What is truth?

(Another of the wedding posts)

This is probably the biggest and most complicated aspect of planning a wedding. Once you’ve decided where something is going to be you know what you have to work around. You know what kind of food will be feasible, whether you’ll have to organise seating and tables and so on.

We wanted to get married outdoors. That was a good start because it was something we agreed on. I scoured the internet to find nice parks and built up a pretty list in my mind of all the different options. Then I started to work out the logistics. It turns out that holding events in public parks is hard. There are bonds and insurance and thousands of policies and hiring them cost more than I expected it too… This made me miserable for a little while and I toyed with the idea of us just getting married at the church - no need to deal with all the bureaucracy.

Then, somehow, an idea popped into my head. You know, I don’t remember where it came from. I don’t remember whether someone suggested it, or mentioned it in relation to something else or what. But suddenly in my mind was the idea of having the wedding on my grandparent’s property.

It’s a beautiful place. They took it over when I was a little kid and have been working at restoring it to natural Australian countryside ever since. The property itself is pretty huge, running behind half the town, but most of it is on a pretty steep slope. The part I was thinking about is the furthest away from the house, right at the bottom of the hill. When I was small I remember it being full of all kinds of imported trees and reeds. I remember when my grandparents worked with Trees for Life and perhaps some other helpful people and planted tons of native trees. Those trees are now huge. The trees run all along the river and some of the flat ground too. But some of it is cleared out (Pop normally uses those areas for his annual bonfires).

Anyway, idea in mind, I talked with my Pop about the possibility. He seemed pretty keen but concerned by the access. See, to get a car into the bottom of the property you need to go through the local park and there’s a ditch at the entrance which is basically mush through all the winter months. His concern was that having so many cars coming through when it was just drying out would end up with people bogged into the ground. But he took me to investigate and it was just so pretty. I could see how I wanted it all to happen. We could always ferry people across in a 4WD or most of them could walk (who wears high heels to my wedding? That’s right: no one). Secondary problem: the place I wanted the wedding to happen was across a bridge designed for ride on mowers and people. Cars definitely could not fit. Oh well, minor problems. In my mind, it was settled. The wedding was happening here or at the church. I was done with public parks.

Need I say, it was beautiful?

(I’m trying not to double up with the pics I put on here so scroll through the other wedding posts if you want to see some more of the beautiful scenery. I’ve gone with a bit of a “let’s laugh at Peter theme” this time :P. Oh, and once again, photo credit to friends D and H because they were heroes and their pictures are marvellous!)

Hey all,

As you may know I got married last year (yay!) and part of getting married is that people give you tons of lovely presents.

One of the really cool presents we were given was the promise of a canvas printed photo of our choice. The canvas print is 30” x 40” and it would definitely brighten up our home.

Only problem is that I’m not much of a photographer. I take pictures on my smart phone and, let’s face it, they just don’t blow up that big. The only photos we own that are big enough are wedding pics but for something that big we would rather have a scenery shot. (Large as life pictures of my face scare me…)

So, I am asking for help from you, my darling tumblr buddies. Have any of you taken any scenic, hi-res photos you wouldn’t mind me putting up on my wall? Or do you know of someone else who might help?

All over the internet I’ve written rants and raves about how weddings shouldn’t cost as much as they do. People shouldn’t feel compelled to throw an expensive wedding simply because that’s what’s expected of them.

Let’s face it, girls like to look at wedding pictures and hear stories about weddings. If all the stories you ever hear are of weddings that would be unattainable without a huge budget then you’re going to find it hard to have a wedding without said budget.

My aim to combat this is to encourage all of us normal people to post pictures and stories and details of our non-forty-thousand-dollar weddings. This is hardly a new concept. These amazing people have had a hub of sensible wedding advice/stories forever (as far as the internet is concerned). But I want to spread it further.

So, here on my wedding page I will post about aspects of our wedding. It was a beautiful wedding. Everyone had a lovely time. It was not expensive.

If you had a “cheap” wedding, or helped out with one, then submit some pictures or a story or both. I’d love to hear from you.

When I was six years old I was a flower girl at my Aunt Ruth’s wedding. I remember all kinds of things about that day and the lead up to it. Mostly I remember being proud, happy and excited.

Ruth now has two girls, aged (at the time of my wedding) three and six, so naturally, I wanted to give them a similar memory to look back on. We also had my husband’s cousin’s daughter as a flower girl. She is a really sweet kid and between my cousins in age. It was a perfect fit!

Both my cousins are really girly - they absolutely love the colour pink. So I really wanted to find them dresses to make them feel like princesses.

We knew the weather could be pretty cold so along with the white sandals (picked out by the girls themselves) they also wore white tights and cute cardigans. On the morning of the wedding, as a last minute thought, Ruth also threaded little flowers onto the bobby pins she was going to use in the girls’ hair. They were perfect!

I spent ages wandering around trying to find pretty wicker baskets for the girls to put their flowers in but to no avail. In the end I bought some clear tins (which at least had a handle!) at a craft store and asked Ruth (who is amazingly creative and crafty) if she would decorate them for me.

I originally had this great plan for the flower girls to throw rock rose petals. My parents have a ridiculous number of rock roses and they flower toward the end of September. Only this year they didn’t. At least not enough to have three separate baskets of them. I worried quite a bit over what we were going to do about this but then I was wandering in the garden and had the realisation that they didn’t all need to throw the same flower. It could be cute if they all had different flowers. We decided on rock roses, seaside daisies and lavender.

All in all, they seemed to have a great day filled with pretty dresses, bubbles, flowers and family! There are a few really beautiful pictures at another friend’s website too.

Let me tell you about my wedding.                    

The area it was held in is really beautiful - a clearing surrounded on one side by Australian bushland and a creek, and on the other, a hill with vineyards. To get into the clearing you walk across a wooden bridge.

We walked down the aisle to this song. My three bridesmaids walked ahead of me, each holding the hand of a small flower girl.

And then everything happened. We said vows, we kissed, my Nanna read a poem and then some of our friends read “Oh! The places you’ll go!” by Dr Seuss. We signed the registry to a flute and violin duet of Pachelbel’s Canon.

We hugged everyone, took lots of photos, and then we danced to this song.

There was food, cake, and speeches. It was beautiful and lovely and everyone had a really great time.

      ______________________________________________________________

Now, here’s the thing, weddings are meant to be expensive affairs, right? Well ours was not and my main purpose in writing this is to let you know (for whenever you decide to get married) that yours doesn’t need to be either.

Some things that saved us a ton of money:

1. The wedding was held on my grandparent’s property.

2. The invitations were designed by my husband’s sister and printed on photo paper,

2. My dress was bought at Myer. It cost $75. My shoes were bought from an op-shop. They cost $6.

3. My flower girl baskets and hair pins were DIY and the dresses were bought at Best & Less,

5. The cake was made by my Nanna, and cupcakes by a family friend,

6. We borrowed the church sound system which was manned by my brother.

7. My make-up was done my the sister of one of my bridesmaids.

8. We didn’t have wedding cars.

9. The catering was done by a family I have known since forever.

10. Marquees, tables and chairs were borrowed from the church/community association.

11. Our photographs were taken by close friends (a) and (b),

12. Family friends (father and sister of another of my bridesmaids) played the Pachelbel’s Canon duet.

13. Our flowers were bought from Coles and arranged by another family friend. She also brought flower basket hangers to define the ‘aisle’, which was completely her own idea,

The only way we could have managed to have such a cheap and amazing wedding was thanks to the time and effort put in by our family and friends. They were seriously incredible and we can’t thank them enough.

But as for you… At the end of all this you might feel discouraged and think that your grandparents don’t own an amazing property like mine do. That’s not the point. Your friends and family have their own skills and talents. Ask them if they want to help out - mostly people are so excited.

People love weddings. The only thing most people love more than going to weddings is being involved in them. Doing things this way means that everyone feels they are truly welcome - as opposed to being just a stray guest.

Cool, I’m done talking so bye now, but if you want to ask me any questions about other aspects of our wedding then go ahead :)

EDIT: I totally forgot to mention that apilgrimavoyager was the best maid of honour ever! When will I finally become a good friend…?