Fail. Fail!
I don't know what kind of cake we are getting, but I know it has to be awesome. I will not settle for second best.
I know, I KNOW I am a Bridezilla in the making, but at least I am up front about it.
And to further entertain you, here is a link to Wrecky Wedding Week over at Cake Wrecks. It's from last year but the horror and bad-cakemanship lives on. Specially for the people who paid good money to have these cakes made.
*Shudders*

The Wedding Planner

So the other day I was saying that I was too too cheap to hire a wedding planner, and that I was a proud Budget Savvy Bride and all that jib jab.
Then I thought about my recent big birthday party, and how too many people had a say in it, and it ended up crazy unorganised*. Even as far as certain people taking over the music and the room being too big and there not being many people.
So now I have thought about it and I think I want to pay someone to run everything, from food, to music, to things running to schedule or whatever. And I want to pay them so I can tell them exactly what I want, so that it happens the way I want, and if I doesn't happen the way I want it and I chuck a tanty, then I won't be reminded of it until the end of time.
Because, oh yes, I will be a Bridezilla. I know this for a fact.
So now I am not sure if I want a proper 'wedding co-ordinator' or just a clued-up DJ (is that what they are called these days?) who will not play a tonne of Meatloaf, or AC/DC, or Justin Bieber, or Khe Sanh (looking in the direction of my brother) just because the guests ask for it. I mean, I like all these bands and they are OK I guess, but I don't want people to remember my wedding as a Meatloaf-palooza.
Also it'd be good if someone had the job of setting up the reception the way that I want it, and not 'guess' and then I roll in after the ceremony and cut sick at people because it looks crap.
Hello, I'm a perfectionist here! I will not settle for mediocre just because someone else doesn't care about how it looks. My bub's birthday was nearly two months ago, and I asked someone to put the butter icing on her cake, and was amazed at the lack of effort put into a seemingly easy job. Totally gets on my nerves!
So what do you reckon? How do I find someone to do all this stuff for me, as the reception venue doesn't have a function manager/co-ordinator/boss? Honestly will cry if my wedding doesn't come up to my standards which aren't sky-high, but matter to me.

*I had FUN at my birthday, but I could see how we could improve things a bit.

PANIC! (nah, not really)

Let's visit my guru in wedding preparation, The Knot. They helpfully send me an email every so often with suggestions of where I should be in my wedding planning. Some of the items listed below even had alarm clocks to emphasise to me how important it is that I do them NOW!

Begin envisioning your wedding (I am imagining this being said in a calm sing-song voice, with incense in an oil burner and whale-song on in the background) --- formal hotel or friend's loft? Backyard barbecue or exotic beach?

1. Decide on a budget and hash out who's contributing.
Knot Hint: For a quick and easy way to determine a budget, use The Knot Budgeter. 
The man and I just purchased a house, and in all the thrashing out of budgets etc to pay for things like Rates, and Insurance, and Water, I sort of forgot to mention that at some point we have to pay for the wedding. Ooops. I suppose you could say that currently out wedding budget is $100 which is how much is in my bank account at the moment.
2. Make sure to insure your engagement ring.
Done! In all this arranging of Insurance business for the new house, I listed my engagement ring as a portable valuable so if someone comes and steals it I will be able to replace it (not that I want to replace it because I like the one that I have).

3. Pick your preferences for a wedding date and time, and finalize after okaying with important guests, location, or officiant.
All sorted because I decided (notice the 'I' and not 'we') that if I couldn't have a cool wedding date like 10/10/10 or 11/11/11, I would have one that repeated itself - 12/01/2012 (12012012) - cool hey? As its on the tail end of wedding season (have a mental image of brides running around the bush and people in cams shooting at them), everything seems to be available *fingers crossed*.

4. Begin interviewing wedding consultants (if you'll have one) AND / OR start asking family AND friends FOR local wedding vendor recommendations.
We aren't having a wedding consultant because to me it smacks of spending more money than we have - I aim to be a budget savvy bride and want to do as much as I can myself to save money.
Regarding asking family and friends for suggestions - all my family live far away, and I don't know anyone who have gotten married in the town where we're doing our wedding. Plus all the family have lost interest in our wedding, except for one or two of the ladies, but really - nobody seems to really care! So we have figured out stuff for ourselves.

5. Brides: It's never too early to begin thinking about your gown. Start by figuring out what style will look best on you.
I posted about dress dramas a few weeks ago. I am fairly sure that I know what sort of dress I want to have and I have lined up a friend to make it for me if she will agree to do it. All can tell you so far however is that it will not be foofy (ignore definition #1) and it will not be strapless especially because recently I went to a family dinner and my maxi-dress (gifted to me by another mummy friend) fell off revealing my nanna bra to my future brother-in-law.
Embarrassing. To. The. Max.
And I'd imagine my undies on my wedding day might be more revealing than a nanna bra so I really don't want that for myself, or for anyone else.
But if anyone has some kind of dress generator that they can direct me to so I can get some ideas of other gowns that I might like, that'd be cool too.

6. Start interviewing caterers.
I did email some caterers to ask them if they could do what we wanted for the wedding meal. We specifically want it a certain way, and are striking some opposition about it, but that is the next thing that the man and I plan to do once the moving into a new house and Christmas and New Years is over. Also a bit tricky because we are getting hitched in a smallish town, there are less options for people to cater the wedding. 
**What is it meant to be called anyway? Wedding dinner sounds too mediocre. Wedding feast sounds like people will walk in with a boar on a spit with an apple in its mouth. Wedding meal? Wedding... oh I get it. The correct word is reception.

7. Scout out reception sites.
Already done. The reception venue (the original one, not the one that the man threw in as a red herring when we visited Maldon) is A-MA-ZING. We have a tentative booking for it, and all we need to do is go and sign some paperwork to lock it in. Only problem is that we have to have a plan of how we want to set up the tables, and we can't do that until we figure out who's invited which varies between 50 and 100 people depending on the day because I have ever so many friends and relatives and workmates.
Either way, the reception venue has been decided.

8. Start looking for an officiant who suits your style and spirit.
My lovely friend Coral has agreed to* be the celebrant and has given me a fantastic discount on her services. Yeah! She lives in the Yarra Ranges so if you're looking for a celebrant for your wedding...
*I had to think of the right word here - celebrate? Coral is going to celebrate our wedding? Hmm.

9. Book your reception site as soon as you see something you love that’s available on your date.
Solvered. See point 7.

10. If you're having an engagement party, set a date, draft a guest list, and purchase your invitations.
Still not decided on whether there will BE an engagement party. How about I do a poll? Go here to my Facebook page and give me your opinion.

11. Get organized! Start a notebook/file folder to house all your wedding-planning paperwork in one place.
I do have a folder and dividers and plastic pockets and paper, but I haven't put any of it together. Maybe I should do that. Maybe I will do that once we've moved house or else I'll end up losing everything in it, or it will fall into the wrong hands and then chaos will ensue.

12. Begin working on a preliminary wedding guest list and decide on your wedding's approximate size.
Yeah that. The biggest problem so far is deciding who to invite and who to not invite. Luckily for my budget, a few of my high school friends have decided to blacklist me, so I will not be obliged to invite them to my wedding. The man has pretty firm ideas of who he wants to invite, and who he doesn't want, but then he started a new job so I expect the majority of his workmates will get a guernsey at the wedding. Which is good because I like the people he works with, but bad because the guest list is approaching triple figures again, even with the high school friends cull.

13. Request lists from both sets of parents and create your own wish list.
Not sure what sort of wish list we are going for here? I'll get back to you on that one.

14. Choose your bridesmaids/groomsmen and ask them to be in the wedding party.
I have chosen my wedding party people. The man has not. He decided one way, and then decided a different way and now who knows who he's chosen. I did point out to him he needs to give whoever it is that he picked some sort of notice that they are needed in the wedding. We'll see if he took any notice of me!

15. Hire a consultant (if you're having one) and sign a contract.
Not having a consultant because I am cheap (or budget-conscious) and proud to be that way.

16. Find a ceremony site if one hasn't been determined by your choice of officiant or reception site.
The ceremony site was the first thing we picked, and last weekend we went along to it to see what it was like at this time of year. It was awesome, and there were ducks so all will be good with the ceremony as long as we have someone standing by to catch bub as she runs after the ducks and into the water in her wedding flowergirl finery. Although, she does know how to swim - or at least not drown - so that might be a bit funny. But you didn't hear me say that.

17. Contact newspapers to announce your engagement (you may need to have an engagement photo taken as well).
Hello Bendigo Advertiser? I'm getting married....
Er, not sure if that will be neccesary... perhaps though we might try to get our wedding pictures in the Herald Sun - that'd be pretty cool after years of checking out the weddings, I, I mean, we could be in there too.

So of 17 things we are meant to have done, we've achieved 9.5 of them with a strike rate of 55%. I am guessing this is not very good?
Hmmm.

Dress talk

So a lot of people have asked me when I am going to start planning the wedding 'properly' and I said I had to get my bubba's 1st birthday out of the way.
Well, the birthday was last week, and the party was on the weekend, so now I guess I have to start organising things. Oh God!
The ceremony venue is solid, the reception place is tentatively booked and all I need to do is mosey my way on over to sign paperwork to book it properly.
What next?
Oh! I went to a bridal boutique with my mum and bubba to see what sort of dresses are out there, and it was a massive shock to the system.

Firstly, I got there and my mum and I went around looking at the different styles (mostly white strapless A-line dresses):

Big and poufy and white. So much tulle!

OK, maybe not quite that extreme. May be more like this:

So we look around the shop and see a few in the colour that I like, which is technically called 'not-white' and in a style that I call 'I won't be hitching my dress up on the day'. I go into the shop fully aware that as a larger lady I will not find a mountain of gowns that will fit me, and that I will not find a whole lot of styles that will suit me, or that I will suit. I pull out some size 16s and 18s as lately I've been hitting the gym and I have toned up a bit, so I am so sure that these dresses will fit me and I will be able to finally try on a dress.
I hang up these dresses on a rail in the shop and go and ask someone if I can go try them on as a matter of courtesy

LADY: When would you like to try the gowns on (pulls out a diary)
ME: *thinking, Are you joking*...now?
LADY: Oh, they are all at lunch, I can fit you in at 3:30pm (in an hour's time)
ME: *Huh?* But I am right here.

So after surrendering my wedding date, name and phone number we go off to Baccini & Hill to look at their stuff, and in the time I wait to try on the gowns that I picked out, I manage to try on two dresses and my mum decides that the bridemaids will look GAWJUZ in some $400 dresses. Which I agree, they would look beautiful in them, but I am not sure they want to take out a bank loan to purchase them for MY wedding. And I am not sure my wedding budget will stretch that far to buy the dresses for the girls. In fact I am not sure the wedding budget will stretch that far to buy a dress that costs that much for me. But they really were beautiful dresses.
So back to the boutique we go fpr my appointment and I go into a cavernous dressing room to try on dress #1, a size 16. It doesn't even remotely zip up due to my boobies. I am upset. Then I try on dress #2, a size 18 and it's even smaller. How does that work?
There were hardly any dresses in what I thought was my size so I don't have a very wide selection.
The assistant tells me that the size 18 dresses are more like a 12, and goes to find me the sole size 24 in the entire shop for me to try on so I can see myself as a bride.
By now I am sulky and I don't want to play any more.
I am tired of having people fiddle around with my now apparent fat rolls, and trying to cajole me into trying on gowns that will never ever fit me.
She does find a lovely dress that I like and offers it to me with a $500 discount because it's a shop sample, but it's still too small. She suggests I could lose weight before the wedding. I suggest that I get some ribs removed.
Needless to say, this was not a productive day!

Throwing wedding plans out the window

Everyone keeps telling me how once you pick the wedding reception venue and the place where the ceremony is being held, that everything else is easy peasy. We picked out these things ages ago so I thought all was good, until today. We went out for lunch to a small town about 45 minute drive for our place and even though I was totally confident that we've settled on where the wedding ceremony will be, and where the reception will be, my man thought we could scope out some other places we could go to.

This is where up until lunch time today I thought we were having the wedding ceremony:

Yeah, there is a lot of water. I might be spending part of the ceremony chasing the flowergirl out of the lake.

 And this is couple of shots where the reception was going to be:

Inside: It won't have this sort of table decorations - it might not even have round tables at all. Haven't decided yet.

Outside: It is a huge building.

Here are some of the alternatives that we saw on our walk after lunch. My man has been sick and I made him push the baby in her pram and he got a bit puffed out. Ooops.

He was trying to sell this to me because it had a gun in the middle of the gardens. It was very tempting.

Right in the middle of town. I liked the old church-y hall...

This also had a proper church hall.