Party

As promised some photos of our engagement party. The inspiration came from Wedding Style Guide magazine.

Wedding Style Guide inspiration

All C really wanted was lots of meat on a spit

At the last minute we organised a marquee to minimised the effect of the rain

Pretty before the rain, we bagged peanuts and pretzels in brown paper bags and filled zip locked bags with fairy floss, we also set up some games and balloon dart game and a knock'em down tin can ball game.

One of my favourite parts of the night was sitting on the picnic rugs under the trees watching the fire twirler

This was a huge learning experience for C and I, and a defining moment for us in the way we have processed to plan our wedding. This was the moment we decided we needed a small guest list. The night was the beginning of a some slow changes in our life. It directed our focus on what was important to us, our marriage, the beginning of our new life, our incredibly loving and supportive family. The engagement party really brought out the best in some of our friends, I will be forever grateful for the lovely words and thoughtfulness of Mel, Ange, Casey not to mention our family who when everything was going wrong made me laugh and feel all was not washed down the drain.

Don't have many good pictures, the rain distracted people a bit.

Party time

Let me introduce you to some friends of mine Aaron and Lenya, you might know Lenya from www.7yearwedding.blogspot.com. Saturday night we celebrated their engagement and BJB studios in Surry hills, Lenya did a great job decorating and really bring the place to life, with pom poms, installations, vintage furniture, candles and beautiful flowers created by cousin Mattew (sorry don't have any more details than that.) They really managed to infuse the place with lots of personality and it made the perfect stage for a great party.

So without further adue,

Meet Aaron and Lenya, the photoboth was a great talking point and got everyone into the swing

Pom pom Love, multicoloured pom poms hang the entire length of the studio and made the place pop.
These where all made by Lenya and family and friends.


Lenya borrowed white chairs and bought second hand chairs and painted them white to fit with her vision.
She also used pieces from the studio itself and made it personal with her own pieces from home.

This master hang from roof above the bar creating a eye catching focal piece for the room.



The pictures don't do these arrangements justise , Lenyas cousin Matt made these (and more) amazing pieces that spread all over the room, light by candles they made dramitic displays.

I apologise my photos don't do it the credit its worth, my point and shoot doesn't perform well in the dark.

I almost forgot, I helped out creating the invites for the night. Lenya had a pretty good idea of what she wanted so this was a quick simple job for me.


Lenya bought me a picture of an invites she love that used handwritten font, so I hand drew the couples name than cleaned it up on the computer to use as a header the the rest was simple, clean and easy.

Sneak peek

Went to www.7yearwedding.blogspot.com amazing engagement party on Saturday night, such a good night. And the place looked great, really created a look that reflected them - personally I think that the most important thing.


It was so good to catch up with people. Seems like such an exciting time for everyone at the moment, traveling, houses, weddings, new jobs, school, everything is happening. I love the energy so positive and excited.

Memories

It's my friend's engagement party on Saturday night and its got me thinking about our party. What went well, what went wrong and what we've learnt for the wedding.

What went well - I organised a party that: looked good and had a fun theme (carnival), had everything set up and ready to go with enough time to relax and get ready, came in on budget, we had heaps of great food, heaps of drink and lots of friends and family to share the night with us, and I did it all in a short period of time.

What went wrong, that list is very very long, just listing the major problems - it poured rain for hours, flooding part of the backyard (read: party), the verandah roof leaked drenching the bar, the power shorted out leaving us in darkness. We had hired a spit and a fairy floss machine - both got wet, shorted, actually sparking (it was a horrible 20min waiting to find out if we had destroyed the equipment and lost our money - thankfully we didn't). Our room mate the night before said he didn't want the party at the house, and said no one was to come into the house under any circumstances. In the end, we had no choice but to let everyone in. During the chaos, I was asked 1000 questions; some understandable, like where can we move the bar to, where is the power box, others silly and trivial (I realise people were trying to be nice and I'm greatful I have friends and family that wanted to help but with everything I had to deal with at the time it would have been really helpful and decreased my stress if people could have just taken care of some of the obvious problems by themselves without checking with me first...)

So what did we learn for the wedding? Make sure everyone knows whats going on so people aren't asking me anything on the day - if it hasn't been organised I don't care (and I really do mean that) I don't care about heaps of the little stuff I'm suppose to care about. Make sure I tell people that I don't want to know if something has gone wrong - if they can fix or fudge go for it, if its something really bad hopefully I can deal with it the next day. Make sure everything I've hired is out of the way and can't be damaged. Don't plan anything outside, Ok so my ceremony is but I have a backup venue and I'm actually expecting it to rain so I'm preparing myself to get wet and dirty to get good photos. Plan the day you want - don't do something just because its tradition or because its expected - it your party have fun and enjoy it.

Oh yeah I forgot we also had to move house the next day - worst idea ever! It wasn't planned that way but the house (rented) was sold so we had to get out. And we had a small fire (almost burnt down the house) during the day when we were starting the spits.

I'll post some pictures later

P.S: At the end of it all we had a great night, even with all the things that went wrong.

Where we are so far

So what have I done so far..

Well I got engaged, on a beautiful beach, after a picnic breakfast, while snorkeling - we where looking for buried treasure (well mucking around being silly) and treasure I got, a fiance and a dream ring. Followed by homemade chocolate covered strawberries and my favourite champagne. Than when we finished at the beach we headed home got dressed and hit the town to celebrate with cocktails and dinner.

We've had our engagement party a great night, except for the about hour that it stormed, this being a problem because the party was in the backyard. When the backyard flooded it got a bit stressful. Also a good lesson never plan an outdoor event

I've also found a venue - very hard decision. Ordered a dress, and we have possible found my finances suits pretty good to start.