DILEMMA

I really want to choose bridesmaid dresses but it's really hard when you have one in another state and one in another country.

I really really really want to do mix and match dresses. I want them all to be elegant and rustic / romantic blush pink or neutral colours but I can't possibly do that without seeing the dresses on the girls can I?

I really would love it to go like this:

Eliza -

Kat:

Hayleigh:

I REALLY want to do this BUT howwwwwwwwwww???????? Eeeeeppppp :( 

Everything will be fine...

When I look like this...

Ideasssss

Ok so I've been thinking a lot about the venue and set up lately. Seeing as we have a paddock I want to try and make our wedding rustic, romantic and a festival feel of love.

I also am trying really hard to find songs for the wedding. There a few that stand out but I don't know. There is this song that I really like it's 'She's got you high' by Mumm-ra

and I can imagine it as a bit of a build up but now I also have the idea of wanting to add suspense of my arrive like I want to put up like cream lace sheets sort of like curtains to 'hide' me as such before I make a grand entrance and that right moment of the song (or whatever song I choose) I think it'd be really cute.

I hope the idea pans out haha.

Our Venue Hunt & New Catering Update

Ok so this weekend TB and I went down to Marg River and our sole mission was to find a wedding venue. We had a lovely meal at the Settlers Tavern down there that has the best food ever and we went to our hotel room - dodgy, very poor taste but it was only for one night... the heater didn't work lol. It was terrible. So due to the terrible nature of our room and poor tv channels TB and I bought a $4 board game (a rip off of connect 4) and played that for a while.

Also here are two photos of my ring. I love it. It's perfect for me. 

I love it. But I love zee boy more. 

Anywho, we woke up and got ready I wore TB scarf from London and took photos of us in the shadows from the late winter sun...

My shadow is the frumpiest... anywayyyyyyyyy and then we made our grand adventure to Casa Del Franco or should I sayyyy Casa-del-shithole? 

Definitely nothing like the website and we were told we could check it out but there were guests staying there, soooo awkward. 

We then had a mini breakdown (me freaking out ) as TB absentmindedly said 'nah it doesn't look too bad hey?' - UM NO TB! Yes so after that we went past Gilgara and I have to say it looked 100 times better than at the start of the year all of the lawns were perfectly green and lush but it it still wasn't a location that I wanted for 'our special day' so then we went on to look at Erravilla.

It is perfect! It's exactly what we had envisioned! 

It's perfect it is affordable and on a great property, we can have a bush wedding ceremony and then have everyone in the paddock or back field for the reception! So exciting! 

www.erravilla.com

Anyway so that was a huge relief off of our shoulders (or mine) and then I got so excited as per previous entry about the food and stuff like that. So today I had the day off to do wedding stuff... until of course the universe started to hate on me again and ruined my day. My day plans were - relax, sleep in, call caterers and then discuss with TB all options, then do further wedding research, clean the house, make a great dinner and see a friend or continue to relax. Of course my day turned out like this, shocking nights sleep, up and down about 3 times, slept in until 9am, called two of my front running caterers found out that they don't travel to our location, cried, sulked, hated on weddings, wanted to punch an idiot in the face, spoke to the future mother in law who tried to make things better, watched tv, sulked, showered, washed my hair, bought a banana milk shake, posted some ebay items, paid some bills, cleaned kitchens while sulking, washed clothes, sulked, went back to bed sulked, hung out washing, spoke to Mother in law again and found out the price of our budget already 5k over, facepalmed myself and decided f it, it's just food, you're getting a spitroast buffet, you don't like it, then starve. Sulked a bit more, laughed with the M-I-L about everyone having a roast (wow so fancy), sulked, got over it, went back to bed, and now here I am. 

What.an.eventful.day.not.worth.an.annual.leave.day.at.all.

In other news 

I EFFING LOVE THIS SONGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG. 

It's from 500 days of summer and when TB and I were in Paris our contiki leader played it and he played it again the next day when I asked him too and he's someone that didn't do requests but he did it. Ohhh Pari - City of Love, city of cobblestone streets and black nigerian men that I rip off to buy metal Eiffel Towers, how I miss you! 

Que tu m'aimais encore, me l'a-t-on vraiment dit...

Que tu m'aimais encore, serait-ce possible alors ?

Ok I lied.

Ok I will do a little post tonight about wedding stuff:

THE FOOD.
Ok I love food, I am a binge eater without reason. I love to eat bad, unhealthy food and i'm not really into healthy alternatives. I am overweight (I am 'planning' on changing that) and I want our wedding to have great food. However, if you want great food at a wedding it will cost you.
I never ever, ever wanted a buffet at my wedding I was always 100% on having a set sit down menu... that was until I saw the price. Most places are $75+ for guests per menu. It's just not realistic for people on a budget.

I have narrowed it to either Buffet or Cocktail food.

I have actually really enjoyed looking around at different packages to see what is on offer so here are the ones i've found all the costs are estimated to feed about 140 guests.

In order of what I am liking (due to budget) favourite to least favourite.

1. Spit roast buffet - $1673

Includes - two hot meats, jacket potato, bread and butter mini rolls, coleslaw, potato salad, garden salad, rice salad and pasta salad.

2. Set Menu (Cheapest one i've found!! @28.00 pp - too good to be true??) total $3920.00
Includes - soup (pumpkin, potato and leek or minestone) main beef, lamb or pork dessert pavola, apple struddle or creme caramel.

3. Cocktail - Various menus
Starter pack - each person gets 5 pieces of food - $1050
Classic pack - 9 pieces of food - $1400
Premium pack - 10 pieces - $1750
Deluxe pack - $2100
Banquet Pack - $2520

GOURMET COCKTAIL FOOD (Has wicked looking mini hamburgers hehe)
6 items of food per guest $2100
8 items $2660
10 items $3080
12 items $3500
15 items $4200

4. BBQ Buffet style Standard $2800
includes - beef burgers with salad and fresh rolls, vegetarian burgers, beef and pork sausages and chicken kebabs.

Premium $3500
Beef burgers, vege burgers, beef sausages, satay chicken kebabs and chicken wings.

Gourmet - $4200
cocktail prawns, chicken wings, lamb cutlets, barramundi skewers, porterhouse steak, kebabs, scallops.

5. Another cocktail menu by another company that I really like the sound of (hate the price)
9 Fancy Items of food, 3 staff and 3 chefs - $7225.00
Includes: Prawns and peanut and hoisin dip.
haloumi & zucchini fritters with tomato and red pepper relish
Beef skewers with rosemary and garlic aoili
bbq venison chipalata dogs with spicy organic relish
porchini mushroom and goats cheese risotto balls
prawn paella balls with smoky praprikka and lemon aoili
beef burgers with mizuna and onion jam
organic linguine with tiger prawns chilli, lemon and rocket pesto
sweet platter with rocky roaad, coconut cake, cranberry pistachio nougat
and
lemon curd and vanilla cream tartlets.

6. Then another company which does platters ranging in prices - 40 platters - $3600

So those are currently our options.
 1, 2 and 5 are my current favourites.

I like 1 because of it's price, there are normal food that majority of the guests will like and if we spend less on the food it means I can get the white wooden gladiator chairs that I like that cost more. I like 2 because for a set menu it's the cheapest I have found and would still make me feel like we were getting what i've originally really wanted and i like 5 because everything sounds like it would be very fancy and 'up market' can't afford it all though.

Blerg

Ok so I know i've been the most slack ever with blogging BUT I have tomorrow off work!!! Soooo effing happy!!! So I will do a proper blog with pictures and venue information and more information on what i've been doing. Right now I have a massive headache and I ate way too much dinner so I am not feeling well at all.
Oh and I am going to be rolling down the aisle so badly far out, I NEED to stop eating. I could eat and just exercise but that would imply that i'm not lazy... which I am. I hate exercise. FML. *tumble tumble tumbel* <---- that will be my rolling noise and I fall down to aisle. YAYYYYYY for me. :(

I am exhausted

I need to update you all on our weekend down south with pictures and the details of our chosen venue, but right now i'm tired so you have to wait.

Today has been crazy, I was exhausted from the moment I woke up (terrible sleep and black winter weather with a 6am wake up and 9 hour work day) Sooo anyway.
Got to work worked.
Finished work drove to the shops.
Got groceries.
Unpacked shopping and stocked fridge and cupboard.
Made dinner.
packed away dinner.
washed all of the dishes.
put away the dishes.
wiped down benches.
fed the dogs.
vaccumed lounge room floor.
tidied the bathroom (only a tiny bit) and finally fell into bed.
FAR OUT - Longest day ever.
I have also made a guest list and a to do list for the wedding.
The guest list makes me sad. For family TB and I already have 100 people :( we don't even see most of them. Then with our friends its 137 and I have work ppl that I really wanted to invite because I have so much fun with them. It makes me sad we can't afford that many people.

So hopefully it'll get better or something. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz bed time zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

FREAK OUT TIME.

We have set a date and found a venue. I AM FREAKING OUT.

Eeeeeeeeeee Wonderbar!

Oh My Lordddddd. I am soooo happy I could squeal! EEEEEeeeeeeeeEEEEeeeeeEEEEE

So finally TB and I are going to look at a wedding venue. I know it's nothing in concrete but we need to get a move on and just need to look at some options. So we are going to Margaret River to look at Casa Del Franco and then if the lady gets back to me, Erravilla. We already went to a wedding at Gilgara and it's not like the website at all, so I'm unsure if we want to venture out and have a look at that. 

I am just so happy because it's a start! We can finally just go and have a look at what is available and take it from there. I've got it in my head now, I can't have a million dollar wedding or a 20k wedding. We can only have what we can afford. We can afford simple, 'pretty' simple. I mean if there's less stuff it can't be tacky can it? Too much stuff would make it tacky. I don't know. I'm just trying to hold onto this feeling as long as possibly as they are rare.  :) 

Soooo

So as I mentioned before I suck at being engaged, I have no desire to look at any wedding locations at the moment. I'm over it. Looking at wedding blogs set a really unrealistic image in my head of what I want. Tap onto that the fact that we don't even have any money saved and all other stressful factors it's just too much at the moment. 


So just go and check out my photographer again, his photos make me happy - www.izo.com.au


So whatevs, no wedding stuff. Learn some stuff about me -


I'm different / I'm predictable / I'm a bit of a rogue and always have been / I think I'm the funniest person ever / I sing in my car / I'm not a good singer / I sing lyrics wrong and think it's cool / I am not fun to be with at fun parks / I always try to fight for what I want but sometimes I have to let go and let things fall into place without my grasp / I would love to be a writer / I miss my mum every day / I need another tattoo / I love spray tans and hate that I am not naturally tanned / I need to lose weight but prefer eating to exercising / Nothing beats the times i've had at warnbro beach / I miss the hot fries from America / Punk Rock is my weakness / Drawing people without faces is easier that drawing just faces / Sometimes I wish I could live alone / Sometimes I wish I had a sister / I'm starting to get over materialistic things / I am trying my hardest to be like I used to be / I can't wait to marry TB but it's just easier to procrastinate.

Technology hates me.

I'm trying to sell all of my dresses on eBay... so of course the night I can be bothered and actually have the will power to actually load them all up is the night the asshole of eBay decides to keep kicking me out and signing me off, the one night I try it seems to be cursed and have a virus. So annoyed.


:( The saddest right now.


still no new wedding research. I suck at being engaged.

The Proposal

So I've decided to let everyone know how I got proposed to.

Last year in December TB and I planned a trip around Europe and a few states of America.

We were on Contiki in Europe and then were meant to follow this with 9 days in New York, 3 Days in Vegas and, 2 Days in Orlando and 2 days in Vegas.

On our last day of contiki we had one night's stay in London and then we were due to fly out to New York for 9 days there to spend our Christmas there. However, due to our awesomeness London and Heathrow in particular wanted us to stay sooooo bad that it had a big freeze and ruined our 9 days in New York. We ended up stranded in Heathrow for an additional 7 days. We were actually on the flight to New York on the day we were due to fly out. We were on it for four hours in the terminal grounded, then we were kicked off, and told that staff would help us, we went back into the Airport and staff were very unhelpful, it went into melt down because there were thousands of people basically stranded. It took us 4 hours to get our bags, then 3 hours to get to a hotel in the middle of no where. Then we had to spend 3 days in the middle of no where as we'd spent all of our pounds and euro's and the only atm in town wouldn't accept my card to get money out of it. Finally we managed to get a taxi that accepted credit card payments and after 3 days we were finally able to book another flight (as they all kept getting delayed) for 3 days after that. So we got out of the middle of nowhere place and spend 3 days in London. Thennnnn we finally flew into New York on the 23rd of December 2010. 

We spent Christmas Eve hanging out in Times Square. I bought TB an expensive watch that he chose for his christmas gift and when we got back to our hotel he said he was going to get me a christmas present that he saw in a shop.  So I stayed in our hotel and watch Jersey Shore until he returned an hour and a half later. After that I said he'd been gone a while but he fobbed it off and I wasn't too concerned. He had also said that as we were away from our family we would go out for dinner to a nice place. 

So we ended up going to dinner at a place called 'Benjamin's' it was a extremely fancy steak house where the celebrities go to eat due to the exclusive nature of the restaurant. When we walked it we were greeted by staff and they took our coats for the coat room and we were shown to our table, pristine white table cloths with dim lighting and candles. 

While we were waiting for our meal I was talking to TB to see if we would extend our trip and go back to NY and he was being really weird, he wasn't talking much and I was thinking 'man what is with him tonight' so then I went to grab some bread from the basket an he grabbed the bread and put it down and said lets wait for our main, so again I tried to converse with him and still wasn't getting anywhere, so I reached for the bread again and he again sort of made me put it down and then he started to say something like 'So I have been thinking…' and then he pulled out this ring, this ring with a massive rock, this ring that means he's serious and in my head I started to freak out and I think I missed some of what he said as I went into panic mode and then I zoned back in 'will you marry me?' and all I could say was 'What is that? what are you doing? Are you serious? omg what is that? what are you doing? are you serious? about 50 times. His hand was shaking and then he had to get my focus back again 'well will you?' he said. I was so shocked, I wanted to be sick and pass out and cry, I didn't expect anything like this, I thought we were years away from getting engaged. I finally said 'yes' after what must have been about 10 seconds but would have felt like 10 years to TB. He was still so shocked that I had to go and kiss him. 

It was honestly a beautiful and honest proposal. We are both such private people and it must have been driving him crazy, I think he wanted to wait until after Dinner to propose but he was so nervous he had to blurt it out. I was just so surprised it was insane. 

I was shocked for seriously about 2 days before it really sunk in and I could really relish in the amazing feeling of being engaged. I've found out I'm not a fan of surprises. 

So after he proposed it made a lot of sense, during being stranded in London, he was freaking out about getting to NY and that was because he designed the ring and had to pick it up from NY and he wanted to propose in NY and if we were delayed longer he'd have to figure out how to get it, then he had to tell me he was getting me a christmas present and go halfway across town to find the lady who had the ring. Poor guy. haha.

I love my ring it's classically beautiful but it's not about the ring it's about the guy you marry and I seriously have got the best giant going around.

I mean come on, i'm marrying a guy who loves butterbeer!

oh so jel

I had a moment yesterday where I became almost ecstatic about being married, I don't know what came over me but I became really excited and just wanted to be getting married next week with everything sorted - That feeling has faded :( but hopefully it will come back.


I have no new wedding updates. Mainly because I'm procrastinating, it shouldn't just be 'my' job to do all of the research. It annoys me how everyone fobs it off and just goes 'Oh of course the groom isn't going to do anything, it's the brides day.' You know what? Shutttt upppp. It's annoying. Instead of saying that why don't you encourage the groom to help! Or help me yourself or just go and walk away into a corner and talk to the wall anything other than saying that line, it irritates me. Good, I'm glad I got that out.


Now to talk about what i'm 'oh so jel' about... The most beautiful wedding in the worldddd. *sigh* a girl I went to school with, let's call her Bambi, well Bambi got married a few months ago and her photo's are finally on fb. I wasn't great friends with Bambi in school, I always thought she was awesome but she was popular and I wasn't - even though I'm totes highlarious *pish* oh high school and it's dynamics how tragic... anyway so we weren't really friends but she's a cool person. Her wedding photos are AMAZING. She looked absolutely stunning (never hurts when you're a size 6-8 and naturally have dark skin) she just looked amazingly gorgeous like model magazine, wedding blog perfect! All of the Groomsmen and the Groom scrubbed up like male models hired just to pose for the photos and the venue was set up so elegantly. I am officially a little green eyed with jealousy.


Looking at her photos made me fairly clear on two points that I had been thinking in my head i'd be having D.I.Y.
- I need to hire a make up artist. I thought I could do it myself but there is no way i'll be able to make it flawless for the whole day and night and the high flash volume of the cameras. I need a professional to match it to my spray tan and ensure I don't look washed out or get panda eyes.
- I need to get bouquets made by a florist, prior to seeing Bambi's bouquets I'd never been interested in getting any, I had fooled myself into thinking that i'd go to a florist and buy 5 different bunches and then just cut them and tie them up myself - it would never work. Bambi's were crispy white flowers with green ferns, leaves and stems, the sharpness of the green just made the white so stunning. 
Ugh soooo beautiful. 


My biggest fear ever is a tacky wedding. I'm so worried that it's going to be tacky and I just don't know how I'm going to ensure that it doesn't turn out that way. I'm not a good designer or decorator. I just don't want a wedding fail. :( 


Eeeep.

eh.

Drawing pictures of faceless brides is way more fun than planning a wedding.
It's SO hard when you don't know what you want OR can't find what you want. 
I need to arrange a date to go down to Casa Del Franco with TB. I don't feel like i'm just thinking about this one because I can't find anywhere else. It's just that I keep thinking about this one and keep going back to it. I need to see it in real life. Hopefully we can arrange it soon.


Weddings make me feel 'something borrowed blue'