A Very Sparkle Wedding

Come Fly With Me

2010-12-16T08:30:02Z

Regular followers of this blog will know that there was a wedding recently.

Actually, that was the whole point of the blog, to keep our peeps informed of the progress leading up to the big day.

Well, it's been and gone now and I type this to you from a cafe in Paddington, London, UK as we wait for some real food that wasn't heated in a litle foil tray in a microwave thirty thousand feet above sea level. Not that the food on the plane was that bad, it was just that . . .

And that's as far as I got before Mat came back from ordering our breakfast to tell me that there was no point in writing any more.

I don't remember what I was going to say but maybe it was something about airline food trying to please everyone with the limited variety and not quite managing because I'm never going to eat salad just because I'm starving so I will have no other option than to exisit on a brief meal of cheese and crackers for 24 hours. And some apple juice.

Not too much though. There's no other feeling like trying to "hold it" on a plane until the person next to you gets up because you're so polite you don't like to wake a sleeping person or trying to construct a sentence that won't endear you to your fellow passenger that forces them to think you're so awesome that they must insist on talking to you the entire flight (sorry honey - I'll take the next crazy, I promise) or even simply getting to the space loo finally and then not being able to figure out the door once you're in there and potentially getting stuck in there for the duration of the flight. For the record, this hasn't happened to me yet but there have been some close calls.

But I probably wasn't going to say any of that so please disregard all of the above.

Updates unplugged

2010-11-16T10:35:53Z

I had started writing a blog post on the honeymoon until I was informed that there was a problem with our server back home and it was offline for some reason so all of our good intentions of posting updates and photos from the wedding and then the honeymoon went by the wayside.

So yes, we are trying to play catch-up with our lives as well as the blog and there will be many links and photos and updates in the coming weeks - stay tuned. . .

Hey, aren't you married?

2010-11-15T02:17:43Z

A few quick notes...

1. If you have had a birthday and we missed it (either while we were gone or while we were in post honeymoon tizzy) we're sorry! We totally love you and wish that you had a happy day.

2. Our phones have been barred, so we can't SMS/call you. We can receive calls. Quick tip for those travelling overseas... if you're with 3 only use data roaming when with 3 in the country you are in.

3. Don't have the professional wedding photos yet, but have heaps of honeymoon photos. Haven't had time to organise them properly/upload the best, so it's a bit scrappy.

The Wedding Day
Honeymoon Melbourne/London
Honeymoon Denmark
Honeymoon Germany
Honeymoon Paris
Honeymoon Hong Kong

4. Thanks to everyone (again) who came to the wedding and to everyone who made it what it was. We hope you all had fun! Let us know if you enjoyed it.

Some people have been asking about some of the things we did, we'll be trying to blog about these (and our adventures on the honeymoon) just as soon as we can. So keep an eye out on the website for more info coming soon (ish)

10.10.10

2010-10-10T06:32:20Z

And yes I am writing a blog post the morning of my wedding.

It's a fairytale beginning.
I set the alarm to make sure I wouldn't sleep in and went to sleep to dream of today and woke up to the sound of birds chirping the dawn of the new day.

Fricken birds!

I coulda sleep in until the alarm went off if they hadn't been having a fricken conference right outside my fricken window.

breathe breathe

So whilst I am totally awake and totally looking forward to the day, I am a little sore and probably red of eye. But that's the makeup artists problem innit?

I've had a shower and am going to have a milo soon. And then in about half an hour it starts. Right now I feel like I'm in the eye of the storm. There was a flurry of activity yesterday making sure everything was where it needed to be and soon all the hair and makeup and getting dressed kerfuffle will begin but right now I'm just sitting here in my dressing gown calmly typing this post and exchanging chat messages with him on my phone.

But I have to go so I can prep for the big show, I mean wedding.

See you there

Hey, look over there!

2010-10-07T07:34:58Z

We had our rehearsal for the wedding ceremony last night.
I'm not a runaway bride but I do think the walking down the aisle bit is going to be more like running.

I was completely fine in the lead up but as soon as I heard my intro music I started well freaking out! In my head it was going a certain way and I thought that was a bit much so I toned it down but now I'm thinking that I have made the wrong choice. Not in the getting married part just in the manner in which it happens.

There were only seven of us there but the other six keep looking at me! It's as if it just hit me what was going to happen. Our celebrant says she gets worried if people aren't nervous, so yay?
I'm not a crier but the butterflies in my stomach had brought some of their elephant friends to the party and I almost wanted to bawl during the fricken rehearsal - what am I going to be like on Sunday?!?

I may have gone too diva on this whole thing. Prancing down the aisle in a big foofy dress is probably not helping either. People who know me don't seem to realise that when I say I don't like being the centre of attention that I really mean it. Oh sure I'm happy to walk around with a microphone making witty comments between questions at our engagement party because you're all concentrating on getting the answers mostly right. I'm cool with being the chalk bitch at the local trivia night when the scores are read out and subtly (or not) changing the scores of people I don't like whilst boosting my own teams score. But actual on purpose making it so everyone HAS to turn around and stare at me, drawing it out by picking odd music and pausing at the top of the aisle for photo ops is really going too far.

Grooms have it too easy.

Please Player...

2010-10-04T10:39:00Z

Player Please!
Look at you, checking in with 3 members of the opposite sex! Player, please!
I'm pretty sure Sharon's happy for me to be a gamer, not so sure about a player.

Now Sharon already has this badge, but I don't.

So here's what I was thinking. All I need is two (2) females with smart phones to
1. join foursquare
2. download the foursquare app on your smart phone (or iphone if you don't have a smart phone)
3. Friend me (username: urbaer)
4. Check-in at Ashton Manor on the day of the ceremony before we say "I do"

And then I can get the badge and Sharon won't accuse me of being a player after we're married!

Where is the love?

2010-10-02T15:42:42Z

Yes, I was definitely feeling the love yesterday as my peeps from work arranged a secret afternoon tea to celebrate my upcoming nuptials.

I had no idea what they were planning and was thrilled to see that amongst the supplier donated (cos they all love me) pies and donuts, the par-tay food was all "bring a plate" style with home made cakes

and shortbread, some personalised piklets,

mini pavlovas and FAIRY BREAD!

I love me some fairy bread.

It was really thoughtful and great to see the effort that everyone put in. I even got the "Father of the Bride" speech by my boss who has two boys of his own so thought it was a real experience going through all the wedding stuff vicariously as I worried over details like shoes and placecards and the like.
He's just happy that he doesn't have to pay for it!

The afternoon tea also turned out to be practice for the wedding too because I had extreme difficulty getting to eat anything as everyone kept talking to me and asking me questions, I had to stand the whole time and the camera (phone) kept taking pictures of me when I wasn't ready!

'salright, it's my phone and delete is close friend.

Four Weddings . . . and three funerals?

2010-09-18T10:19:02Z

Of course that’s not actually the case but it might as well be if the "contestants" reactions are anything to go by.

Everyone who knows us knows that we love our Bridezillas. Mat and I watch it more as a what not to do rather than trying to pick up tips. We have even found ourselves having mock re-enactments of some episodes but will have to cut that out soon because people might not be willing to believe that us screaming at each other “YOUR FAMILY IS STUPID” or “I’M NOT GONNA MARRY YOU” or our favourite, heavily sobbing “She left me! SHE LEFT ME!", is a direct quote from a television program.

Then there are the “Wedding Planners”, a UK show made several years ago, if the hairstyles are anything to go by. These are weddings from the planners point of view, giving an insight in to all of the things they need to organise to ensure that everything goes off without a hitch. Or only one hitch being the actually getting married part. It gave us an idea of just what we’d have to go through if we wanted a wedding ceremony at the registrars in a dress styled liked a mermaid followed by a fancy dress themed reception on a boat. Or what to do when the country manor you’re using is suddenly quarantined by a foot and mouth outbreak.

“Bethenny Getting Married?” is proving to be interesting as one of the former “Real Housewives of New York City” (a housewife and she’s just now getting married? Must have been one of the bitchy friends) as we see a heavily pregnant Bethenny try to organise a wedding, run her business empire and keep her beau from making any important decisions.

But now there is a new kid on the taffeta and meringue block, “Four Weddings”, the premise of which sees four brides going to each other’s wedding to critique and score them with the wedding that receives the most points winning a honeymoon. The budgets of each wedding vary with no guarantee that the most expensive one will win. Of course I personally think that if you've dropped 80 G's on your wedding you have either chosen not to have a honeymoon or you should have budgeted better.

I’ve only seen two episodes and already I know that if I was on the show that
A - I would lose spectacularly and
B – I wouldn’t get much screen time because I’m not that big a bitch (no need to comment there thanks people).

I know I would lose because some of the things that I’ve seen heavily criticised by these brides are things that we are planning, had considered or discarded entirely for our wedding.

One of the weddings featured the couple being introduced at the reception and then cutting the cake straight away. The other brides freaked out – “I didn’t know what was going on? Why are they cutting the cake? I didn't know what was going to happen next”.
Ladies, not all of us can afford to pay a photographer to stand around all day just to get a couple of snaps of the bride and groom cutting the cake. Yes, sure, a lot of the guests will take photos too but if you know how much effort went in to the cake you might like to have at least one really clear picture of it before it gets devoured.

"I'll need to give her some tip on how to throw her bouquet, the flowers just went everywhere." Yeah, um, she's already thrown it, tips aren't going to be much good now.
But do we really need to single out the single ladies and have them fight over a bunch of flowers in such a way that both the flowers and the "lucky winner" end up looking fairly tragic and more than a little crushed?

"I didn't like her dress but I supposed it suited her".
Four Weddings meet four letters - STFU!
She chose that dress cos she likes it, it was in her budget or she's got a ye olde royal kingdom kind of theme for her wedding and her Queen Elizabeth inspired dress matches perfectly with her partner who is dressed in chain mail and wearing a sword.

Before you ask, no we're not having a theme wedding but we aren't exactly sticking to tradition as I'm sure you'll notice on the day. Yes, we'll be suiting up and there will big a foofy dress (on me not Mat) but I'm not about to give anything away. There are not many people who know all of the details of the day and partly it's me being a control freak but mostly because I look at the day as a surprise party for all of our guests. If you know too much you might not be able to max out your fun meter because you already know what to expect.

As for all of the offers of help, I can assure you we appreciate it but we're not trying to hurt your feelings by saying no thank you, we literally do have everything organised, despite what my FB status might say from time to time.

We've picked a lovely venue that includes pretty much everything we need and it even comes with an event co-ordinator. We've Googled the crap out of everything else to make sure we get all the right people to do the driving and the zjuzing and the photo-ing. Even the honeymoon has been Google planned.

The things that we need help with are things that we have to do ourselves. Like collating RSVP's, writing vows and working out the seating plan (prepare to mingle my friends).

But not the actual getting married part.

We got that all under control.

What do we want?

2010-09-09T11:31:05Z

When do we want it?

Whenever!

Seriously, we have have no idea.
We haven't registered anywhere and we don't have a list.

We do have an over abundance of cutlery, a mixer and a video camera that we used a bunch of gift cards to help us buy (I promise thank you cards are coming, we're not ungrateful I swear).
Several people have also put dibbs on stuff like flatwear, knives (kitchen or throwing, not sure) and an awesome set of luggage that we've already picked out (they're so cool - they spin!).

We don't have a clue of what to tell people when they ask us directly what do you want for a wedding present?

I've posted before that I don't like telling people what to buy. I beleive a registry is an assumption that people will buy you presents and that they can afford to spend X amount of dollars on you. But I also realise that if I don't tell people something when they ask it's possible we'll end up with a giant wooden tiki-stlye knife and fork which, as lovely as they are, is not quite in keeping with our current decor.

Asking for money also makes me feel bad.
Mat and I both feel like we're asking people to put a visible dollar figure on their love for us. And we certainly don't want to put pressure on anyone who might not be able to afford to give according to other peoples perception of an "acceptable" amount. The last thing we want is people making sacrifices in order to give more like what they think is expected rather than what they can afford.

We have also seen websites that sort of tell people what you're doing on your honeymoon so that if they want they can buy upgrades, activites or tickets for you to enjoy. But again, I'm pretty sure that this amounts to just giving cash to someone else who will pass it on to us in case we want to do that stuff, they don't actually purchase any of those things.

Having said all that, matching DSi-XL's are not to be sneered at and I am hoping to get a cuckoo clock in Austria whilst Mat will probably save his "spending money" for any of the three Legolands (Disneyland for me!) that we're going to on the honeymoon.

Romantic ain't we?

RSVP... found out what it means to me

2010-09-03T01:43:17Z

Every day that Sharon comes home from the office and I greet her at the door the sixth thing that she says to me is "has anyone RSVP'd today? Does anyone love us?"

And then she becomes a sad monkey... because I have to tell her that no, no-one has RSVP'd today.

There are at least two great ways to RSVP. The first is to send an email to our lovely email address. Or the second way is to leave a wonderful message on our voicemail system that has been especially set up to handle RSVPs. All you need to do is dial the number and then speak after the beep. How easy is that?

But either way let us know who's coming or whose not. And don't assume that we know you're coming just because you adore us. You were invited on the basis that you adore us. What we need to know is if you'll actually be coming to the wedding.

So don't make Sharon a sad monkey! RSVP today.

Oh and RSVP is by 08.09.10 which happens to be the same day that I go for my driving test, so wish me luck!