So I’m sitting here…

…in my parents’ house, listening to my dad’s band playing outside (yes, my dad has a band) and thinking, “hm, what can I do?”. Then I realised, “hey, I haven’t written in my blog for a few!”

So here I am.

Not really that exciting, but there you have it. Anyway…

HELLO ALL!

I’ll start off with some exciting news. I recently signed up and was accepted into a blog called “Polka Dot Bride”. It’s not HUGE news, because it’s basically a blog that anyone can sign up for, but it’s been rather successful! My first (and so far, only) post can be found here:

http://www.polkadotbride.com/2012/12/and-we-open-the-door-and-step-inside/

So, yay for me! I know what you’re all thinking, “that’s a HORRIBLE picture of you!” but… it was the only picture I found where I didn’t look: a) horrible, and b) like I had an eternal wedgie. I will write more in Polka Dot, but it’s a minimum 750 words, so I thought I’d wait until I had substantial news which I could waffle on about. (Edit: Was just told that it’s not 750 min. YAY! I can write more without waffling)

I DO, however, have substantial news which I can post into this blog!

The other day, GP and I had a meeting with the fabulous Marlon and Redge of Onsight Films. We’ve seen their work and knew they did SDEs – or Same Day Edits. We loved what they did, and after meeting them, were even more set on having them as videographers for the wedding! GP’s so excited that he spent most of yesterday mulling over music to send the guys to potentially play during the SDE. Needless to say, after the excruciatingly long search to find an awesome, well-priced videographer who did SDEs, we are extremely happy with our choice!

Now all’s we need to do is book both the photographers and videographers in and we’re DONE! (with those components anyway)

In other wedding-related news, we’ve been thinking about a place for a rehearsal dinner. I’m not 100% sure if the Hunter Valley Gardens will let us do a ceremony rehearsal at the location, so I’ll have to check. However, the celebrant we intend on using includes the rehearsal into her fee and GP’s excited to have a rehearsal dinner at a particular place he’s been telling me about since we first went up to the Hunter Valley together. The rehearsal dinner will be vastly smaller than the actual wedding reception, but we’re excited to have one.

I’ve also had a sudden fascination with hydrangeas. They’re beautiful, big flowers and would cheapen bouquets a lot while still looking lush and awesome. I’ve decided I want to use them, though I still don’t even know if I want to give my bridesmaids bouquets. Ah well – I still have a little over a year, so here’s hoping I make up my mind!

I’m going to sign off now!

Ta-ta for now 🙂

– Eileen

Chaaaaaaaaaanges!

For some reason that brings to mind a song which my dad likes… I can’t remember the name of the song…

Anywho…

Hello all! 🙂

What’s been going on with you guys? Me? I’ve been trying to work on invitations while writing applications for different jobs. I’ve been in Adelaide for a little bit and I’ll be going back to Sydney tonight. If anyone is ever in Adelaide, try the coffee at a little place called Piazza 99 – BEST.WHITECHOCMOCHA.EVER. Also other cafes/restaurants I recommend are: The Loose Caboose (for brunch or “linner”), The Pancake House (cheap, delicious food), BTS cafe for cupcakes, and a pop-up coffee cart (whose name escapes me) who has organic, delicious coffee.

But I digress.

Wedding invitations are coming along nicely. The theme has changed so much in the past month it’s mind-blowing. GP and I originally wanted the colours red and gold (which is just… very Chinese) but because of conflicting opinions on bridesmaid dresses, we added blue to the colour scheme. From there, the invitations introduced pink and the ‘gold’ in our theme became a distant memory…

Which isn’t an issue, because I realise we actually don’t have a theme. That’s right folks.

We have no theme.

There will be a lot of cherry blossoms (because GP and I both agreed that it was a nice Oriental flower) but there really isn’t any other seamless theme. The bridesmaids will have blue dresses, my dress will have red on it (GP knows this, so it’s no issue if he reads this – I’m looking at you GP!), the groom and groomsmen will wear shades of grey (not fifty… just two), and we’ll probably grab a few pocket squares to match groomsmen to bridesmaids. Bridesmaids will probably carry parasols with hydrangea corsages (have you SEEN hydrangeas – they’re abso-fracking-beautiful!). As for centrepieces, we’ll be having cherry blossoms, weeping willows and we’re thinking of transforming wine bottles into something useful. We want candles because GP and I are suckers for candles. Red and gold will still play a major role in the Chinese tea ceremony and I’ll probably be wearing something red over my wedding dress. We’re having geeky elements into our wedding (zombie cake topper, ASCII heart love, a photo booth with Xbox-related props) but we’ll balance these out with more elegant settings.

So as you can see – there’s been a lot of change and we have no specific theme!

Fire bad. Tree pretty.

Hello all!

I’m in Adelaide at the moment. YAY! If you’re wondering why, it’s basically because GP is here for work. They wanted him in from Wednesday to Friday this week, and then Monday to Wednesday next.

“Why don’t you just stay the whole 8 days?” I asked. To which he replied by asking his business the same thing. This basically resulted in both of us making it a working holiday. We’ll be exploring Adelaide over the weekend, which will be fun.

Anyway – what is this post about?, I hear you asking.

Well.

The title is a reference from a show called Buffy and I am basically feeling like that. My brain is finding it hard to focus. I’m attempting to put in job applications while tweaking the invitations for our wedding. Because GP and I are trying to save money, we’re DIY-ing the invitations. Because our wedding is a mini-destination wedding, we need to include maps. And because we’re “oh-so-classy”, we don’t want to cut and paste a Google or Bing map onto our invitations.

So what did that result in?

Well, I’ve been making map tracings for about 3 hours now. My brain is tired and I could use a drink but I can’t be bothered going downstairs and buying a drink at the convenience store. This could be my tired brain talking, but I think the maps look kickass right now. I’ve only done a basic job with it, but it’s looking rather awesome. I just now need to be more specific – pinpointing specific locations on the map like the HVG, Tamburlaine and Crowne Plaza. That’ll be on a completely different map though, because the one I’ve made is a basic “overall map” of the relative location of Sydney and Hunter Valley.

I bet I’ve lost you all, but I’m sure once WordPress let’s me upload a picture I’ll show you guys. (And yes, it won’t let my upload my picture. ANNOYING.) Anywho.

 

I’m going to attempt the second half of this venture. Wish me luck guys!

Doing what needs to be done

Hello all,

I’m not saying that wedding planning isn’t stressful (because it IS!), but so far I’ve been having (mostly, at least) fun with thinking about ways to plan out what to do for the wedding. I haven’t really needed to fight tooth and nail with stubborn vendors (and I hope I won’t need to) and what we have booked seems to be gliding along smoothly. There are a few things GP and I need to do, and I thought it might make it easier if I wrote these down here.

So without further ado, here’s the to-do list:

• Return the booking contract to Crowne Plaza Hunter Valley before 7/12
• Have our Skype meeting with StudioSomething at 1900 tomorrow (3/12)
• Fill out the booking form for StudioSomething
• Find some time to see Onsight Films and discuss a suitable package
• Meet our potential celebrant!
• Start dancing lessons
• Buy gifts!
• Start gathering materials for wedding favours
• Complete invitations for the wedding

So as you can see, we’re well underway in our wedding planning. We’re both super excited! More updates to come soon hopefully!

-the.eichanist

Vendors!

Hello folks!

Since I’m here, I thought I’d write a little something-something on our vendors, because lists are fun, writing helps me forget about this infernal heat, and my fiance isn’t here for cuddles (and I can’t be bothered getting up to go to him!).

SO!

Vendors are (in no particular order):

• Ceremony Location: Hunter Valley Gardens (both civil and tea ceremonies)
• Reception Location: Tamburlaine Organic Wines
• Hair & Makeup: Doubletake Makeup Artistry
• Pre-Wedding Beauty (manicure, pedicure, facials, etc): Still searching…
• Flowers: Nothing yet – though have a few in mind
• Event Hire and Decorating: Affections (haven’t booked)
• Wedding Dress: Mandy Heng Designs
• Bridesmaid Dresses: LightintheBox.com
• Suits: To be decided by fiance – Ron Bennett or Hallenstein Bros.
• Car Hire: Morpeth Limousines (haven’t booked)
• Accommodation: Crowne Plaza Resort Hunter Valley (haven’t booked)
• Celebrant: Jennifer Egan (haven’t booked)
• Photography: Studiosomething (need to book!)
• Videography: Onsight Films (haven’t booked)
• Entertainment: Two live bands in mind

And I think that’s it… If I can think of more, I will! 🙂

– the.eichanist

The Lady of the Ring… Ring Saga Finale!

It’s been so long since I continued from this post, so I’ve decided to do so!

For those who have just joined us:

Part I

Part II

The last I left off (in July, ohmyGod I’m so sorry), we were stuck with rings which we believed looked like horrible, malformed alien heads (at least we believed mine did, GP was worried the Celtic knot on his ring was wrong). But knowing we couldn’t do anything about it, we resigned to our fate. We decided that we’d try to sell the rings if we didn’t like them and reassured ourselves that the rings probably looked bad due to fuzzy mobile phone camera quality and bright glaring flourescent lighting.

Anxious, we waited until our rings were in Sydney, in the hands of a family friend. Upon retrieving our rings, we were worried to say the least. It was night and we were in Meadowbank, just a little ways from our old home of Rhodes. We had retreated back to the car from the winter chill and sat in GP’s faithful ‘Zoey’ (the mechanical love of his life), staring at the package in hand.

Dare we open them and see what they looked like in real life?

We resolved that it would be ok, that we’d find a solution if we didn’t like it, and that no matter what – the rings weren’t the important part of the wedding.

Tentatively, gingerly, we opened up the package. There were two rings boxes – one which held my engagement ring and the other which held our wedding rings. GP wanted to check my engagement ring first and I, anxiously, agreed. I plucked the box up and opened it up. It was dark, but under the streetlight it gleamed. It didn’t look too bad in the darkness. I worried what it would look like in the light. But I had to get a closer look.

Turning on the car light, I finally caught a glimpse of this ring which I would wear almost everyday of my engaged life up until now.

It was beautiful – the ruby in the centre – though not heart-shaped like what we wanted – was absolutely beautiful. It was a deep red, but under different lights, the ruby shone different colours. The diamonds were equally as beautiful, glinting blue whenever light reflected off the surface.

And my wedding ring!

It curved perfectly along the bottom of my engagement ring. On my finger, the rings looked gorgeous. All anxiety, fear and worry melted away as I put that ring on my finger for the first time. And it hit me – I was engaged! I was getting married! To the most awesome man on this planet!!

I didn’t cry (thank God!) but I was definitely teary. I wanted to see GP’s ring, I wanted to get married, and I was so, so very happy that we got these rings.

Now GP’s ring – his ring was perfect. The Celtic knot was exactly as we had wanted it, the Claddagh in the middle was spot on and it was both white and yellow gold as GP has wanted. He was so happy with it, that he wanted to wear it straight away. Unfortunately, we aren’t married yet, so he begrudgingly put the ring back into its case. We tucked the rings away and put them safely back in their packaging.

Crisis averted!

Now at the time we got the rings, they both needed resizing. Mine was too big and GP’s was too small. We haven’t resized GP’s ring (he’s hoping to lose more weight) but mine has been resized to my finger. It fits perfectly and I wear it everyday 🙂 Now for those of you who are curious, here is my ring! ❤