Holidays

The school holidays are coming up in ~3 weeks, and the general plan was for me, my mum, my sister and the kids to head up to Geraldton for a few days for a holiday (and as an added bonus, so that I could do some wedding stuff like looking for a reception venue!).

I was talking to Ziph about it today, and about annual leave in general, suggesting he could take some time off over the school holidays. As usual, Ziph decides to surprise me with a low key, off hand comment like "Oh, yeah.. I thought I might come up with you.."!!

I'm a bit excited, because it means we might get to go hunting for a reception venue together, which will be much more fun than going on my own and hoping that he'll be happy to take whatever I randomly decide on. (Especially seeing as he's apparently got *ideas* of his own about how this wedding and reception should play out!)

More invitations!

So we went to the Bridal Expo on the weekend, and I found a local company that does letterpress invitations. I have no idea how much they charge, I guess I'll have to make a formal enquiry if I want to know, but I thought I'd share their blog with you!

A sneak peek

Wedding Expo

There's a wedding expo on this weekend, and I've convinced Ziph that if he comes to this one, I won't make him go to the next one in August (different expo).. I really want to go today, so that we can get it done, and then he can spend the rest of his weekend doing what he wants. I just know that if we wait until tomorrow, time will get away from us (no, I really mean him) and it'll be 4pm (and it finishes at 5pm) before we get there, and I'll be stressed and cranky and he'll decide the whole going to an expo together thing was clearly a bad idea.
But the whole point of going together is so that I can get an idea of what *he* likes, and so he can get an idea of how much effort goes into planning a wedding, AND that it's NOT OK to wait until 2 weeks before the wedding to book things. Seriously. I know the wedding is still 10 months away, and that seems like forever (to him! I feel like time is slipping away already!) but the more we book *now* (while I'm cool, calm and collected ;) ), the less we have to worry about closer to the time (when my stress levels are astronomical!).

Invitations

Now I know it's a little early to be ordering anything, but I came across these today:

on a website called Pretty Inviting and thought they were adorable..

I also really like letterpress style invitations, but short of doing this, I can't imagine that it will fit our budget considering that we'll only need to have ~20-30 invitations made.

And inspite of being a general fan of the whole scrapbooking thing, apparently I am *not* a fan of DIY scrapbook style invitations. Who would have guessed? Certainly not me!

I think we'll either end up with Ziph designing something spectacular and then uploading it to Vista Print or buying some lasercut designed thing that we can insert some vellum into (that we will print on the laser printer & cut to size)..

But I love the idea of "Save the Date" fridge magnets.. I just wish that Ziph and I had a decent photo of us as a couple (that isn't 10 years old :P)

Something blue..

I found a website called Something Blue in one of my wedding mags, so I decided to check it out today.. Someone has these gorgeous wedding centerpieces available on there:

But considering that we haven't finalised our guest list, or our reception venue, I don't suppose that I can accurately estimate how many I'd need.. and I'm not even sure what our final theme will be, either. But I do think they're gorgeous, and if I'm meant to have them, they'll still be there when I want them, right?

I also found these bridesmaid tshirts on Pink Frosting :

I think they're really cute.. but I'm not sure my sister will be keen to wear something so *pink*! Then again, they're also available in black & white.. I just think the pink is fabulous ;)

Notice of Intended Marriage..

We got our Notice of Intended Marriage form in the mail today. The minister from St George's posted it to us, and now we need to fill it in, get it signed by our local minister and then send it back. It's kind of exciting.. or atleast it will be once Ziph has signed it! *grin* Kind of like it's "really happening"..

To register, or not to register - that is the question..

I was talking with some girlfriends about registries today. It all started because Ziph and I are thinking of going on a cruise for our honeymoon and we have the following options:

a) an 11 night cruise, Fremantle->Singapore, and fly back home;
b) a 25 night round trip cruise, Fremantle->Singapore->Fremantle (the aforementioned 11 night cruise, plus a 14 night return cruise).

The thing is, Ziph doesn't really want to fly.. he would do it though, and atleast Singapore is relatively close..  being 6'7" doesn't make economy class all that comfortable on a long haul! And if we do the 11 night cruise, we could always stay in Singapore for a day or two before flying back. The only reason that I sound put out about this whole thing is that *normally* the cruise line runs a 17 day round trip cruise (which was the one that we'd been looking at before we got engaged) but next year they've changed it and they aren't offering the 17 night cruise, only the 11 night Fremantle->Singapore, 14 day Singapore->Fremantle or 25 night Fremantle->Singapore->Fremantle cruises. *sigh* Or our other options are something like 46 days to India/South Africa, but I think not!!

But if we go for the 25 night cruise it's a bit too long to be away from the kids, so we'd have to take them with us. Very romantic. AND it increases the cost.. Infact, the 25 night cruise (for the 4 of us) would be approximately 1.5x the cost of our wedding budget. Still, Ziph and I *had* planned to take the kids on a cruise at some point in the next year or two (even before we decided to get married).. and if we go on a cruise for our honeymoon, we might not be in a position to go on *another* cruise with the kids for another year or two after that (including annual leave etc)..

So one of my girlfriends suggested that perhaps we could look at a honeymoon registry.

When I was younger (pre-kids) I used to love the idea of going to Myer or David Jones and signing up for one of their bridal registries.. Getting to wander around and scan anything that took my fancy.. oh the things I dreamt of putting on there! But now that I'm older and have a home and children, I already have towels and sheets and cookware. Sure, they're not fancy, and you can never have too many towels.. but it just doesn't hold the same allure that it used to. Seriously.. I would *love* some Le Creuset cookware, but (well, I'd need a kitchen that looked the part ;) ) I do have other cookware that can do the same job. Maybe they're worth every cent, but seeing as I don't have one I don't know what I'm missing, yes? But I just can't justify the price.

Still.. there's a little part of me that wants to do the bridal registry thing, even if it seems unnecessary...

But a honeymoon registry? I'd never really considered that as a serious option before.. I know that it's popular with couples who want to go and do something exotic and romantic, but I never really thought that we'd do something exotic (or expensive) enough to need a honeymoon registry! But having priced our options, maybe it's something we should seriously consider..

It seems kind of bizarre to me to ask someone to pay for me to go on a holiday though, instead of buying a toaster.

So, to register, or not to register?

Wedding scrapbook..

I had an entirely different post planned in my head while I was out and about today. Now that I've put the kids to bed though, I'm feeling a bit tired and so instead I'm planning to curl up infront of the TV with my scissors, glue, paper and all the pages I've torn out of magazines and attempt to organise them into some sort of cohesive arrangement.

I was reading a post on Wedding Bee about wedding themes, and one of the random comments someone made mentioned how the bride/poster used cardboard paint samples to put together her colour palette so that people (vendors, her mum etc) could see *exactly* what her colour scheme was. How cool is that? I'm *so* heading down to Bunnings once my theme/colour scheme has emerged from the chaos that will soon be a nice, orderly file of wedding ideas!

Having said that though, I *think* (although it may change) that my colour scheme will probably be something like pink/purple/white/green for the flowers, and maybe an aquamarine or turquoise colour for the bridesmaids' dresses (which should compliment the flower colours nicely). As for my "theme"? Who knows?

Fitness freak..

Ziph just called me a fitness freak!

This would be completely hilarious if you knew me. I am almost the world's largest procrastinator and couch potato.

So why did he call me a fitness freak? Let me explain.

About a month before we got engaged, I was pushing for us to get married *on* our anniversary. In a registry office. Ziph replied something along the lines of "Do you really want to get married in a month? Won't you want to look good in a dress?"

Yes, that's right folks, it does indeed sound like he implied I would NOT look good in a dress as I currently am. Apparently that isn't what he meant - he was supposedly implying that all brides want to starve themselves for 6 months before their weddings. But I don't care what he meant, what he SAID was that I wouldn't look good in a dress.

So given that I'd been planning to lose 20kg (eventually).. I guess I needed to stop procrastinating and get right on that if I wanted to look good in a dress, yes? So I managed to join the local gym, where all my playgroup mum friends go.. so I have lots of "gym buddies" which motivates me to actually turn up.

Tonight however, I'm a bit under the weather, and would love to curl up in bed and sleep, BUT I have a gym date with the mums to do a Zumba class. So I HAVE to go. And I WANT to go, even though I feel like crap. Ziph thinks this is crazy, and that I should go to bed instead, but as long as I get a good night's sleep, ok. Sure, babe.. and then I'm going to KIMAX in the morning... (again, with the mum's)

And that's why I'm a fitness freak. Because I feel like I'm being hit by a freight train, but I'm dragging myself to the gym anyway, in an effort to be FIT not FAT and look good in that goddamned wedding dress.