Holiday

This weekend C and I have taken some time off and headed down the coast for a long weekend. We are staying in Gerringong for a friends wedding, I'm really excited, it sound like its going to be heaps of fun.

And while we are down this direction C and I thought we'd get some wedding chores knocked off, so later today we are headed to Nowra to work out travelling time between venues so we can finalise the running sheet, order the cakes, which we are now having on the Saturday at Brunch rather than during the wedding, to many people don't eat the cake at the wedding, and these cakes are really good we want people to eat them. The most exciting of all, we are picking our ceremony location, we'll stop in at about the time of the wedding to see where the sun and shade is to pick a nice place on the field to get married.

Its going to be a good weekend I think.

Update

We have a brunch venue, we have come an agreement with the Lodge (our original venue) we still have to hire the toilets but we found somewhere that can do it for a reasonable rate provided we pick up and return - fine with me. They also agreed to drop the additional charges and let us use the one site BBQs. I was still worried about spending the extra money but we've saved in a few other areas and we really did want to send the day with everyone by the river.

One of the biggest thing that has shaped our budget during the process is the desire to spend time to everyone and share the things we love the most, food, drink, location, food (I know we really like food - its a problem for us). This has meant we have rewritten our budget 100 times to make it work, and honestly we'll be a little over in the end but I'm yet to say I regret anything we spent money on yet.

:( rant

So I'm not sure really want to say about this one, it seems reason doesn't always prevail and you can't always trust that spoken conversations are enough.

The problem is with our ceremony and Brunch venue the Shoalhaven lodge. Our plan for post ceremony had been to serve drinks post ceremony for the 45min so guest can mingle enjoy the surrounds and have some photos, while C and I have our photos. However they have decided that if we want to serve drinks we would have to hire portable toliets, even though we have hired all the the accommodation and the accommodation has 9 toliet (we only have 80 people max). This is dissapointing as it now means C and I plus the bridal party will stay have our photo and simply have to miss 45min-1hr of the reception.

The second problem, even though we had spoken about having all our friends back the next day and holding a brunch at the venue on the saturday a number of times both on the phone and in person, the owners have now decided we would need to pay $1200 + hire portable toliets. Considering we had hired the entire venue from Friday to Sunday and some of the venue on Thursday, $1200 seem to be crazy for having people stand and sit around for a few hours - we aren't putting up a maquee or anything. We where thankfuly able to negotiate this away, however the portable toliets are still a problem - C is looking into prices at the moment but I'm pretty sure we can't afford them.

What does it all mean, C and I + our wedding party will miss the 1st hour of our own reception and we have to find an entire new venue for the brunch and with only 3 month I'm alittle worried about being able to find anything. I'm alittle annoyed as i check all of this before booking anything, the reason we choose the Shoalhaven Lodge was because it was by the river we have and we were able to have all our friends back, if these problems had been brought up earlier we would never have booked, but 3month before the fact we aren't going to be able to find something else as everything is booked. We even offered to pay an additional bond and use the toliets in the cabins that we are already paying for anyway and any problems or damages (I can't really imagine any) would come out of the bond.

So now I'm running around talking to all of the other accommodation properties to asking if we are able to use their properties, hopfully that will be more helpful and reasonable. N ot what I wanted to do this close to the wedding, with so much still to do.

stealing it

I love these invites, and I'm going to steal them, well not quite steal them, just the idea - illustration on brown recycled paper coloured really brightly. We already have an idea for the wedding invite, going to follow along the same theme as the save the date, but I think we can work this in for the Saturday brunch invites.

Found on oncewed.com

I could do all of this myself but I really like the idea of having people help to create the our day, so maybe I'll ask a friend to do an illustration for me. I'm not sure, it would be fun to do the illustration myself and everyone is so busy, need to give that one more thought.

So fun

I have to thank One Boy One Girls for today inspiration, this pre-wedding bash Nixon and Egan throw the day before their wedding would be perfect for a relaxed yet stylish wedding. I love weddings where everything is aimed at being fun. Wedding really should reflect the couple and if you not one for formal events than bbqs and carnival style parties are a great idea. This idea would also work really well for anyone on a budget

found on www.oneboyonegirl.com

Its similar to what i attempted to create for our engagement party however our budget DIY attempt wasn't quite as polished as this.

Done and Done

So I haven't said much about the wedding happenings of late so I thought it was time to do an update on where I was.

Groom and groomsmen suits hired -DONE
Grooms woman dress - DONE
Flat Shoes - DONE
Lollies Bags, bought and decorated - DONE
Book hire gear, chairs, urn, drink tubs -DONE
Tentatively book band - DONE
Picked and meet with a Dressmaker - DONE
Pastries, breads and fruit platters for brunch - DONE
Guest book/certificate/poster things (being designed and created by friends in London who sadly can't be at the wedding) - DONE

Pretty happy those things are off the list but the list doesn't seem to be getting any smaller, so many crazy little things that need to be done. Little stuff like finding my birth certificate - which I have completely lost, and can't find anywhere but need in order to get married and big stuff like booking a photographer.