Ebridal expo..

So off to the expo we went.. mum, the kidlets and I..  right before our 4.5 hour drive to Geraldton! Luckily, even though I forgot to get their snacks out of the car, there was free popcorn, free slushy samples and cupcakes for sale. Bribery goes a long way with the kids.. and it helped that practically every stand had a huge dish of candy.

As previously mentioned I had $500 in vouchers to spend at the expo and a list of about a dozen things I was interested in spending them on. About 80% of those things weren't available. I *did* put down a $100 deposit with Sugar Blue Burlesque, and have now handed over the booking details/responsibility to my Matron of Honour Mrs McD.

I spent another $100 at The Luxury Shop on some freshwater pearl jewelry (including some earrings I was hoping would be my perfect wedding earrings, but they were too long and the wrong colour). We had some trouble finding other things we could buy and "take straight home", so we put down $200 to spend at Put it Out There on wedding and/or hen's stuff and the last $100 I ended up blowing on personalised chocolates for my hen's night from Amanda Dwyer. All in all, a pretty successful outing.

Burlesque Brides..

MOH Mrs McD, my sister (BM) and I have been phoning back and forth all week with ideas for the Hen's night, when to hold it and what things I ABSOLUTELY do not want. Current #1 idea is a Sugar Blue Burlesque flavoured Hen's Party. My sister and I saw them at the last ebridal expo and thought it was a fabulous idea - and I've spoken to a couple of people who have been to their parties and they said it was well worth it. Definitely sounds more my style than a stripper!

Speaking of the ebridal expo, did I mention that in addition to the $100 voucher I won at their August expo I won $500 to spend at this weekend's expo? (Conveniently in 5x $100 vouchers so that I don't have to spend it all in the one place!) So I've written a list of things that I'm hoping might be at the expo.. including hair pieces/fascinators for the girls, clutch purses, lingerie, scrapbooking supplies for the programs/placecards/table numbers etc - there are about a dozen things on my list. If I can find even two or three things that I can spend my vouchers on I will be happy!

Bridesmaids, sorted!

So my sister and I went to the eBridal expo last weekend and found a bridesmaid dress that we really liked on her. It's a Mori Lee dress in a "sapphire green" colour and the colour just looked amazing on her. It was a few shades darker than the colour I had in my head, but once I saw it on her I knew it was perfect! Luckily my MOH, Mrs McD also loved it when I sent her the picture to look at! Yay!

Seeing as I'm trying to be "frugal" I just couldn't come at spending $330 per dress, so I emailed the picture to the dressmaker who is making my dress and for a custom made, similar design we're only paying ~$125 per dress. Much better! AND seeing as we're getting them made, the dress maker will also make matching ties for the groomsmen and make the sash on the flowergirl dress the same colour. Perfect!

Ticking Boxes..

Clearly I'm not so great at keeping this updates, but let me say that until this last week I hadn't been moving particularly fast with the whole wedding planning thing anyway!

BUT, as per the title, I have some boxes that I can finally check! So we already know that I have the ceremony venue, the cake, the makeup and the bridesmaids sorted out.. but now I can also say that I have:

* Booked our reception venue - we decided to go with Tides of Geraldton.. Ziph decided that he was prepared to "take my word for it" if I was sure that I liked it,. I also found out that they're doing some renovations next month, so I'm sure that will only make it even better! We went through their wedding prospectus which lists their different menu options and at this stage we think we'll go with the set menu with the tapas entree option. The only difficulty will be deciding *which* items to choose because they all sound so yummy!

* Booked our florist - after meeting with Chantelle from Flowers in Love I was pretty sure that she was the perfect person to do our flowers.. the first quote left me feeling lukewarm (flower choices turned out to be rather temperamental if not handled *just so*), so I emailed her back and told her how I was feeling and asked if we could go with something simpler. Chantelle reassured me that there was nothing boring with my "simple" choice and sent through another quote for the new flowers. I was much happier second time around, and the whole experience served to convince me that my initial impression of Chantelle was right and that she was the perfect person for the job.. I know I won't have to worry about how my flowers will turn out! Sent through the confirmation, just have to post the booking form and pay the deposit.

* Organised to have MY wedding ring made. Years ago, before I had children I used to work in the jewelry industry, so I made use of some of my previous connections and have arranged for Bill at Exclusive Gold Jewellers to design and make my wedding ring. As I'm having something designed to fit around my engagement ring, I've had to surrender it temporarily which left me feeling rather naked! I ended up putting another ring on my finger to make me feel better while I wait! But I'm very excited to see how my ring turns out..

* Picked my wedding dress. I'm having it made by Topspartner and it will be in the style of Maggie Sottero's Ericka dress. They're also going to make a matching cathedral length mantilla veil, and a flower girl dress in the same fabric for my little possum. I'm currently considering getting them to make the bridesmaids dresses as well, but we haven't found a style that we love yet.

We still need to sort out the photography, invitations, bombonniere, ceremony/reception decorations, grooms party attire (and finalise the groomsmen, I think.. Ziph has the best man sorted but seems to be dragging his feet when it comes to asking the other person, so I'm not sure if he's sure, IYKWIM?) and a couple of other bits and pieces.. but atleast if all else fails we now have somewhere to get married, somewhere to party afterwards, cake to eat and I'll have something to wear, my flowers and my wedding ring - all the important stuff, right?

Oh, and there's the eBridal wedding expo this weekend, which I won a $100 voucher to use at any of their exhibitors, so cross your fingers that I might find something worth spending my money on!!