Takin’ Love by the Horns: Making Sure the ‘Bleap’ Doesn’t Hit the Fan

[I know, hive, my titles are ridiculous.]

By the time Mr Big and I made it up to the Hunter Valley, we set about unloading all of the things into our villa at the hotel and then at the reception hall. I had pictures of all of these things, but unfortunately my phone decided to die and wipe all of it (and I hadn’t transferred all the photos over to my laptop, doh!). So instead of showing you photos of us lugging things around, looking relieved and freaking out at the same time, I’ll just quickly list down what we did so you get an idea how hectic it was.

On Thursday we:

• Unloaded most of the décor into the reception hall for setup. This was included, but not limited to: our photobooth props, my dancing shoes (highly recommended to brides who are planning on changing to another pair of shoes; if you can, leave them at the reception hall!), the place cards, décor for the head table, and décor for the gift table.
• Unloaded and setup the band equipment at the reception hall (so.much.stuff!)
• Unloaded everything else at the hotel villa. Mostly ceremony stuff, since we weren’t allowed to keep these at the ceremony space.
• FBIL Muso did a sound check at the reception hall (we weren’t there when it happened).
• Finalised the seating chart and names with our reception coordinators.
• Gave information to our event stylist on what and where we wanted certain pieces of décor, including, the rose in the bell jar, our Belle and Beast/Adam figurines, and the adorable bride and groom dolls that Cousin Fray made us.
• Filled all of our wedding favours at the hotel villa with the assistance of my family from Indonesia (and found out we didn’t have enough Chocolate Rocks!).
• Excitedly took pictures of the setup (which were then lost when my phone died).

This was probably taken during the time we set up. / Photo via Affections Weddings and Events Hire, Facebook page.

On Friday we:

• Bought more Chocolate Rocks, yay!
• Finished off the wedding favours with the Chocolate Rocks and packed them up for transport to the reception hall.
• Dropped off the wedding favours and place cards at the reception hall and instructed our reception coordinators to set up our favours on the morning-of the wedding.
• Setup all of the reception décor, including place cards.
• Practiced our dance at the reception hall and found out we didn’t have much space. Enter improvisation here.
• Had a band rehearsal at the reception hall.
• Took more excited pictures of the setup (which again, we lost when my phone died).

Via Quick Meme

And finally, on Saturday we:

• Technically didn’t do anything at the reception hall, however, DJ Jeeves did the DJ setup at the reception hall while we were out and about trying to do a bajillion-and-one other things.
• Went through the Chinese tea ceremony with Lady Luck (our “good luck lady” and GM Xbox’s awesome wife)

Folks, we did a lot during those three days. I had put 1000 and 1 contingencies in place, but even then things were bound to go wrong (I had no lofty expectations otherwise). But there were some things which I should have done or made sure of prior to the day, so here’s some advice which I wish I had known during the lead-up to our wedding:

• Make sure to emphasise times with people who are helping out. If I had been a little bit more assertive on this fact, all cars would have been available on Thursday morning and we would have been more organised than we were. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it clear that I wanted everything packed and ready to go by 10:30AM, and we were pushed for time.
• Make sure you communicate what needs to be put out on the day. I didn’t tell my reception coordinators that we needed chalk for one of our props, so they hid it away because of two factors: (1) the presence of little kids, and (2) chalk + little kids = mess. So that meant we had no chalk for our Xbox Achievement sign (which sucked, but ah well).
• Be fervent on getting the sizing of your dance floor. We were told 5 metres x 10 metres. We definitely did not get 5 metres x 10 metres. But luckily, we improvised (and were able to practice beforehand). This brings me to…
• IF you can practice dancing at the venue beforehand, I highly recommend it. Mr Big and I were able to get the feel of the dance floor purely and simply because our reception coordinators let us have the room, all set up, prior to the day.
• I cannot express to you how important that inventory list was! Unfortunately, me and DoC Auto were the only ones who had a copy of the inventory list (my printer really sucks) and so, only we really knew the elements of all. the. things. So, hive, if you are self-planning your wedding and getting friendors and friends to assist, print off several – and I mean, several – copies of the inventory list!

And that’s it. Even despite the 110% effort and work we put into planning the day, there were some mistakes, some things missing, but I wouldn’t change it for anything.

Who else had a hectic lead up to their day? Any other self-planners have tips and tricks to share? Missed a recap post? Catch up here!

• Laugh, weep, and celebrate with us by watching our wedding video.
• I am a delegating ninja! (I’m really not.)
• We have a “nice” morning of Car-Tetris fun!

Takin’ Love by the Horns: Let’s get ready to NUPTIAL!

It’s that time of year, folks, our pro-pics are in!

Before I show you all the pretties though, I’d like to first show you our wedding video. Remember how I mentioned that our videographers were doing a Same Day Edit?

And remember how I showed you this picture of Mr Big at the first shoot we did with our videographers:

Mr Big and the Camera!

Well, they took the footage from the day above, and the wedding day, and folks… they made a masterpiece. Redge and Marlon worked full slog to make the video, and showed it at about 9:30PM at the reception. They said we’d be getting the full documentary soon, and from the work they did on the day, it’s safe to say Mr Big and I are enormously excited!

So without further ado, here is our Same-Day Edit:

All photos personal. Video via Onsight Films.

Remember when I bet he would cry? He cried. <3

Three days ago, I married my best friend, my superhero, my prince, my co-op gaming partner, and the love of my life. Our wedding was perfect – it was everything we wanted and more. The love, support, and warmth we felt was amazing.

Hive, I’m still waiting for my pro pics back, but I’ve been seeing loads of guest photos over Facebook. I still need to go through some planning posts in the meantime, but right now, I’ll leave you with these gems:

Photo taken by Friend Sahara.

Photo taken by BM Superhero.

I’m not gone yet guys!

From the new Mrs Bighorn Sheep ❤

Part 3: The Invitation Breakdown – Pet Projects!

Finally, the last part of the invitations! I’m sorry it’s so long guys, but I hope this gives you some idea on how to go about giving your guests much-needed information for your destination wedding (or even for a local wedding!).

I hinted in my last post that we had two additional inserts: the Chinese tea ceremony insert, and the Map insert. These two were my pet projects.

The Chinese Tea Ceremony Insert

When we initially began thinking about the invitations, Mr Big mentioned that his Kiwi contingent wouldn’t know where to purchase red envelopes. We decided then, that we would include red envelopes in our invitation for those guests to use at the wedding.

We then had to consider how to tell guests about the Chinese Tea Ceremony. We would only be giving this particular insert to specific guests (mostly family and close friends) but how would we give it to them?

I then came up with an idea of inserting the insert into the red envelope, like a gold ticket in a Willy Wonka chocolate bar (but maybe not as exciting as one…)!

First off, I had to measure the “standard” size of a red envelope:

One of the red envelopes I received for Chinese New Year.

I sent this image to my Cousin Fre in Indonesia, who then bought a bunch of red envelopes for us measuring approximately what I had given: 

Meanwhile, I went to my handy-dandy Photoshop and constructed this:

The Chinese Tea Ceremony Insert.

It needed to fit inside the red envelope, but still be visible. In the end, I ended up with this:

I know you guys have seen this a BAJILLION times, but it’s the best picture I have!

Because the Chinese Tea Ceremony is often considered to be an event for family (and close friends) we were selective in our choosing for who received this particular insert. It worked out well, and those who received this “special invitation” were actually quite excited about the whole thing!

The Map Insert

Another pet project, this one came to me after I realised that our guest may need a map to get around the Hunter Valley. I was in Adelaide at the time and decided on a whim to break out my tablet, Photoshop and open up Google Maps when Mr Big was at work.

I was so gorramn focused on the whole thing that I didn’t take any progress pictures, but hive, if you’ve been on the Bee for a while, you know which tutorial to turn to for awesome maps. 🙂

In the end, I ended up with this:

Top picture, an overview of the Hunter Valley showing reception, ceremony and accommodation; and bottom picture, showing the Hunter Valley Gardens in all its hugeness. I forgot to take the border off the second map. Oops.

We printed them back-to-back and they were a success. Hopefully our guests bring them to the wedding to help them get around!

All-in-all, I’m super happy with how our invitations turned out. I know some of our guests have responded with positives (some people have even told me to start doing invitations for other people, hahah!).

What do you think Hive? Did anyone else have pet projects?

(All images personal.)

Part 2: The Invitation Breakdown – Wedding Essay Galore!

Last time, I chatted to you guys about the envelopes, pocketfolds and the main invitation. Now I’ll go into the inserts which comprised the second-half of the invitation. As I’ve mentioned before, the invitations we wanted to make needed to be informative, especially as our wedding would be a destination wedding for half of our guests (or all, if you’re one to believe that two hours away for a wedding is classified as a ‘destination’ wedding).

As such, we wanted to include inserts which informed our guests about:

• Details on the Hunter Valley
• Accommodation
• Travel
• The “Wishing Well”
• An RSVP card
• The Reception

I also wanted an image to come across through the inserts, like this picture right here:

My inspiration! / Image taken from Inviting Invitations.

After designing through Photoshop, I realised we had too much information to really put a clear image through (like the one above) so I decided to do it was an image on 30% opacity.

This was our preliminary run of the inserts:

Who can see the blossom tree showing up through the inserts? And yeah, I know. You’ve only see this image 456,156,981,125 times.

If you look past the heading, you can see a tree showing up through the inserts. It turned out phenomenally in the actual invitations (here, it doesn’t look as good as it was a proof).

Also, you might have noticed that we doubled up travel and accommodation, as those tend to go hand-in-hand (and we didn’t want to have too many inserts. You can also see something peeking out at the top of the details card. That was another separate insert for specific people to attend our Chinese tea ceremony, which I’ll go into in another post:

See the red envelope with Buddha on it? That’s the Chinese Tea Ceremony insert. Another thing you must’ve seen 854,264,125,354 times.

You can also see in the above picture one side of our map.

Before I overload you guys with ALL THE THINGS, I’ll start with the basic inserts and go into both the map and the Chinese tea ceremony insert in the next post.

Let’s start from the top then!

The Details

The Details Insert.

To my knowledge there isn’t anything private on these inserts. As you can see from this card, we wanted our guests to know where the Hunter Valley was. I’m not sure if the Hunter Valley is as popular as say, the Marlborough wine districts in the South Island of New Zealand, or the Napa Valley in California, so I wanted to make sure that our guests knew the full extent of where we’d be having the wedding.

I also created a map outlining the distance from Sydney to the Hunter Valley so that guests get a clearer picture geographically.

An initial design of the map.

You can also see that we outlined two very important things: (1) there would be a wine tour if guests wanted it, but they’d unfortunately have to pay, and (2) lunch would not be provided.

I know this may or may not be considered a wedding faux pas, but we struggled to think of things to give our guests in the long wait between our ceremony and the reception. Unfortunately, we didn’t really get a choice on the matter of when we’d be having the ceremony due to cultural reasons, so with that, we decided we would offer our guests a wine tour!

We ultimately made the decision that if guests wanted to go on a wine tour, they’d pay a small fee to do so. Those who don’t want to go on the wine tour don’t need to and we’ve given them other options (most have opted to hang out at the Crowne!). All of our guests have been pretty happy with this, so I’m calling it a win!

As for lunch, we didn’t have enough room in our budget to hold a luncheon for our guests and a reception dinner at night. It’s traditional to have sit-down dinner in Chinese weddings, and when I offered to move the wedding reception to lunch, I was stared at in horror.

So again, we’ve given our guests different lunch options and a part from some, everyone has so far been happy with it.

Travel & Accommodation

We made two separate inserts depending on whether you were overseas or in Sydney:

On the left, the Australian insert; on the right, the Overseas(OS)/New Zealand(NZ) insert. Edited for privacy purposes.

In the OS/NZ insert, we opted to use Cousin Em, Mr Big’s cousin who is also an excellent travel agent as the provided travel agent for the wedding. She’s been super awesome at booking flights and just generally helping out with the travel details for the wedding.

In the Australian insert, we had the option of a bus from Sydney to the Hunter Valley, mostly for the older guests like my dad’s friends. However, this option fell through as we didn’t get very many people wanting to take that route. All Sydney-siders will be driving up either before or on the day (which I’ll mention on my RSVP breakdown!). As such, I wanted to ensure I put the message out there to not drink and drive.

Most of them will be staying at the Crowne Plaza Resort Hunter Valley. This include both overseas and Australian guests!

I’ll document the actual resort in another post, but suffice it to say that we chose an awesome place to house our guests. It’s a five-star resort, and we managed to get a pretty incredible discount when we decided to use it for guest accommodation.

The Treasure Chest

Otherwise known as the “Wishing Well”. Because we injected my culture into the wedding, we opted for monetary gifts. I know most people deliver this sort of thing through cute poems, but I tried to make my own (and failed). Instead, Mr Big offered up the suggestion that I explain the culture behind the red envelope and why monetary gifts are so significant.

I went with it and we got this:

On the left, for the New Zealand folk; on the right, the Australia folk.

Again, we gave one to the Kiwi/OS folk and another to the Aussie folk. The reason for the difference is:

• Most Kiwi/OS folk will probably spend more than the Aussie folk flying over to the wedding
• Most of the Aussie folk are actually my family, who will be giving monetary gifts anyway (as is customary)
• We don’t really expect any gifts from the Kiwi/OS folk, but thought it’d be nice to include them in the custom

It worked for what we were doing, and so far, nothing has been said about our invitations to indicate any ill-will.

The RSVP Card

As many of our guests would be coming in from overseas, we eventually decided that pretty postcard RSVPS or RSVP envelopes would be too easy to lose in the post and went for digital RSVPs instead. This bummed me out for a little bit, but it proved to be a good idea, especially when some of the invitations had been lost in the post! We were also able to receive the RSVPs in a relatively timely manner.

Hence, when we constructed out RSVP card for the inserts, we set it out as follow:

The RSVP insert. Email censored to protect Mr Big’s sanity.

Unfortunately, not all of our guests had email. These guests comprised mostly (if not all) of my parents’ friends, but these guests could report directly to my parents, who were able to RSVP for them.

Also, you may or may not have noticed my MASSIVE mistake.

The fifth (5^th) of May, 2013, was a Sunday, not a Friday. So a lot of people were confused (and fair enough!). I managed to rectify the mistake by sending out texts and email to those who were confused, but most assumed the RSVP cut-off date was the Sunday (which it was).

I had also made a mistake with the email but Mr Big came to the rescue. Thank goodness he’s a computer whiz!

The Reception Card

Our reception card was pretty basic. Because we had alternate drops and our guests would be swapping meals if they so wished it, we didn’t need to state whether they wanted chicken, beef, or fish. Instead, our guests simply saw this:

We wanted to mention that the event required some form of “dressing up”, hence the mention at the end. It was also a nice homage to HIMYM.

So far, we haven’t heard anything negative about our invitations. We thought long and hard about what to say, how to say it, and whether or not we should do certain things in a certain way, but all-in-all, I’m pretty happy with how it’s turned out (despite the changes we made along the way!).

And with that, I’ll stop there for now!

Next up, I’ll go the ingenious way we handled the Chinese Tea Ceremony and Map inserts (which were my pet projects).

How would you feel if you received these inserts in the invitation? Did anyone else make some major mistakes in their invitations?

(All images personal unless otherwise stated.)

Pictures of Me, Pictures of You.

Photography rated high on Mr Big and my list of “things we wanted” for the wedding. As every bride, blog, and bee has said before me, once all the décor is packed down and the guests slowly drag themselves home, all that’s left are the memories and the pictures.

And Mr Big and I have pretty shoddy memories!

For us, our search to find just the right photographer was a hard one. We wanted to find a photographer who took photos that were able to not just capture the moment and the people, but understood our personalities and provided everything we needed. This was emphasised further by the fact that Mr Big and I aren’t very photographic (we like being spazzes).

Case in point. / Personal photo.

The ‘sane’ thing to do would’ve been to look locally.

I’ve posted numerous photographers on the ‘Bee who are Hunter Valley/Central Coast locals. Photographers like Something Blue Photography, Cavanagh Photography, the quirky Popcorn Photography (careful, has music which plays when you click!), and my personal favourite, Photography on Hermitage, all made it on to my “should possibly contact” list. But the reason I didn’t pull the trigger?

Price.

You see, Mr Big and I didn’t really want an album. Just digital prints and unlimited access to said prints. “Paper” prints would be great, but weren’t ‘necessary’. You would’ve thought that would lessen the price at least a little bit, but it wasn’t the case. The search for our photographer frustrated us to no end. Mr Big was suffering from sticker shock and I was attempting to find anyone who could provide us with all we wanted without the excessive price tag.

What made it even more frustrating?

We wanted a photobooth and a videographer as well. That meant we had to pocket away some money to afford a photobooth, a photographer, and a videographer. Mr Big and I tried to get ourselves to stop. Loving. The photobooth. But it was too hard. We wanted it.

We wanted it bad.

And we weren’t willing to sacrifice a videographer either. I remember watching my parents’ wedding video as a kid, my uncle’s wedding video as a pre-teen, and thinking it would be awesome to have a wedding video when I were to get married. Mr Big also has a saying for this wedding, “we’ll only do it once… let’s make it the best thing ever!”

So what could we do?

Well, hive, we gave up. For about a week at least. We just didn’t touch or even poke at the subject of the wedding. We enjoyed being engaged, we stayed in and watched movies, and cuddled on the couch. We just didn’t, want, to handle it.

And then one day, after stumbling across a particular post on Polka Dot Bride, I found StudioSomething. Curious, I clicked on their link and flicked through their photos. Impressed, I went to their information page.

The first line of this page?

It’s a little small, but it reads: “You’ve heard we’re awesome, right?” / Taken via Studiosomething’s information page.

Now, if you know me, or if you’ve been reading my posts, you’ll probably have realised I use the word ‘awesome’ a lot. Like, a terrible amount of lot. I am “awesome”-addicted.

Barney knows where it’s at.

To see those five word emblazoned on the information page was enough to make me turn to Mr Big and pronounce, with wide eyes:

“I WANT THESE PHOTOGRAPHERS.”

(I kid you not, hive. Mr Big was alarmed at my enthusiasm.)

What’s more than their spectacular use of the word ‘awesome’? They take amazing photographs and the team are quirky, intelligent, and amazingly skilled at their work.

They’re not just amazing, but they understood our personalities. They know we’re not really the typical couple. They tailor their shooting styles to the personalities of their clients, they collaborate with the couple, and most of all, they have fun! Their photographs capture more than just the couple and the wedding. They capture the love, laughter, tears, and sheer beauty of the moment!

Our first meeting with them was at a café in Bondi where we bonded over coffee and the traditions attached to our wedding. They asked us what we wanted, what we liked, why we wanted to do the wedding in the Hunter, and basically just got to know Mr Big and myself.

We emailed back and forth a lot after that. Despite the fact that we loved StudioSomething, however, we knew we needed to do some shopping around. Mr Big is all about ‘choice’, so he and I wanted to see what else was out there.

However, after finding another photographic outfit that seemed like a good fit, meeting up with them, and falling into the Venus Flytrap Effect (dubbed by the wonderful Mrs Waterfall), we hurried back to StudioSomething. No other photographer made us feel as comfortable as StudioSomething’s Ellen and Phu, the two we had met up with that day in Bondi. They treated us like people, not like customers, and we definitely didn’t feel like we were being swindled simply because the word ‘wedding’ was attached to our particular event. They were still professional with us, but friendly and conversational as well!

And their photos are. Absolutely. Magical.

I love the way they shoot in black and white, as well as colour, and put so much emotion into their photographs. They’re extremely talented and bonus –

They do photo booths and stop motion.

Check it out for yourself:

Love it!

So with all of that, we were a complete and total goer for StudioSomething.

What do you guys think? Did we make the right choice?

(All photos and video copyright to StudioSomething unless otherwise stated.)

L-O-G-I-S-T-I-C-S spells, “my greatest nightmare”.

I hate logistics.

Even that word makes me cringe!

I’m not a planning maven, I leave that up to BM Superhero (who’s fantastic at it), but because this whole thing is Mr Big’s and my wedding, it seems I need to start getting a handle on this whole-timeline-thing. I’m also quite neurotic and impatient (a bad combination!), so when I want something done I try to get it done now, now, now and get twitchy when I can’t. Lately, I’ve been getting better at letting it go, especially as Mr Big has put his hand up to get most of the logistics sorted (he’s awesome like that). He’s made a Microsoft Project sheet (I kid you not!) of the timeline(-so-far) and is intending on printing out separate sheets for each significant member of our wedding, including him and myself.

I’ve tried getting a few key factors into the timeline myself (for example, my MUA and hair-stylist stated they’d be over at 6AM) but mostly? I stare blankly at the computer screen and wonder how the heck we’re going to fit everything!

You guys may remember that we have a lot going on at the wedding and even being a little bit late (especially at the reception) may ’cause an unwanted domino effect. I’m terrified we’ll not have enough time to do anything, but my parents and Mr Big keep reassuring me that it’ll “all be ok”.

The wedding is drawing so close so Mr Bighorn and I will have to start getting this logistical stuff sorted! EEP.

Ceremonial Crafting: Mood Music

Hi there Hive!

In August, I started working on our ceremony.

Our celebrant, Jenny, is great and tailors the ceremony to whatever the bridal couple wants. She’s an old friend of Mr Big’s from his days working at a big retail company when he first moved over to Australia and has since moved from said retail company to working as a fulltime celebrant. After looking through her ceremony wording portfolio, I managed to craft something which both Mr Big and I think suits us well. It’s sincere, funny, but most of all, perfectly us.

In addition to this, Jenny also added in important facts and qualities about us as a couple which just really personalises the ceremony.

I’ve crafted most of the wordings for the important sections: “Introduction”, “Giving Away”, “Exchange of Rings”, “Rituals”, and the “Declaration of Marriage”. I’ve sent these sections to Jenny, whose refined them and written them up in a lovely book which we get to keep!

But guys, I’m not here to talk about the ceremony.

I’m here to talk about the ceremony music.

We’ve had our decision for the processional since late 2012, so that’s all settled. It still needs to be cut to size (it’s a 4-minute song!), but it works with the feel of the wedding. However, the other music choices for the wedding were a lot harder to decide!

First off, we needed approximately 30 minutes of background music in the beginning.

Initially, I compiled approximately 45 tracks which I think could be used. That’s over 3 hours of music guys! Mr Big then went through it and culled three-quarters of it. Apparently, I’m not very good at musical decisions. We now have about 45 minutes for the pre-ceremony background music.

I also initially had about 5 possible songs for the signing of the marriage certificate (which is done publically in Australian weddings), but had no ideas for the recessional.

You see, the problem was that we’re very much into alternative and indie rock – and basically rock in general.

We don’t mind other things, however, most of the songs selected so far are very rock-oriented. For example, “Winter Winds” by Mumford & Sons is folk-rock, “You and Me” by Lifehouse is alternative rock, and “You Found Me” by The Fray is alternative rock. Having a random pop, classical or other-genre-of-song may sound a little strange and out of place.

We’ve also got some Linkin Park, Train, Matchbox Twenty and Rob Thomas, The Script, Of Monsters and Men, Coldplay, The Goo Goo Dolls and Birds of Tokyo. Vampire Weekend, Hoobastank and Newton Faulkner were possible artists I had listed when formulating a basic plan-of-attack for the ceremonial music.

Essentially, hive, our music isn’t “typical wedding music”.

I had previously heard of other Bees using Vitamin String Quartet (VSQ), but it just didn’t feel right to use orchestral versions of songs when we could just use the original.

Enter Imagine Dragons.

After listening to their very popular song “Radioactive” and then going through their entire album, Mr Big and I found the perfect recessional song! Mr Big was also able to cut the humongous list I had made to make it fit all nicely.

Overall, we’re pretty darn happy with our choice. Now all we have to do is ensure that the processional makes sense with everyone’s entrances and we’re all set!

Who else is using “offbeat” choices for their music?

This is MADNESS!

 

Now that that’s out of the way, it’s time to get a little serious. I’m currently in the middle of anxiously awaiting a reply from my Course Convener regarding my studies. And before people ask, it’s ok…

I passed both of my subjects from this semester. 🙂

(As a sidenote, GP is very proud – he gloats that I’m a “smart-wo-MAN” (emphasis on the man – I love this guy).)

The reason why I’m anxious is because I only just realised that the subject I WANTED to do this Semester (Qualitative/Quantitative Research) needs two pre-requisite subjects in order to enrol. These two are: 1) Statistics for Social Research, and 2) Contemporary Perspectives on Crime. Now… I’ve done the first subject and passed with a HD (yayz!). BUT, I haven’t done the second one.

Insert freaking out here.

Why am I freaking out? Well, if I have to do Contemporary Perspectives this semester, I have to do Qual/Quan Research NEXT semester. In 2014. The year I’m getting married. Which means I’m in Australia for the next 6 months next year.

You guys are probably thinking: “Uh… yeah, so what? Why is this in your wedding blog? What does THIS have to do with getting married?”

Well, it means GP and I have to push back our plans to go overseas for an extended period to June/July, instead of the intended March! Which means a later honeymoon and stress on both GP and my part. Not to mention, we really don’t want to remain in our current housing condition after the wedding, which means moving out and all the stress that comes with it…

HOWEVER, there is a silver lining!

You see, I need to do a total 120 credit points (CP) of subjects in order to pass my current course. As of right this second, I’ve done 100CP, so I only need 20CP more. In addition to this, my course requires me to do both a thesis AND coursework. Each thesis component (there are four of them) are worth 10CP. Which means, 4 thesis components = 40CP.

Everyone still following me?

Great!

Now, I’ve done 20CP out of 40CP. So I have another 20CP-worth of thesis components to do!

SO, I’m hoping that my course convener will tell me that I don’t need to do Contemporary Perspectives and Qual/Quan Research, and that all I need is 20CP more to complete the course. Which means, I have four months of JUST FOCUSING ON MY THESIS! WHOO!

That would WIN on so many levels.

Wish me luck guys!

Happy New Year!!

First off, I’d like to wish all of my readers a HAPPY NEW YEAR!! 🙂

Mine was spent with family and my fantastic-as-heck fiance ❤ It was GP’s first time in the city celebrating the New Years and watching the fireworks. He really enjoyed it (but that could’ve also been because we had Brazillian churrasco). It’s been a week exactly since then and GP’s back at work. I’m trying to get things moving along academically (I want to get into an Honours degree), so I’ve been researching like heck.

The weather is being disagreable.

It’s been swaying between hot and cold and that’s affected my health. I got the flu on the Friday night and, on Saturday, I was so terrible I couldn’t get up. Which was a huge bummer because I wanted to take GP to Taronga Zoo (and the sisters too – my little sister and ‘junior’ bridemaid was really looking forward to it too!). On Sunday I was feeling slightly better, but I was still feeling rundown. I was out with GP and my family all day, so I wasn’t in the best of moods.

I felt sorry for GP – he got the brunt of my attitude. I don’t know how he handles me so well, but he does.

And now it’s Monday! GP’s been doing work-stuffs and I’ve been sorting out my Honours stuff and trying to get over this stupid flu. My throat is getting better, but I’m still congested and suffer from dry-throat. Otherwise, it’s been rather quiet on our end.

We’ve got about one year to go until the wedding, giving us a lot of time to plan. We’ve been called organised since we’ve booked the ‘essential’ wedding things already, but we’re still trying to find cheaper ways to do things for the wedding. We’re also a little bit anxious about our guest list, because my parents are inviting more people than they originally intended on. They’re also refusing to budge on cutting the list and have stated that ‘some people can sit outside’ (which… they can’t). I’m hoping it’ll smooth out once invitations are sent, but only time can tell.

Other than that, we’re trying to sort out ideas for wedding favours, have a potential wedding band on the rise, and we’ll be attending a friends’ wedding in New Zealand very soon!

All very exciting things!! 🙂