Wedding Quilt

Let's face, I already knew my mum was a creative genius, especially after making my wedding dress for me last year. But check out our AMAZING christmas present! A quilt made from the bunting we had at our wedding! What better way to use 250 metres worth of left over bunting and have a lovely colourful reminder of a wonderful day :)

And this is what is embroidered all over green fabric on the back... perfect :)

BLESSED! Thanks Mumma!

Wedding Photos!

I finally have photos to share with you!!
Photos of the best day of my life! (so far! :P)
We have a portfolio of 700 photos plus about 4000 raw images taken by our official photographers plus some talented friends and family. I am finally going to share with you a few of Mike and my favourites because as I'm sure you'll agree I can't put them all on here.

So here you go... enjoy!

The last 50 days...

Well - hello there!
It has been 50 days since my last blog post - terrible I know!
However... In the last 50 days I have -

• Finished organising a wedding
• Moved house
• Got MARRIED
• Been on honeymoon
• Officially become self-employed (musician/singing teacher)
• Started a nannying job
• Purchased and put up lots of flat pack furniture
• Turned an empty flat into a home
• Settled into married life

So apologies for the lack of blogging but I've been rather busy as you can see :)

All in all the last 50 days have been Life-Changing, the end of lots of things and beginning of many more. I have lots of photos to share with you starting right back with my Hen Do in May and then covering the Wedding, the Honeymoon and the Flat! Can't wait to share it all with you, though we've got a couple more weeks to wait before we get the official wedding photos so here is just a sneak peak to start with :)

On the 25th June 2011, Mike and I had the most perfect day ever! Definitely the best wedding I've ever been too! Though I may be slightly biased of course :P
The day was absolutely filled to the brim with joy and laughter, friendship and family - exactly how we wanted. The wedding service was amazing with a church packed full of people praising God, fantastic music, brilliant words and prayers from our friends and pastors. At the reception, the food was yummy, the atmosphere buzzing, the music once again fantastic and the dancing thoroughly enjoyed.
Thank you so much to all of you that came to our big day, those of you who helped out in various ways. All your encouragement, support, words of wisdom, prayers and gifts were a huge blessing to us! For those of you who couldn't make it, we missed you and really hope to see you soon!

I will do a bigger blog post about this soon but to some things up so far...
I LOVE being married to Mike, living with my best friend and seeing him every day is BRILLIANT! It's no cliche or lie that your wedding day is one of, if not the best day of your life. Ours certainly was! This is the best decision I've ever made, I will never take it back, this is where we're supposed to be. It's going to be an adventure, sometimes a big challenge but always a joy and I will throw all I can give into this. With God in the centre - this will be AMAZING! :D

Mike - my husband! :D I love you, always!

Busy busy busy................Wedding Planning!!

It's official! When I'm not travelling I am a RUBBISH blogger!
My excuse is that I honestly do not know where time is going at the moment. The last 4 months since I returned from New Zealand seem to have been eaten by some large 'time-eating, money-eating, job hunting' monster! Fortunately this monster also loves tons of fun, laughter, romance, creativity and wedding organising - thank goodness!!

In 25 DAYS Mike and I are getting married!!!!!! Extremely excited as well as remarkably organised and just overall VERY ready to be married!!
'So where are we upto?' I hear you ask....

• Suits purchased (and looking VERY good I may add ;P)
• Dress's almost finished - final fitting this weekend! :D
• Rings - purchased and waiting in their boxes :)
• Tables/seating planned - phew!
• Beautifully colour-coded timing/logistics spreadsheet well underway
• Favours - half made
• Place names - finished!
• Band and PA logistics - well underway
• Fresh cut flowers sourced
• Honeymoon - completely paid for!!! :D
• Hotel - booked ;)
• Car - booked
• Cake - being decorated right now!
• Photos - planned
• Bunting - 250 metres worth made - thanks Leah!
• Make-up and hair practiced
• Jewellery - made
• Thank you gifts - purchased!
• Flat to live in post wedding - final paperwork being processed!
• Marriage Prep - completed
• Glassware, tables, jugs etc - booked!
• Venues - paid for
• Food - planned and paid!
• Order of services - designed and printed!
• Centre pieces - stuff sourced and ready to be made
• Table decs - sorted
• Bridesmaids - styled :)
• Best Man Ushers, Father's of Bride/Groom - suited and booted
• Mother's of Bride/Groom - outfits sorted :)
• Sister's of the Groom - Wedding Certificate Witnesses - Tick!
• Bann's read - Tick!
• Hen Do (photos on here soon) - Done!
• Stag Do - Planned for the 18th June

Plus about a million other small details and personal touches - TICKED OFF OR PLANNED, all with minimal argument or stress! We make a FANTASTIC team! :D

Phew I think we're nearly ready to go! Good thing too as we don't have a free evening or day now for 2 1/2 weeks, then we're moving house!! 

Somehow I think these 25 days are going to disappear at an unbelievable pace! 

Mike - I LOVE YOU! Can't wait to be married to you! :D

Things to be thankful for...

It has been aaages I know, am going to try getting back into the swing of things with being thankful - as usual there is so much to be thankful for...

• A beautiful weekend with family and friends celebrating my little sister Sarah's 18th birthday! A very sunny weekend involving the biggest chinese takeaway you've ever seen for 18 people, an amazingly funny video we all put together for Sarah, Mike experiencing more of my crazy family, wedding talk (can't avoid that these days :P) and lots of fun!

(P.S. My husband-to-be is gorgeous!! :D)

• Spring/summer is most definitely here! We don't really get much of a distinction these days (silly global warming!) and it seems to go straight from freezing winter to blazingly hot summer (well... blazingly hot for England anyway, I know we don't match up to you aussies :P).
• I love summer evenings and blossom and it being warm enough to not wear a jumper. Lovely jubbly!
• Small and large financial blessings - like unexpected free bus journeys, creative contributions to wedding preperations, constantly finding more in bank accounts that you thought would be there! :)
• Finding out my Auntie Rachel is coming all the way from OZ to be at our wedding and represent the Aussie Bunch! Amazing! :)
• The 250 metres of colourful bunting my sister has made for our decorations.
• Potentially huge job opportunities coming my way soon!
• 2 months and 4 days till our marriage begins!!
• Mike being more and more amazing, and supportive and lovely and understanding every day!
• Finally feeling a lot better after 3 weeks of on and off illness and feeling rubbishly low!
• Music and it's power to help me feel emotions I knew were bubbling away in there somewhere!
• My internet stumbling put out to share on my new Pinterest Account :)
• The awesomeness of creation - check out this stunning video...

The Mountain from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.

Wedding Favours

"Wedding favors are small gifts given as a gesture of appreciation  or gratitude to guests from the bride and groom during a wedding ceremony or a wedding reception."

Of all the silly ways to spend more money than you need for a wedding... extravagent wedding favours may take the prize! I wish I had the money to give our 100 guests personally engraved diamond jewellery or individual bottles of vintage wine... no I take that back.... If I had that sort of money I still would do nothing of the sort!
In all my online wedding browsing (thanks greatly to stumbleupon.com) I have found some pretty good ones, bad ones, funny ones and down right ridiculous ones.
The following favour ideas are some of the best I've found... this list has been quite fun to research and compile even though I would still never have any of them, they are quite fun so I thought I'd share.....

1. Badges

I actually really quite like these, though I would have to turn 

them all blue and personalise them a bit further. 

I found these HERE

2. 'Whimsical Wonderballs'

Effectively a 'Pass the Parcel' for every table - containing 14 presents, toys and jokes! Awesome!

I found these HERE

3. Personalised M&M's or Love Hearts

What more can I say!? Chocolate and Sweets - but personalised! :D

HERE and HERE

4. Mini Watering Cans

I'm sure every guest at our wedding would like nothing more than a mini watering can! lol!

Even though we are having a daisy themed wedding and they are quite cute they are useless and expensive :P

 Found them HERE

5. Mini Grand Pianos!!

These are a little bit awesome but I may pretend I have never admitted that!

HERE

6. 'Pea's in a Pod' Salt and Pepper Shakers

Now there is a personal reason why this one is great! Mike loves puns (along with most bad jokes) and he hates peas, so from very early on in our relationship, there has been a hunt for opportunities to flaunt the Pea/Pun opportunities - usually in the form of christmas/birthday cards etc. I saw these wedding favours and laughed instantly! It's a shame that 100 of them would cost us £270!!!

They're from HERE

7. 'A Slice of Love' Pizza Cutters

Another favour idea rife with pun opportunities!

Quoting from the website HERE...

"No matter how you slice it, there's simply no topping Kate Aspen when it comes to creative wedding favors! Place “A Slice of Love” Pizza Cutter next to each table setting, and when your guests go home, they'll take a “pizza” your heart with them—in a deliciously designed pizza box!"

8. All things lovely and 'handmade'

Found HERE and HERE :) 

9. Table Trivia

I actually LOVE this idea!! An icebreaker, spare-time filler and a take-home present for the table!

Everyone loves a pop-quiz don' they!? Found a whole range of these HERE!

Well I think that's all for now, you can look for hours! A bit of fun but mostly waaaayyy too extravagent!
Let's have a think of how I can get creative! What can a really stand to hand-make 100 of!? Hmmmm we'll have to see I guess :)

Blue, blue, blue......... with a white dress, a bit of lace and a few daisies!

The planning, designing, creating, searching, colour co-ordinating and organising is getting into full swing, thanks to...
A) My trip being over
B) Currently being unemployed
C) Our wedding being only 4 months away!!! :D

The overwhelming thing in the design at the moment is... Blue! Kingfisher blue to be precise. But then for anyone who knows me, that shouldn't come as much of a surprise :P

PS. Do you like my new look blog? That photo header makes my tummy go all lovely and funny whenever I see it :)