wedding: reception

The Reception:

(Whoah, is anyone getting wedding fatigue? I sure am. I'll let the pictures do the talking this time.)























(One more post to come... the outfits! I was going to try and finish it all today, but I'm not sure I have the stamina. Tomorrow might have to do. In the meantime, that last pic shows me in my "party outfit")

wedding: decorations

The Decorations:

(I'm eager to wrap all this up by Wednesday, so these wedding posts will be coming thick and fast till then)

When thinking about the decorations for our wedding, there were a couple of things we kept in mind:
1) we didn't have to do too much because the location spoke for itself
2) we wanted to enhance the location rather than distract from, or compete with it
3) we wanted to respect the environment (both immediate and overall), keeping away from the notion of luxury and excess.

Our aim? "Vintage, Rustic, Recycled." (And of course a good dash of handmade added into the equation too). We wanted an overall style, rather than a "theme" consisting of matching things.

The river, the trees and the flowers were the focus. But, as we all know, it's all about the details...

Mum and I made the table runners for each table from fabric either from my existing stash, or from second hand fabric I found at op-shops. They were all un-matching, some linen, some candy stripes, some satin. They looked great, and helped to break up the whiteness of the tablecloths.

We used lots of wood throughout the whole wedding. On the tables we had little chunks of wood. (Earlier in the year when the flood hit, it destroyed a few trees, so the timber came from those). We used large stumps of wood in the garden, and also one as a cake stand.



At the end of the night people took them as a memento. We had handed out sandalwood fans to the pregnant and elderly ladies before the ceremony, but other than that we had no "favours". So these little chunks filled in, and people loved them. Now everyone has a little wood chunk in their home to remind them of the wedding and their holiday. One friend insists hers is shaped like a heart!




On the wood chunks, on the tables, we had jars. Lots and lots of jars, all different sizes and shapes. Plus lots of vintage cut glass cups, sugar bowls, bottles, etc. Some held flowers, the rest had tealight candles in them. (The jars were from our own collection, or donated by friends, and cut glass was all from op-shops and the tip shop).










We also had jars with candles in them throughout the garden too, so at night it all twinkled.




Mr You and I spent the wedding night on the boat, so my sister and her husband made us a beautiful "just married sign". They stencilled each letter onto fabric, hung with little wooden pegs.






The lovely old wooden box, that belonged to Mr You's Grandfather, was a postbox for guests to put their cards in.






We hung vintage lampshades in the tress. I collected them all from op-shops and reconditioned them all. We also had some lamps inside the marquee too, so later in the evening we turned off the big lights, and just had the candles and lamps light the marquee. Outside we had fairy lights and had spotlights shining up all the trees.










There were some things that we originally wanted to have at the wedding, but didn't make it in the end. One of these was a photobooth (a spot set up with a backdrop and props, for your guests to take silly staged photo's of themselves in).

It turned out that, completely un-intentionally, we ended up having one, as friends took turns at having their photo's taken on the day bed under the lampshades. This is something we didn't even realise until after the wedding, as people started sending us their photo's. Almost everyone had a photo of themselves posed under the lampshade tree; some nicely posed, others funny and staged. Just another example of the nice surprises of the day!

wedding: the flowers

The Flowers:

One week until the wedding, and the florist rang me letting me know that dahlia's (that I was hoping to have as my bouquet) were still a few more weeks from blooming. Three days until the wedding, the florist rang me again with the news that the David Austin roses she was going to use for me instead, had all died in the strong winds that I mentioned earlier. I wasn't panicked, I was too distracted, instead I just left it up to her to come up with something she thought I may like. She kept in contact with her ideas... but the lilly of the valley stems all arrived to her rotted, and there weren't enough flannel flowers... So she made me a very plain, very standard looking bouquet of white rose buds (which I didn't really like, but didn't tell her because she was more worried about it than I was)...

THEN at 7:30pm the night before the wedding she rang me all excited, "Can you come and see these new flowers I've found for your bouquet? I think you may love them, but I'm not sure. I don't mind if you don't use the rose bouquet, just come and see these if you can!"

So I did, and together we jumped for joy!



They are called andromeda, and were very hardy and long lasting. Everyone commented on them. (The striped ribbons I used were from Etsy).


The day after the wedding I went to visit the florist again, this time to give her the biggest hug I could. And this is why...

In the last post I mentioned all the unexpected surprises of the day, the flowers were one of them. I literally "eeeped" out loud, and lost a breath or two when I walked into the marquee after the ceremony. THIS is what I saw...

















It was dreamlike, actually it was beyond my dreams. I will never forget it.
(I only wish I had photo's of all of the tables)

wedding: our ceremony

The Ceremony:

Our ceremony was as perfect as I’d hoped, but having said that, one of the things that made it so wonderful for me were the parts I didn’t plan. (And believe me there was a lot of planning). These unexpected elements gave us both something extra, something special.

The night before our wedding, a colony of small yellow beetles hatched in the tree. The size and shape of ladybeetles but plain yellow, there weren’t swarms, just a tiny yellow companion for every second guest; little brooches of sunshine. I thought it was kind of delightful, a showering of good luck… Natures confetti.

They seemed to fly away right after the ceremony, carried away on the breeze.



Being music lovers, music was always going to be an important element to include. Lucky for us lots of our friends are musicians! This was another of the lovely surprises, because even though we knew what they were going to play, we didn’t hear them actually play the songs until the ceremony.

It’s funny, going into the day I had no idea of what to expect my emotions to do. All the photo’s of me walking down the aisle show the most ridiculously giant smile ever, waving and saying hi to all our friends, completely ungraceful. I got through everything with a big smile, but when our friends performed one of the songs for us I lost it. That’s when the tears started to roll. I knew everything we were going to say during the ceremony, but the music was the spontaneous part. It was SO beautiful and really touched me!

We had a friend play an instrumental version of Song to the Siren by Tim Buckley on guitar as I walked down the aisle. (But he changed the key to make it more joyful).
(Video here... you have to watch the stupid Ad first).

Our friends performed a song during the ceremony. "Lay and Love" by Bonnie Prince Billy was the song, but we re-wrote the final verse to make it happier and personalise it to us, and changed the chorus to "stand here and love you". They also sped it up a little and performed it with great joyousness.



Then at the end while we were signing the register, our rock-star friend got up and played our little “La Vie en Rose” wind up music box. That got a bit of a laugh from the crowd. :D




We asked each guest to bring a flower to the wedding, but did not tell them why (a surprise for them). As they arrived our celebrant asked them to come forward and form a circle with their flowers, giving each bloom a “well wish” for us as they did so. I had expected small wildflowers off the sides of the roads, but being Spring all the giant blooms were out and one of the great surprises of the day for us was how bold and bright the circle was. Alongside the giant spring flowers were handcrafted paper flowers, fabric flowers, and origami bouquets… all in a perfect circle. I knew it was happening, but the result was so much more impressive than I ever imagined, it took my breath away.



A friend told me later that it looked as though they had all sprouted out of the ground, bloomed naturally in a circle.

We were married inside the ring of flowers.




We didn’t want a bridal party but we had the opportunity to make two special little girls in our lives very happy. So we had two flower girls. Actually we had a flowergirl each. Mr You had his niece standing outside with him, and I had our God-Daughter walk down the aisle in front of me (pretty little sweet peas of moral support). Our niece was a “real” flowergirl in the sense that it was her duty to hand out the flowers from her giant bouquet to anyone who had forgotten to bring a flower for the circle.



Although no-one forgot to bring a flower themselves (wow!), our guests enjoyed it so much, that by the time I got out there the flowergirl was holding nothing but a big leaf! To some people this may sound a bit sad for the flowergirl, to me it was SO beautiful, and she was as pleased as punch!




While we didn’t have a bridal party, we included each member of our family in some way during the day. Mr You’s sisters were MC and witness, and my sister carried our ring nest, presenting it to us during the ceremony.

(I made a nest out of twigs from our garden: Something to represent our home while at Mr You’s parent’s home. There were lots of handmade things, but I’ll get to that later.)



Speaking of handmade, our brilliant celebrant made us a keepsake book of our ceremony. She handmade the cover using a piece of embossed paper made by her nieces (who are amazing paper artists), a piece of antique lace from her Grandmother's collection, and she embroidered our initials on a ribbon from her personal stash! Lots of lovely surprises that day, lots I tell you!



I have no Grandparents around anymore, but to include them we used little old books that once belonged to my Grandma. We pasted our vows inside the books, and my Mum presented Grandma’s books to us to read our vows from during the ceremony.



These were one of the “something old” items on our day. I say “one of” because there were lots… more on that later too.

wedding: setting the scene

So here we go. Weddingy Wednesday is back!

I do apologise for the super-extended gap between the actual event and me telling you about it. But I'm ready to go now. So those of you who were out-weddinged in the lead-up you may want to switch channels for the next week. The rest of you, strap yourselves in.


Setting the Scene:

We were married in the garden of Mr You's parents house. They live on the banks of a big river in rural northern NSW, surrounded by cane farms. Other than Mr You's family, everyone else had to travel great distances to get there, most live at least 10 hours away, so they all made a holiday of it.

The days prior to the wedding were really really WINDY! And on the morning of the wedding it apparently rained (though I was too busy to even notice), and in town it rained all day. But during the wedding where we were the weather turned miraculously perfect. The wind vanished, the sun came out and the temperature was lovely.

We kept it small. Fifty guests all up, plus a few babies and children. So it was immediate family and close friends only.

Overall the mood of the day was relaxed as people soaked in the beautiful scenery.
Later in the night it turned into a big old party of course, but in the meantime...



We made signs to help people find their way:





The ceremony was under some big mango trees on the riverbank.
Mr You's parents have four church pews that came from the church his dad went to as a child. They are 100 years old!:



After the ceremony, our guests were drawn to the river. We had a day bed and chairs awaiting them, we pulled the pews over, and everyone spent the afternoon mingling and watching the sun sink over the wide river:









We had a marquee for the reception - which was lucky because just as everyone had sat down to eat, the heavens opened and it rained... Only for 10 mins though, just enough time to dry up ready for when we had finished eating and wanted to go back outside. I told you the weather was miraculous!:






So, that's the first instalment. Don't worry, I will be bombarding you with details. ;)

circling my head

Okay, I've started writing this post 5 different ways now and keep restarting, so please excuse me while I just go ahead and spit it out.

Renee, a very dear blog friend is not doing well at all. I've been in tears this morning. How does this happen? How do we never meet, never "really" get to know each other, accept that we may never meet, but somehow become so linked with each others lives?

I think it's because somehow, across the world, we find people we genuinely click with. When it's often so hard to find that in real life, finding people who genuinely seem to care about you is amazing. It doesn't take too much to blog, sending your thoughts out into a nameless ether, but as soon as someone connects with you it changes. It takes alot of trust, faith and love to share yourself with a perfect stranger, and that does not go unnoticed. It is warmly reciprocated.

This isn't the first time I have ended up crying for an un-met friend. And I'm not talking about a little weep. I'm talking about curling up in bed with a box of tissues crying my heart out. (To people who aren't part of this little community that would sound completely looney, but I'm telling you this because I know you understand.)

But I'm so far away. What can I do? Really? Send a comment, a card, a gift?...

In this case what I am going to do is show you our wedding photo's.

Strange leap I know... and one that may seem incredibly self-centred and off the mark. But I know Renee would really really loved to have seen them. Really, it would have meant so much to her. And I can't tell you how bad I feel that I've left it too late now...

So to honour her I'm going to pull my finger out and finally share what I've been dying to show you all for months now. And in some way I hope she feels this gesture, and knows it comes with all my love.


So, I shall pull on a brave face, smile and glow from within, and recount our wedding day in all its love, joy and happiness. (After all these are the very qualities and abilities that makes Renee such an amazing woman).