Down The Aisle...

The Speech

2009-08-10T14:28:00.002+10:00

Well after writing a number of speeches in my quest to find just the right words to say on the day, my actual speech was something I had not already posted. To be perfectly honest, it was never actually going to be but I liked the idea of being able to write the things that I wouldn't get a chance to say otherwise. I also liked the idea that no one on the night would already have heard what I was going to say. Thats not to say however that no one else had seen the speech before I gave it.

Although it was the unfortunate case that two of my close friends were too far away to actually make it to Sydney (one because she was living in South Africa and its a rather expensive commute and the other because she was so pregnant the airlines would not let her on a domestic flight), this did make them the perfect candidates to vet my speech. My two girlfriends therefore read through the speech, giving it the talk test to ensure that it wasn't so long it was going to bore people. They also reported back as a general consensus that the speech itself was tear inducing and should be well received. So as I have already posted the other speeches I wrote, these are the words that I actually said to our guests and to my new husband upon the occasion of our wedding:

"Well I know its been said before but I wanted to add my thanks to you all for coming here this evening to celebrate with us. I can honestly say that it wouldn’t have been the same without you. An awful lot cheaper perhaps but definitely not the same! We’ve had an awesome time so far today and its nice to finally join the marrieds amongst our friends and family tonight cause it seems we’ve been halfway there for so long. And just a bit of trivia for you as well, in this room we have over 150 years of marriage which I think means we’re in good company. As for my speech though...

I was really excited when I sat down to start working on my wedding speech. I was looking forward to being able to say a lot of words tonight (because I knew I’d never be able to stop at a few) and I had three main goals that I wanted to accomplish. The first was, perversely perhaps, to make my new husband cry, the second was to be funny and the third, to be truly memorable. And these goals were all well and good until I realised that there were actually three major flaws with my overall plan. The first was that anything likely to make The Boy cry was even more likely to make me cry which was not a good thing at all. The second flaw was I couldn’t actually think of anything funny to say. Well, at least not anything that I can repeat in public and the third was that by the time I would be giving my speech, as is the case tonight, you would have all started drinking already. And since some of you are now looking at me oddly, I am assuming that the whole ‘truly memorable’ thing is totally out the window right from the start. Which may just be a blessing in disguise but anyway, when I had another think about what I was actually going to write for my speech, I decided to talk a little about my journey to get here.

If you’d asked me 20 years ago what I wanted in a husband, I probably would have said tall, dark and handsome. And now, I have to say that two out of three ain’t bad. I also have to say however that over the years in between I have learnt a few more things like you can’t base a marriage purely on physical characteristics such as those. There are a lot of other important attributes that are involved in making a relationship work and this is something that I’ve put a lot of thought into. For those of you who have known me for a while or have gone back through the entries that are featured on our wedding website, you will know that before I wrote about being engaged, I used to write about being single. I would write about all the fad ideas I tried in order to meet people such as speed dating and Sydney Morning Herald’s Kiss and Tell. And I have to say here that it amuses me no end that I actually met The Boy inside the house that I was living in at the time and we got together after I asked him to move in! Anyway, when I wasn’t doing weird activities to meet people I would look for dating related things to write about and thats why I ended up reading The Marriage Plan.

It sounds a bit melodramatic to say that this book changed my life although I believe it did have an impact on me that I only realised much later. To be perfectly honest, I actually thought the book was a bit of a joke at the time. Written by a motivational speaker, the author claimed that if you were serious about wanting to be married and really set your mind to it, then you could be married to your soul mate within a year. Whether you happened to have met them already or not! She had a thirteen step plan which started out with setting your goal and setting a deadline. As I started reading through the steps though, I thought why not just give it a go? Now my deadline at the time was the 9th of March 2006 so obviously I wasn’t taking the whole thing terribly seriously since I am almost three and a half years behind schedule but I did manage to complete step three which was to draw up a profile.

In order to complete this process, you had to identify what your deal breakers were in a relationship. You were required to list which core values you expected your partner to hold. You needed to answer questions about what you wanted by the way of appearance, background, education and beliefs and finally, you had to write down what your position was on topics such as families and careers. So all in all, this was a pretty big list. For starters I wanted an employed friendly taller non-smoker with integrity, loyalty, generosity, ambition, intelligence, honesty and compassion who was around my age, enjoyed intimacy and eventually wanted kids. And then there was the detail. After you’d completed the profile though, the next step was to go and sit under a tree or something and send your wish out into the cosmos which is where the book probably lost me but the reason I am telling you all this is because about four months after The Boy and I got engaged and moved house, I actually found that list I wrote all those years ago. And I’ll be damned if my husband isn’t that person.

It may have taken me a while to recognise that this was what I wanted for the rest of my life but I did get there eventually.

My parents on the other hand did not take half as long to make up their minds. When The Boy asked my father for his permission, Dad had the very good sense to say yes immediately. Although I don’t think it was much of decision really. After years of having me as his daughter he knows that I wouldn’t spend a minute longer than I had to doing something that I didn’t want to do and since The Boy knows how to pour a good scotch when he’s told I think my father was more than happy to give away my hand in marriage if I said yes. Especially if it was the hand thats been spending time in his wallet for the past 29 years. Isn’t that right Dad?

So I want to say thank you here to my parents for all their help and support over the years. And to my sister too. You have put up with a lot of whining, moaning and tantrums in the past so this is the pay-off. Now its The Boy's job to put up with it.

I also want to thank both Father-in-law and Mother-in-law and the rest of The Boy's family for welcoming me right from day one. I know that you have helped make him the man he is today and since that is one who cleans and cooks and irons, I totally scored!

And lastly, I couldn’t stand up here tonight without thanking the man who totally planned a fantastic wedding when I said I didn’t want to do any of it and who let me come in at the eleventh hour and change some of his ideas cause I’d just thought of a new one.

A man who is generous, supportive, sensitive and selfless. Who is the heart to my head and the one who can sing my song when I forget the words. He helps me walk with grace which is another reason, apart from Pastor Mate's awesome sermon earlier today (thank you too Pastor Mate) that I wanted to have the word “grace” engraved in my wedding ring. I am very lucky to be standing here today and I would like you to raise your glasses in a toast: To The Boy."

In Hindsight

2009-08-08T16:18:00.000+10:00

You know what, after all the stress that piles up on you before a wedding, it is absolutely wonderful to get to that point where it is too damn late to do anything at all to change things! You may make token efforts to fix the situation but really, they are what they are and if they don’t change at the end of the day, you’re still going to be married and that is what is important.

That CD of specific music never quite made it to the DJ and now there won’t be the preferred wedding song for our first dance. So don’t care. I’ll take the mick out of Olivia Newton John's I Honestly Love You if I have to (you cannot dance to that song straight). The place settings for the parents and the bridal party that were supposed to be provided because they actually got to choose their meals in advance never were quite arranged. So don’t care. They’re all big enough to fight it out amongst themselves. Those run sheets and photo lists which should have been printed and distributed to various people to ensure that everything went to schedule never made it off the computer. So. Don’t Care. It’s my party anyway.

Now I suppose that some women (or even perhaps some men) might have gotten upset over these things. They might have lamented the fact that everything wasn’t absolutely as it had been planned and therefore the whole day was ruined. Some people however really need to get out more. Sure, I worried about these things before the big day but once it was all upon me I was damn well going to enjoy it and not worry about things that may not even be noticed. Our friends and family are the sort of people who want to enjoy a good party and not worry about whether or not I’m wearing stockings. That was another thing I forgot. So I could have actually had a hissy fit over buying stockings to wear on the day and then realising that they were in the bottom of a wardrobe at home but I seriously was like, oh well, that was dumb. I was fully prepared to wear a pair of socks with my boots and be done with it.

In the end, it was The Boy who actually insisted that I should have stockings to wear and went and bought me another pair that morning (although I think this is strongly to do with the fact that he wanted the pleasure of taking them off himself at the end of the day). A few other things we managed to fix as well. A phone call to my work had the staff bring the CD currently sitting in my disk drive to the church so we had music for the first dance and a phone call to the MC also had a few seating issues worked out at the reception. The Boy and I did drop the ball at the end of the wedding planning but on the day, we weren’t actually that concerned. The way I figured it, whatever went wrong was just going to be a funny story.

Losing It

2009-08-06T21:08:00.000+10:00

Well it finally happened. After all the initial months of coasting along quite happily, secure in the knowledge that the wedding was going to turn out great because The Boy was handling it, I finally got to the point that apparently a lot of brides reach. Sure, it took me until the day before the wedding and not a whole lot earlier in the process as it does for others but it had to happen sometime right? The time when I completely and utterly dropped my bundle. The time when pent up stress, lack of food and sleep, hours spent driving to and fro and people constantly looking at me to tell them what to do all got the better of me and the only thing I could manage was racking sobs upon The Boy’s shoulder as he tried desperately to hold it together because he really wanted to break down on me too.

Despite the hours of research and planning that had gone into our day, one major thing we seemed to have overlooked was time management in the crunch period. The actual logistics of picking something up in one place and dropping it at another does not seem all that daunting when you are only looking at one thing but once you start to add in several things and operating hours and peak hour and the fact that we live in a sprawling city and not in a small country town, your to-do list takes on the form of a fire breathing dragon and getting close just leaves you burnt out. Or in my case, incinerated. I had been getting close all day becoming progressively more vague and frustrated and by the end I couldn’t focus on anything, especially food. I felt overwhelmed by what was left to accomplish and didn’t know where to start. With time enough that I could still do something as it wasn’t yet too late for me to do anything, I just lost it.

I’m not complaining here though mind you because really, I had it good. The Boy was dealing with high levels of stress since he started planning this whole shindig in earnest and when my family rolled into town at the beginning of the week, I had a small army of people that were absolute troopers. We couldn’t have done everything without them. My sister The Pussycat assisted in the creation of additional artwork for the day even though she was sick as a dog and probably needed to be in bed and everyone else actually organised themselves into a production line whilst putting together the bonbonniere. They all worked when there were tasks to be completed and waited around the house when there wasn’t just in case something else came up. And while all this was going on, The Boy spent the majority of the time sitting down. Driving ALL OVER THE CITY. In one day, he and a mate (who has my eternal gratitude for keeping The Boy sane) covered hundreds of kilometres to make sure that everything would be perfect for the big day. My couple of hours transit time were nothing by comparison.

You know, before the final couple of days leading up to the wedding, I actually had the grandiose idea that on the eve of the wedding, there would be nothing left for us to do. Nothing but enjoying the fantastic view from the hotel room and taking a leisurely meal with both sides of the family. I romantically thought that I would be able to spend that last evening relaxing with my family as an unmarried daughter and get a good nights sleep before the long day ahead. How wrong was I? It was almost 10pm when we left for the hotel, swinging past my work on the way to pick up a binding machine for the programs (thank you boss). It was well after 11 when I finished binding the programs in front of episodes of The Muppet Show (a childhood comfort that was oddly calming). It was after 12am when The Boy finally got the hotel with the flowers and Dad who had been playing musical cars and getting family back to their respective hotel. It was a very long day and one I’m glad I don’t have to repeat.

And yes, The Boy and I did stay in the same place the night before the wedding but the three bedroom apartment had ample space to get ready without us running into each other or even seeing each other for that matter. Even if my family would have let me. Which they didn’t. I might have still said good morning to him first thing however.

The Program For Today Is...

2009-07-27T21:59:00.000+10:00

Since I have been on my creative roll towards the end of the planning, one of the other projects I decided should be snazzed up was the program. I figured that if the wedding invitation was like a theatre production flyer and our reception invite was a backstage pass to the main party then the event program as it were, being part of the paraphernalia of the day, should also fit in with the whole production theme. It therefore needed to contain bios of the cast and other interesting facts or assorted titbits to keep people entertained. Because after all, another reason to actually get a program is to keep yourself amused while you’re waiting for the show to kick off.

So our program looked a little different than others that I have seen. It had a lot of the more traditional stuff such as the order of service and the readings and such but it also had cartoons, Sudoku, a word search, humorous quotations, the Good Wife’s Guide from 1955 (because we thought it was really amusing) and an editorial on wedding superstitions and the traditions that we were upholding. We decided to make it like a book and have it ring bound rather than folded and it had turned into one big formatting headache by the end of the process but we were happy with it so that’s what counts yeah?

In a way it was somewhat plain as the whole thing was in black and white. Our program wasn’t elaborately printed on the back of a fan (because a fan in winter would have seemed a bit ridiculous quite frankly and you wouldn’t have had enough fingers to hold all the fans required to get the amount of stuff we actually wrote for the program printed anyway). We also didn’t create the program as a CD or a scroll or any of the other weird and unusual creations that some people with an awful lot of time and or money seem to produce.

I found it quite amazing what options are out there for personalising your wedding. These last months leading up to the wedding I have been looking for creative ideas and whilst most magazines seem to be pretty much a waste of space in this area, blog stalking has produced some interesting options. An alternative to place cards are using childhood or wedding pictures from your guests and a neat idea for a guestbook is to have your friends and family “leaf” their name and thumbprint on a poster of a bare tree trunk and its branches. Unfortunately we don’t have enough time at this point to go down the photo avenue and we already have another idea for our “guestbook” but I think that our alternative, our program and the other personal touches we have made to our day will make it a memorable one.

The Relationship Gift Pack

2009-07-24T21:49:00.002+10:00

Well sadly, bride shaped stress balls don’t come at reasonable prices unless you order well into the thousands but fortunately, I was able to compromise. And luckily for me, The Boy is uber patient and persistent.

As mentioned previously, seemingly at the last minute, I decided that I wanted to get creative about the bonbonniere. I didn’t want one simple token of friendship or appreciation or whatever is supposed to be for precisely. I wanted multiple tokens. Only together. Like in a pack. I wanted to base the favour around the rhyme “for the spark in your life and the stress through the years, for the sweetness you deserve and the music to your ears” and I wanted four individual items to represent each part of the short poem. Now it didn’t all work out exactly as I had first hoped but on the whole I thought it was pretty cool.

For the spark in your life was a small hand-printed box of matches. Both simple and plain, the small boxes had a cream cover and some text printed on one side. The box read "marriage: wedlock, to tie the knot, the union of a man and a woman as husband and wife, the perfect match". Kinda kitsch I guess but I have to say that I much preferred the symbolism of having a spark between you as opposed to the pea and pear sets of salt and pepper shakers. You may well be two peas in a pod or the perfect ~~pear~~ pair but if I really think about what I’d want to take home from a wedding, some weird looking salt and pepper shakers are not it. I figured that at least the matches were a little more unusual. Whats more, if you felt compelled to keep them until you had made use of them, you could just light all the matches and then feel no compunction at all about throwing the box in the bin. Easy. If you did want to keep them however, we also had our names and the date printed on the box as well. Awww…

The stress through the years I felt would best be represented by a bride shaped stress ball. Not only for the fact that The Boy planned our wedding and it seemed quite fitting for us as a couple but the novelty value was there too. Despite the number of different websites we went to however we couldn’t seem to find a place that would sell us a small amount for anything less than a small fortune. We eventually had to bite the bullet and go for something else which is why we ended up with a plain white stress ball instead. We did get it printed however with our initials and the particularly apt Shakespeare quote “the course of true love never did run smooth…”. Because apparently getting a font that we were both happy with not as easy as we first had anticipated. Ridiculous, I know because who else actually cares, right? And yet…

For the sweetness you deserve, the idea came to me (read I shamelessly pinched) from a wedding I had seen set up at a restaurant. The couple had chosen to give all their guests rocky road wrapped up with a tag reading “each of us come across some rocky roads in life – hope yours are as sweet as this”. I though this was a cool idea so we went on a hunt for rocky road. We looked at the Darrel Lea option which was ok however it didn’t come in small pieces so it was a little more involved to get it to the individual portion stage. We looked at Haigh’s as well which would have tasted fantastic but costwise would have put us further behind bad than we were already so then we found Harrys. These guys were an internet based company and luckily for us were having a birthday sale. Mmm, dark chocolate…

The music to your ears was perhaps a bit of an excuse to have something we found upon our searches across the internet. Because music is quite important to us and The Boy is himself a guitarist, we really wanted to give our guests a customised guitar pick. It is the tackiest thing out being white celluloid with a big red love heart on the front and white writing inside that says “I pick U”. Then, to add insult to injury, we will stick the pick on a business card shaped piece of cardboard on which we are printing a circle and the text “our love is like a circle and never ends”. It will be stuck on just so to appear as though it is a whopping great big diamond on an engagement ring and we think its was kind of funny. I’m, pretty sure our guests will realise that we are not really that sickeningly sweet on each other…

The final part of our efforts was a box in which to put everything. The non-existent budget didn’t quite cover a box with a bas and a lid but we did manage to find a floristry wholesaler who was let to believe that we were a florist and sold us those little corrugated cardboard box things in which they stick flower arrangements. We now have a whole stack of them. We figure that with a little scrunched up paper, and a name tag on each one it won’t look like we slapped it all together at the last minute. Or at least that our guests will be too polite to say anything.

Dummy Spit

2009-07-22T21:43:00.001+10:00

Well I had another little ‘Bridezilla’ moment I’d guess you’d call it on the phone the other night. Although I really hate that word. It brings to mind trashy American women who scream and rip shreds of people, either personally or professionally because the ribbon they ordered was actually 2mm wider than what they got or something equally not as earth shattering in the grand scheme of things. I’m sure they have a reason to want whatever they do but they seem to go from perfectly pleasant to hard core harlot in a matter of seconds and you wonder how they managed to get that past their fiancés in order to get engaged in the first place. I don’t think I was that bad though. I didn’t go psycho but basically I was not happy and became a little blunt because suggestion, coercion and requests did not seem to have worked. It eventually got down to if you don’t do something now, I will.

That fact that it got to that point however is probably another result of me not fully expressing my precise wishes from the beginning and just trying to unobtrusively coax the situation towards the outcome that I desired. I can see why it was perhaps a little unfair of me to actually spit the dummy over the fact that I was not understood. Obviously at the same time as it greatly irritates me that I believe I had a perfectly reasonable request that was fully explained – and then ignored. And it was all over a stupid jacket / bolero / shawl / wrap / cover thing. As The Boy and I are getting married in winter and the rest of the bridal party will be fully clothed from top to toe, it was kind of bothering me that my Maid of Honour, otherwise known to others as my sister (or The Pussycat), was still only to be attired in a strapless dress. It is to be a church wedding and I felt it was appropriate, especially given the season for her to have her shoulders covered. I also intend on having location photos after the ceremony and it would really tick me off if she were unable to smile due to her teeth chattering or violent convulsive shivering.

Ok, maybe the violent shivering thing is a little exaggerated. We have had some perfectly lovely weather recently and winter in Australia is a whole different kettle of fish than winter in Austria. It can still get cold however and I don’t want her freezing her assets off as she is forced to stand around or sit still while we go about the process of having a wedding. So I wanted her to have something more to wear. As much as possible, I also wanted her to have something she liked. I’d already nixed the idea of a fur shrug and she had told me she hated boleros with a passion and thought that the various wraps out there were a complete waste of space. This didn’t leave an awful lot of options however and I felt I had managed to find a sort of compromise. I found a pattern that I thought was both simple and elegant and probably not too hard to sew (or have sewn for us) but my idea was apparently too hard or merely too much effort. Or rather actually going out and taking a look at the picture in the pattern book for me was too much effort because that was where we seemed to hit the first snag.

So anyway, I got the irrits and made it known that there was no longer a request to find a solution she liked to my problem but rather a choice. Within certain parameters (which were pretty much about colour), she could find a solution she liked or she got mine. It wasn’t an angry conversation but more of a tired one. This was something we so should have sorted out earlier than this and it has taken to the last minute to get it out on the table and to hear that she wasn’t doing anything because she assumed she had to sew something herself which she just didn’t want to do. I gather that after we spoke on the phone though, she had a similar vent to our mum who then called me and it seems that mum is now going to follow up a jacket idea. My mother is getting her wedding attire custom made and is going to ask if the dress maker can possibly copy a jacket for The Pussycat as well. I don’t know exactly how it will all work out yet but hopefully on the day everything will come together. As everyone keeps on telling me, knowing both The Boy and myself, how could it be otherwise. Of course, in the same breath they usually say that we’ll have each other so nothing else truly matters anyway but we shall see.

Something Stupid

2009-07-19T12:33:00.000+10:00

So I’ve noticed that since we have gotten to the pointy end of the wedding planning business, the ~~arguments~~ animated discussions we have been engaging in have become a whole lot more stupid. So stupid in fact that we are now finding that after we have opened communication over the initial point of difference (read exchange somewhat bitchy comments and complaints), we sometimes find ourselves shifting off topic till we can’t actually remember what we were so desperately trying to make understood by the other person in the first place. Either that or the conversation progresses to the point where we are both either defending or attacking exactly the same point, albeit in slightly different language. We have loads of ‘discussions’ about semantics, trust me. The other night was a classic example (of the former, not so much the latter) where the conversation had deteriorated and each rebuttal was getting a little more personal. We were both tired and frustrated and The Boy was in mid diatribe about how unaccommodating and unreasonable I was when I lost it. I burst out laughing.

Initially, I had been right on top of that high horse of mine. I was trying to write something for the program and when I asked The Boy (who had been lying down with his eyes closed throughout most of the process) what he thought, he read it and said that he didn’t like it because he thought it sounded a bit crass. I was a bit hurt by that but tried to explain what I was going for and ask if he had any other suggestions however the conversation quickly went nowhere. I figured that was my cue that it was time to go to bed. We have hit this wall before and rather than beating my head up against it, I thought I would quite reasonably wait til we were both fresh before we tried to finish it. Since The Boy was still flaked out on the bed, I then shut down the lap top and got up to put it away. That was my story. The Boy’s was a little more along the lines of: ‘I knew we needed to do this but you just started work on the program without consulting me or even talking to me and I sat here feeling useless and like I should be doing something to help but not knowing what. Then you asked me what I thought after you’d already gone and appeared to have finished part of it and when I didn’t think it was really appropriate you got in a huff and just walked off without a word. You made the decision that the discussion was over and didn’t give me a second thought’.

The actual conversation that ensued from these viewpoints was obviously a little more heated. I pretty much blasted him for having a double standard and not giving me the benefit of the doubt. I honestly felt I did the things he accused me of not doing and didn’t do the things he thought I did. I also had no idea that he was resenting me whilst I was sitting there typing stuff out because he didn’t say a word to me whilst I was doing it and I’m not a mind reader. When he rolled over and looked like he was going to sleep, I wasn’t thinking hey, he really wants to be involved in this boring part of the process. I got in trouble for putting words in his mouth of course because he never said he was unhappy with me for typing up the program or that he resented me for taking over the lap top to do it (to which I complained that how else was I supposed to interpret “I felt completely useless” while you “just took over” the computer!). Throughout the course of the discussion he had a go at me though for my lack of consideration and communication when I wanted to call it a night and then the conversation got round to that age old gambit from the The Boy – what the hell do you want from me?!?

Apparently, if The Boy calms down and tries to speak in a reasonable tone, he gets in trouble for being passive-aggressive and I bite back and if he loses it and has a full on argument with me, I bite back harder and he can’t win. He thinks I act like its my way or the highway sometimes and that more often than not its just me who is being unfair. He looked so pissed off as he was giving me this huge dressing down. He wasn’t raising his voice but it was a very hardly done by and impassioned plea for me to get enough backbone and just for once in my god-forsaken life to back down first and say ‘I’m sorry, this is my fault and I was wrong’. He was so seriously riled and mad at me and it started with a small smile that quickly broke into a laugh because I thought it was hilarious. Fortunately The Boy had mostly run out of steam at that point and this broke the tension rather than creating more. He could see the humour in the situation as well and we both apologised for being complete tools. Its never really fun having arguments but hopefully (since I am not naive enough to assume that I won’t have many in the future) they all end up pretty much like this one.

Better Late Than Never

2009-07-14T17:02:00.003+10:00

So after about 10 months or so of The Boy planning, I’m finally getting a bit more into this whole wedding thing. About bloody time I hear some of you say. After all the weeks when The Boy has been slaving away and wishing that I might be somewhat more jubilant and or engaged in the decisions that we have been making, I am now starting to bring more ideas to the table. My input into the various facets of our day are not so much made up of ‘we can do that if you want, thats fine’ at the moment but rather ‘so I had this idea...’. Which would be a good thing of course except for the fact that my timing slightly sucks and I’m sure The Boy is lamenting this fact with ‘please God, why now!?!’. Why do I have to come up with labour intensive ideas three and a half weeks out from the wedding, especially when we’ve already blown the budget for the day in the first place? And the answer is, because I’m me.

I always did my best work under pressure at school. I was the student that crammed before the test and pulled all nighters to finish my assignments. As much as there is the side of me that is super anal ie. when I turn into the cupboard door Nazi (I firmly believe that the kitchen cupboards should remain shut when you are not taking something out or putting something back in), there is a side of me that is creative and unorganised and tends to leave a path of destruction in its wake. Or a disgruntled fiancé. A case in point would be our wedding favours. About six months ago I was giving these a cursory thought as I googled for ideas and possibilities. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted food, toys, something cute or perhaps something that was useful. I now want all four. Separately. But given together. Just to be complicated. Since the budget has already flown out the window I figured whats a little more where that came from and I got the idea of a mixed bag of goodies.

My goodies aren’t random though. Not completely. They all represent something that I think is important to have in a relationship. So even if you aren’t married, the gift would still kinda have meaning. Something I always wanted. We’re currently trying to make the idea fly though so I don’t really want to list the items yet but I thought they would be an awesome favour that could either be given to a couple together or to a single person along with an escort card. Which was another late idea. I had already established that I couldn’t be bothered seating people any more specifically than at a certain table (and I don’t think The Boy really cares about this either) so I was all ready to have a printed list of names against tables until I saw some cool escort cards. There is no reason to list all the guests on one sheet of paper when there are so many more time consuming and inventive ways of advising friends and family which table they happen to be sitting at during the meal. Just as there is no reason why I shouldn’t print out and fold individual menus for each of my guests even though the venue would print out free menus for each table as part of the package...

This was my third “great idea” that The Boy was very quick to assure me that I would be responsible for putting together on my own because he wouldn’t even know how. This was ok though because of all my ideas, this one was probably the easiest for me to get my head around. It took me a couple of hours and a bit of trial and error but I finally got everything placed just so in an image so that when I print it out and fold it together, it works. I got the menu idea off one of the random blogs I have been stalking for unique ideas and whilst the finished product doesn’t really fit any sort of theme other than “Stuff I Like”, that was really good enough for me. So now I am trying to think up other ways of getting coolness into our day without upsetting the apple cart and frustrating The Boy. If I had talent, I’d write a song or try and find something inventive for the wedding speech but I think thats just going to end up being fairly traditional. Well, you know, apart from the fact that I’m the Bride of course and they don’t always make speeches but my friends and family know that given the right inspiration I can talk the hind leg off a horse so my saying a few words is really going to surprise no one at all.

Name That Tune

2009-07-06T07:45:00.000+10:00

There are websites that seem to exist purely to suggest songs that you might wish to use whilst you are cutting the cake at your wedding. I am slightly disturbed by this. The fact that I now know there are such websites also slightly disturbs me. Basically because in a harebrained moment I actually went looking for them. But they say weddings are enough to make you crazy. Don’t they?

On my little to-do list, which kind of seems like a Mary Poppins list right about now, ie. it looks perfectly reasonable until you realise just how much information and effort is required of you, it says we are to contact the DJ about 5 weeks prior to the wedding. Purely by luck, I managed to remember that I should probably start thinking about music about 5 weeks out and therefore was able to give the DJ a call. He in turn then emailed me a whole stack of paperwork which is yet more stuff that we now have to do. Included, there was a questionnaire on what type of music is to be played at the reception. Or rather, there are places where I suppose we are to write out song titles or artists depending on how open we are to the DJ’s discretion in selecting tracks. There is an area to cover the music during the canapés and dinner portion of the evening as well as the dancing end of the night where hopefully our event turns into a rocking party. Since we happen to be that way inclined. There is also that very important section where we can state what is not to be played at the reception which I have to say is a far easier part to fill out. I think my first thought off the mark was that if that pant-less pop tart Lady Gaga even makes it out of a CD case, I’m going to be pretty darned pissed. Sorry, not a fan.

Anyway, the other form we had to fill out was for the ‘occasion’ songs. The DJ wanted to know what song to use for when the bridal party enters the room, when the bride and groom enter the room, when we do the first dance, when we are joined on the dance floor by either parents or the bridal party (or both), when I am tossing the bouquet, when The Boy is tossing the garter, when we are cutting the cake, when we are saying goodbye to all our guests and when we actually depart the reception itself! I took one look at that list and my first thought was sheesh, thats a bit of overkill. There is fairly obviously a need to select the song for the bridal waltz and I can concede that there is an amusement factor in tossing the bouquet to the Weather Girls’ Its Raining Men or throwing the garter to Queen’s Another One Bites The Dust but really, I’d be hard pressed to remember what music was playing at any of my friends’ weddings for the other parts of the evening. Especially when they were cutting the cake! Cause my second thought when I looked at that part of the list was why would you even care?!?

So I decided to have a look around to see if there was some whole movement that I had so far been unaware of or whether there was a stunning song choice that would truly epitomise...well...something. And I have to say there wasn’t really. It seems that this is like the spill over section from the other musical moments at your reception such as the bridal waltz or entrance where you get to use a song that didn’t quite make the cut anywhere else. Either that or in deference to fact that your cake probably has more sugar in it than a box of Fruit Loops you can go for the Archies’ Sugar Sugar, U2’s The Sweetest Thing, the Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) or for the rockers out there, Def Leppard’s Pour Some Sugar On Me. That is unless you want to go for the songs about ‘cutting’ and play Average White Band’s Cut The Cake (which I had never even heard of before today) or Bryan Adams’ Cuts Like A Knife. I tried to think of other cutting songs that might be applicable but all I came up with was The First Cut Is The Deepest by Cat Stevens and that was about a failed relationship so its really not appropriate for a wedding celebration at all.

There were also the suggestions that were just cute however. You know, like Thats Amore by Dean Martin or What A Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong. Songs that have stood the test of time because they are truly great but that as a result have actually been done to death. On the whole though, there didn’t seem to be anything really fitting for either us as a couple or the purpose for which we would use it. We may as well just choose any random song we both like or leave it up to the DJ on the night. It actually crossed my mind that maybe I’d be able to find something fun out of a musical or a movie that just didn’t make it into mainstream lists but I kinda bombed out there too. I did decide that if I was going to bother being specific about what songs were playing as we first enter the room then He’s A Tramp from The Lady And The Tramp, Seasons Of Love from Rent or I Wanna Grow Old With You from The Wedding Singer should be on the list but the getting in to the reception was really about as far as I actually got. I still don’t care what song is playing when I cut the cake. I’m far more excited by the fact that we intend to cut the cake with a (small) sword!

And Another Thing...

2009-07-01T07:34:00.000+10:00

Well you definitely get the good along with the bad in this wedding business. And sometimes even both at the same time. Saturday was spent on wedding attire and accessories and provided my first opportunity to meet Milliner Man himself. A man to whom I would be reluctant to offer my patronage were it not for the fact that he is one of the best people in country at what he does and he can provide me with what I want. It seemed the far lesser of the two evils to walk the walk and hopefully end up with something I love than to cut off my nose to spite my face as it were. I now know exactly why The Boy was irritated previously however. Subtle is not a word that is in this man’s vocabulary. Which wouldn’t be a problem except for the fact that some of what comes out of his mouth I actually find somewhat rude.

As soon as I walked into Milliner Man’s salon, because really, after having met him it seems like too plebeian a concept to just call it a ‘shop’, I got the feeling that I was very quickly assessed. I’m still a little unsure though as to whether I was actually found wanting or not...I definitely wasn’t in the bottom echelon however because darling, I was able to name drop. I think the first words out of his mouth after hello were “Show me your left hand!”. Out of racing season I suppose the only people he really gets business from are brides so one could assume that this is one way of finding out whether his services might be something the prospective client might actually ‘need’ (which may be worthy of his time) or merely think were cool (which would not). So I proffered my left hand which he then proceeded to ooh and ahh over as you would expect before he asked me “so who designed that”. And I might as well have said that we inherited the ring which was a personal favourite of Lady Diana Spencer’s because immediately he was all be-still-my-beating-heart, “Class!!” as only a man who is camp as a row of tents can be. And thereby I just went up in his estimation. Now I picked the ring because I liked it, not because of who made it but whatever works. It was only then that he bothered to acknowledge The Boy.

By acknowledge however I mean “So is this the man or your little gay friend?”. An opening most definitely designed to put you in your place whether you’re homosexual or not. Milliner Man obviously does not see very many males in his premises (or does not care to) and thinks that it is equally likely that he might be in the presence of a fag hag’s friend as with the fiancé. If it is the former rather than the latter however, he makes it quite clear that there is only one Queen in this room honey and you can bet your booty that it is not you. Since he either did not remember that he’d seen The Boy before or did not care to make it known that he’d already brushed him off, I introduced my other half who then remained pretty much ignored by Milliner Man for the rest of the conversation. He did proceed to compliment me however on the gown (which The Boy chose), the jacket (the designer for which The Boy found), the wedding boots (which I actually found myself) and the roses we are contemplating having in my bouquet which is neither here nor there really.

Overall, as much as I don’t like to admit it, the vain side of me must confess that I was flattered when he seemed to like the choices that we had made so far. He seemed to have no qualms whatsoever about telling me what sort of headpiece would look good on me as opposed to just plain ridiculous or tending towards ‘costume’ so I did believe that he was relatively honest about the rest. What we were able to show him or tell him however may have given the indication that we were made of money though because the fascinator I want is damned expensive! Oh well, I suppose its marginally more useful than a veil would be because at least it could be worn to a party or to the races or some such affair later on. Much like The Boy’s suit which is far more versatile than my wedding dress (even though said dress is not traditionally ‘bridal’). And the suit is looking pretty damn fine at the moment I must say. We got to see it when we went for a fitting Saturday afternoon. Tailor Man has almost finished the suit so he needed The Boy to try it on and see what still needed tweaking. And this was a much more pleasant experience. Mostly because the Tailor Man is a dude.

Over the past couple of weekends we have been to fittings for the grooms outfit but they have been so relaxed that it almost feels like hanging out. We often end up chatting for a bit before we leave and all three of us seem to have that somewhat dry sense of humour which I love. We do also spend time discussing the suit or the fit though and its great that Tailor Man is always willing to explain what he’s doing or why he’s doing it. Cause really, I wouldn’t have a clue about mens fashion. Our tastes seem pretty much in line too so its been fantastic for The Boy and I to get his advice on adjustments or accessories and know that if we really don’t haven't the foggiest, we can pretty much assume that we would be happy just trusting his judgement. I think the shoes are going to be a case in point on that. Given that the suit is a dark brown, I think The Boy was initially going for dark brown shoes as well but has now decided to make more of a statement with some tan shoes which is far less of a ‘safe’ choice. I think they will look good though. Of course, now The Boy is worried that his outfit won’t look formal enough for a wedding but thats a hurdle for another day. I tried to tell him that he looked hot in the suit and outfitted as he was, no one was going to think he was underdressed on the day but I’m not sure he totally believed me.

With This Ring

2009-06-24T21:25:00.000+10:00

Well here’s something that you don’t do every day. The Boy and I made our wedding rings this afternoon. Thats right. Made. As in we didn’t walk into a jewellers and go ooohh, they’re nice, I’ll just whip out my fantastic plastic so if you could just charge them to my spendings account, that would be great. No. We just started out with two short rods of precious metal and ended up with three rings. Now I know convention would tell you that there should really only be two at the most (cause what – you’re actually planning on having a third person in the marriage somewhere?) but I am apparently one of those women who doesn’t do anything by halves. I want two rings for myself. Or maybe that should be I do actually do things by halves as each ring could be considered as one half of the whole. The two bands were designed to sit either side of my engagement ring and will both be given to me during the wedding ceremony. Whichever way you look at it however, they did end up being more work for The Boy. My job was much easier. His ring wasn’t half as fiddly and I only had to do everything once.

The whole exercise was actually a lot of fun. We turned up at the jeweller’s workshop just before lunch and confirmed the styles of rings that we were making that afternoon. Of course, there were inevitably things that we realised should have been contemplated previously. We therefore had a few moments where we stared at each other blankly going do you want a comfort fit? Do I want a comfort fit?? But we sorted that out soon enough. Our Artisenne then put us to work rolling out the gold to get it to the desired width, length and thickness etc. She had one of those spiffy digital vernier things to tell how far along we were to our goal as well. It could give you measurements to a couple of decimal places which I imagine would not necessarily be extremely useful in my day to day life but could be fun nonetheless. It was quite useful in making the rings however as the whole process was done by hand. There was no pouring of molten metals into a perfectly sized mould or anything like that. There was some naked flame involved in the soldering process but the rest of the afternoon was spent with various other machines and tools, not least of which were the hammers and the saws. And with that many implements of destruction, someone had to get hurt and it was me that ended up claiming the idiot prize.

To be perfectly honest, it really wasn’t much of an injury at all. It would be generous to say that I actually sliced my finger with the saw blade. It was more of a nick really. About 3mm in length worth of laceration but just like some paper cuts which are so totally not at all life threatening either, it stung like nobody’s business at the time and has been inconveniencing me ever since. And it was my own fault which sort of adds insult to injury really. We were warned about keeping our fingers out of the way when we were sawing through the metal to make the rings join in a circle. Since I’m not used to that sort of work though, I was obviously having a few issues holding the metal in such a way as to keep myself completely out of the way. Sadistically however, I was kind of glad to hear later that The Boy had a few difficulties when he was buffing my rings. With bucket loads of friction, small pieces of metal get very hot very fast and he was evidently feeling it. On the whole through, it wasn’t exactly a difficult process to make the rings and pretty much anyone can do it. We were guided through each individual step and our Artisenne even told us that she had previously instructed a blind man on how to make a ring for his partner. Due to his lack of sight, it wasn’t really safe for him to use the buffer apparently but he was able to accomplish everything else.

So we happily spent our afternoon muddling through each of the processes involved in making our bands. Lunch and refreshments were provided by the company, as was a digital camera on the day for us to document the entire project as we wished (although snap happy as I am I also brought my own “baby” as The Boy referred to it). Champagne upon the completion of the finished product was provided to celebrate as well and the wedding rings we finally ended up with looked really professional. Not that I had any doubts that they would look otherwise of course but its still pretty cool to see something that you would have been happy to pay good money for in a shop and know that you made it yourself. Or at least most of it. Because it does help that you get assistance along the way...

As much as we were able to, we completed each of the steps involved ourselves but when something was just that touch too fiddly or seemed to require a bit of a ‘knack’, our Artisenne stepped in to help us out and make sure we ended up with something that looked great. If we happened to have wanted any stones set in the rings then they would have actually taken care of that for us but we stayed “fairly” simple. They look after all the engraving if theres something you want carved into your band as well and we have actually been thinking about this option. We don’t want our names or the wedding date or anything like that though so we need to come up with another idea. The Boy did have the thought that we could use the words from the title of the sermon that will be given at our wedding, ie. Grace and Holiness which I think is kinda nice. It would be fitting and meaningful for The Boy to have Holiness in his ring and for me to have Grace in mine so we might do that. Its also probably a whole lot simpler to accomplish than using ‘With This Ring...’and’...I Thee Wed’ which was my other idea too.

Take V

2009-06-23T17:46:00.002+10:00

Well I figured if I wrote a speech using song lyrics and another using movies lines then I may as well write one using poetry. I have after all seen a couple of examples of bridal speeches where poems are recited in lieu of, well, a speech really. Normally I am not such a fan of poetry but I did come across something written by Roy Croft though that just seemed to fit.

“Firstly, I would like to start my speech by saying a few small thankyous. A lot of the main ones have already been covered or are ones that The Boy and I would still like to make personally but there are a couple of other heroes who should not remain unsung. It would be remiss of me not to offer our thanks for example to The Boy’s workplace and to mine for the internet access so crucial in planning our day. Many a lunch time was spent pouring over pictures and sourcing vendors so that we could bring everything together today. I should also thank our neighbours for the same reason but I don’t really want to introduce myself and explain that they never secured their home network. Another thank you I have is for all of our friends who so conveniently got married before we did. Their weddings provided a great chance to see firsthand how different ideas worked and allowed us to pinch only the ones we liked. And I think they worked out pretty well on the whole.

Apart from my thankyous though, there were a couple of other things I wanted to say in my speech. When I was researching to find out what was traditional or required for a brides speech the overwhelming consensus appeared to be that there were no rules whatsoever. General opinion seemed to dictate that I firstly offer our appreciation for persons not yet mentioned and then talk about the groom or share a funny story about our courtship. I realised that I don’t have any of those that I can repeat however so I decided to go with talking about The Boy instead. Stubborn, irrational, pedantic, argumentative and just plain bitchy are all words that have been used to describe me at some point in time and this man I have married gets to see every one of those traits on a somewhat regular basis. The fact that he has happily committed his life to me today just goes to show how patient, tolerant and understanding he really is. The fact that he can see through or put up with all of the bad stuff to get to the good demonstrates that he is definitely a diamond in the rough and this is part of the reason that I am happy to call myself his wife.

My aunt asked me a question a couple of years ago in the first weeks that The Boy and I were dating. She asked if I could see us having a future together and settling down to get married. The idea unnerved me a little bit at the time (as it might after only a couple of weeks) and I think I said that I couldn’t not see a future for us. I wasn’t sure at the time what the future would hold but I didn’t think there was no possibility that we might end up here today. Now as I stand here, I can still see those two futures that I saw then, one with The Boy and one not, the difference being that now I don’t want to see my future without The Boy. He is a major part of my life and I know that I am a better person for knowing him. I hope that I can be that same partner in life to him that he is for me and I am looking forward to us spending our future together.

The Boy knows that I do not always openly express my feelings and that sometimes I don’t take enough time to say the important things in life but I recently found a poem that I thought pretty much summed up a lot of things that I could say right now so therefore;

‘I love you,
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am
When I am with you.

I love you,
Not only for what
You have made of yourself,
But for what
You are making of me.
I love you
For the part of me
That you bring out;
I love you
For putting your hand
Into my heaped-up heart
And passing over
All the foolish, weak things
That you can’t help
Dimly seeing there,
And for drawing outInto the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find.

I love you because you
Are helping me to make
Of the lumber of my life
Not a tavernBut a temple;
Out of the works
Of my every day
Not a reproach
But a song.
I love you
Because you have done
More than any creed
Could have done
To make me good
And more than any fate
Could have done
To make me happy.
You have done it
Without a touch,
Without a word,
Without a sign.
You have done it
By being yourself.
Perhaps that is what
Being a friend means,
After all.’

So please everyone, join with me and raise your glasses in a toast to the best friend that is my husband and to the future.”

Take IV

2009-06-16T07:57:00.000+10:00

Well I thought it was about time that I took another shot at the wedding speech. I sort of stuck it on the back burner for a while when life started getting in the way but it is still on the to-do list of things that need to be completed. Preferably before the big day. As I was looking for inspiration though and ideas that would befit our momentous event, I started thinking about other productions and the ability of some people to put things far better than I. Like the screen writers whose primary purpose is to find just the right words to say. The fashioning of a moment to move an audience and evoke an emotional response. That is what I would like to be able to do. Those are the things I’d like to be able to say. Maybe I should just borrow...?

“So I have been thinking long and hard about my speech. I have come up with version after version as I try to find the right words to express just what this day has meant to me and the ideal phrases to convey how important this man I have married is in my life. It would seem somehow fitting to say something both eloquent and poetic about what we share together. To speak about what we feel for each other or some of the reasons we have chosen to be wed today. I have looked for inspiration in poetry and prose but I keep circling back to all those so called perfect moments in the movies over the last decade or so. Moments that are perhaps romantic or dramatic or even funny but that all seem to sum up in a small way at least one aspect of what I wanted to talk about here tonight.

From Jerry McGuire’s “You complete me” to Mark Darcy’s “I love you, just as you are”, the simple concept of acceptance really needs no further words. For me, they carry with them the idea that a person can be a home as much as a place may be and that in and of themselves, if you’re lucky enough as I have been to find that person, they are ‘enough’. These words express a love like those which were borrowed by Patch Adams. “I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way than this: where I does not exist, nor you, so close that your hand on my chest is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep”. A love that is perhaps as difficult to explain as it is simple in nature. But we still try to express if not what this love is for each of us, then why it is all we have.

To paraphrase from The Notebook, “The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds and thats what has been given to me. I am nothing special; just a common person with common thoughts, and I’ve led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me, and my name will soon be forgotten. But in one respect I have succeeded as gloriously as anyone who’s ever lived: I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul and to me, this has always been enough”. It is thoughts such as these that I believe we take into our marriage because we know that together we can be better and stronger than we ever could be apart. As the lines that were given to Susan Sarandon, “We need a witness to our lives. Theres a billion people on the planet. I mean, what does any one life mean? But in a marriage, you’re promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things. All of it, all the time, every day. You’re saying ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go unwitnessed because I will be your witness’”.

It was said in The Bachelor “Its a wonderful thing, as time goes by, to be with someone who looks into your face when you’ve gotten old, and still sees what you think you look like”. I think The Boy and I have both been lucky enough to find in each other someone who will want to stay through the good times and the bad. Who will promise to stand as a witness, support, encourage and counsel as the need arises. Neither of us always finds it easy to have surrendered so much of ourselves to be who we are together but it is a commitment that we have both made freely. We have a genuine desire to see as many tomorrows as we can together and to be able to look back on all our yesterdays fondly. There really aren’t words enough to express everything I feel about being married to The Boy but if I might borrow from Robbie Hart with sincere apologies, “Wanna make you smile whenever you’re sad / Help you around when your arthritis is bad / All I wanna so is grow old with you / I’ll get your medicine when your tummy aches / build you a fire if the furnace breaks / oh it could be so nice, growin’ old with you / So let me do the dishes in the kitchen sink / Put you to bed when you’ve had too much to drink / I wanna grow old with you.”.

So when I was thinking about this speech, I was kind of hoping that it might write itself and I guess in a way it has. There really does not seem much more to say other than to actually thank this man for committing to share his life with me and to thank all of you, our guests for coming to celebrate this event with us. And without further ado I’d like to ask you to raise your glasses to love, to laughter and to happy ever after.”

Like A Dream

2009-06-11T14:19:00.002+10:00

I had a dream about not being prepared for the wedding last night. It wasn’t a nightmare because it didn’t scare the pants off me or anything like that but it was a little unsettling at the time. It wasn’t about the wedding itself however. I mean I wasn’t going oh my god, I’m getting married today and I don’t have a dress yet but I was feeling dreadfully unprepared for the rest of the day. I know that I was with my parents and a seemingly random dog and that I was quite concerned about making sure I’d be able to have everything that I wanted with me. I was racing around the house (which was not our house, or rather their house but somewhere that seemed a mixture of a few places I know, mostly my Sydney Aunt and Uncle’s) and frantically thinking of all the items I would need because I couldn’t come back for anything forgotten. I think I started writing a list as well, just to make sure I got it covered.

I know I needed my camera. I think I wanted my tripod. Clothes to change into after the wedding and over the weekend when I would be in a hotel were also on the list. I can’t remember anything else though. Now that I think about what possessions I might need in order to get ready and to last a few days without going home, there doesn’t seem an awful lot of other things that would be important. Well, apart from money and keys but they wouldn’t have needed to be ‘gathered’. They just would have been there. The list was growing at about 5 or 6 items however. And I had that feeling you get after you realise you’ve woken up late. You’re focusing as much on the need to rush as you are on the things you need to remember before you leave the house and you just feel like sitting down cause you can’t figure out where to start.

I’m sure you could come up with some sort of Freudian analysis of my dream and say that although I appear to have settled in my decision to marry, I could still be feeling somewhat unprepared for what comes after. The fact that I was not in my own house but rather another disjointed home might suggest that I have some personal unresolved issues or may need to organise my thoughts or my environment more in order to take the time to chill out. Of course, you could also say that the random dog was the one my cousin asked me if The Boy could dogsit last night while we had a girls night out. The house was therefore her home because she and I will travel together to said girls night and the rushed feeling comes from the fact that I was lucid dreaming right before I was woken up late this morning.

I must say though that I am still waiting for the good dream about this wedding. The one where my girlfriend from overseas flies in to surprise me and we have some amazing last minute additions to the day because we win lotto a fortnight before the event. Where the guests decide they’re still in the mood to party after the reception and we all kick on until The Boy and I feel the need to pass out in our very expensive hotel suite which we don’t leave for about 24 hours. We do poke out our heads for a small gathering of the interstate guests but then abscond back in to opulent luxury before flying off to an exotic location for our honeymoon which includes several foreign countries. I think that would be a much more productive way of spending my sleeping hours if I’m going to remember them afterwards. Plus they do say that positive visualisation can help things come to pass...

Channelling Julie Andrews

2009-06-09T14:16:00.000+10:00

We’re up to church music at the moment. After a mammoth weekend of wedding stuff, we are deciding what to play for the processional and the recessional and all the bits in between and its not an easy job. Well, it might be if you were already in love with certain pieces but we pretty much have a list of what we’re not playing at the wedding as opposed to what we are. Air on a G String is out as is Clarkes Trumpet Voluntary. The Wedding March is most definitely not allowed and the Canon in D will not be getting a look in at all. Now before anyone gets upset with me because they had this at their wedding and they thought it was a beautiful piece, I actually like all these pieces. Well, except for The Wedding March, I’m actually not overly partial to that one. The thing is though that given our budget and available resources, we could not have these pieces played as we would wish them to be played at our wedding (namely with a lot of brass) so we would rather opt for something else entirely.

Since we are going to be married in an old church which has a lovely organ, we would like to take advantage of that as well. We could possibly ask friends to provide all the music throughout the service or have the organist play the piano instead but it would seem a shame not to use a grand organ at all if it is available. So we have been surfing the net looking for options and alternatives to the stock standard pieces every experienced wedding musician would have in their repertoire almost by default. I wanted something that sounded happy and upbeat that didn’t remind me of a dirge. Oddly enough, we found recordings of some pieces by the Mormon Church that I quite liked but they didn’t seem quite fitting on the whole. I didn’t mind if it was a contemporary piece or a classical one but seeing as it needed to be played on an organ, the night we were searching started to feel quite drawn out until we hit on a processional that worked.

It will probably both amuse and come as no surprise to some people that the first piece we chose was the Wedding Processional from The Sound Of Music, arguably one of the most famous musicals ever. The movie was a phenomenon in and of itself and at some point in their lives, millions of girls from all different generations wanted to actually be Julie Andrews. I thought what better way to start The Wedding in front of all our guests than to borrow a bit of musical brilliance and well maybe channel a bit of the great lady herself as I walk down the aisle. I did vaguely look at having a bit of Cinderella moment by finding out of there was such a thing as the processional from The Slipper and the Rose (one of my all time favourite movies since I was about 5) but it really wasn’t a feature in the movie. When Cinderella turns up to gatecrash the prince’s wedding they all remove to discuss whether the prince can marry her instead and then they have the main refrain for the two of them I think. She doesn’t get a proper traipse down the aisle.

Now that this has been sorted though, we still actually have all the rest of the pieces to go. There are hymns I believe that are a requirement of us being married in an Anglican church and we need to choose something for the signing of the register while everyone has to sit quietly in their pews and the recessional as we leave the church. Given the somewhat modern (and perhaps girly) piece we have chosen for when I enter the church, the idea appealed to have a modern “boy” sort of piece as we leave the church. It amused us no end to find the Mario Brothers Theme and the Tetris theme played on church organs on You Tube but I somehow think that this would not sit at all well with some of our guests. It is our wedding of course but still, it wouldn’t be meaningful enough for us to go to that effort. I imagine we shall choose some other pieces that fit a little more seamlessly into the ceremony and save the kooky for another time. There is still a whole reception full of music that we can inflict on our guests as the mood takes us.

5th Floor - Domestic Disputes and Bridal Registry...

2009-06-07T14:10:00.001+10:00

So I’m a girl right? Who can, at times, be somewhat materialistic. I like to have nice things. I also like them to look good, I want them to last and to actually do the job for which they were bought and not merely kind of suit the purpose for same. That usually means that they don’t come from Hot Dollar although I have learnt never to underestimate the effectiveness of a great bargain. Its not rocket science though. For the most part items either fulfil your requirements or they don’t. Anyway, given my penchant for nice things, you could be forgiven for thinking that when it comes to bridal registries, I would be in seventh heaven. That I’d be overjoyed by having the chance to pick lots of lovely gifts that I intended on giving other people the privilege of buying for us. You would however be wrong. Quite wrong. Oh my God. I’m glad I’m only getting married once because I am never doing that again.

It looks like so much fun in the movies. You get to wander round the store with (what was in our case a pda) scanner that allows you enter items into your list with the press of a button. Everyone looks so carefree as they wander around feeling like they’re shopping with an unlimited credit card. The reality however is somewhat different. Maybe we were just unprepared but at some point or other throughout the three and a half hours The Boy and I spent completing the process, we had a couple of mini domestics in the middle of Myer relating to the size, the brand, the cost, the appearance or the value of just about everything. Ok, so maybe that was a little over exaggerated but thats what it felt like at times. Why do we have to get bath sheets and bath towels? Why does it matter which potato masher we select? Why do we want a food processor and a blender all in one? Why does it make a difference what type of plain high-ball glass tumblers we have?

Some of the simplest decisions just took the longest time. Although it didn’t help either that in order to try and avoid more disharmony throughout the exercise, we were both bending over backwards at various points in order to be non-committal and open to the opinions of the other party first. That just meant that no one seemed to have the guts enough to make a decision which I have to say went down like a tonne of bricks really. I always wanted for us not to be one of those stereotypical couples. You know, where the woman paces around brandishing her list and attacking the whole experience with the tenacity of a pit bull while the bemused partner trundles along several paces behind and tries to run the gamut between appearing both engaged and interested and keeping his mouth shut about why it matters so much what type of tea cups they choose if neither of them drink tea. And we weren’t that couple which was good but neither were we much better.

We bickered. There was sarcasm and frustration. Then there was more sarcasm and frustration. There was also real deliberation over what we could reasonably put down on the list. The plasma didn’t make it. On the whole though, I guess we didn’t come off too badly. The boy is still speaking to me after I dumped a bucket load of attitude on him. Note to self: do not get yourself into a situation where you have a light breakfast and then nothing to eat for 6 hours, you turn into a right cow. We do have a couple of amendments that need to be made to the list such as quantities and preferences but we did manage to get a good range of items. It does make it hard though when the things you really want to put down are the things you haven’t bought yourself for the very reason that you can’t actually afford them. Basically because most of our friends can’t actually afford them either. The registry does make it easier for them to pitch in with each other to get us something major that we really want but still, its not very exciting when a lot of the cheap things on your list are things like spatulas and measuring cups.

It is nice though that whatever is still left on the bridal registry after the wedding, we actually get a chance to buy at 30% off shortly thereafter. Maybe we should put the plasma on there...

Mammoth Friday

2009-06-05T21:03:00.000+10:00

(Decoration)
Well Friday was a bit of a marathon. Not so much because I was racing around everywhere frantically but rather that I felt like I had been driving around in circles the whole day by the end of it. Which come to think of it, is not really like a marathon at all and is more like laps. Anyway, the first circle I drove around in was a relatively small one which started before 5am when we had to get up so we could head out to the flower markets. Freedom Lady who is the partner to The Father Of The Groom very kindly offered to assist us by coordinating the floral element of our day and as such, we went out to meet her to look for suppliers and ideas. I’m sure we were a little frustrating as when we got there, we pretty much had no idea what we actually wanted. And a lot of the things we liked were only widely available in pretty much every season but the one we were getting married in ie. Winter.

We looked at lilies and orchids and pussywillow and various forms of foliage. We saw tulips and kangaroo paw and I realised that I was naturally going to be drawn to one of the more expensive flowers there when some imported roses from South America caught my eye. It does amuse me that I always said I didn’t want stupid roses for my bouquet. I felt they were too generic and boring and was favouring the arums and the callas instead. And yes I know they’re the funeral flower but I’m not superstitious about flowers and I think they’re pretty. Anyway, I was not going to have roses. I also know that The Boy had once been talking to a florist and had heard of people who imported the flowers for their wedding in from South America or somewhere exotic like that. At the time The Boy thought that was excessive and was a bit dumbfounded as to why anyone would seriously bother doing that. Then he obviously met me. In my defence though, they are beautiful and we both like them.

The roses that I saw were described as a jaffa or chocolate orange type of colour. They’re not brown or coffee or latte but have a real burnt orange type of tone to them which is unlike anything I’ve seen in the Australian roses. I would only need a couple of bunches to complete a rather modest bouquet and provide a couple of buttonholes so I’m not planning on decking out whole rooms with them or anything. I think we will try and complement the colour with some more latte coloured buds for The Pussycat and then some orchids stems for the centrepieces at the reception. I figure twining one of these around a piece of driftwood with some vine or maybe leaves would look alright. It might sound a bit weird but I think it would work. We do of course have to try a mock bouquet and the centrepiece out first to make sure I’m not insane but hopefully this comes together without too much heartache. Much like my jacket idea has done.

(Dresses)
After the nanna nap I had when I got home from dropping The Boy at work, The Mother Of The Bride and I went to a fitting for my jacket. Which didn’t seem like much of a fitting really because I only tried on a readymade jacket in the style that I wanted and the couturier took a few extra measurements as I have apparently lost a little weight since I saw her last. It was a chance for me to actually see a jacket with the dress however and show my mother that it was not some weird idea The Boy and I had concocted in our minds. The dress and the jacket would look good together. Actually, I think they looked better than good. I think the jacket looked hot in an elegant kind of way if thats possible and it gave a different dynamic to the dress which is pretty impressive by itself. Its also nice to think that I will be able to walk down the aisle and actually surprise some people because so far I have managed to share pictures of me in my dress with just about everybody I know. Except Naughty M who expressly forbade me telling her anything about the dress whatsoever. I happen to keep a picture and a swatch of fabric with me wherever I go though which is quite useful when talking to vendors and apparently anyone else within arms length as well. Honestly, I didn’t set out to show all and sundry but by now, a good proportion of my friends have already seen it and some of The Boys’ have too so it would be nice if when I walked down the aisle, the majority of the church wasn’t thinking “I knew she was going to look like that”.

So yeah, I had a fitting for my outfit and then we went to sort out some fabric for the Mother Of The Bride outfit. Which we managed to pull off without too much drama. Especially since I think The Mother Of The Bride has changed her mind on what she wanted to wear to The Wedding as many times as I did. There was the floor length jacket idea, the knee length jacket idea, the thigh length jacket idea and then the hip length jacket idea. And what went under the jacket seemed to go from skirts to dresses back to skirts again. Basically though, we did have a rough idea of what we were looking for when we went out and I think we found some real options. We wanted suit material in a light grape sort of colour to take back to the dress maker who unfortunately has no qualms about voicing exactly what you can’t do or what she doesn’t like about what you want. You can’t for example wear a jacket over a beaded top. Excuse me, but who made you queen of the castle? And she figures that no one should actually want a peplum anymore because they are so out of fashion these days but I have news for her. If she want to mess with the bride, bring it on I say. Even if peplums were out of fashion, I’m damn well bringing them back in myself so she can pipe down. And as for wearing jackets over beaded tops, she doesn’t have to like it, she just has to do what she’s being paid to do or politely decline the commission.

So anyway, after we had finished our couple of errands, we doubled back to pick up The Boy from work and then headed back into the city to check out another fabric store which as it turned out wasn’t all the productive at the time as The Mother Of The Bride was already sold on what she’s seen and The Boy and I were tired and hungry so we headed home for about an hour before we drove back into the city for dinner.

(Dinner)
We had a menu tasting on that evening which came about after no small amount of phone calls and emails in relation to same. Basically this was because we weren’t sure if we were going to have issues with the menu. When we first booked the venue, the sample menu had five dishes in each course, the majority of which I would have had no trouble nominating for the wedding. When it came to organise the tasting dinner however, I was emailed the new updated menu which held very little that I could actually eat and almost nothing at all that I wanted. The only thing that looked any good to me was the Chocolate Fondant Pudding with Sour Cream Ice Cream. Which, if you can only fit one course in because you are constricted by your dress, would be a pretty good dish to have but I still want to maintain the pretence that I’m going to eat the full three courses that we’re paying for on the night. So I wanted food that I liked.

As it turned out however, the kitchens were prepared to serve the meals from the old menu and when one of the Parentals came in to town for business, The Boy and I figured we’d include The Mother Of The Bride in on the action. This turned out to be rather fortunate as it meant we got a chance to sample three dishes in each course instead of only two. Something that definitely made the difference in the selection of dishes for the entree as the ravioli which sounded so nice on paper turned out to be almost as salty as the harbour we sat dining beside. Initially I was a bit disappointed that we only were allowed to order one entree, main and dessert each as some places that you go offer tasting nights where they make the whole menu available for you to try. Since we basically got a choice between the old menu and the new by selecting individual dishes for each person though, this worked in our favour.

The three of us happily shared the dishes around which much have looked a little weird to the people sitting beside us. Within a couple of minutes of us sitting down, bread and sparkling wine were brought out without us apparently having ordered anything. Then the food and white wine started coming and the plates got passed around the table every couple of bites taken. When the mains and red wine arrived, the same thing occurred as we discussed the merits of having either two salmon dishes on the night or two red meat dishes in the same course. I have no idea whether there is some sort of etiquette that says you should have at least one white meat and one dark meat in your entree and main or one seafood and one meat dish providing that there is adequate variation but its our wedding so we’re having cured salmon followed by cooked salmon unless you opt for the vegetarian frittata and the beef. If you’re somewhat fussy though and none of those options actually float your boat, you can hold out for the dessert and the wedding cake which is yet to be decided. We don’t see the cake lady till Tuesday week.

The Making Of The Wedding

2009-06-03T19:32:00.001+10:00

Its wonderful what you can now find on the internet. Quite by accident sometimes you stumble over flashes of brilliance that might leave you in awe or perhaps inspire you to go forth and create all on your own. I have recently been prompted into one of those inspirational phases which would be fantastic except I still haven’t quite figured out where to go with it yet. My new fountain of ideas has sprung up in relation to the videoing of The Wedding. The Boy and I have previously discussed the merits of actually getting a videographer for our wedding but up until now we have been a bit undecided. Apart from the very real benefit of being able to see how we naturally moved and sounded at the time, there are some fairly decent drawbacks.

Aside from the fact that a lot of people seem to want your first born for the privilege, wedding videos are just so boring! Ceremonies are often quite serious (or tedious) and the entertaining bits of women getting their hair done or the bridal party standing around posing for photos can be very few and far between. Even at receptions, the chatter around the table might make for fantastic company but its not usually something you want to watch hours of after the fact. Or even during the fact for that matter. Because in order to get around and see everything, some poor bugger has to be behind the lens the whole time. So we were a bit stumped until I saw this TOTALLY AWESOME VIDEO by the Lockdown Projects. I have no idea whether we could actually pull something like that off without taking on a second job or selling a kidney but I sat there thinking holy cow, if I have a wedding video I want it to be like that.

Of course, if you are going to shamelessly rip off someone else’s idea then you really ought to change it just a little bit at least first. So I figured that instead of getting our guests to mime the words to Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now to make a music video, I’d have them mime Love Cats by The Cure. I got pictures in my head of a few friends in particular hissing directly into the camera and others prancing around to this, I don’t even know what to call it – pop classic? The line “we’re so wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully pretty!” just lends itself perfectly to a dolled up bride and groom as well. Getting the guests to go along with this however is another matter. It takes a lot of effort and energy to make people do something that may make them feel a little silly and a splash charisma too. I think I could probably do it but by all accounts, I’m going to be a trifle busy all day long so really, I’m out. If all else fails though, I do have a plan B.

Seeing as everyone who is there on the day (including us) would have seen it all before, having a straight replay on video would not seem all that exciting. To anyone. I figured what people might like to see or know afterwards though are things they didn’t actually expect. After a little further consideration on the fact that we have turned our wedding into “The Wedding”, a one show only production, I thought what better thing to do with lots of random footage than to piece it all together and create a “making of” video? A sort of mockumentary if you will on The Wedding with voiceovers discussing the casting, the props, the challenges, the dramas and anything else silly or strange that we can come up with when we edit it all together. I think I might actually want to look at something like that in a few years time. And if it was short and sweet, it might be something that anyone who couldn’t make it to The Wedding was happy to watch as well. At least there would be somewhat more to it than people just going about their business. Even if it is a significant occasion. This is what home movies should be like.

Pulling Teeth

2009-06-01T20:53:00.001+10:00

Just quietly, how long does it take to complete minor repairs and courier a damn dress? I know other people who have had perfectly pleasant experiences while arranging to purchase special items such as wedding dresses from interstate but I have to say that I’m currently Not Happy Jan. I put the dress on layby knowing that I would need repairs done on the gown and expecting that I would be able to go down in person to get it sorted. Events conspired against me however and I was left managing the whole thing by phone from home and it would seem that because of that, the whole customer service thing went out the window. I swear getting a straight answer out of the salon has been like pulling teeth. More trouble than its worth almost. Everyone was very polite to me on the phone of course but I just got the impression that the exercise of getting people to follow things up for me was as useless as tits on a bull.

I suppose I should have gotten an inkling when I rang up to ask a few questions about the veil. When I realised that the dyed veil was going to look quite horrible with the ivory jacket, I rang up to ask whether I could change my order or possibly remove my order after having put down a deposit. The concept of two separate scenarios was apparently too complex to deal with however causing most of their brain cells to run away and hide so they just deleted the order completely and sent me a new layby slip. As I never asked for this, I figured I could change my mind later if I really wanted so I let it go. Things just got worse when I needed the dress repaired. I needed to know how much the repairs to my dress would cost and in what time frame these could be completed. Namely whether I could fly down have a fitting, stay overnight and fly out with my fixed dress the following evening. If the repairs could not be completed overnight or if I could not fly down in person, I also needed to know how much it would cost to courier the dress. I needed the dress asap and I wanted the cheapest option. What I got was the run around.

You can’t talk to the salon about repairs because they sub-contract the work for their off-the-floor dresses to seamstresses. The seamstresses can’t tell you what needs to be done on your gown because the salon keeps it on site. Seamstresses will only quote on what they are told to so it is a fatal error to simply ask how much it costs to “fix” something. Just as an aside though, you’d think that they’d tack on stuff you didn’t really need to make money when you gave them free reign but that obviously didn’t happen. When they come back to you and you make it clear that you have other concerns regarding the dress, the whole process starts again. After you manage to approve the repairs, you get a new set of problems. You can’t pay the seamstress because she is sub-contracted by the salon. You can’t pay the salon though when they don’t know what the seamstress is charging you. I swear to god this process is driving me insane. I think I have it to the stage where it is almost sorted. It would just be my luck though if I get the dress couriered up here and it gets lost in transit!

Inviting Dr Seuss

2009-05-28T21:30:00.000+10:00

Back when we were doing the Prepare worksheet with the Reverend, we also went through the order of service. When he got to the part about the vows, he mentioned that instead of the traditional vows (you know, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer etc), we had the option of writing our own. The Boy was actually quite a fan of this. He thought it would be far more meaningful I guess if we were to speak our own vows inside the church. I on the other hand was not so keen.

Part of the reason for this is that in some respects, I’m quite traditional and if it ain’t broke, why fix it? People have been saying those words for hundreds of years so why do they need to be rewritten now? My other issue is that for such an important occasion, I don’t know whether I could even come up with something that I liked which didn’t sound cloying and twee. When I think about writing my own vows I get flashbacks to this scene in the tv drama Seachange (great show) where the main character is struggling and after what you are led to believe is quite a while, only comes up with “I greatly esteem him”. Or something like that. Of course she was actually in love with someone else at the time which is definitely not the case here but still, the whole self writing of the vows thing...

The other thought that sticks is my head is that as much as people write their own vows so that they can put what they want in there, I also know they do it so they can take what they don’t like out. Perhaps because of the divorce rate sky rocketing over the last couple of decades, there has been a trend for couples to drop the “Till death do us part” bit because they are anxious about making that vow in a church. I have actually seen it changed to a promise to keep faith “as long as the love shall last” which seems rather non-committal to me. But different horses for different courses I guess. I happen to prefer the traditional version myself. Of course, if you were going to do your own, you could always have a little fun with it...

Now I must admit I didn’t write all this. I pinched the Groom’s part somewhere on the net that said a Marty Blase wrote it. I changed a couple of words to make it flow better though and added the Bride’s part cause really, whats the point in having only one half? I’m not too sure that Dr Seuss wedding vows will make it into too many ceremonies but the idea does amuse me.

For the bride , do you agree
To answer me quite truthfully

Yes I’m sure I do agree
To answer you quite truthfully

Will you take this man to wed
Into your heart and in your bed
Will you love him through and through
Both when he smiles and when he’s blue

Yes I’ll take this man to wed
Into my heart and in my bed
And I will love him through and through
Both when he smiles and when he’s blue

Will you stay when times are tough
If in your purse theres not enough
Will you be there should illness call
From this day forth, to give your all

Yes I’ll stay when times are tough
If in our purse theres not enough
I will be there should illness call
From this day forth, I give my all
For I do take this man to wed
Into my heart and in my bed
And I will love him through and through
Both when he smiles and when he’s blue

Then if you swear you will stay true
To these here vows please say

I DO

Will you sir answer me right now

These questions, as your wedding vow?

Yes, I’ll answer you right now

Your questions as my wedding vow.

Will you take her as your wife?

Will you love her all your life?

Yes, I take her as my wife,

Yes, I'll love her all my life.

Will you have, and also hold

Just as you have at this time told?

Yes, I will have, and I will hold,

Just as I have at this time told,

Yes, I will love her all my life

As I now take her as my wife.

Will you love through good and bad?

Be you either glad or sad?

Yes, I'll love through good and bad,

Be we either glad or sad,

Yes, I will have and I will hold

Just as I have already told,

Yes, I will love her all my life,

Yes, I will take her as my wife!

Will you love her if you're rich?

Or if you're poor, and in a ditch?

Yes, I'll love her if we're rich,

And I will love her in a ditch,

I'll love her through good times and bad,

Be we either glad or sad,

Yes, I will have, and I will hold

(I could have sworn this has been told!)

I promise to love all my life

This woman, as my lawful wife!

Will you love her when you're fit,

And also when you're feeling sick?

Yes, I'll love her when we're fit,

And when we're hurt, and when we're sick,

And I will love her when we're rich

And I will love her in a ditch

And I will love through good and bad,

And I will love when glad or sad,

And I will have, and I will hold

Ten years from now a thousandfold,

Yes, I will love for my whole life

This lovely woman as my wife!

Will you love with all your heart?

Will you love till death you part?

Yes, I'll love with all my heart

From now until death do us part,

And I will love her when we're rich,

And when we're broke and in a ditch,

And when we're fit, and when we're sick,

(Oh, CAN'T we get this finished quick?)

And I will love through good and bad,

And I will love when glad or sad,

And I will have, and I will hold,

And if I might now be so bold,

I'll love her my entire life,

Yes, I WILL take her to wife!

Then if you'll take her as your wife,

And if you'll love her all your life,

And if you'll have, and if you'll hold,

From now until the stars grow cold,

And if you'll love through good and bad,

And be you either glad or sad,

And love in sickness, and in health,

And when you're poor, and when in wealth,

And if you'll love with all your heart,

From now until death do you part,

Yes, if you'll love her through and through,

Please answer with these words:

I DO!

You're married now! So kiss the bride,

But please, do keep it dignified.

And to this sound advice adhere,

When you’re in doubt just say “yes dear”.

Transportationally Challenged

2009-05-22T17:53:00.000+10:00

Well isn’t it ironic? Not in an Alanis Morrisette kind of way of course because that song was not actually about anything ironic. Although the fact that it wasn’t actually about anything ironic however was kind of ironic in itself but I’m not entirely sure that was the way it was intended. Anyway, the fact that we are no longer transportationally challenged for the wedding does have a certain element of irony to it. Even though I have no interest in cars whatsoever, we have ended up with a car that I actually think is really cool and The Boy, who loves cars and other things automobile (and did have certain preferences), is satisfied.

In a lot of areas, our tastes are quite similar and our ideas concerning the wedding seem to gel well together but I have to say that this is not something we found with cars. From the beginning of this whole wedding business, I felt it wise to tell The Boy that I am not having a classic American car as the wedding car. Mustangs, Cadillacs and Chevys are out. I’ve just never really liked them. The Boy then told me in turn that we’d be getting a stretch Hummer over his dead body. Yeah, I know they’re kinda tacky but in a way, I think they’re so awful, they’re almost cool. So we started looking around at the European cars.

The Boy fell in love with the Mark IV Jag a while ago, and I have to say that I did quite like the car but I then went and put a spanner in the works didn’t I? Regardless of the tradition that says the bridal couple should have their own car to get away from the church and the bridal party should follow in another vehicle, since we are only having one attendant each, I actually want them with us. I am well aware that my sister, the Maid of Honour, and our Gentle Giant of a Best Man are both big enough and ugly enough to look after conversation on their own but since neither of them actually know the other, I thought it would be much more fun to have us all together. And three people and two dresses across the backseat apparently don’t work in a classic sedan car.

So then we had a “discussion” about why I assumed The Boy knew that the four of us together was my preference and why The Boy expected me to know it wasn’t actually practical in the first place. I then offered to just go with the Jag or even a Cadillac with the two of us if thats what he really wanted and he condescended to ride in Hummer if thats what I really wanted. Neither of us were particularly content with those options however so we looked at the limousine idea instead. We pretty much agreed that four people would get lost in the back of a stretch Chrysler so that option was nixed pretty quickly. Anything white in the various fleets around was out too cause some of the stuff I’ve seen at Bridal Fairs just look a bit kitsch. And then we found the Rolls Royce Wraith.

This car is a tank! Probably not a very effective sort of tank because the body is apparently aluminium but this thing is huge. It used to belong to the Australian Government way back when and I think the Queen may have even ridden in it. Now it has been restored by a wedding car business and has been resprayed as a two tone silver colour. I thought it was totally cool and oddly enough one of the more impressive things we’ve got for the wedding so far. The Boy just shook his head at me. He has thrown himself into sourcing flowers, veils, centrepieces, jewellery and lots of other traditionally girly things and I wasn’t anywhere near as excited about those as I was about the car. Oh well, you can’t have everything.

In case you get the wrong idea though, I think we are both happy with the final choice of car. I really was more than willing to split up the bridal party so The Boy could have the car he originally wanted but given my preference to have us together and the money to hire not only one car but two, this was decided to be the best option for our wedding. And there is definitely something stately about a Rolls Royce...

Wedding Whoops?

2009-05-15T17:49:00.000+10:00

I think I themed our wedding by accident. And I so didn’t mean to do that. As previously mentioned on this blog, I pretty much feel that the requirement of having a wedding theme is a bit of a wank, pardon my French. As neither The Boy nor I were particularly drawn by colours, styles, locations or otherwise specifically related elements, we therefore decided we were not going to have a theme. I actually do not have an issue at all with having a theme for a wedding but the having to have a theme really irritated me. Thus the not having one. But then we started advertising. And thats the way I think of it really.

Also as I mentioned previously, in regards to our Save The Date cards, we performed a shameless infringement of copyright and created an ad for our wedding as the date reminder. And we created a website. We (which is quite a royal sort of “we” really because The Boy did all the hard work) set up a webpage where people could get “pre-sale seating information” and actually reserve their seats too. All this actually amounted to was a return email that provided an e-ticket confirmation that the person in question would come to the free public event that is our wedding and sit in a non numbered pew if they so wished but we thought the idea was cute. Then it sort of evolved from there.

With all the details and effort that have gone into this day so far, I began to see the whole thing as a bit of a production really. We don’t exactly have a cast of thousands for the affair (which is fortunate because then the whole thing would have been a lot more complicated) but there has been a fair bit going on with the making of the outfits and investigating of options etc. A lot of behind the scenes work so to speak has been undertaken and I’m sure there will be some direction from the wings once the day arrives. We intend to delegate a few jobs at the wedding I think. Especially as we’re supposed to remain centre stage for pretty much the entire day. But right now, its time to get the actual invitations out there.

A while ago I was intrigued by the idea of giving a ticket as an invitation and we looked at sourcing actual tickets through Ticketmaster or the like or merely designing our own. We were having a few issues as to how best to accomplish this however because we needed to let people know about either the ceremony and the reception, or the ceremony only. Then we came up with a better idea. For the wedding ceremony, we designed a flyer announcing that for one show only, The Boy and I would be starring in “The Wedding”, a fantastic adaptation of the classic we all know and love. Brought to you by Working Man Productions as it were. We decided to send that out with a promotional letter about how long this production has been in the making and how brilliant its going to be. And for those to whom we have decided to extend an invitation to our reception – they get a backstage pass to the after party!

So its seems with my love of theatre that I have inadvertently themed my wedding to be experienced as a short run matinee followed by an opening night and closing night party all rolled into one. There will be costumes and choreography, props, music, rehearsed speeches, programs (theres no reason why your order of service can’t be much more interesting) and hopefully really awesome food and drink. I think I draw the line at merchandise because nobody I’m sure wants chocolates with our faces carved into them or other such nonsense but still, it seems the theatrical aspects of our wedding have taken on the personality of a drama queen rather than that of a wallflower and have asserted themselves as a united front which has resulted in a theme for the wedding. Oh well. At least I’m still the Prima Donna.

On Location

2009-05-07T17:47:00.000+10:00

We had our engagement shoot last month. On the eve of our second anniversary, we got up early, made ourselves look pretty (or as pretty as was going to happen before 7am) and headed down the harbour to take advantage of the early morning light. As part of the photography package that we went for, we were entitled to an e-session as they are sometimes known in the business and the whole thing was rather easy and painless. But then you get that when you have someone with years of experience.

Photography is something that I personally have a passion for so I knew what I wanted when we started looking. Whilst The Boy is largely orchestrating this whole wedding affair, the photographer is one of the few aspects that I would definitely exercise my veto rights over if I didn’t like their portfolio or their service. I know what good photography is and what it is worth but even for someone on a budget, the choice of photographer would be one of those decisions for me that was not primarily about money and the best option I can get for what I have. My first consideration would be that of the talent and quality that I wanted. Then you figure out how to make it fit the budget. Which we did. And I think that what we are getting will be worth it, especially after the engagement session the other morning and after seeing the proofs that were available the following week.

The process of actually taking the photos didn’t take very long at all. We were down at the harbour for about a half hour or so I think and even then, a good portion of that was taken up with chatting to the photographer about his work and experience. We wandered around a small area taking shots against different backgrounds in different poses and circled back to where we started. The Boy and I were given minimal direction but when we couldn’t manage to keep a straight face and started laughing at each other our shadow behind the lens just went with the flow. Since wedding photography is in fact something that both my sister and I have toyed with doing professionally, it was interesting to see someone else at work. After spending some time with the Grand Master however (told you he was experienced), it became abundantly clear just how much further we really have to go. It would be quite demotivating if it wasn’t also inspiring.

My sister and I actually got to put ourselves to the test at the beginning of the month too. In exchange for experience, we offered up our time and skills to shoot the wedding of some family friends. We were there for almost the whole day from some preparations at the house to the end of the reception at the restaurant. Given our lack of experience, we were happy with what we ended up with and we think that we earned our dinner but we also found some glaring holes in our arsenal. I now have even more respect for photographers who shoot large group shots where everyone stands up straight and arm to arm like pegs in a row, photographers who shoot under pressure and have but minutes to take the “location” shots with the Bride and Groom who just want to get to the party, photographers who largely run out of available light but still manage to shoot to advantage and people who just see the world differently. Ahh to be that talented...

Centre Stage

2009-04-29T17:43:00.000+10:00

You know, I was kind of happy that the venue we had chosen for our reception didn’t actually include the table centrepieces along with everything else. I figured this meant that I would not be stuck with an arrangement I’d never chose for myself such as the ubiquitous hurricane vase nestled in a wreath of flowers and foliage. Or perhaps flower petals strewn across the table underneath a 3-pronged candelabra. Not that there is anything wrong with either of these designs in and of themselves but when they’re thrown into your package with the token gesture that ‘we’re happy to match the “colours” of your wedding’, they can end up looking, well, just a bit naf really. So I was happy that we’d get to choose our own centrepieces. I know better now.

Inevitably, when The Boy and I go to choose something for ourselves, we pick the most hard to find, obscure, expensive things there are to find out there. Which is so unnecessary but there you go. My friend had huge glasses of M&M’s as the centrepieces at her wedding to represent both her mother and her new mother-in-law whose names both began with M. Simple, colourful, functional, meaningful and inexpensive. We on the other hand found pictures of charming Manzanita branches that formed canopies across the table from which to hang small tea lights and sprigs of birch branches for that winter wedding feel. Which would be fine if we lived in the United States. Which we don’t. So then on the branch idea we started looking at driftwood in artistic shapes and realised that we should be living in Queensland where we could find the right type of wood for free and not pay a hundred dollars for something thats already dead!

After we’d had thoughts about the dead stuff though, we came back around to the live stuff. Or rather a-live stuff. Fish to be precise. I rather liked the idea of having centrepieces with fish swimming around in them. Something simple perhaps. Say a black goldfish and an orange goldfish. In a tall vase with maybe a flower or two submerged in the water for effect. And a floating candle on top. And a few more candles in holders on the table cause I like candlelight. So ok, not all that simple at all after you buy the vases, the fish, the gravel, the flowers, the candles and the candle holders. Not all that cheap either. Especially if you wanted to get lights for the bottom of the vases to give you that glowing look. But everything costs in this industry. Even most of the other options we reviewed as possibilities.

There are some way cool candelabras out there. Massive wrought iron things that look somewhat gothic but appealing nonetheless. There are also some beautiful exotic flowers that have amazing scents and look absolutely stunning. There are collections of elaborate vases, ice sculptures, bonsais and balloons that all would give the room a different look and feel but are just not entirely practical. Or feasible. We’re still yet to find the idea thats just perfect. The one where I’m not irritated that we’ve bought stuff nobody actually wants at the end of the night or that we paid too much for something we didn’t really like and where The Boy is satisfied that we have accessorised befittingly the only wedding that we’ll ever have and that we have created an aesthetically pleasing space around us. The more cynical side of me would say good luck with that but stranger things have happened. And we do live in an area of Sydney that is highly populated by Asians which translates in the wedding business to amen for $2 shops.

I Hear Vegas Is Nice...

2009-04-21T17:37:00.000+10:00

It would be unfair to say that my life has been reduced to a wedding because that is not really the case. The wedding does seem to be something I spend a lot of my time talking about now but then you could also argue that I put it out there just as regularly as its brought. You know, like hi, my name is Gauchegirl and in case you wanted to avoid any socially awkward silences, you might be interested to know that I am soon to be having a wedding which is good for at least five minutes of inane small talk...and the fact that the Groom picked the dress should be good for a few more...or something along those lines. In any case, like the white elephant in the room, the wedding cannot be avoided and neither can everyone’s two cents worth that goes with it.

Now I’m not actually bothered by this phenomenon. More confused really. There is quite a dichotomy of views that everyone feels compelled to impart, sometimes in a rather impassioned manner. These responses often contain a variation on the theme if only I knew then what I know now but the riders range from I’d have skipped the whole wedding bit and put a deposit on a house or I’d have just gone all out and done exactly what I wanted. Which is usually a money thing but sometimes is mentioned in regards to certain family or friends that may or may not have been invited to the reception. So yeah, when The Boy and I sit down to consider are we doing the right thing (about the wedding that is, not the marriage), we still haven’t figured that out yet.

I’m sure many would argue that there actually is no right answer though. You can only do what seems right for you at the time and hope that it works out for the best. And maybe some of the responses are more indicative of the length of time that has passed between the wedding in question and now rather than what the better choice would have been anyway. It does seem that its the younger marrieds who tell us I can’t believe we spent that much or did it that way, it would have been easier to just elope. Its often been the older generation that has advocated doing anything and everything you can manage. A life goes on afterwards but you only live once so make the most of it sort of approach. Neither generation (generically) however looks back on their weddings in an unfavourable light.

So the jury is definitely still out. Whether its better to take whatever money you have on you, fly to Vegas and get hitched or beg, steal and borrow as much dosh as you can lay your hands on and throw the event of the century, I don’t know. The one thing everyone seems pretty unanimous about however is that you shouldn’t ever feel pushed into doing something you don’t want to do. Don’t invite people purely out of a sense of obligation. Don’t scrimp on the things that are important to you. Don’t let the hairdresser convince you your “do” is fine if you think you’d have done a better job by hosting a birds nest or fighting with the neighbour’s cat. Don’t listen to anyone telling you that you can’t do something you want to because its just not “done”. And if you really want something for your wedding, then as Nike would say, Just do it!

Fully Prepared

2009-04-13T15:18:00.000+10:00

Well we can now consider ourselves fully ‘prepared’ for marriage. As far as the church is concerned at any rate. Our birth certificates have been sighted so that the notice of intent to marry may be lodged more than one month and a day in advance of the date in question (and they know that neither of us are grasping for an Australian passport out of the proceedings) and we have now received our feedback from the ‘Prepare’ exercise.

As there is actually no ‘pass’ or ‘fail’ for this process, we can’t actually say we did ‘well’ (or otherwise for that matter). It appears however that we do have genuine areas of strength as opposed to areas of strength by proxy which is nice. That is we don’t have some level of discord in absolutely all areas but only utter discord in a few of them. Instead, we actually have areas where we really do see eye to eye. Oddly enough however, they weren’t necessarily the ones that we expected.

Once we arrived at the counselling session, we were asked to identify on separate worksheets what we thought would be our three main areas of strength and our three main areas of growth. All the statements to which we had previously responded had been designed to come under headings such as expectations of marriage, personality issues and family etc. Our answers had been sent off for a computer to tally up accordingly and we now had to predict what the final result would be. Or that is the result from that particular day – we were advised that over time, the answers we gave to those statements would most likely change and may have even changed already. Which was also a reason they gave for not giving us a hard copy of the actual results. Apparently its not constructive, especially later in a marriage to bring up things along the lines of “but you said when we were engaged that you were happy that I had hobbies of my own and now you’re complaining that I want to take up macramé three nights a week while you look after the kids!?!”. Or something like that. Anyway, across the board The Boy and I felt that Communication would be one of our main strengths and indeed it was but one might have to question occasionally what we communicate about because nothing else was as unanimous!

It was also odd to find that on a list of 10-12 different categories, on face value I would identify an area as one that required growth whilst The Boy felt that it was one of our main strengths and vice versa. The Boy felt that we did not really have too many personality issues between us as we genuinely liked each other and got along quite well. I on the other hand thought that we probably butted heads more than was actually necessary and this was badly done by us on occasion. Apparently I was correct in this particular instance (it was a primary area of growth for us) however The Boy had it right when he thought that our Relationship Roles were unlikely to cause us major issues. I guess its all a matter of perspective though really and it depends on what information you choose to focus when you are making your decision.

Any imperfections on your good set of anything may stick out more in your mind than those on the ratty old set that you’ve had for years. Just as when say your computer normally works great but then inexplicably freezes you might get a whole lot more irritated than when your old printer that has never worked smoothly the first time around, still doesn’t work properly (no matter how good the finished product may be in the end). I think both of us found this in the results that were presented to us. Just as we saw things that probably do need improvement, we were able to look at something that was already good and think well, it could still better in the grand scheme of things. I guess it was good to know.

I don’t think we really took much more away though. Apparently Financial Management is a bit of a growth area for us and the councillor lady was advising us to set up a budget and identify what our essential living expenses were and therefore what money we would have left over for ourselves and our savings. She was listing things such as food and cars and rent and thinking it was a great solution to our apparent while I was sitting there thinking that the itemised budget we already have would scare the pants off her with the detail that is contained. Any financial issues that we might experience are definitely not going to be for want of an adequate budget. Our main challenge is just sticking to the damn thing!

The other aspects of the session we actually found a little frustrating. These were the assertiveness exercise and the conflict management exercise. For the assertiveness task, we had to list three things that we wished our partner would do more often and communicate that. The partner then had to repeat back what they had heard because apparently when we have an issue we don’t want to know how it will be solved or even if it will be solved, we just want to know that we’ve been understood. I’m sure there are areas in my life where that might apply however for the most part, if I ask The Boy to do something, what I really want to know is if he’s actually going to do it and quite possibly even when. To be honest, if I’m tired and cranky then I sometimes don’t even care if he understands or not.

For the conflict management exercise, I guess it wasn’t so much an exercise but a series of guidelines that are designed to help you resolve conflict. You need to make a time to meet up in neutral space, you need to write down and agree on the actual conflict, you should discuss and note down all the solutions tried to date then you are to brainstorm possible new solutions (without comment or criticism from your partner). After that, you get to evaluate each of the proposed solutions individually and decide on the one that will be the course that you try to pursue. Now I don’t actually think that there is anything necessarily wrong with this approach but neither do I think it would be productive for us to follow each of the steps to the letter. We already have an adapted form of most of these steps which makes up our usual method of conflict resolution. And maybe we’re still too young at this life partner thing because we both seem to think that for some things, you do have to just agree to disagree... At least we’re still resolved on doing that together though.

A Veiled Attempt At Civility

2009-04-06T13:59:00.000+10:00

Today is the story of Milliner Man. Or rather, its not so much a story as a comment on some of the people out there who’s sphincters are so tight that it doesn’t seem that they will ever remove the pole that has been (inconveniently) wedged where the sun doesn’t shine! There are unfortunately a lot of them out there. This particular individual however also has the misfortune of being extremely narrow minded. If he has any friends I hope they warn him that he’d best be careful not to let his head ever slip through the eye of a needle while he’s working. If his concentration were to lapse one day, all it would take is a turn of the head and he’d choke himself quite fatally I'm sure.

Thats probably a little unfair actually. Especially as I’ve not actually had the misfortune of meeting this man. I’m sure if you fit into his preconceived notions of the way the world should run then he could be quite accommodating and pleasant. The Boy however has had a couple of conversations with him to date and was definitely not impressed. And therefore, by proxy, I wasn’t all that impressed either.

It all started a while ago when I realised that I was going to have to rethink the veil decision. When we bought the dress, we decided on a cathedral length veil. Thats one that goes beyond the length of the dress and brushes the floor. I tried on an ivory one which just looked dirty against the non-ivoryness of the dress and so we arranged for the veil to be dyed the colour of the dress. All good. When I later considered the fact that I planned to wear an ivory jacket that was clearly not the same colour as the dress over the dress, it occurred to me that I was then going to have exactly the same problem with the veil but for the opposite reason.

There are several possible solutions to this dilemma but to cut a long story short, I saw a picture of a birdcage net veil (a piece of netting that only covers part or all of the face – why not go from one extreme to the other?) and thought that might be the way to go. Of course, the particular netting that I had my eye on is practically impossible to find and when people actually figure out what you’re talking about then the generic response seems to be “I can’t help you, but good luck”. And this was apparently the response that Milliner Man ended up giving but it took some patronising words and un-cooperation to get there first.

The Boy, being the brilliant and wonderful man that he is, has been trying to source the type of netting to which I took a fancy. He has looked at accessory distributors, fabric wholesalers and also artisans that might use said netting. Thus the millinery connection. He looked at the speaker list for a millinery conference to identify who was going to be the more high end purveyor of headwear and came up with a guy near the City and one in the Eastern Suburbs. The one in the Eastern Suburbs told The Boy he wasn’t going to sell him anything because he was saving everything for his brides. Whatever thats supposed to mean. So The Boy rang the other gentleman to enquire as to whether he might be able to assist us in our search. My fiancée was subsequently advised that perhaps he should just get his fiancée to phone up and make a time to come in instead. According to The Boy, this guy may as well have said ‘does your Mummy know that you’re making this phone call’ because he obviously didn’t want to give anyone but the Bride the time of day. When the conversation progressed a bit, it was also conveyed that a ‘cheaper’ option would be to go to another shop which he really felt we’d be better off doing. Well I think that people are often better off not cutting off their nose to spite their face but there you go. What does he think I am? Some two-bit slapper who decided that maybe K-Mart wasn’t the only place I should look for my bridal attire?

Anyway after that terribly auspicious beginning, you’d think that we’d just give the guy the flick. And I’m sure The Boy would have if it wasn’t for the fact that this particular sort of netting has proven extremely difficult to find. The Boy therefore decided to give it another go and make a time to go to the shop in person. Whilst phoning up to make the arrangement however, Milliner Man told The Boy that he had gotten very lucky in his choice of bride if I was the one hard at work while The Boy was swanning off to look at items for the wedding. Which kind of conveyed the attitude that I was no longer thought of as the ‘Mummy’ to approve of what my fiancée was doing when I wasn’t there but the ‘Sugar Mummy’ to send my pet out on an errand. Needless to say, The Boy was a little pissed by this. As far as he’s concerned, yes, he did actually score in his choice of partner although in regards to our wedding, for the fact that I trust his judgement and taste implicitly. As far as I’m concerned, I actually scored too because I have someone who likes doing all this stuff (when he’s not dealing with arrogant individuals) and is good at it.

So we have hit a few stumbling blocks on the road to wedded bliss. Some people seem to find it very hard to understand why The Boy is involved with the wedding planning at all and assume he couldn’t possibly have permission to handle all the details of the day. The fact that he is a pleasant, well spoken individual who is more often than not, more knowledgeable on most wedding issues than I often am apparently makes no difference whatsoever. Oh well, we shall persevere. I still haven’t managed to find what we were looking for or settle on another solution to the problem but I’m sure it’ll get figured out. Eventually. And with a little bit of sarcasm.

Take III...part 2

2009-03-31T06:13:00.001+11:00

Given that my last attempt was a little too mushy on the whole, I thought I needed to post something on here to balance it out. This is definitely not going to be used in my speech, mostly because I don’t feel its really in keeping with the whole style of the wedding at all, but it did amuse me nonetheless.

Thank you to my mum and dad cause you done raised me good
I waited for the perfect man just like you said I should
Thank you to my sister cause you’ve always made me smile
And should you ever need me all you have to do is dial
Thank you to my new in-laws, you’ve all been really great
You’ve welcomed me from day one which I so appreciate
Thank you to the minister, you really helped us out
Without you there’d be zip right now to celebrate about
Thank you to photographers who’ve caught our wedding day
Those frozen moments mean much more to us than I can say
Thank you to the tailors and the dress makers we used
If not for you we’d all be nude and our guests unamused
Thank you to the florist, you have brightened up our room
From the tables to the blossoms which adorned the bride and groom
Thank you to the drivers of the cars which brought us here
Your navigation skills are tops, you all deserve a beer
Thank you to the chefs and cooks and bar and wait staff too
A hungry or a thirsty room of people would not do
Thank you to the maker of the cake that sits right there
I know that it was made with taste and talent and some care
Thank you to the dj for the tunes you mix tonight
I’m sure you’ll play some songs to get this party started right
Thank you to my husband for the great man that you are
If we keep on as we have done we’re sure to both go far
And finally a thank you to the loved ones here before me
Eat up, drink up, cut a rug and smile because its free!

Take III

2009-03-30T07:55:00.000+11:00

Well I realised why I didn’t just want to give a ‘thankyou’ speech. I figured I’d take a shot at writing some expressions of gratitude without them being an all out thank you and ended up with something that I felt was too trite for me to actually use. Whilst the sentiments are all completely sincere, I don’t think I’d be comfortable standing up in a room full of people to say them. At least not with a steady voice. Oddly enough, The Boy felt that the below was something he could see me saying and not writing which was the completely opposite of what I felt. I’ve written it though and I wanted to post it but this is not really a winner for me. Apparently great minds don’t always think alike...

“Wow. What a day its been. So far today I have been poked, prodded, lectured and gawked at. I’ve gotten choked up, made other people cry and suffered for my art because there is no such thing as a full meal in this dress! But you know what? I wouldn’t have it any other way because it got me here tonight.

Now whereas I’m occasionally a sentimental person, I’m not normally a sappy person so I’ve been struggling a bit with what to say in my speech. The general consensus for what I’m supposed to cover however seems to be that at some point, I am to talk about what this day means to me and to include my personal thankyous. That seemed like a pretty good place to start which means I pretty much can’t avoid the sap at all.

I think the easiest way to sum up what this day actually means to me is the word “Family”. I have been independent now for a number of years but today, I guess you could say that I have placed one foot out the door from the family whose name I have shared for 29 years. Having said that though, I am conscious of not actually leaving behind everything that has lead up to this day but rather I carry with me all that my parents have taught me about being part of a family and caring for that family. Mum and Dad, you both always listened to me, encouraged me and supported me and I have never doubted for a second that you both love me and want whats best for my future. You built my sister and I a home not with wood and brick but with heart and soul and I know how lucky we are to have been given that. If I can do as much for my husband and any children as you have done for me, they will be blessed indeed.

As I have taken this further step of independence from my family however, I have joined another family who have already become a part of my life. Mother-in-law and Father-in-law, I would like to say to you both that I am honoured to become an official part of your family today because I know that all the traits I love in The Boy have come from both of you. Since I have slowly gotten to know The Boy’s family, I have felt nothing but welcomed by my Mother-in-law & Partner and my Father-in-law & Partner and indeed my sister-in-law (who came all the way from Mexico to be part of this occasion!), and then there are also the new cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents. Each of them have given me a bit more insight into this man I now call my husband and I think The Boy and I both look forward to sharing our future with them. After the honeymoon.

And that stipulation goes for The Pussycat too, who kindly let me in on the fact many months ago that this wedding and everything to do with it was all about her. From where I am standing, you were so wrong girlfriend. But I do want to let you know that even though I used to tell mum and dad that I would have liked a brother, I wouldn't actually change having a sister for anything. Being sisters with you has been amazing, traumatic, and sometimes scary but definitely awesome because you’re one of my best friends. I have to warn you though, play nice with The Boy later or you’re both in trouble!

For the moment though, I think The Boy and I will just enjoy the new family we have committed to being today. Coming from our own separate families, together, we have started our own, whether that remain just the two of us or be with the addition of children in the future. But to all of you here tonight, know that with this new family of ours, we have a collective extended family that celebrates with us here today. Whether you be parents, in-laws, siblings, grandparents, god parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, dear friends or a mixture thereof you are all a member of our family and I thank you for coming here to share this day with us.

So please raise your glass with me and toast to families and the future.”

*Please note for those who are accessing this through the wedding site, I would not normally refer to my in-laws as Mother-in-law and Father-in-law etc. This has been done as my personal identity and those of my family and friends have always been kept anonymous on the original blogspot site.

Take II

2009-03-26T08:02:00.005+11:00

Well here is one of my other attempts at the wedding speech. I have a feeling that this might be a little better heard rather than read but as I'm often told - I can't have everything I want right now. Pity.

"Hi Everyone. I know The Boy has already thanked you all for being here today but I would like to add my own thanks, especially since many of you knew that I’d want to say a few words tonight...its very touching that you still decided to come.

Ever since we got engaged, I have been thinking about this wedding. I didn’t actually plan any of it but I have been thinking about it just the same. I hoped that everything would go off smoothly on the day and that even the most insignificant of details would not be overlooked. I needn’t have worried however, his Best Man made sure he was there. But seriously though, I have never doubted The Boy. I have been both frustrated and confused by him but I have never actually doubted in his love for me, his faith in me or his hope for our future together. I am proud to be married to The Boy today and I thought, what better opportunity than now would I have to let him know how I feel?

When I sat down to write what I wanted to say however, I stopped. And sat. And waited for immediate genius to strike. Which it didn’t. Anyone who knows me well would probably attest to the fact that I normally have an abundance of things to say whenever I sit down to write anything but as I tried to formulate my thoughts about my new husband, nothing sounded quite right. It was either too sappy, too cheesy or not emotive enough at all and I may as well have been writing out a shopping list! So I thought I would look for inspiration elsewhere. I thought about things that were important to both of us and one of the first things that came to my mind was music.

Both The Boy and I are passionate about having music in our lives and indeed practicing it – with varying degrees of success I must add (there is a reason why I try not to sing or play in public any more). I know that there are songs that we both find quite emotionally powerful so I figured I couldn’t go wrong by looking to the many practitioners of melodic poetry out there for some suggestions and guidance. I searched through numerous albums and lists, looking for everything that seemed fitting for this occasion and then I pieced all of it together to form my message and this is what I came up with:

First time ever I saw your face, it must have been love. You are the sunshine of my life. You’re the one that I want. Only you. (Baby I’ve got you) on my mind. Can’t get you out of my head. You’re the first, the last, my everything. Simply irresistible. Unforgettable.
Have I told you lately, my funny valentine, nothing compares 2 U? You’re still the one. Time after time, I don’t wanna be with nobody but you.
For sentimental reasons, you go to my head. When I see you smile, when you say nothing at all, you raise me up.
Tonight I celebrate my love. We’ve only just begun. Every time we say goodbye, well be together again. Love will keep us together, never tear us apart. Now and forever, I’ll stand by you. I’ll be there for you, hopelessly devoted to you. You are not alone, this I promise you. I don’t want to miss a thing.
Everybody needs somebody to love “truly madly deeply”. I got you babe. Nothings gonna stop us now, its only the beginning. Our love is here to stay. Isn’t it romantic?
What a wonderful world!
Thats all.

But having written that, I’m not totally sure it conveys how much I admire and respect this man beside me or how much I am looking forward to the love we have for each other growing old with us as well. Maybe my best opportunity to let him know how I feel is in fact the rest of my life. And if that is the case, perhaps all I really need to say tonight is actually far simpler than I’d first imagined. With that in mind, I think that what I really want to say can best be summed up by the words of Nat King Cole: “Darling, je vous aime beaucoup. I love you, yes I do”.

So please join me now and raise your glasses in a toast to The Boy."

Speech, speech...

2009-03-19T21:06:00.001+11:00

I have been thinking a lot about wedding speeches recently. Namely mine. I’m sure the fact that I want to give a speech at my own wedding will surprise, well, absolutely no one at all really, but I figure if I’m going to speak, I’d at least like to try and make it memorable. I am well aware that whatever words I have to say will be yet another speech that our guests will have to listen to before they can all get back into the booze so I’d rather not bore the pants off them, you know? But now, having resolved on the decision to make my memorable speech, what on Earth do I say?

Never one to throw myself into to doing something incorrectly if there is in fact proper etiquette or technique that should be utilised, I looked up Bride Speeches on the internet. And found out from that fountain of all knowledge that there was basically no etiquette to be followed whatsoever! I can give my speech at whichever point of the proceeding I choose. There is no one I must make sure to mention. There are no people I am responsible for thanking. Having said that however, it does seem to be pretty generic for the bride to thank absolutely everyone she can possibly think of while she has the floor.

Thank you to the guests for all looking so spectacular and attending from near and far. Thank you to the cake maker for such a scrumptious dessert. Thank you to the venue for housing such a wonderful memory. Thank you to the best man for not shaving off the grooms eyebrows at the bucks night. Thank you to the maid of honour for making sure the bride didn’t flash anything inappropriate at her hens. Thank you to the friends who took the three am phone calls about how the material for the table runners did not match the bridesmaids shoes. Thank you to the in-laws for raising such a wonderful son. Thank you to the parents for upholding the standard upon which you judged a solid relationship... Its like one big love in really. Some of that I can’t really say but most of it, well I wouldn’t want it to make up the entirety of my speech. Thats what thank you cards are for isn’t it?

So I thought that maybe I should make up a couple of versions of my bridal speech. See which version I like the most and which is not likely to make me cry on the night. Which, lets face it, I am probably going to do anyway. And if I end up with a number of variations of the same thing, with nothing much specifically to do with them, I figured I may as well post them here. People could even vote!...Maybe not. But in case anyone was wondering, this was my first shot...

“So this is how it feels to be married...I like it!

Most of the wedding etiquette articles I’ve read say that the bride doesn't have to make a speech. If anyone in this room tonight thought that wouldn't happen though, you must be at the wrong wedding, or you don't know me very well at all! Now I could stand up and easily spend the next five or ten minutes thanking everyone who has contributed to this wedding today or indeed to the relationship that The Boy and I share. Every single one of you has made an impact on the people we are today or how we got here. But instead of a long list of thankyous, I thought I would take this opportunity to say a couple of things about my new husband here.

They say that in marriage its a good idea to have shared goals. Someone to help you in your endeavours, and also to offer understanding as you strive towards your end. Both The Boy and I understand this. Since I knew that come today, I would have to stand around from morning till night in a bodice hugging wedding dress, I have been on a mission to tone up and maintain a healthier lifestyle. I started walking in my lunch break and stopped snacking on the ever present biscuits at work. And I figure I did an alright job. I must say also that The Boy was fully supportive of this health kick. When we first got engaged I knew I wanted to look great in my wedding dress. When we got engaged, The Boy knew he wanted me to look great out of it. Ok, so we maybe had slightly different motivations but the goal – exactly the same!

And that I think has been pretty indicative of our relationship so far. Each of us brings our own strengths and way of looking at things to the table and then we find a way of making it work together. A lot of you know that I have been into photography for years. I have a camera with me almost everywhere I go and have documented the lives of those around me for as long as I can remember. When I met The Boy, he hated being in photos. He avoided it studiously and told me he wasn’t about to change his mind any time soon. If any of you have checked out the website we set up a while ago though, you will know that we have been taking a photo of ourselves together every day of this year so far. And I can tell you that there have been a lot of others besides. But having a common goal has definitely made our lives easier in this respect although it might be argued that the goal could best be expressed by something my old boss used to say - a happy wife’s a happy life!

I think another thing that The Boy has learnt from our relationship so far is not to underestimate me. Or rather, I think I impressed this upon him before we started dating. I can’t remember now how we got on to the topic but we were discussing the female alternative to a brawl and he ended up daring me one evening to slap him across the face...So I did...He has never made that mistake again. But, as much as I don’t always surprise him with good things, I think he knows that I will do it whole heartedly and I won’t hold back. Just as I do in other parts of our lives. He knows I will be honest and loyal, that I will share who I am with him and make room for him in my life in turn. He knows, or at least I hope he does, that I will laugh with him, argue with him, and support him as best I can. I wear his rings with sincerity, with faith, with trust and with love and I look forward to our future together with hope. I promised before God this afternoon to love, honour and cherish this man and I ask you all tonight to hold me accountable to that promise.

With that in mind, please raise your glasses and toast to the groom and his life with the bride!”

Review

2009-03-12T22:38:00.001+11:00

So it is review time again at work and my eternally wonderful husband-to-be sat up late with me last night to write my responses, provide a sounding board for my thoughts and generally tell me that I wasn’t allowed to shoot myself in the foot! He put up with my inability to formulate coherent and succinct thoughts at 12 am in the morning and commiserated with the fact that there were 29 different questions that each required individual answers which pretty much all started to sound like each other after a while! There is only so much you can say about some topics after all.

It got me thinking though, you almost always get review processes at work but you rarely get them in life. What would it be like if you did? Who would actually pose questions or be the recipient of the answers? Would it be any easier to answer the questions I did last night if I were answering them about something else?

What do you consider the main responsibilities of your position?
I believe I am honour bound to conduct myself in a manner demonstrating due respect to my partner where applicable, supporting him in his endeavours and actively promoting a productive working relationship throughout our life together.
At the moment I am the person who does the folding in the relationship, makes sure we are not trying to cultivate penicillin in the fridge and ensures that the house isn’t littered with crockery, cutlery and the remnants of food left behind.

Are there any changes that have occurred in the past year with your responsibilities?
There have not been any significant changes to my responsibilities over the past year.
I did get promoted from the girlfriend to the fiancé though so I guess now some of the responsibilities have become a little less optional?

Consider your performance in your present job. What do you consider that you have done well in the past year, and what not so well?
I think I have provided a supportive and encouraging environment for my partner whereby our relationship has been able to grow however it might be advantageous to exercise more patience and understanding in our day to day lives in the future.
I am quite impressed that I haven’t completely lost it with him when he infuriates me although those situations often come up because I’m being a complete cow.

Has any personal problem or ill health affected your work?
There have been no problems that have had long term effects upon my role.
When I personally am completely ticked off by something that he has done then I’m really not very much fun to be around.

Is there any aspect of your work that you do not find satisfactory or about which you would like more information?
I am sometimes unsure of how to effectively deal with situations that frequently result in some sort of minor conflict.
How on earth are you supposed to respond to the question “do you want me to watch tv with you?”. At least in a way that is mutually satisfactory. If I say ‘no’ it sounds as though I don’t want my partner anywhere near me which is so not the case and as long as I can still watch the tv, I will be happy.
If I say ‘yes’, it sounds like I want to actively share the experience which inevitably leads to talking or distraction because he doesn’t actually want to watch what I’m watching at all. In these situations therefore I don’t want him to watch tv with me cause I think he’ll end up frustrated and bored (its happened before) but I don’t want him not to watch tv with me either because I like the company. See my dilemma?

Is there any part of your work for which training may be of assistance?
I feel at this stage that it is not necessary to pursue any training avenues.
Gees....thats a bit of a loaded question!
Do you ‘train’ to be a wife??

How do you rate your attitude to work?
I have a positive attitude towards my current role and am committed to the common goals we share in our life moving forward.
I have a great attitude. Although sometimes things just get the better of me and I so can’t be bothered. That would be why living room desperately needs to be tidied!

Do you feel you are part of a team? If so, why? If not, why?
I receive continual affirmation of my partner’s commitment and hope for the future which very much engenders the spirit of partnership between us.
Well we have our money in the same bank account, we live in the same house, we have the rings, I get someone to whinge to any time I want...Yep, feels like a team to me :-).

Are you comfortable with the office environment? Do you have any suggestions for improvement?
Our shared accommodation is such that it fulfils all our needs for the present however small improvements for comfort and aesthetic design would be welcome.
I still kind of want a rug for the living area. The whole room just looks a little grey and concretey.

How do you rate your work output? Do you have too much or too little work to do?
I believe I actively contribute to the smooth running of the house and partnership and this is achieved to the satisfaction of all parties involved.
It is always a good idea to give us warning if you want to invite us out or drop around to catch up. Chances are, we haven’t psyched ourselves up to be social or put away the washing that has been ‘drying’ there for days. If needs be though, we can definitely get right on it.

Is there any kind of work in which you think you would be happier or more effective, either in your current position or elsewhere?
I feel as though I have room for growth in my current role and am completely satisfied to pursue my future in this direction.
Well I am still waiting for The Boy to support me in the manner to which I would like to become accustomed and I think I could quite happily be a more stereotypical Lady Of The House....

Is the company leadership adequate? And even if it is, how can it be improved do you think?
In our relationship, decisions are made jointly and often timely with little disruption to either party. As such, I would consider the leadership to be more than adequate.
We’ve all seen that movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, yes? You know that bit - the man, he is the head of the family but the woman, she is the neck and she can turn the head any way she wants...? I do not think you can improve on perfection!

Are communication channels adequate? Are there areas where communication can be improved?
I believe that communication is actively encourage and facilitated within our relationship to the benefit of both parties.
We’re really good at trying to communicate with each other. Communication is not a problem. Sometimes the understanding part is a bit of a struggle for both of us...

Does management understand your role? Are they sympathetic to your needs and problems?
I believe that both my partner and I have a clear understanding of our individual roles and seek to work together and compromise to ensure the ongoing positive nature of the relationship.
We try not to butt heads as much as possible, it always seems to result in a headache and neither of us are particularly friendly when we’re getting in each other’s way.

Looking ahead to the future, what would you like to be doing 2 years from now?
With the common goals of family and a fulfilling career, we would like to be in a position of comfort and security.
Hmmm...barefoot and pregnant? Nah, just kidding. I can wait more time for that.

Are you fulfilled in your work? Are there things that will make you more fulfilled?
As in any relationship, there will be times in which you experience growing pains however I believe that the end will justify the means as we strive towards common goals.
Doing the washing and scrubbing the bathroom really doesn’t do it for me but the clean house is kinda nice...

What would you like by way of rewards (realistically!)?
I would hope for the continued support and encouragement moving forward.
Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.

Now there was no point in trying to answer all 29 questions that I was given by work because as I said, the answers would start to sound a bit repetitive after a while. And I know this really doesn’t have a lot to do with the wedding planning but it did make me sit and think a bit about the way The Boy and I are together which basically allows him to plan the wedding and me to offer him all the encouragement in the world to do so. It wasn’t as easy as I thought to come up with some of the responses to those questions either. Although I must say that it did go a lot faster than doing the ones for work!

Picture Perfect

2009-03-06T21:35:00.001+11:00

It was make-up time at the end of last week in the house of pre-nuptial bliss. Although not in the sense that I was required to make up to my other half. I’m sure there were transgressions for which I’m pretty sure I did apologise however, namely being a moody witch or something to that effect. But I digress. I did not need to make up with The Boy but was, as it were, made up for him instead. Once again I attended a Bless The Bride Expo (which, as I have previously written, worked out so well for me the last time) and got suckered in by the free stuff which led to a makeup trial at my house on Friday night.

It always reminds me at times like these how much I quite like looking polished and put together. You know, to sort of feel glamorous like a red carpet actress or a catwalk model. This is then followed in about 5 minutes however by the realisation that I probably look more like a Kmart model or a commercial extra and the reason I hardly ever wear a complete face of makeup is because I quite detest the feeling of having it all over my face. Oh well. It is unfortunately something that is largely unavoidable for a wedding. Especially if you’re the bride. So I will well and truly have to suck it up because not only will I be required to have the stuff pancaked on but I will be required to leave it there all day long!

The lady that actually came and did the trial was really nice. She was very friendly and open to just trying things to see if they worked. Which would be a plus really because what we ended up with didn’t really work at all. I think I looked like a bit of a scare bear by the end of it. Green may be my colour but envious of having that particular shade in my eye shadow palette I was not. I think I might be better off going back to the original warm tones idea that I had a while ago when talking to a friend who also does makeup.

I have been blessed in my friends that not only are they all awesome people but one of them has even offered to do a make-up trial for me before the wedding and if we find something that works, to help me out on the day as well. Coordinating timetables at the moment has been a bit of an issue so I figured it couldn’t hurt if I had more of an idea about what I wanted before we sat down. Of course, careful planning and consideration don’t exactly minimise the potential for the Panda Effect which is usually the look I end up with whenever I take that much makeup off my face but it does help to have an aforementioned goal before it gets put on my face. And maybe when we look into my make-up next time, we should look into The Boy’s as well. As much as I want to look great in my wedding photos, I don’t want to look like I’m marrying my own personal ghost and they do say that a problem shared is a problem halved. If I have to suffer for art then he may as well too.

Save The Date

2009-02-27T20:31:00.000+11:00

We are now up to the Save The Date portion of the wedding preparations. Which, now that I think about it, does seem to be a somewhat tautologous practice. Basically because by the time most people get around to the Save The Date bit, they have already gone and booked the wedding venue and the reception. Or maybe thats just us...? And, if you already have the information regarding the times and locations for both your ceremony and your after party, why wouldn’t you just send out an invitation?

One argument for this is that invitations are best sent out at a date closer to the actual affair so they don’t get lost or forgotten etc . The Save The Date card is therefore a way to ensure that people don’t double book themselves in advance of receiving said invitation. One might also argue however that if the person to whom an invitation was sent quite early was close enough to you that you really wanted them at your wedding, they wouldn’t be likely to forget the date in the first place!

So anyway, despite the fact that we currently have both a ceremony and a reception venue, we have opted to send out Save The Date cards to our nearest and dearest. We came up with a concept that we liked and did the artwork ourselves which had the dual result of providing something personal that The Boy and I created together and facilitating one of the biggest disagreements we have had with each other over this whole wedding process so far. Who would have thought this would hold such potential for headaches and misunderstandings!

We actually really like what we came up with in the end. It did result in us making a couple of shameless infringements of copyright here and there but the final idea struck us as quirky and fun and we hope that other people will like it too. Getting to this point however took a bit of effort. It definitely didn’t help that we tried to do this late at night but our artistic sensibilities, or at least the manner in which they are manifested seem to...clash. Or maybe its a men are like waffles and women are like spaghetti thing but the longer we were working together, the more frustrated I was and the more irritated he became with me. Or maybe that was the more frustrating I became, the more irritating he was...?

I like to start work with a blank canvas, adding components here and there, visually comprehending what looks good before rearranging it to suit the final edit. The Boy likes to have a full brief in advance, knowing all the requirements and limitations in detail so he can manipulate it all together and come up with the best possible version. Both are completely valid and effective approaches. Pity they don’t particularly work well with each other. He didn’t understand that I couldn’t tell him exactly what I wanted until I’d actually seen it in order to know whether I liked it or not. Since he had commandeered the laptop, that left me as the backseat driver only. I could quite easily say that I didn’t like where we were going but I felt unable to actually do anything about it. And apparently its extremely unhelpful to tell someone that you don’t like something when you can’t offer an alternative.

Towards the end of the process, there were quite a few impassioned words as to whether I was completely contradicting myself constantly and whether he was being totally unfair. We did get through it however. Obviously. He put up with my hissy fit when I got fed up and told him I didn’t care anymore and he could do what he wanted. And I think I managed to impress upon him that if he wants to work with me on something then he can’t just take over. And then we all lived happily ever after. We also got a website.

It started off as a bit of a gag because we ripped off an ad which had a web address for the save the date card. We then figured that if you put a website address on the card you were giving to friends then it may as well actually go somewhere in case they checked it out. So we set up that as well. Or rather, The Boy set that up and I provided artistic direction from the back seat. Fortunately for both of us, this process was a little smoother than the Save The Date cards. So now, we just need to get the cards printed and distributed so that we can honestly say that in the long list of wedding associated duties. Another one bites the dust!

Be Prepared

2009-02-21T22:35:00.001+11:00

Like every good girl scout or boy scout knows, throughout life one must always “Be Prepared”. So as The Boy and I now head off into this adventure of marriage together, that is precisely what we did this weekend. We got “Prepared”.

I’m not sure if it is true of every denomination today but I think its fairly common now that if you wish to be married by a member of the clergy within a church, you are required to take part in some form of marriage preparation. For us this is going to be two days across a weekend spent with similarly pre-wed couples as we learn about...well actually, I don’t really know what we are going to learn about but I assume it will have something to do with conflict resolution and maintaining open lines of communication within a marriage. You know, do not call each other names, its not productive and all that jazz. Oh, and probably some stuff on sex-ed thrown in as well. What this so called preparation also meant for us however was a long questionnaire to identify what our individual views and expectations were heading into the marriage. This was called Prepare.

When we sat down to have a chat with the Rector of the church, he stressed that there were no right or wrong answers in this questionnaire. We couldn’t actually fail. It wasn’t a test and it wasn’t designed to ascertain whether our marriage is going to last or even whether we should be getting married in the first place. Although I think if they ever find an accurate way of measuring that, it could save a lot of people significant heartache and money! Anyway, the purpose for which this questionnaire was actually intended was to highlight over a broad range of issues within marriage what our “areas of strength” and our “areas of growth” were. Don’t you just love that? We’re not going to have areas of “weakness” in our marriage. That would just be too depressing. We are going to have areas that require “growth” instead.

So we were given our booklets which actually contained no questions at all but rather statements to which we could strongly disagree, disagree, agree or strongly agree. Unless of course we couldn’t make up our minds and were undecided. We had to fill out our answers by colouring those little circles on a separate answer sheet and it was just like being back in high school. We were told that the answers should be our first or gut response and though we were encouraged to discuss our answers with our partner after we had completed all the questions, we were to refrain from discussing anything while we were actually filling it out. Which was a completely unrealistic expectation when he left us alone sitting right beside each other on the couch!

To be fair, we didn’t actually ask or mention to each other what answers were being given but there were several points during the process where one or the other of us would burst out laughing and just have to tell the other one what number we were up to in the booklet. Which also made the process a bit of a race to see who could finish first (I lost). I can’t remember now all the statements that we found hilarious but I have a feeling that many of them were related to expectations of the marriage. Probably statements like “Once we are married we will have a perfectly smooth relationship”. I think my first reaction to statements like that is how dumb would you have to be to put the answer “yes”!? I don’t know ANY married couple who has had a perfectly smooth relationship. I think disagreements come with the territory. Well, you know, unless you’re a doormat.

So we filled out the 160-odd responses so that some little computer could tally up our stance on whether we thought women with children should be in the workforce, doing most of the housework and having personal hobbies of their own. Whether we had discussed with each other how we were going to spend our money, who was responsible for taking out the trash and the roles our extended family would play in our lives. And in the end, I think that is what they really wanted to know. About the discussion I mean. Not who was going to be taking out the trash. Everybody will have their own views and opinions and not all of them are going to be perfectly in synch so what they want to be able to see as you head into your marriage is what the most likely areas that you may experience pitfalls are and have you been able to (or can you) discuss them openly.

Going into the Prepare booklet, I thought we had it covered. We’ve pretty much discussed everything at some point or another so we know where the other one stands on a lot of issues. When it came to reading the wording of the statements however, there were some that I realised I wasn’t completely positive about. There were also those that, because of the wording, I probably gave an answer that could be taken out of context such as whether I agreed that a mother should stay at home because children require a full time parent. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t really matter which parent stays at home and since The Boy and I have discussed the possibility of him not working if I could potentially earn more and we could afford it, I didn’t actually "agree" with the statement.

On the whole though, I think we are pretty much in accord with each other on how we intend to be as man and wife. There is a lot we have yet to learn, sure, but we have a strong basis of communication in our relationship already and even though we definitely don’t always see eye to eye, we do always talk about it. Eventually at any rate. When we were discussing everything on the way home, we seemed to have felt the same way about a lot of things. One of the things that I found interesting though was that I often to look at things like this more in black and white than shades of grey and I tended to strongly agree or disagree to a large number of the statements. The Boy on the other hand stayed a lot closer to the centre. We have yet to speak to the counsellor about our results, which may well be another entry in itself, but having now gone through the "Prepare" booklet, I do think it was a worthwhile experience.

If The Shoe Fits

2009-02-15T22:23:00.000+11:00

Ok, so who was the bright spark who decided that it was a great idea to buy a wedding dress in an obscure colour huh? I mean its all very well to want to be a little bit more original and to not be frocked up in the traditional white or the ubiquitous shades of ivory but really...If you’re still wearing a “wedding dress”, why couldn’t it be a more common shade? Choosing “Antique” for the colour of the dress was just silly. How are you supposed to find accessories to match that!?!

Now its either a mark of how tired I have been recently or how much the little details of the wedding have been starting to wig me out but I am actually dreaming about some of this stuff now. But I didn’t have one of those dreams where I start walking down the aisle to the shocked expressions of all our friends and family because I have forgotten to put on my wedding gown and am in fact buck naked. No. I have a dream about walking down the aisle in my dress which is now mysteriously about 7 inches shorter than it used to be so that you can see I am wearing a pair of low heeled metallic pewter courts from the 80’s with white bobby socks. A combination which is more than worthy of being pulled up by the fashion police. Or anyone with any aesthetic sensibilities whatsoever.

So apparently I have issues about shoes. Who’d have thought? And to add insult to injury, whilst looking for the wedding shoes (which we now are), its not just the right colour that we have to find either. There are a number of other considerations that have to be taken into account. The first of which being, I am not allowed to wear 3 ½ inch heels. I can’t remember exactly how tall I am but for a woman, I’m definitely not short. Therefore, 3 ½ inches worth of heels will in turn make me 3 ½ inches taller than I already am and as I have been told, that is just too tall. Now I know that this is not supposed to matter these days but it so does. Not to everyone sure but I was both sexist and sizeist when it came to choosing my partner in life – so sue me.

The next thing on my list is closed toes. I can see some of the males I know going “what the..?” but its really not a complicated concept. It is merely the absence of ridiculous and girly, strappy pieces of footwear making my feet look like I’ve tried to cut off all circulation. There is also the added benefit that in winter, if I have to walk over wet ground it will keep my feet a little drier and I have the option of wearing stockings with impunity. I probably think far too much but I am of the opinion that its kind of tacky to wear stockings if you can see the seem that runs around the toes. Its kind of like wearing tights with a skirt where the waistband of the tights rests higher than that of the skirt and is clearly visible. There seems to be a general consensus amongst male youth that its cool to flash your underwear from underneath your pants but it doesn’t really fit the dress code of a wedding.

Of course, no one is actually supposed to be looking at my feet and the dress touches the floor as it is so this all sounds like a lot of bother over nothing. As long as I stick to something fairly flat, you’d never know what I had on under the dress. I did actually run the idea of thongs past The Boy though which I could do for free cause I already own them but he said no.

Because It Suits Him

2009-01-31T14:51:00.001+11:00

So the gown is the hard bit right? Its the one item of clothing that gets agonised over the most in a wedding. Theres the line to be considered. Do you want to go empire or perhaps princess? What sort of neck do you want? Are you more inclined towards the sweetheart or the square cut? When considering the shape of the skirt are you a fan of A-line or the increasingly popular mermaid? Would you suit something that is cut on the bias? If you could wear a hoop would you wear a big one, a small one or none at all? Are straps necessary? Is wearing supportive underwear a priority or can you go backless? Do you have the kind of shit hot body that is going to look fantastic in either a sheath or a burlap sack? And don’t even get me started on the colours, the materials or the additions to a gown that are all sewn on by hand! The boys on the other hand are easy. Shove them in a suit. You can choose between a morning coat, a tux, tails or your normal suit and for those who don’t favour black, you can have navy or charcoal. Thats about it isn’t it?

Well that is more or less what I thought before I went to visit a tailor. As The Boy and I have been vaguely looking around at suits over the past couple of months I am aware that there is not a lot out there in fine quality materials or any colour faintly resembling a plain dark brown. It seems that even for the higher end suits, you are still paying 20% of the retail price for the suit and 80% for the 2 inch label on the inside. And the prospects for hiring suits was not much better. Due to The Boy’s colouring we decided we wanted to go with warm rich tones, avoiding blacks and greys, but the only browns we seemed to find could be best described as tan or what I would refer to as poo. Neither of which were appealing in the slightest. After several discussions we decided that since I am having a jacket made for the wedding outfit, The Boy may as well get in on the action too and have his suit tailor made and the first appointment was an eye opener.

I wasn’t sure quite what to expect from a tailor of men’s fashion. I know that good suits don’t come cheap so I had half formed images of pencil thin grey-haired men with perfect elocution, sardonic eyebrows and sticks up their sphincter who were for all intents and purposes camp as a row of tents. The sort of men who merely tolerate the plebeian hoards of Sydney such as myself who would deign to wander into a store such as theirs in my faded jeans and thongs – and for everyone who is not Australian, I am talking about my shoes, not my underwear. I figured I would either be faced with a personage such as this or a short, fat, balding man, obsequious in nature to the point of terminally irritating and perhaps also a little shifty. Unfair stereotypes I know and fortunately I was wrong. We were met by the owner of the business who was at first glance an average, rather unassuming sort of man but one who I actually think is knowledgeable, helpful, down to earth, friendly, a little quirky underneath and a very astute judge of character. He happened to remind me very of The Boy which is probably why they hit it off too.

I am quite sure that Tailor Man could quite seamlessly go from catering to The Boy and I who are at the limit of our budget as we retain his services to another client for whom the purchase of a bespoke suit is merely a drop in the ocean. I did have to smile however when he picked us as the kind of people who would appreciate a “Pardon my French, but why the f*** would you spend that much on fabric” from the person with whom we are doing business. If I were to be cynical and think it was a sales pitch, it was a very good one. As much as I’d like to have a far better taste of the good life, there is a small part of me that is still grade A bogan. I got the feeling however that it wasn’t just a pitch and Tailor Man loved what he did. He was happy to cater towards the more unusual requests (although why one would want a flannel suit I don’t know) but at the same time he personally felt that some of the excesses in the industry were a bit ridiculous. Did you know that you can get suiting material that is flecked with real gold or have a mill actually weave in words of your choice into a pin stripe?

While The Boy and I took turns running out to the car to put more money in the parking meter because we still weren’t ready to leave, I learnt a lot. When you buy any suit, there are four generic types. Off the rack (where what you see is what you get), Made to Order (where you can decide of the options available which you want for yourself), Made to Measure (where of the options available, certain measurements can be altered to suit your person) and the pièce de résistance, Bespoke tailoring (which basically means they mould the garment on you personally and every single measurement is what you want it to be). And should you choose to go for a bespoke suit, then the fun really starts. Do you want single-breasted or double-breasted? How many buttons do you want on the front? How many buttons on the sleeve would you like? Do you want them all to be functioning for that matter? What kind of lapel do you want? How wide do you want it? Where do you want the jacket to cross over your chest? How long should the jacket be? But I’m getting a little ahead of myself here. A lot of people pick their material first. So are you after a summer weight or a winter weight? Do you want to wear the suit a couple of times or at least once a week for the next 2 or more years?...See, men are lucky. Depending on the suit, they can get decent wear out of it afterwards. I sure as hell can’t wear my dress that often without appearing slightly deranged (its definitely not corporate wear for work or casual wear for the weekend) or well...even if I only chose to wear it to every “event” I attend over the next year I’ll still appear slightly deranged. If I had the social life to support a ball gown, it would be poor form to wear the same thing again and again and if I just wore it to all the parties and dinners I attend now I would be exorbitantly overdressed! But I was speaking of material...

It was quite amusing to us that in the space of at least an hour and a half, we managed to come full circle and arrive back where we started from. Which apparently happens quite a bit. When The Boy was first on the phone with Tailor Man’s partner in the business (not to be confused with “partner” as the partner was male and Tailor Man himself is also engaged as it happens), it was mentioned that we had in mind the colour brown. Not a tan brown or a chocolate brown (or god forbid a poo brown – he didn’t really say that though) but more like an espresso brown or a black-brown. Although they’re all still rather subjective and open to interpretation aren’t they? When we went in, we were quite pleasantly surprised to see that they had already begun looking into suitable material swatches for us and had earmarked a few for our consideration. We were free to go through all of their swatch booklets though, which we did, and mark out any other fabrics that took our fancy and by the end of it, there were about 8-10 that made the finals. We then took all the swatches outside to look at the fabrics in daylight and at a distance for themselves and in conjunction with the swatches from my dress and The Pussycat’s dress. We finally narrowed it down to make the executive decision on the most suitable fabric for the suit and the purposes for which it was to be used. We ended up choosing one of the first fabrics we saw and which fitted our first description of what we were looking for in the material.

And that was our first trip to the tailor. It won’t be our last however as I have been assured that the suit will require at least four to five separate fittings. Especially as he is going to make the shirt and the tie too. The Boy’s outfit is going to be more effort than my dress in the end. It amuses me no end that its more expensive too. To be fair, I did buy my dress at a clearance sale and had I bought it retail I would have beaten him hands down. One might also consider that since I am getting a jacket as well, the cost of that has tipped me over the price of the groom’s outfit. I choose to take comfort in the fact however that he can’t complain about how much of the budget I spent on my outfit as a whole because his suit did indeed cost more than my dress.

The Wedding Planner

2009-01-28T14:47:00.001+11:00

You know what, I am so not planning this wedding. The Boy is. And I think thats fantastic.

Stereotypically it is the female who gathers the troops made up of girlfriends, siblings and parents to research and deliberate. She may spend hours contemplating the merits and suitability of each product or vendor. Once a short list or even a preference has been decided upon she might then check that this is ok with her beau before going ahead but that how things get done. Or how things might be done if you’re not us. In our case, its The Boy who has spent hours on the internet and the phone researching in order to find the perfect church, reception venue and wedding attire for our day. Once he finds what he thinks is right, he lets me know what it is and I turn up with the credit card. He doesn’t actually tell me we’re going to do something. He does ask for my opinion and my agreement but by the time he brings anything to my attention, its pretty much a foregone conclusion that whatever it is I’m faced with is definitely one of the top contenders or indeed what is the final choice for the day.

Now I know that there are a lot more grooms out there who are choosing to get actively involved in the planning for their weddings. At the last couple of Bridal Fairs I attended, there was a significant number of fiancées who were weighing in on the discussions and decisions with the various vendors present. Men definitely weren’t in the majority of the attendees but those that were there were not dragging their heels a couple of paces behind their other half studiously avoiding eye contact with any of the vendors. There were a couple who looked like a deer caught in headlights when they were addressed about say the aesthetic appeal of hot pink on a wedding invitation sure. That is at least before the stark panic set in and you could see their mind churning as all of their senses were no doubt on alert just in case the vendor in question pounced on them with the express purpose of smothering them in six layers of tulle and hog tying them with a couple of metres of velvet ribbon. Cause the vendors are bound to want to do that aren’t they? But for the rest of the men, they seemed to actually be interested. Or very afraid of their fiancé. It is my opinion however that The Boy does not fit into this category.

I do find it useful that The Boy seems to have a healthy fear of me. He was absolutely packing it when he had an accident in our car and had to tell me he’d run into someone. Regarding our wedding however, he has actually been instrumental in the planning process to date as opposed to merely a participant. And not only has he been responsible for the decisions regarding the ceremony and the reception, decisions that one might regard as being of a more neutral nature, he has so far managed to pick out the wedding gown, the designer for my jacket and the maid of honour dress as I have mentioned before. Decisions that are very much not normally part of the male domain in a wedding. That might of course have something to do with the tradition that dictates that it is bad luck for the groom to see his affianced in her wedding gown before the wedding but still...I have always picked and chosen the traditions that I thought were worthwhile adhering to and that one didn’t make the list. And I’m quite thankful it wasn’t on his list either.

As much as I have spent time browsing the internet and looking through bridal magazines for inspiration and options, I haven’t been doing the lion’s share. And since what I have been doing has managed to frustrate me no end, I am grateful that The Boy has shouldered most of that burden as he has been doing a lot of the hard work. I managed to stumble over some bridal blogs today that were full of women espousing their delight and joy in attending the fittings for their gown and sending out the invitations. Women who appeared to locate the perfect anything with little or no effort at all and who were so organised and prepared, they were practically twiddling their thumbs months before the wedding. There was no angst, no frustration, (no irreverent humour – it was all rather boring really) and no hint that this whole process isn’t as easy as it looks. Maybe they weren’t real women though. Maybe its all a plot fuelled by some Matrimonial Matriarchs who have an insidious desire to have you give up when faced with your own ineptitude and come crawling for their advice and assistance. Or maybe some women just know what they want and money isn’t an option. Either way, that story isn’t part of my wedding journey. I don’t need a wedding planner or a gaggle of girls to traipse around after me, all putting in their two cents worth. I have The Boy.

Another One Down

2009-01-24T08:18:00.000+11:00

Do you know whats slightly more irritating than traipsing from store to store, trying on dress after dress in order to find the perfect outfit to wear for your wedding? Dragging your sister around from store to store, asking her to try on dress after dress so that you can find the perfect outfit to be worn for your wedding! Actually, I probably exaggerate a little. The Boy and I were shopping for weeks for my dress. In three different states. We only put in one concerted day of shopping in order to find The Pussycat’s dress. In 40 degree heat to boot! And find it we did. Or rather The Boy did. He’s got a pretty good track record so far. He picked out my dress, he found the designer for my jacket and he selected The Pussycat’s dress on the weekend for her to try on. Now all we need to do is get my mother up to Sydney so he can have a go at the Mother-of-the-Bride outfit too :-).

So yeah, I was both relieved and impressed on Saturday when we managed to find something that could potentially satisfy all parties. We found the dress at the first place we went to but we did go and see a number of other bridal stores just so we could make sure. We went to the store where we obviously weren’t “wog” enough to be a prospective customer. All the dresses were full of sequins and beads and whilst there was nothing inherently wrong with the gowns on display, they all seemed a little boring to be honest. I think that some of the women in the store could have benefitted quite substantially from the “less is more” principle too but if you don’t feel like a bride unless you glitter from every angle then you should be allowed to do so on your special day I guess.

Then we went to the one stop shop with the grooms and attendants on one side and the brides on the other. There was nothing else really impressive to note about this place other than the fact that it offered the “tarts ‘r us” option for the bridesmaids. This particular dress came in black and hot pink and looked a little more like it should feature in the wedding night rather than in the wedding day. It was that hideous kind of outfit that you stare at in an Oh My God kind of way but at the same time do not really take in all the details as if the mere memory in your brain will taint you forever. I seem to recall for example that there were some dyed feathers of the tawdry feather boa type variety that adorned the dress and would most probably malt throughout the day in irritating places such as on the brides gown. I could of course be completely mistaken and there were no feathers whatsoever. It just seemed like there should be some because that would just be the icing on the cake for this dress. I do remember however that the bodice was of a transparent mesh and the skirt was a cocktail length frou-frou affair that could easily make a female with hips look like the size of a cow. Needless to say, it really wasn’t our thing.

We visited another salon where some friends of ours bought their bridal and bridemaids outfits but although there was a possible dress there, it just didn’t look quite right. The dress in question did actually look good on The Pussycat. The assistants were also very nice and helpful in ascertaining that the dress could in fact be made in colours that would match my gown. There was just something about it though that was a bit “so what”. It looked like just another formal dress. I don’t exactly want my sister to outshine me on my day (even though she has reiterated on a number of occasions in jest that my day is so totally and utterly about her) but I don’t want her to look inferior either. It would be good if we both looked totally $hit hot together. For an agreeable price of course. Money can buy you a multitude of things but although I love my sister dearly, I am absolutely not prepared to spend more on her dress than I did on mine. That so isn’t fair.

And the money thing leads me to one of the other bridal stores we visited on the Saturday. At this point in the afternoon, we were all tired and dehydrated and I think we were starting to grasp at straws a little. We drove down Parramatta Road towards the couturiers to have a look and see if there was any inspiration there. As I vaguely had in mind that I would like my sister in an ivory dress because I was wearing a coloured gown we were mostly looking at plain wedding dresses for her. You don’t really expect to find “bridesmaids” dresses in white and ivory after all. A lot of the gowns we saw were obviously extremely “bridal” and therefore out of the question but there were some plainer styles that might have suited her quite well. We wandered into this one store however where we found it quite difficult to extricate ourselves from the store before the designer got to us as we would obviously be wasting his time with our request. We therefore ended up sitting down with him to be told that all of their bridesmaids’ outfits pretty much started at $3500 so what was the budget we were thinking of for our dress? We flat out lied and then sat there politely until we could tell him we’d go away and think about it because we were still deciding on just the right dress. He had drawn us a quick sketch that would have been really attractive except for the price tag which is so not an option without the Powerball jackpot.

After that it was definitely all downhill and the last place we went to was just plain creepy. Well, the store itself wasn’t but this guy opened the door for us and he was apparently the son of the designer. He said his mum wasn’t it but we should come in and take a look. The gowns were a bit, I don’t know...tacky is the word that comes to mind. Its like they were themed or something. There was a more fantasy feel to them rather than glamour or style or you know, taste. The place might have been perfect if I was marrying a biker. Thats the impression that I got. It just felt wrong though. And then as we said it wasn’t really the kind of thing we were after at all and went to leave, the guy said he’d give us his mum’s card and his too in case we wanted a videographer/photographer for our day. Now I know that we haven’t chosen anyone to document our wedding as yet and I haven’t actually seen any of his work but I would not let that guy anywhere near my wedding. I can’t say exactly what it was about him because he seemed fairly clean and he wasn’t rude or anything but just.....icky.

So after all that, I was pretty sure that one of the first dresses which was originally $2000 but down to $350 was the way to go. The colour was great, the dress was plain enough, my sister looked fantastic in it and everybody liked it. On the Sunday, we went back and got it. One more decision down. Yipee.

One For Two

2008-12-18T10:12:00.000+11:00

So now that I have found my dress, the next question is what on earth do I put my maid of honour in!? I am definitely not one of those brides that think she is going to seem far more attractive if she is surrounded by women who are made to look as ugly as possible by wearing say a fluorescent lime dress. It actually amazes me that there are women like this. I was once in a bridal parlour where the attendant served a bride who refused to consider a dress her maid of honour picked out for the bridal party because she happened to look stunning in it. There are words for women like her. And they’re not very flattering!

Anyway, I am largely of the opinion that if we deck the bridal party out stylishly enough it will only make The Boy and I seem more attractive (and demonstrate our impeccably good taste to boot). And now I have to find the “right” dress all over again. It just doesn’t stop! I’m sure I’ll be involved in my mum’s outfit too...I do have the advantage in the case of my maid of honour however that the female that I am shopping for is my sister. A funky chick that in looks, is more my twin than some freakish aberration from the gene pool that would cause you to wonder if she was in fact the milkman’s daughter. There is absolutely no mistaking that we are sisters and that we both came from our parents! I do have to be a little careful with strapless gowns for The Pussycat as I call her though, otherwise I’ll be preceded into the church and followed around all day by my very own linebacker.

A Ring Of Truth

2008-12-12T09:03:00.000+11:00

You know, its kind of humbling to realise that everyone else is not quite as excited about some things as you are...

Sure, I can say to The Boy that I have never been that obsessed with having my own wedding so now that its finally going to happen, I am not all up in arms about every little detail. Why should that be hard to accept? I can say that although it should be a great day, it is just one day out of the rest of our lives so we shouldn’t worry ourselves sick over it. That would seem logical. I can also look at our day objectively and say that its not vital for all and sundry to actually witness the marriage and therefore, we could just go to Vegas and then come back and throw a massive party with our friends to celebrate. I was seriously contemplating it. What I can’t really do however is transfer other peoples excitement where I want it so now the shoe is on the other foot. And I definitely won’t be getting married in Vegas.

I have realised this because I just got my engagement ring. My formal engagement ring. That may seem completely random and unconnected but its not. At the time that The Boy proposed, we both knew that there was a ring that we wanted to have but that we were not yet in a position to be able to afford it. We therefore went scrounging through all the antique shops we could find in order to buy a less expensive ring that was no less real or official than the one I have now but rather always intended as temporary. This ring served its purpose well for several months and eventually, we were in a position to order what had been our first choice all along.

The Boy and I had been to numerous jewellery stores and seen several designers in our quest for the perfect ring. I am quite picky about what I wear and apparently made it quite clear early on that its best not to surprise me with Jewellery, ever, but to include me in the decision making process from the start. I usually like to see things, touch them and try them on before I decide that I want them and this caused no small amount of difficulty when we were speaking to designers about ring possibilities. I would be asked what I wanted and I inevitably didn’t know exactly because I couldn’t visualise it. In then end however, oddly enough, we did buy a ring that I had neither touched nor tried on my own hand. We selected the design and colour out of a catalogue and paid a 50% deposit upfront for the ring to be made in Germany and shipped out to Australia. Thats neither here nor there however really. It was what happened next that made me think twice.

Because I love jewellery, I was quite excited by the prospect of my formal ring. I knew it would arrive before Christmas and initially I was told I would have to wait to be able to wear it as I wasn’t getting anything else at the end of the year. When The Boy saw how much I loved it though, he totally caved and I got it early. Especially as he was always going to get me something else as a present anyway, he doesn’t know how to do anything but give. So there I was all excited and happy about being able to wear this ring and show it off and the responses I was getting from everyone were pretty much the equivalent of “Oh, thats nice”. Everyone who had seemed so excited to see the first ring did not have the same interest in the second because I was already engaged. That was now old news.

As much as I still am not the type of woman to go into raptures over my forthcoming nuptials, it gives me energy to be around other people who are happy, excited and “into” an event that they are attending. You might argue that a reception is just another party and another excuse for a pissup but I like to think that if people have gone to the trouble of going to an official ceremony to see you go through what should be a significant event in your life then it is different than hosting a night out with free food and alcohol for all who know you. You might know what the “reception” was in honour of but if the event itself becomes removed from the celebration then it won’t be the same for your guests or for the couple. So we’re not nicking off to get married with just the two of us with a minister dressed as Elvis and an organist who looks like she works the strip in her spare time. I do still find the idea amusing though.

The Price We Pay

2008-12-10T07:59:00.000+11:00

Well the wedding has been on again, off again recently. Not because either one of us (or both of us) have decided not to do it at all and live in sin for the rest of our lives or alternately have busted up in a spectacular display of fireworks and have declared never speak to the other one again, but rather that next year might not be the best time. Two people who are important to us will be overseas and it seems that we can only get one of them home. We are also in a frustrating financial situation of theoretically having money that we can’t actually utilise. Because I have felt slightly pushed into a date next year, I have been in turns difficult, surly, negative and just plain annoying. The bridezilla in me was apparently manifesting not in an obsession to have everything done exactly as I wanted and in the manner of my choosing but rather in my reluctance to get at all excited about the wedding cause nothing was “right”.

What made matters worse was that I really wanted to vent because I was upset but that only distressed everyone else. My fiancée was cut up because he could not give me everything that I wanted as were my family because they felt they ought to be giving me more of what I wanted I guess. When people have asked me about the wedding as they are wont to do (its like an ice breaker or something and will probably be asked up until the time we are actually married – then people will want to know if I’m pregnant yet!), I’ve told people that I have definitely not reached the fun part yet. I’ve told people that I’m not enjoying all the interviews and appointments and bridal fairs and website browsing at all. Its been slightly tedious and depressing at times really and the whole not being a sugar puff bride thing has not been working in my favour. I make sarcastic jokes because its my way to deal with it but for those close to me, its quite hard to hear.

Its never easy to admit you were wrong or that you should have handled something better. And truth be told, the whole wedding thing has been getting slightly better over the past couple of weeks. I’m not exactly ready to sing from the top of the trees or anything and I don’t think my levels of excitement will ever quite match those of my fiancée – go figure that out – but I am now happy with the idea of holding the wedding next year. Waiting the additional months will not make me significantly happier than I would be the following year and as a couple, we’re probably better off not spending as much as we would if we waited either. I also want to be married. My hesitation was never about the marriage itself, only the wedding. So yeah, I’m trying to put Bridezilla back in her box and remember that its not all about me.

As I have been frequently told by my little sister (in jest of course), this wedding is all about her!

Politics At Dinner

2008-12-07T10:56:00.000+11:00

I saw an idea that I liked the other day. The boy and I went to see a reception venue and as it was a popular place and a Saturday, the rooms were already decked out for the evening to come. The idea that I liked came from a woman who decided both that she was far too busy to be bothered with actual seating placements and that all her guests were big enough and ugly enough to sort it out for themselves. She decided to give all her tables names such as The Sex Pistols and The Beatles so she obviously had a list for the guests that were to sit at each table but apparently she wasn’t prepared to dictate in which particular chair they sat. I think I might like this woman.

When the boy and I made a comment to the lady that was showing us around the venue she said that we probably had no idea what kind of issues she has seen in regards to seating placements at weddings. Great Aunty Margaret absolutely loathes Crazy Cousin George and they have to be sitting as far away for each other as possible. They also have to be facing different directions! Or perhaps the parents of the bride and groom are not exactly enamoured of each other and as such, one set of parents much not be any closer to the bridal table than the other. Dirty Uncle Harry must not be seated with any unmarried woman or a female under thirty and Clumsy Grandma Mae who is hard of hearing must be seated with her good ear towards the bridal table but she must also be on the edge near an exit so she can get out without tripping up or over ten people on the way. Thank God our families are not like this.

I think if any one of our guests was not completely happy with where they were placed then they would just suck it up. As far as I am aware, no one actually hates anyone else, they just might choose not to talk to someone for most of the evening – and with 70 or 80 people around that is not such a big deal. I know maybe one or two people who might have something to say about whatever food we have served at our wedding but as my fiancée so charmingly told me, he will be quite willing to step in and tell them dry your eyes princess, build a bridge and get over it. Or leave. And I don’t particularly have a problem with that. If someone actually made a big deal over dinner then they are quite welcome to remove themselves elsewhere to remedy the situation. Theres not a lot I can do after the catering has already been delivered to the table!

Finding The Bon In Bombonierre

2008-12-03T09:52:00.000+11:00

To gift or not to gift? Some people see it as tradition. A thankyou if you will to those people who have gone out of their way to spend the day with you and celebrate. Some people see it as a waste of money because you’ve most likely already shelled out a significant amount of cash to get them fed, entertained and drunk. Although depending on the wedding, not necessarily in that order. The boy and I are undecided at the moment. We’d like to but the cost can get a bit ridiculous if you get carried away. The money may be better spent as a bouquet, an upgraded wine package or perhaps another groomsman (or that was the equivalent expense of adding the additional member to the bridal party as one doesn’t normally buy groomsmen themselves). Doesn’t stop you from window shopping however.

So what is the perfect gift? I’ve seen fridge magnets with a picture of the bride and groom before, cds of the wedding music, rock candy with names or messages cooked (does one cook candy?) into the pieces and photo frames or ornaments containing an image of the happy couple. Whilst we were looking for options on the weekend, the boy saw one of those glass/crystal paperweight things with the 3D image lasered into the block. He suggested that we could find out how much it would cost for us to get our photo put into some as a gift. I suggested that the last thing our guests really want is our picture smiling back at them every day from some random cheap gift. There are plenty of different ideas out there though.

If you want to be really traditional then there is always sugared almonds although a lot of people choose to give chocolate in some sort of box or container now a days. I’ve seen people give rocky road too with the message that we all have rocky roads in our future but may they be as sweet as this one. Some people give small bottles of champagne and some engraved champagne flutes. I have been looking for some more unusual ideas however. I do rather like the idea of having goldfish on the table and giving them out to the guests at the end of the night. Weird, I know, I’m not exactly a kid anymore but there you go. The logistics of such an idea however might probably be too much for a wedding day. Something that might take effort before the day however could work. I have seen websites that can provide embroidered linen for a pretty penny, or small plants.

I’m not sure what I’d want to go for at the end of the day. Especially as it would not be totally my decision either. I must admit though that since most of our friends and relations that would be coming are married, I kind of like the idea of giving all the men a small toy ball and all the women some sort of chain. It was politely suggested however that there would quite likely be some people attending our wedding that might find the idea of the “ball and chain” somewhat offensive. Oh well. Back to the drawing board I guess.

Made From The Right Cloth - Part II

2008-11-30T08:45:00.002+11:00

So yeah, I am now in the market for a good jacket. I did have an initial discussion with the dress’ design house regarding the possibility of them making the jacket. I made the mistake of asking for their help however which was about as useless as having tits on a bull. If you tell them exactly what you want then they can be quite accommodating but if you ask for their assistance or their advice on what would be a suitable design, they sort of stare at you blankly and ask “well what do you want?”. I am perhaps being a little unfair though as the girl who was discussing the jacket with The Boy and I was quite nice and she was at least trying to help. I was just a little frustrated by the whole thing.

I am not a designer myself. I will confess to usually knowing what looks alright once I see it on but apart from that, I am by no means an authority on fashion. I also haven’t got a scrapbook full of pictures and designs to act as the cornerstone of any negotiations. I don’t know what I want. We’ve been through this before. This is why I am not confident about suggesting something because I am pretty sure that it may not be the best thing at all but that someone is just going to go off and design exactly that regardless. I don’t want people to take the design away from me exactly but I would like some suggestions or perhaps some idea that they actually consider whatever guidelines I discuss. I’d like to believe they actually thought whatever was decided upon would actually be the best option and not merely the design the customer happened to request.

I ended up feeling a little guilty as well. I do say “ended up” feeling rather than “was made to feel” cause that wasn’t exactly the case but the end result was the same. Without a clear idea of how to move forward I felt like I was being difficult because I had walked in without knowing exactly what it was that I wanted. I felt like I was asking the girl to do something that wasn’t her job (despite the fact that I had made the appointment specifically to discuss the design of a tailored jacket). I also felt like I was wasting her time when I asked if I could go and try the dress on again, if I could look at other fabrics against the dress and just have a discussion with The Boy about general ideas rather than sitting down to put something to paper. We did get something in the end though. Which I may not use at all in the long run.

Of the other designers that I had been to see, there was one who I felt did actually understand the vague style ideas I had discussed (which is quite a feat really) and whose aesthetic sensibilities seemed to match my own. We had discussed the option of her designing me a bridal outfit before I saw The Dress. As a designer however, her mainstay is actually Jackets and not so much the dresses so I can actually still see myself in one of her creations. We just have to come to an agreement on the price and the work. And of course I have to stop feeling guilty that I decided not to go with her design for a dress but would still like her to design the jacket. Stupid perhaps as I’m a paying customer but there you go.

Made From The Right Cloth - Part I

2008-11-26T07:41:00.001+11:00

So it seems there may be a light at the end of the tunnel. After the copious hours of surfing the net looking at pictures, numerous appointments with designers and the tedious effort of getting into and out of gown after gown, I actually found a dress. Again. Only this time I put down a deposit. So its more like I found “the” dress rather than “a” dress. On a recommendation from a colleague, I visited a bridal outlet in Melbourne whilst in the city for another wedding and The Boy picked out a pearler. Yes it was The Boy who picked out my dress – but that was “picked out” and not “chose”. I’m not that liberal. It wasn’t what I’d been looking for at all but at the same time it seemingly fulfilled most of the requirements I had on my list.

The dress is not white, off-white, ivory, ecru, cream, eggshell or any other shade of “white” currently out there in the market. The dress is in fact a colour. I am not quite sure what colour it is because it is not exactly any colour I can actually think of however, but they call it “Antique”. The dress has quite simple lines and is not lacy, frilly or “busy”. It has some detail to it but it is not otherwise encumbered by a multitude of beads, stones, pearls, ribbons or other additions to the basic structure of the dress. It has a train which can be adjusted for dancing and most importantly, I look great in it. On the other hand, the dress does not have a fishtail skirt (which was an initial wish) and is in fact more of an A-line affair such as I was advised to wear by the evil bridal store owner but there is no point in cutting off my nose to spite my face. I will just have to live with the fact that part of what she said did get the better of me and I have seemingly gone with her recommendation.

Of course, having found the dress, this is only half the battle as I fully intend to wear a tailored jacket to my wedding. Since we’re holding the thing in Winter (and we do plan to have location shots) I’ll be damned if I’m going to freeze my assets off whilst my new husband revels in the fact that he gets to wear a three piece suit to ward off the elements. I need something to keep my back and my shoulders warm and I cannot think of anything more tacky than a faux fur shrug. If you think that they’re God’s gift to the evening dress then I’m sorry but I wasn’t born in Russia. There is no need for me to wear a fluffy bit of fur to my wedding, either the real stuff or the fake stuff.

And can I just ask, what is the go with some of the shrugs out there anyway!? Whilst I was getting instruction about what I should wear to my wedding so as to avoid looking like I’d been trussed up and served ready for the taking I was told that the witch could sell me a very nice shrug. She told me lots of girls buy them because they just need that something extra over their back and shoulders. Thats where you really feel the cold. What she then proceeded to show me however was an item neither functional nor aesthetically pleasing cause it looked a whole lot cheaper than it actually was and it sure as hell didn’t come anywhere near my shoulders or cover a significant portion of my back. I failed to see the point of the thing at all. And I thought that the woman needed a good anatomy lesson. Even 4 year olds can identify at which part of their body their shoulder is located.

And The Award For Customer Service Goes To...

2008-11-09T14:28:00.001+11:00

It is this week’s conclusion that if the men out there in the industry who think they know everything are ‘Wedding Wankers’, then the women who believe they are a monarch of all things matrimonial are potentially the ‘Bridal Bitches’. I was actually somewhat offended on the weekend when I was shopping for wedding gowns. I suppose I should have known better when the owner got a bit too free with the “darl” in conversation at the time the appointment was made. To be honest, I don’t actually have a problem with people calling me darl in general but when its patronising I kind of want to point out that I was given a name and if they’re too stupid to remember it then I will quite happily give them leave to write it down on a piece of paper so they can shove it where the sun doesn’t shine and maybe that will help them remember. I would never do that of course but the thought has run across my mind once or twice…

So I was asked if I had been to any other stores, tried on any other gowns and if I had found anything that struck my fancy so to speak. I recounted a couple to make it known that I had already begun my search and intimated that I had a vague idea but I was still looking at options. I also described one dress that I had really liked. I mentioned that the dress was from a well known bridal designer in the centre of the city, how the dress was styled and fitted and finally the colour which happened to be bright red. Without a pause, the owners automatic response was, and I quote “Oh Yuk!”. Far be it from me to tell you how to run your business and treat your customers lady but it has been my experience that out in the commercial world, a lot of businesses and owners alike are devotees of the axiom that the customer is always right. Regardless of your personal opinions and preferences, red is not an unheard of colour at weddings and is in fact traditional for the Chinese, you have not seen the dress either by itself or on me so you really do not have an accurate basis on which to judge and you just blatantly insulted my taste since I had already told you I liked the gown in question. Where did you learn your manners? In the barnyard?

Unfortunately it didn’t really a great deal better from there either. After I had tried on a few gowns, she proceeded to insinuate that I had a fat bottom! I am actually not a big woman by any means (or so I thought). I have been told previously that I have a tiny waist however I was blessed with hips. As a result, no matter how much I exercise or lose weight (and conversely gain weight), I will pretty much be one dress size bigger on my lower half than I am on the top half. I actually quite like having curves though and are not opposed to showing them off in a dress but I was advised that given my body shape, I really need to keep an open mind and should be looking at a style than minimises my backside. Now that I have looked at her gowns and found that most (but not all) were too tight over my hips, I should be a little more “realistic” about the options that are available to me. So once again I was clearly wrong. I am apparently one of those fat girls who secretly thinks she’s a size 6. Irrespective of the fact that every other bridal attendant has advised me that they would order in the dress size that fit my hips and would take in the bust where necessary, I now have it on good authority that I won’t look at all attractive in that type of dress and I should cut my losses and go for something else. Beggars can’t be choosers apparently. They certainly can’t be prudish either.

Now it’s a damn good thing that I have come to terms with my fat posterior and none too buxom assets as there didn’t seem much of an option for modesty with this particular woman. As I soon found out when I started wedding dress shopping, you frequently find yourself standing in changing rooms with an attendant in nothing but your knickers. As you go from dress to dress (and your rear end is a little gravitationally challenged) the dresses need to go on and come off over the head. As they are also so much more expensive, awkward and sometimes delicate than you’re average t-shirt, someone else needs to actually dress you. Now most of the other attendants who have dressed me have made as much allowance as they can for a customer’s modesty. They have allowed me to undress and face the wall or have threaded their arms through the top of the dress, right down to the hem of the skirt, and raised it high in front of them so I could pretty much dive into the dress without being seen until the dress was covering what it should. This woman on the weekend however would watch me stand with my arms over my chest and pick up most of the skirt and reach out her arms just below chest height. She would then stop so I had to lower my arms to pick up the rest of the skirt in order to slip the gown on over my head. She pretty much made it impossible for me to avoid flashing my breasts at her. Now as I said, I have come to terms with my figure and this is not something that has mortified me completely but I thought that she might pick up on some of the physical cues that I wasn’t entirely comfortable. Then again she did come across as having a few screws loose so I don’t know why I expected more.

I clearly have to work on my unreasonable expectations.

May I Be Of Service?

2008-11-01T17:50:00.000+11:00

Why is it that the people who are the most friendly and helpful seem to work for the venues that we like the least? The boy is still doing a wonderful job getting quotes and researching locations for the wedding reception. We have been to discuss options with a few of the vendors too but by and large, most of them are not as helpful as they like to think they are. The zoo wants to be accommodating. Since we don’t have enough friends, they are happy to still let us hire the venue because they can option up the food and the beverage package accordingly. Which is basically a nice way of saying we have a minimum spend, get over it. Other places are prepared to be flexible too. They accept that Friday nights and winter bookings are not as popular and they’re prepared to negotiate but that usually entails you spending the larger amount for a package and having more inclusions of your choice.

That’s not really very helpful to us as we are afflicted with the small sphincter syndrome at present.

It seems that it is only once we get to the venues that not exactly to our taste that we get offers that are really accommodating. For the alcohol, we can choose a silver package but if we choose a “bronze” wine for that price, we can also choose a “gold” one as well. If there is something we don’t want in the “package”, we can be credited the equivalent cost or substitute the addition with another. Oh and if we happen to want to supply our own champagne or bridal table booze, this can be done without additional charge or loss to us as well. Some people just couldn’t be more helpful.

Unfortunately I am very quickly getting over the whole thing. I have definitely found another career I can cross of the possible options list because I hate wedding planning. At the moment I’m the farthest thing from a Bridezilla who wants the whole wedding her way. I’m actually trying to figure out if I can just not have the wedding. That’s easier said than done really. If you want your life to be liveable with family and friends after you are actually married that is. But whilst we are looking at potential venues to book, if I’m going to spend money for something I like then these places don’t quite fit the bill. If I get fed up with the whole thing and go for the cheapest option around then they’re not really on the maybe list either. I should definitely start praying to the Powerball Gods.

Promotional Material

2008-10-21T11:57:00.000+11:00

Well I suppose you would have to expect it. Photographers advertise their talent in trade. That is, they show you examples of their work that are inevitably from other sittings and / or weddings they have accepted. Since many photographers will also make their subjects sign over any rights they might have not to have their photos displayed for commercial purposes by the photographer themselves, this is their right. You could therefore potentially see a photograph of yourself winning a photography competition, appearing on a pamphlet or perhaps being sent out in an email to someone else.

The latter is the case with some friends of mine. A little less than two weeks ago, The Boy, The Pussycat and I attended the wedding of some close friends. We had a chance to meet the photographer properly as we also spent most of the day with the bride and groom acting as 2nd & 3rd shooter and videographer. The Boy and I have since however received an email from the photographer as part of the Bless The Bride with Blanket Brochures business, ie. not connected to our friends wedding at all. From seeing the photographer and their work on the day, The Boy and I both felt that we had still not yet found the right person for our wedding but I was glancing over the rates for comparison when I thought one of the images looked familiar.

I remembered a location we had been to for the formal photos of our friends and a pose that the bride and groom had adopted for one of the shots. When I had a closer look at that particular image however, and then took in the other two photos on the page as well, I realised they were all from our friends’ wedding that we had attended two weekends ago. Its flattering I suppose to know that your images are considered worthy of being used as promotional material and more attractive than other photos owned by the photographer. I actually kind of like the idea and it would amuse me if a shot of my wedding actually made it into a magazine or something. The Boy doesn’t quite share my opinion however. I guess we’ll see what happens to our shots. Of course, we still kind of have to choose a photographer first!

The Hands On Approach

2008-10-17T10:30:00.000+11:00

What is it with some females in the wedding industry and someone elses man? Do they figure that at the point a guy is shopping for something with his fiancée then you can flirt and touch as much as you want because they wouldn’t expect you meant anything by it? Or maybe its one of those things where you think the way to get the man on side with whatever you’re selling is to make him feel that the service is personal in more ways than one? I really don’t know.

I probably would not have thought much about it either except that The Boy mentioned he was made rather uncomfortable by one of the vendors at the Wedding Extravaganza we went to last night. Also because this is the second time I have heard of a groom’s personal space being invaded in an unwelcome manner. It seems that some women really like getting their hands on a man. They’ll hold a hand for a fraction too long or they’ll touch an arm almost as a caress. Perhaps this angle normally works well for them when the guy is engaged with whatever they’re discussing and not wishing he was anywhere else with more testosterone. The males that I know however don’t like it at all.

As far as The Boy and the other groom were concerned, it was inappropriate to be that familiar without invitation and doubly inappropriate to be so in front of the fiancée. Both men felt extremely uncomfortable and somewhat put on the spot. They had no wish to “make it an issue” and especially in front of their partner at that. I am not one of those desperately jealous women ready to claw any other female’s eyes out if she dares to cast her glance over The Boy. I am more likely to laugh cause I know that she wouldn’t have a hope in hell of getting anywhere if she cared to try. I am however offended that that type of female would help give other women a bad name and affect the men in my life. If you need to touch someone that desperately, get your own damn man.

Bless The Bride

2008-10-15T10:22:00.001+11:00

Bless The Bride. May she be inundated with spam she neither invited nor requested!

So it seems that what they don’t tell you when you go to these bridal fairs is that when you inevitably enter the main competition to win free stuff like receptions (because why wouldn’t you want to get a $20,000 gift certificate, if you couldn’t abide the vendor in question you could just sell it for a profit), you open the flood gates to numerous bridal suppliers who want to sell their wares door to door, so to speak. A couple of weeks ago now, The Boy and I went out to Blacktown Bless The Bride Expo cause it seemed a good idea at the time and over the past couple of days we have been inundated with emails and letters.

Since they have all started arriving at once, I am guessing that the organisers of the expo held onto the competition entries for a defined period of time, perhaps to give a head start to any company you had already entered into negotiations with as a result of the day. They have obviously now sold or perhaps even given their list out to the various suppliers however since we have had reception venues, photographers, celebrants and florists etc contact us to offer their specialised services. They all hope we had a “wonderful time” at the expo and, just in case we have not yet secured the type of service for our wedding that they also can offer, they would like to forward their “expo only special” for our consideration.

Well, considering that we are planning a church service for our wedding (and were we not, we are personally friends with 2 registered celebrants / pastors), we will not actually be requiring the services of another celebrant for our day. I am of the opinion that drycleaners who charge you a premium merely to clean a dress they assume you’ll never wear again and put it in a box are both a waste of money and a waste of space. Unlike everyone else out there, I am looking into alternatives to paper stationary that would require hours of me cutting myself and gluing my fingers together in order to create each individual invitation and the absolute last thing I want for my wedding album is something in the guaranteed to date “magazine style”. Apart from that, if we didn’t follow up your services at the time, we’re probably not going to now, and in retrospect I only came away from the bridal expo with sore feet and a couple of bags full of pamphlets that have been sitting on the dining table since I brought them home.

Thanks anyway.

Whats My Theme?

2008-10-09T15:03:00.000+11:00

So what is your theme…?

Theme?? What theme? Why do I need a theme? I said yes, he says I do, so do I and then we all go and get drunk. It is the Australian way. Nobody said anything about a theme before I started this thing!

Ok so that sounds a little bogan and I’m not quite that ignorant. I have now seen enough bridal mags to know that every man and his dog feels they should wax poetic about the subject of themes at a wedding. All the experts in the industry believe with a conviction bordering on obsession that one needs to first envisage a theme that will help provide a cohesive experience on the day. A theme that is made up of all the minutiae possible in order to evoke the desired emotions from the guests and indeed also the bride and groom themselves.

They advocate such things as sitting down with your partner and outlining your likes, dislikes, desires and preferences in order to find where your ideas mesh and what common threads run through the majority of your list. That’s all very well unless you’re a bridezilla, in which case you don’t actually care what your partner thinks anyway, or you can’t really see a theme evolving unless you throw out one idea or another for the sake of the whole. Although maybe that comes back to the Bridezilla idea except that theres twice the force with a Groomzilla involved as well…?

As you can tell, I’m a little frustrated at the moment. And difficult. I don’t particularly want to pick a theme right now because whatever option seems close still does not feel quite right. Can’t I just have the theme Things I Like?? Unfortunately I have not been planning this day in my head since I was a little girl. I don’t know exactly what I want yet. How my wedding day actually pans out will not be the fulfilment of a long cherished dream harboured close to my heart but rather the culmination of rough ideas fused together over a couple of months. Maybe that can be my theme. Fusion. Combining the seemingly incongruous to form an aesthetically diverse day...

Sounds like a plan, no? It does have one major disadvantage however – it doesn’t make it any easier to choose a damn thing!

Dressing Barbie Dolls

2008-09-27T17:59:00.001+10:00

Well I’ve come to the conclusion that what comes out of my mouth when I try to communicate an idea must sound like Swahili. Or some other foreign language that absolutely no one within spitting distance actually speaks. I mean, I say that in a dress I’d like something with a little definition about the bust. I’m not exactly Pamela Anderson on top and considering that what I don’t have in that area I make up for somewhere else, it’d be nice to appear a little more in proportion. Vain, I know but you get that in brides apparently.

So yeah, I try to explain that I think I’d like either a different fabric on the top of a bodice or some ribbons or artfully draped material or, well, you know, something but I don’t want a gown with a single panel of material that sits flat against your shape as it is followed down from your décolletage to your waist (or however far the panel of material actually goes down). I say this to dressers and the description, however vague it really is, actually makes sense to me. What I get is what about this lovely gown here (that has a single panel of material that drapes over your chest and in guaranteed to make you look flat as a pancake).

Ok, so I am exaggerating the description of my attributes (or lack thereof), but seriously, it can’t be that hard to listen to someone and process that information accordingly. If you don’t stock that style of gown then that’s ok, but you certainly notice the difference in service from someone who tries to understand your likes and dislikes as opposed to someone who assumes that women in wedding dresses are kind of like barbie dolls. You know, they’re all going to look sort of the same at the end of the day anyway so at this point, you’re only really debating sequin placement!

Wedding Wankers and Other Wonderful Things

2008-09-24T18:54:00.002+10:00

Well it appears we are not really any further in finding the perfect photographer for our wedding than we were a couple of weeks ago. Last night we met another photographer who somehow failed to impress us with his superior customer service skills, his ability to work with the client and adapt to their individual needs and his genuine desire to be part of our day. Oh wait, perhaps that’s because he had none, wouldn’t and didn’t.

Don’t get me wrong though, he was polite and courteous and made just enough of the right noises that he could be seen to be doing all of the above but he really did fall a little short for us. Forgetting the grooms name was a good start. I’m sure he sees heaps of people in his profession and they pretty much come and go without being recurring business but its sort of poor form to make it obvious that the name of the person to whom you are speaking has mysteriously flown out of your mind. Maybe that’s just me. It wasn’t my name he forgot though so that wasn’t what really got me.

As far as I was concerned the pièce de résistance was when he advised me with a completely straight face that because their photographers are professionals, out of the thousand or so photographs they promise to take of you on your day, even though they cull them to supply you with around 500 (you know, so you only really see the “best of the best”), all of the photos will actually be usable. Excuse me? Are you trying to tell me that when you get around 4-8 people in the same photo who are not professional models, and are only really there to enjoy the day and the other guests so therefore will chatter or get sidetracked at the drop of a hat, that they will not make a face or start talking right when a photographer is taking a shot? Do you honestly believe that just because you are a “professional”, you are now exempt from capturing people mid blink/sneeze/word/gesture etc. thus creating an image that is, shall we say, less than aesthetically pleasing? Maybe you are. May you should add I am a God to your resume.

And while we’re considering that the client only sees the best of the best and is only allowed to choose between 40-50 photos out of the 500 odd they are supplied with, why do your display albums have pictures of people scrunching up their face as they squint into the sun? Are they the best? Maybe I’m missing something but I fail to understand why I should pay thousands of dollars to get lasting memories of the creases in my forehead. And it wasn’t just the one album either. We viewed at least four albums, each of a different wedding and they all had shots like that…Shots…Multiple. I know Australian summers are not the easiest thing to deal with but other people seem to manage. Or maybe they don’t try to take those shots. You know, the seemingly ubiquitous big white dress in front of the big white lighthouse or the walk across the sundrenched rolling sand dunes, that is unless you’re a wog of course cause then the first port of call is apparently The Rocks or George Street.

So yeah, it appeared that the photographer we saw was slightly puffed up with his own sense of self importance and not the kind of person with whom we felt a sense of easy rapport. Sort of like the other Wedding Wanker who didn’t do much to inspire my patronage either. I know I’m not the classiest person you’ve ever seen in your life and I can put on the Ocker when I’m around other people who seem to be doing the same, and yes, I did actually attend a bridal fair in Blacktown which is only a couple of bogans shy of Tasmania but I’m not especially partial to people I don’t know swearing in front of me. You don’t have my business, you don’t know me and you are a professional trying to sell yourself. There has to be options in your vocabulary that do not require “f” words. I know it would seem like the pot calling the kettle black as I am hardly immune to certain words coming out of my mouth (as nouns, verbs and adjectives I must admit), but there are times when I feel that a little decorum would go a long way. I’m sure as shit that Shazza with her meringue dress, six sheilas to the side dressed in pink taffeta with puffy sleeves and beau named Bruce would not bat an eyelid if someone didn’t bother to use the queen’s English (actually she probably wouldn’t understand them if they did) but I did a quiet double take when the photographer did swear and wasn’t standing there thinking this guy is a dude!

Seeing Red?

2008-09-23T14:42:00.000+10:00

Well, now that I have been shopping with my mother and my sister, I’m more confused than I was before!

The Boy and I have been dress shopping a few times and I thought I had a pretty fair idea of what I wanted. When mum saw the dresses though, she liked all the ones I liked but the one I thought was was the pick of the lot, she wasn’t in love with. In addition to that, she thought the dress sort of wore me instead of the other way around. Thats not the impression I was going for funnily enough. So now there are a couple of off the rack dresses I like and a couple of made to measure gowns (which are of course significantly more expensive) and I’m not really any closer to choosing something than I was before I saw anything. I seem to want a lot of different things, not all of which are conducive to each other. Helpful, I know.

Everyone keeps telling me that its my wedding and I can do whatever I want so I should just choose whatever makes me feel great but right now nothing does. And its all very well to say you can go to a designer and get them to create something individual but from what I’ve seen so far, you have to get into really big money before you can go to someone and say I have no idea what I want but you have to make me something anyway. It seems that you really have to start from a base idea an build on that but I’m struggling with even that step at the moment. I had the same issue with the engagement ring.

When we were looking at options I saw a couple of jewellery designers but they couldn’t just put designs out there based on a few vague likes and dislikes. I had to commit to a diamond and then work from a base design and that’s why we gave up and avoided the whole stone issue in general and decided on something completely different. The Faberge ring we want does actually have several stones in it but they are so tiny and more there for decoration than anything else.

So I am obviously still having a whinge about the whole thing. I must admit, I am very frustrated by the lack of people I feel I can go shopping with for all this stuff. I don’t really have many female friends in Sydney I can call on if I need stuff. One is seemingly chronically busy and I see her seldom when I actually think about it and another is getting married herself in three weeks so she spends every waking moment running around doing her own wedding stuff. As one would expect. I have acquaintances in Sydney and there are one or two people who The Boy and I see socially together every once in a while but they’re not my friends, you know? I know I have my mother and my sister in Canberra but that’s the thing, they are in Canberra and they can’t just start coming up every weekend so I can get a female point of view from someone who knows me. Bah. Maybe I should stop whinging, elope and just come back and throw a massive party!

Bridal Mags Have A Lot To Answer For

2008-09-09T18:58:00.000+10:00

So I actually bought a bridal magazine the other day. With the actual intent of using it for ideas and contacts. Not that I have bought those types of magazines before for any other reason but you know, they have always been “those” magazines until now. And I must say for the most part that they are a wanky waste of money! They all seem to be geared towards those sugar puff brides who are happy sailing along in their blissful cocoon of nuptial nuances, planning the last detail of the happiest day of their lives with their one true love / soul mate / divine other half or whatever description seems more kitsch and well, vomit inducing sounds a little strong but you get what I mean.

In case you hadn’t noticed, I do not see myself as one of those sugar puff brides. Nor do I actually believe that my wedding day is going to be the happiest day of my life. I’d like to point out that this is not because I don’t love the person I am going to marry but rather that I’m hoping to have a rather long life filled with family and friends and if the happiest day of my life happens before I’m 30 and I live till I’m 80 odd, then that means its really all downhill after the wedding then anyway. Cynical, I know, but The Boy isn’t marrying me for my sentimentality and romantic ideals so its all good. And since we already have one of us in the relationship reveling in the significance and emotion in all the details, if I joined in then I’m sure no one could bear listening to us both talk about the wedding without wanting to gag so its all good.

That’s not to say that I don’t care at all about the details but lets just say I have a slightly different outlook to the whole thing than The Boy does at the moment. A girlfriend asked me how things were going the other day and I told her that as far as I’m concerned, as long as the girls are all carrying something and the boys have buttonholes then I’m satisfied for the flowers. Churches usually come with some sort of arrangements anyway and the reception venues usually sort something for the tables and I don’t much care what that happens to be. The Boy on the other hand wants big flowers. Everywhere. He’d concede to my attendants just carrying a small bunch of flowers but he wants a florist to do my bouquet. Just like he wants a cake decorator to make the cake. I’m all like no one is going to remember what the cake looked like a week after the wedding and unless you are actually serving is as the dessert, people won’t much care if its not the most sinful and decadent thing they’ve ever tasted in their life either. I’d prefer to have an extra person at my reception than fifty bazillion tiers to the cake and lots of intricate icing work. But marriage is all about compromise so we’ll probably end up somewhere in the middle.

Just as for the most part, I am the girl in this relationship but sometimes he really does it so much better than I do. We were having a chat last night about some of the vendors we’ve seen and the ideas we liked so far. We were also talking about bridal parties cause over the last couple of months, we have been asked to be part of one, asked to step aside, asked back and, well, it didn't work out in the end. Anyway, I was recalling the sickeningly saccharine article I started browsing through in one of the mags that went something like…once the engagement has been announced there will come that time…for the bride, this is one of the most important decisions that she will have to make…the bride might ask you out to lunch, just the two of you, and say “we’ve been friends a long time”…then comes the question… And The Boy was sitting there saying that he thinks he’s finally decided who he wants to be his best man but he thinks he needs to make absolutely sure first. If he does go with gut feeling though then he’d need to take his mate out to lunch, spend the afternoon with him and ask him properly etc. I was all like I’m just going to email my girlfriend and ask if she’ll be a bridesmaid :-). And thats just what I did.

I told her my sister will be my maid of honour but I would really like to have her there if she was able. At the moment, since we don’t have a firm wedding date, I said I'd understand that that possibly would make things quite difficult for her. She is in another country after all. I advised we have a suggested date of 07/08/09 which is a Friday in winter (thus making the reception venues a little cheaper) but thats as far as its gone. The date is kinda cool too so I’d like to go with that but as I say, its not final and may well change. Not exactly overly sentimental but it was functional.

So yeah, considering we don't even have a date at the moment, on the plus side, I think I may have found my dress. Wouldn’t have a clue what to put the bridesmaids in but first things first. The dress I like is definitely not traditional and The Boy actually came with me when I tried it on but he has told me a dozen times since then that I looked really hot which was kind of what I was going for so we’ll see. I’m going to try and get mum and The Pussycat to have a look when they come up for the engagement party. As much as I do care what The Boy thinks, I really would like a second opinion from a female or two. Its all very well to make a spectacle of yourself in front of all your family and friends when its your wedding day but theres part of me that wants to be reassured that it would be a good choice nonetheless. Also, if I did decide to go with the dress I’ve tried on, I think my mother would like to make the decision with me. I have to get her here first though. She is a three hour drive away after all.

You know, I can just tell I am going to get frustrated with the whole thing over the coming months. I’ve only just scratched the surface and I’m pretty over it.

Wedding Bells...

2008-09-07T13:40:00.000+10:00

So I started this blog in 2004 when I was “Single in Sydney” and navigating my way through the trials and tribulations associated with dating. It seemed a good idea at the time and then I stopped, basically because I started a serious relationship. That relationship has since led to an engagement and now I find myself back again, this time with a new focus that may well provide numerous stories or anecdotes, some of which have already amused my friends.

I considered actually starting a new blog cause I am obviously no longer “single” but then I figured, the blog was still roughly about a singular topic, ie. my wedding. So this blog is no longer The Single Life but Down The Aisle and all that that entails. Who knew it was so bloody much!?!

Hearts And Flowers

2007-02-28T16:29:00.000+11:00

Well I pretty much ignored Valentines Day again this year. Of course that might have had something to do with the fact that I don’t have anyone with whom to actually celebrate. It is also however because I don’t have the burning desire to do something ‘significant’ with all my single girlfriends, go to the trouble of proclaiming myself as being ‘anti-valentines’ or jump on the feminist bandwagon that now apparently claims the day as ‘V-day’ – a day to celebrate Vaginas or to raise awareness of violence against women. Not that raising awareness of the violence issue is not a worthy cause, but I’d like to think that I might actually celebrate this consumer driven Hallmark Holiday at some later date so I’m happy for it to remain as it is.

So yes, I ignored most of the hoopla and only belatedly caught up on the His and Her Guide video segment that Sam de Brito and Sam Brett (of the Sydney Morning Herald blog fame) filmed for Valentines Day. It was a predictable, kitsch couple of minutes worth of stock standard ‘romantic’ gift ideas. I didn’t really get anything from it but the urge to throw up. Boy Sam, a man more after my own heart managed to temper that of you must send flowers, make it to your love’s workplace but you should really try and personalise your offerings as much as possible. Girl Sam on the other hand was your quintessential female and reminded me of a puppy dog that craves attention. I’m sure that’s completely unfair but she professes to want chocolates and flowers and teddy bears and cards. She also can’t imagine anything better than being proposed to on Valentines Day.

Now there is nothing wrong with each of these ideas individually, well apart from proposing on Valentines Day, I think that’s terribly unimaginative and people who do it should be clocked over the head. The idea of all the other gifts, especially together though is a little twee. I wouldn’t actually be adverse to receiving flowers, food or some sort of stuffed animal but since I’m not big on roses, milk chocolate or tiny teddy bears, picking out something so generic for me would probably not inspire great heights of passion or favour on my part. As for cards, well there is something that just annoys me about them. Girl Sam seems to love them and would not mind receiving some poem or ditty inside (I’m guessing Roses are red, Violets are blue, I’m sorry I gave you Herpes Type II is not what she means). I, in comparison like to throw them out and would much prefer a letter to keep any day of the week.

I don’t know, maybe I’m too difficult or fussy or high-maintenance. And as they say, beggars can’t be choosers. I think however if you are going to make a gesture out of love or affection, there is something be said for knowing how your gesture will be received. Any bloke who uses the rationalisation ‘she’s a girl, she’ll like this’ might just deserve everything he gets, or doesn’t get.

Old Maid

2007-02-23T10:50:00.000+11:00

Well its more or less official. I am now the old maid of my college girlfriends. The last single one left. The sole object of pity and platitudes on finding a partner that always seem to contain the words ‘time’ and ‘eventually’. Or maybe ‘fish’ and ‘sea’. Actually I’m really not that bothered and I don’t feel pitied at all but I am still going to be the unmarried one for a good while yet. Not that this is actually much of a distinction as we were really only a group of four but when I did hear the happy news at the end of last year that my friend Gina was over the moon to accept a marriage proposal from her partner, it did cross my mind that I’m now on this particular limb all by myself. Well, compared to the others that is. And as I said, its not really that much of a distinction anyway.

The first one of us to grow up and settle down did so a couple of years ago. As she was actually also the first of all my close friends to get married, it was kind of fun and novel – and now she and her husband are also the first to start on a family, well that’s kind of fun and novel too. The second to leap out and spread her wings to fly beside another, definitely didn’t do it by halves. She moved to England and married a South African. Her Australian friends of course had a few things to say about the fact that we didn’t get enough notice to be able to attend the wedding but we all wish her well anyway. Now Gina has been the next to succumb and will be tying the knot at the end of the year. Not that this actually changes much.

As is the case with a lot of my friends today, they live with their partners before they marry them. They may already own assets together and the only real difference that a marriage seems to make is the dent it puts in their bank balance for the wedding. This is not the case for all certainly but definitely the majority. I always find it interesting what people find important though. I am admittedly a romantic and if I was going to spend my life with someone I’d want to be married to them. I’d probably want to be married sooner rather than later if I was sure as well. There are some people however who don’t want this. I have some friends who have pretty much decided that they don’t want to get married together for the rest of their lives. I think that takes commitment too.

As for myself though, I’m yet to come across the decision. I’m not actually concerned that I’m turning into an old maid however. There is more to life than being married for some. There are marriages that fail and love affairs that last a lifetime. On the other hand, if you don’t happen to find one or the other, thats really not the end of the world either.

A Smart Cookie

2007-02-23T10:32:00.000+11:00

Apparently, the great thing about me is that I figure things out for myself. Sure, I do the dumb things that other women do in regards to relationships. I obsess over small details that, in the grand scheme of things are really not so earth shattering and I tend to ignore things here and there that I don’t particularly want to think about. As opposed to those other friends one has that make the same mistakes over and over again however and never seem to understand why things don’t work out, I figure it out by myself. A friend who lives halfway across the world to me pointed this out. Kind of in awe like ‘I kept on repeating bad behaviour and I wish I’d been more like you’ and also as if to say ‘I think you do some weird things Girl but I guess I don’t have to worry about you doing something totally stupid when I’m not there to slap you upside the head’. She’s obviously one of my best friends.

When she told me that she thought this trait was really cool I was kind of flattered. Its always nice to think that you’ve got a pretty decent chance of not doing something really dumb with your life. I was also intrigued. I’d never really thought about things like that before. I can see what she meant and what she was basing her opinion on though. I’m very good at post mortems on personal situations. I’m capable of recognising when I’m falling into old patterns and I’m also pretty good at rationalising the actions I take. The thing is, as least as far as far as some people are concerned I’m sure, I’m also good at arguing. Growing up with my sister I certainly got a lot of practice at it. I think I can probably make some things sound a whole lot better than they are and can convince others that something should be considered ‘a really good decision’ because ‘I totally know what I’m doing’ when in fact, I’m probably talking out of my backside. Trying to convince myself.

On reflection though, do any of us really know what we’re doing all the time? And if we don’t, is that something that we want? Some of us are better than others at choosing paths that don’t have depressing consequences. I’d actually like to think I was one of them but if I turned into one of those people that always knew exactly what they were doing and did the ‘right’ thing then I think I’d have to slap myself. My life would be no fun if you took all the angst out. I’m quite good at it so it’d be a shame to get rid of it now. I don’t really think my angst (or my lack thereof) brings me any closer or even further away from a relationship in the future but I guess its good to know that I’m quite possibly smarter than I look.

Hippo

2007-02-01T13:37:00.000+11:00

The Pussycat and I came to the sad realisation on Saturday that we have no lives at the moment. Over the long weekend I returned to our nation’s capital (and my family), and my sister and I decided that we really should make an effort and go out on the town together. Whilst our parents took themselves off to the movies, my sibling and I changed into more presentable clothes and drove into the city. Those were really the first clues that we were a bit half-arsed about the whole thing – the fact that actually getting ready took mere minutes and that one of us drove and would be obliged to remain sober – but nonetheless we headed off. Our first port of call was a cocktail bar in the city.

One of the many bars in town that has changed name and ownership over the years, this place was just full enough to be busy but not to the extent that you could never get a seat. It was the kind of place that could so easily have been pretentious, filled with trendy guys sporting blond tips and white shoes or with moulded hair and the shirt so casually unbuttoned to mid chest. Or where 95% of the women preen with a religious fanaticism and come off as more artificial than their nails. (A snob…what? Who, me?) The place was relaxed however with a funky lounge atmosphere and served real cocktails. You know, the drinks that don’t include creamy concoctions of chocolate or sugar that would make any diabetic turn tail and run. It was also a place that provided my greatest source of amusement for the night.

I swore years ago that I would stop wearing clothes that necessitated constant adjustment whilst out in public. I have since had years to enjoy that wisdom but apparently others don’t feel the same way. This one particular girl I noticed was wearing a strapless grey dress, fitted over the bodice and fanning slightly out at the waist before it came back in just above the knees in an upside down tulip type shape. She looked attractive enough when she was standing up straight and she had just enough give in the skirt to walk normally. What she didn’t have however was the capability of standing with her feet slightly apart and grooving down to the beat. As soon as she bent both her knees, the material would pull taught over her admittedly tiny backside, tugging the bodice of the outfit down. Which is rather inconvenient in a strapless dress. The solution therefore was to make a fist inside her side pocket and lift it outwards thus raising the hemline of the dress (and causing a rather odd ballooning effect in the process) which allowed her to move more freely.

Awkward fashion moments aside however. My sister and I also moved on to another venue not at all renowned for its cocktail list and where I could get some tart fuel* to which I am also partial. It was somewhat refreshing to notice that the place no longer smelled of smoke now that the new laws have taken effect but at the same time the atmosphere, such as it was, seemed to have disappeared as well. We pondered this loss while I had a drink then we did the lap around civic, cause that’s generally what you do at some point. After we’d completed the circuit we decided to call it a night. And we beat our parents home. See, I told you, no life. The Pussycat and I both lament the fact that we don’t actually do more but creatures who regularly come out at night we are not. Of course it would help if we were little less lazy. Oh well.

*perhaps the most apt name for mixed drinks that I have heard

Something That We Do

2007-01-23T23:14:00.000+11:00

Sometimes I really wish I could write well. I wish I could write like great speech writers write. I wish I could write poetry that would move people. I wish I could make others laugh more easily than not and oddly enough, I also wish I could make people cry. Not in a bad way of course but in an ‘oh my God that so totally touched me I teared up’ kind of way. In fact, right now I wish I had something awesome to write as part of a wedding gift I want to give one of my best friends. I always run into this problem when its time to sign cards or write messages and it would be so much easier if the words would just come to me easily and I didn’t have to think about stealing somebody elses. Trouble is that some people say things so much better than I ever could.

I find myself at the moment trying to find songs where I think the sentiment actually represents a particular situation and quotes (or perhaps passages) that embody the kind of relationship a good marriage would be. I’m not getting as far as I’d like with it although some ideas are coming together. This was pretty much after I remembered the song ‘Something That We Do’ by Clint Black. I think this is one of the most beautiful songs and I have not yet tired of hearing it. It’s a slow ballad and the kind of song that I would love to have sung to me by a guy who can sing and play guitar. It talks about love and the things that it isn’t because, as the song goes, its something that we do. But then music can really do it for me. I went to see The Lion King on stage in Hamburg and I cried in some of the happy songs because I was overwhelmed.

Anyway, poetry and music don’t really appeal to some people so I have also been looking around the net at the way people refer to relationships and partners. Some things out there definitely give me hope for society. There are those who unabashedly proclaim their love for others or who can eloquently communicate the strength and depth of their relationship. Unfortunately though, there is a lot more whinging and complaining on the whole. I suppose that’s the nature of the beast though. Its possibly more entertaining to read and doubtless easier to criticise but I sometimes wonder whether it actually helps to cause some problems. Do people read about others’ discontent and start questioning their own relationships as a result? Do they ever think that if someone else feels that way, why shouldn’t I?

After reading a post on the starfish phenomenon and whether you can do anything about it, I came to a couple of comments that mentioned the ‘mates before dates’ philosophy. It was suggested that women especially worry about this and about becoming locker room conversation (which is not really without cause if you’ve read some of these forums). My point here is that it can be hard to make yourself vulnerable when there are so many negative examples out there of how things could end up. With all the criticisms, ideals and impossible standards being thrown out left, right and centre, I think anyone could be forgiven for feeling as though they’ll never measure up. So if love is something that you do but you don’t see that much of it, does it mean theres not as much out there?

Something Missing

2007-01-23T21:16:00.000+11:00

Do you ever find yourself feeling as though something is just missing? Things might look right or normal or good even but theres that voice in the back of your mind that whispers something is not what it should be? I hate that feeling. Mostly because when I have that feeling, I’m right. And as much as I like being right (and I know I’m not the only one out there), it can be a pain in the neck. Because then you have to do something. It ought to be much easier to ignore what you wish would go away. I mean I’ve managed to live in a house with 5 boys for about a year and if I could ignore the near perpetual state of the kitchen I should be able to ignore anything right? Maybe not.

I’ve been thinking about this recently because I was kind of seeing someone towards the end of last year. At first I didn’t want to write about it here and then I wasn’t sure how I’d want to write about it. So I didn’t. Obviously. And now I’m not writing about it so much as why I felt it ended. I think for both of us there was just something missing. I’m not sure how you’d define it but whatever it was, it wasn’t there. Things that should have been easy seemed to take too much effort and things that should have been a no-brainer didn’t just happen. I know relationships are about compromise and communication and these things don’t necessarily just happen overnight but there are things that should happen eventually.

I’m still not quite sure whether I expected too much or too little. Maybe I just expected something I shouldn’t have. I was reading a post the other day where the writer was struck my the remark made to her that perhaps she was single as she tried to view her relationships as ones where the function was to entertain and be entertained in return. That made me wonder whether I might possibly have done the same thing myself. I’m not sure. I remember thinking that we talked less when we were supposedly together than when we weren’t. I think I also felt that at times we weren’t so much spending time together as time beside each other which didn’t work for me either. But then things also look a little different when you’re removed from the situation.

At the time I was worrying about it and losing sleep and pretty much making a bigger deal out of it than was necessary. Everything sort of worked itself out in the end though after I discovered that what wasn’t working for me wasn’t really working for him either. I stopped ignoring the feeling that something was missing and we talked about it. Maybe it was a timing thing. Maybe we both didn’t want it enough at the time or maybe it wasn’t meant to be. Everything teaches you something though so I’m kind of hoping I’ve come off a little wiser. I guess I’ll have to wait and see.

Spring Cleaning And The Winter Coat

2006-12-08T16:13:00.000+11:00

It seems that it has been the time of year for spring cleaning recently. And I do mean that recently as in the past fortnight or so and not ‘September’ when the rest of the southern hemisphere welcomes in the season. One would normally assume I guess that you should undertake this sort of endeavour at the beginning of springtime, but no, I have only really managed it at the end. I think I’m more a better late than never kind of girl as opposed to the early bird catches the worm sort of person. In any case, at work, at home and in my car (my alternate living space at times), things have been getting a bit of a dust up and a clean out and they are looking better than they have in a while. Given that my car has also had a service I am assuming it is running better as well (although I am a total ‘girl’ about matters automotive so all I ‘know’ is I am now a couple of hundred dollars poorer). I think it’d be great if the rest of life was that easy to spruce up.

With relatively little effort you can clean away dirt with soap and water. You can update the wallpaper and hangings with a new outfit and some accessories, you can slap on a new coat of paint with some polish and you can do renovations creating a new foundation with wax and scissors. You can also just throw out anything that’s taking up too much space in your wardrobe. Not so simple to change or get rid of however is that pesky habit of waiting for something to fail, the residual irritation over a situation that ticked you off, the tendency to analyse life more than living it or any other ‘possession’ that might be considered as baggage that is merely weighing you down. All the little things (and I guess for some of us there are big things too) that might be stopping you from having that awesome life with your perfect match. The things we are well aware we could do without and would be happy to shed like an extra layer.

A lot of that seems to be going round at the moment actually. The delayering I mean. As the weather is heating up in Sydney, the clothes are definitely coming off. Girls are back in little skirts and summer dresses and I’ve even had to buy a pair of shorts. That’s big for me. I have also been shedding my own winter coat – molting like theres no tomorrow. Its not particularly pretty but as any female with long hair (or any friend of a female with long hair) will tell you, we unintentionally leave traces of ourselves all over the place, especially coming into summer. Couches, beds, floors, clothes and it seems even places where we haven’t been sometimes. We all do this actually but with long hair its obvious. I usually start to wonder with the evidence before me why on earth I’m not bald yet. I’m not however, I have an awful lot to lose. But that’s neither here nor there really. Its not even particularly relevant. I was just pondering the fact that some things are so much easier to get rid of than others.

Its A Not Like A Romance Novel

2006-12-07T13:42:00.000+11:00

I know many women bemoan the fact that real life just doesn’t work out like it does in romance novels. You know, like its actually supposed to or something. I mean obviously no one puts their hand up and says I’d like to experience some seemingly insurmountable adversities and go through hell for a while please, but given half a chance, I think most of us would take the happy ending and be off like a shot. I have a sneaking suspicion that I have said as much myself on occasion. Given the example of something I read recently however, I’m actually kind of glad that life doesn’t work out like it does in books. As life is largely about the journey, there are some things that I feel I could definitely do without.

Normally I quite enjoy this genre. I got into it due to a previous job and discovered a partiality for the paranormal. I’d like to point out that its not the only thing I read (and nor is it all Mills and Boon either) but it is good for escapism and facilitating procrastination. What was not good was half a short story I had the privilege of suffering through a while ago. I got so frustrated that I couldn’t even make myself finish it. I was quite disappointed really. Especially since I had previously enjoyed the author. Unfortunately though, this was not one of her better works (in my humble opinion) and I’d have to say that it was one of the most patronising examples of literature (and I use that term loosely) that I have read in a long while.

Perhaps it was a byproduct of trying to portray a romance with an obvious age difference. Whether it’s the old teaching the young or the young ultimately teaching the old, someone has to be the ‘experienced’ one. In this case it seemed to be all about the poor young girl who was practiced enough to not be an innocent (this means that they can jump into bed without too much preamble) but ultimately naïve as she hadn’t experienced the loving of a real man yet (so it was just like the first time…ughh). She had that idealistic exuberance going for her and an eagerness to please that was almost embarrassing but was therefore the prime candidate for the gentle guiding hand of an older man. Oh puh-lease!

When I read something I want to be able to empathise with the central character. I don’t want to feel the urge to slap her upside the head and shove the love interest out the door for being a conceited prat. There were several things that annoyed the crap out of me in this story but I think the straw that broke the camels back was when the potential lover (I didn’t even last till the sex bit) admonished the chick for spritzing perfume on herself when she realized she was going to get some. I understand the romantic sentiment that he wants to smell her and not her perfume but he may as well have come out and said ‘you just did the wrong thing and I don’t like it so don’t ever do it again’ or perhaps ‘this will go a lot easier in future if you learn to do only as you’re told’. It ticked me off.

Now the story may have ended brilliantly. Usually I have enough blind faith to see me through the bad spots, reciting the mantra ‘its just gotta get better than this’ but on this occasion I don’t think I will ever know. And I’m not particularly bothered by that. I think I’m bothered that some women would read this and lack enough self confidence to think the hero was fantastic.

My Funny Valentine

2006-12-06T20:59:00.000+11:00

My Funny Valentine has to be one of my favourite songs. It’s a ballad that has always appealed to me due to both the lyrics and the music. I happen to like it sung deep and slow however and my recording of choice is definitely sung by The Peddlers. These guys were a sixties blues, rock and jazz band and I have heard it said of their work that 'never in the field of human entertainment has so much great music been heard by so few'. I think I would have to agree with that. My opinion aside though, I was reminded of this song the other day, or rather of the lyric Is your mouth a little weak / When you open it to speak are you smart. This came to mind when I was reading about women who are apparently dumbing down.

Despite the fact that more and more females are achieving positions of power and authority in the workplace, there still seems to be the conception that in the social arena we should be more circumspect. There is the notion about that if you want to get a guy you shouldn’t be too funny, too smart or too successful. Or at least if you are, you shouldn’t be obviously so. The male sex is apparently intimidated by intelligent femmes and so there are sisters out there who are fabricating alternate identities in order to become more appealing. Dumber identities that is. Oh its mostly ok for you to be a lawyer or to have attended a university or whatever but if you happen to be a partner or the valedictorian, well you had just better leave that part out.

Now this is not a diatribe about what a sexist society has brought us to or that glass ceiling we haven’t quite smashed yet but rather an expression of my bafflement as to how this strategy could possibly be worth it. I mean who really has the energy to consciously hold back all the time lest you appear a little more clued in than the bloke next door? Wouldn’t you then be worrying about what you have and haven’t said all the time as well as whether you were being seen as an over-achiever men didn’t want to hang out with? It sounds tiresome to me. And I know that every time I decide to ask new acquaintances to call me by a nickname so I can try it on for size it lasts about as long as it takes to say ‘hi my name is’ because after that I inevitably insert my Christian name anyway!

Of course, you could quite possibly argue that my inability to maintain an alternate identity should be indicative of the fact that I wouldn’t need to, at least in regards to portraying the level of my intelligence. I would still argue though that this sort of thing won’t do anyone much good in the dating game. Isn’t finding a partner about finding someone equal and having no secrets? If you were one of the country's top spies sure, I can see why this would be a useful and perhaps a necessary skill to have but for the rest of us, perhaps not. As for myself, I will definitely not be dumbing myself down for a bloke any time soon. Although I do sometimes wonder if I’d be better served by wising up.

You Bet Your Bottom Dollar

2006-11-15T17:32:00.000+11:00

So once again Australia has celebrated that gambling time of year. Actually, to be honest, we really have two gambling times of the year. Some of us like to put money on the toss of a coin around ANZAC day which, lets face it, is far better odds than betting on horses. Bet on horses we do however, on the first Tuesday of November. Whether we’re old or young, filthy rich or not so, for some reason the Melbourne cup is a great excuse for all the men to dress up in their Sunday best, for all the women to deck themselves out in silly hats and for everyone in the nation to have a little (or a large) flutter. And I think that the way that you gamble could say a lot about the way you approach your life and therefore your relationships. I’m not sure exactly what that is though so I’m just going to speculate for the hell of it.

First of all, there are those of us who play the field a little bit. The ones who hedge their bets, do not put all their eggs in the one basket, keep their options open, cover their bases and all those other clichés that are vaguely annoying. These people rarely back horses to win but rather to place or even better to show. This kind of bet is for those less concerned with the prize than the fact that there is one. They just want to win something. Possibly like a wallflower who just wants to have a dance. And then of course there are those of us that want to win everything. These are the people who bet on the nose. They want to study the guide, watch the horses and be aware of how the weather will affect the track and the participants. These ‘betters’ are ambitious and aggressive (like a car salesman) or just plain full of faith and hope (like a bad car salesman). They dive in head first cause if their gamble does pay off, the dividends will be well worth the risk.

For those who need a bit more of a challenge, or a bit more of a return, there is the option of placing one bet on several horses. Naming the nags that will come first, second and third, and getting it right, is guaranteed to bring in the big bucks for a small outlay. Your chances of hitting the jackpot are I think rather small but you just never know and it may well be worth a shot. This is a bold gamble though and I tend to associate it with people who think they know everything. Now this is of course actually a load of bollocks. There are many reasons and amounts to bet just as there are many ways. Just because you enter sweeps or bet on several horses each way because you can’t decide which one you think will win does not mean you’re an indecisive tramp. I like to think of myself as the very occasional decided flirt*.

*and just to clarify something here, also because it came up in my office today, flirting does not necessarily mean coming onto someone, I see it more as the universal art of making people feel good about themselves.

It'll Cost But A Penny

2006-11-06T14:41:00.000+11:00

Well I have been a bit slack recently. Again. A few things have been going on over the past couple of weeks which I am still processing, and a few other things have not (namely the internet connection at home which I am glad to say is back now). I have actually started various posts along the way but have in effect finished nothing – which doesn’t help when it comes to posting something. I actually started the main part of this post a couple of weeks ago but wasn’t really happy with it because I thought it was a little sappy and trite in parts. To be honest, I still think that but have obviously posted it anyway. At the very least, it more or less was what I thought at the time. I’m not sure its even worth a penny though…

I can live without the gut feeling that comes when you know someone is holding back and ‘not’ talking to you. Those times when you’d really prefer to be by yourself. The frustration you have when you’re aware that something is wrong but you have no idea how to fix it. Those seemingly insignificant words or gestures that hurt more than you thought they could. The times you swear you are not waiting for the phone to ring although you really are. The fear that you’re going to disappoint someone or cause pain you never intended. Wondering if you are really going in two different directions because you’re not at all sure they understand you. Wanting something you can’t have. Being asked for something you can’t give. Having a multitude of questions and a shortage of answers.

I miss effortlessly falling into step with someone as you walk down the street. The sensation of having fingers not my own running through my hair. Being able to reach out and touch someone to make that physical connection that says I’m glad you’re here and I care. Having someone seek you out just to hear the sound of your voice. Seeing that slow smile and sparkle in their eye which means they know exactly what you’re thinking because they’re thinking it too. Someone who’ll slow dance you around the kitchen because they love any excuse to hold you. Getting a neck massage when I’m tired. That smell that your body somehow recognises before your brain does and it leaves a warmth in your heart. The potential for those achingly perfect moments that you wish could last a lifetime.

I want that falling feeling as opposed to that sinking feeling. The balance and ease that seems to come to some couples. The comfort and familiarity you find as you build something that will last. Someone who can make me laugh till my sides ache. Someone who will let me listen to my music and watch my DVDs even if they hate them. To find excitement and potential inside a routine. Someone who pushes, grounds, inspires and entertains. A supplement as well as compliment. The missing half, the perfect match, the soul mate, the one. Integrity, loyalty, generosity and everything else on the list. Someone who ticks only the right boxes and none of the wrong ones. Not to mention someone who makes me feel good.

I would like to be happy in life. I would like to know that the future holds good things. I would actually like a lot of things that I will have to work for and that no one can guarantee. Knowing what to go after however is perhaps part of the battle. So at least having some thoughts is better than none.

Deal Or No Deal

2006-10-17T12:39:00.000+10:00

That cute guy you’ve had your eye on for a while finally asks you out and when you’re sitting down to dinner, he reaches over and eats off your plate without asking. You sleep over at your partner’s place for the first time and can’t miss the floor to ceiling porn stash on prominent display in their bedroom. You’ve been dating someone you seriously think is ‘the one’ and they propose with a cubic zirconium engagement ring…Deal or no deal? We all have standards and prerequisites that we look for in a partner, even if only sub-consciously. Some things are not immediately apparent however so you may find yourself on a date or even in a relationship with someone before you end up hitting on one of those things that you are not prepared to put up with – no matter how hot they are. Basically when you come across a deal breaker.

Maybe you’re having the ex’s discussion with your new boyfriend and you learn that not only do you have several ex-boyfriends but he has several ex-boyfriends as well (if you happen to be hetero). You could be really excited to have a night on the town as you haven’t been on a real date in ages and when your ride turns up in jeans and sneakers he takes you down the road for a slice of pizza. Or you might have agreed to go on a blind date as a favour to your best friend and you find yourself in the company of someone who says “I can’t believe how great this is going. After that first phone call, I thought for sure I’d be outta here after the first drink”. Its those things that inspire the “oh-oh” closely followed by the “na-uh” (is there even a conventional spelling for those sounds??) that leave you in no doubt you will not be dating that person again.

There are actually all sorts of things that get classified as the epitome of the no-go zone. For some people its an action such as cheating or lying, for others it may be a physical characteristic such as having too much hair (or not enough in certain places). It may be a habit they have such as smoking or cutting their toenails in bed. It may also be a circumstance that is unfortunately beyond their control. Whether its something that others might think of as ridiculous though or a requirement all your friends happen to share, most deal breakers are pretty much non-negotiable. Which can be both a good thing and a bad thing. For those unwilling to bend, it may be the thing that saves years of heartache or alternately costs you the love of your life.

Then again there are those who’s so called ‘deal breakers’ are a lot more trivial and a lot less absolute. Which probably really means they’re not so much deal breakers as dislikes or pet hates. I have never given someone the arse because they use copious abbreviations in emails and sms’ for example but I can tell you that it happens to tick me off. Maybe thats just me though.

PowerPoint Packs A Punch

2006-10-13T17:04:00.000+10:00

Well in these technologically advanced times we can hook up with someone using sms, we can fall madly in love over the internet and for those of us who happen to be application savvy, there is even the option of breaking up via Powerpoint. No seriously. I read an article by someone who claimed to have done this and although I can perfectly understand the reaction that was received (wouldn’t you be a little offended to say the least?), I can kind of understand the attraction as well. Its sad but true – some individuals out there get all warm and fuzzy when in the presence of a perfectly presented argument. The ability to amass truly insurmountable evidence to support a desired conclusion, and to accompany it with its own subtitles and colour scheme too…well it’s a beautiful thing. Freaky but beautiful.

Apparently the whole thing started out quite innocently. For the author there were a series of niggling doubts, petty resentments and hurt feelings that gradually built up over time with the aid of procrastination and denial. These were for one reason or another jotted down at various intervals until there came a point at which they begged for consolidation and organisation. The relationship was also then at a stage where an ‘I don’t want to do this any more’ definitely wouldn’t have cut it and dating etiquette required a more personal breakup. For this individual, Powerpoint was the answer. After all, would this not show that due consideration had gone into the matter? This would not be a refection of a hasty decision but rather a well thought out and reasoned stance on the relationship in question. You know what they say about the best laid plans though…

Not surprisingly the two part presentation failed to impress. Neither the graphs nor the photo montages won over the intended recipient with their visual representation of a romance gone sour. The messages somehow missed their mark and the bullet points enumerating the good times that were shared did nothing to alleviate the pain inflicted overall. Despite the fact that there was a significant difference between the scathing, acerbic and occasionally virulent notes put to paper and the text imparting the sentiment and feeling on the presentation, the project was not a success. Well, it was in the sense that there was definitely no relationship to be considered afterwards but it was not the kind and gentle let down that was envisaged.

So yeah, in case you ever wondered how to break up with someone, I would suggest that you do NOT try this approach. I can easily understand the desire to express your thoughts clearly and completely. I am aware of how emotions get in the way when it comes down to the crunch and I can not tell you how many times I have actually had conversations with others in my head, rescripting the exchange until it comes out ‘right’. Some things just aren’t meant to be though and others are meant to be face to face.

A Stellar Saturday

2006-10-11T16:15:00.000+10:00

Well I must say that I had a pretty good weekend. The Pussycat was up staying with me for a couple of days and we managed to go out and hit the town. Since celebrating my actual birthday with friends and family this year was not really a possibility, we decided to celebrate last Saturday instead. Just the two of us. We headed down to Cockle Bay where we sat by the water and enjoyed a great meal, my sister marvelling at just how much food I can put away when I’m hungry. We caught the fireworks display for the Dove Pink Star Walk, the charity event to raise awareness for breast cancer where a LOT of people were dressed in pink and quite a few were wearing bras on the outside of their clothes. We also ended up checking out a few bars from Bungalow 8 down at the waters edge to Orbit high up at the top of Sydney’s skyline.

There was a pretty good vibe out all round and everyone seemed to be having a good time. The races had been on earlier in the day so there were a lot of men in suits and women in cocktail dresses and fascinators. Actually, by the end of the night, there were a number of men in fascinators too. The crowds out were really cruisy though and we did in fact meet a few people. I ran into my old neighbour who is as lovely as she is gorgeous and I met a man I’ll call Bob who was kind of cute and wanted to know if my sister and I were Brazilian. I’m not sure if that was a line or not. A lot of people do actually ask me about my ancestry, although most assume I’m Italian or Greek. I am actually neither (not so as you’d actually count it) and often explain in my most ocker accent (think Steve Irwin) that I’m an Aussie born and bred.

Anyway, I sincerely doubt that I will be seeing Bob again (based on the fact that there was no details swap and on such a short acquaintance I’m not sure I’d recognise him even if I did see him) but it got me thinking about how you meet people at clubs. For most people it is still hard to just approach others and introduce yourself. If you read some of the advice columns around though, you can contrive a reason easily enough. You can stalk them as they go to the bar, you can “bump” into them or you could use a supposed bet as a pretext to ask them a question and begin a conversation. I’m obviously feeling a bit half-arsed towards the whole dating scene at the moment though cause that just seems like hard work to me. I mean if it comes naturally then that’s fine but to consciously think about it and go out and do it on purpose…right now I think I’ll pass.

I think I might pass on trying to figure out some actions of others too come to think of it. What is the deal when you’re talking to two girls and then announce that you and one of your mates are now going to do a lap of the room but as another other mate approaches, you leave them behind? I’m still not sure whether we were set up, looked over or merely overlooked in the end.

*BTW, I rather shamelessly stole the photo of a Star Walk entrant but I’m not sure who took it.

The Pussycat Needs A Profile

2006-10-04T16:23:00.000+10:00

Stupidity doesn’t run in my family. It gallops. Or maybe its just contagious. You see, following my rather unsuccessful attempts to meet someone I could conceivably ‘see’ over the internet dating site RSVP, the Pussycat has now decided that she would also like to try out this phenomenon for herself. Lord knows why. Actually, I do have a fair idea but still. And stupidity is probably the wrong word here. After all, despite my assurances to myself that it was really not the best way for me to meet people last year, I then went back and tried it out a second time. You know, just to make sure. Predictably enough, more idiotic behaviour on my part followed and things didn’t work out this time either. The possibility just sucks you in though and hey, it really does work for some people.

As I have said before however, some other people really don’t have a clue. Some don’t seem to know the difference between ‘descriptive’ and ‘too much information’ and some probably say a lot of things they have no intention of saying. Like I am actually a complete tool with attachment issues. Or I have so much baggage I’d need a warehouse to store it all. But maybe I’m just losing my sense of ‘cute’? I don’t know. I see the tag line ‘Are you my next ex-girlfriend?’ and I think ‘are you advertising the fact that you are planning to dump someone or assume you will be dumped before you even go out?’. Saying something like ‘Guaranteed better than your ex’ would be far more pithy and effective in my opinion. Then again, sometimes the whole reverse psychology thing does work.

I once received a profile from someone who assured me he would forget my birthday, hog the remote, ditch me to hang out with the boys, ring me up whilst completely off his face, never discuss his feelings and well, you get the idea. The whole thing was actually written quite well though and ended up getting a laugh out of me as opposed to a smile. He definitely had the sense of humour thing covered but in the end wasn’t someone I could see myself with. It did give me a couple of ideas though. Which have sprung to mind now that the Pussycat has passed on her site ID* to me. In the interests of offering an opinion on people who have contacted her (not because she needs one mind you, just cause she’d like one), she has given me her ID with the stipulation that I don’t ‘ruin her profile’ and make her ‘sound like an axe murderer’. I figure that leaves things pretty wide open.

I have always been curious what kind of reaction you would get if you promised to always take longer than necessary to get ready, call at least once a day to ask ‘what are you doing’, constantly expect others to pay, only listen to Britney Spears in the car (even his), frequently ask for opinions or advice which are then ignored, make an issue out of never getting wet hair at the beach, refuse to watch anything that doesn’t fall under the ‘chick flick’ heading, complain about clothes/skin/hair/weight etc., get upset over insignificant things, issue unrealistic demands, change your mind constantly AND flirt with absolutely everyone. What do you reckon? Of course I would never actually alter her profile to anything she hadn’t already approved but I can enjoy the thought.

*Just so as you know, she does not call herself ‘Pussycat’.

The Long Weekend

2006-10-03T16:49:00.000+10:00

Ok. So I was feeling slightly churlish on the weekend. I was also feeling extremely guilty that I was feeling slightly churlish. And while I’m at it, I was feeling like a bit of a git because I felt both guilty and churlish and its not that big a deal. Or maybe that was I felt like a git because I put myself into this situation in the first place – and now we’re sort of back to the churlish thing again. Basically my plans for Sunday fell through. This happens. My friend was sick, had been for the past week actually, and felt that it really wasn’t a good idea to do anything. This also happens and is totally fair enough. I have to admit however that my first thought was not ‘I hope they’re ok’ but rather ‘typical’ which I’m really not very proud about. I did think ‘I hope they’re ok’ right after that though.

You know its weird, I fully believe that you should never try to change anyone else. I also find myself trying to consciously put myself in others’ place because I am aware that the world doesn’t necessarily see things the way I do. At the same time however, I still sort of expect people to be like me. Or be the way I want them to be. So its hardly surprising really when things don’t turn out quite the way I want. There is a history of this person cancelling on me, and of me initiating the next arrangements. Rightly or wrongly it kind of feels like I’m a bit of an afterthought sometimes which intellectually I think is not the case. Were the situations reversed, I would try to make some gesture towards finding an alternate arrangement but maybe that’s just me.

So you might say I had a few uncharitable thoughts this weekend. If I hadn’t already planned on being in Sydney on Sunday, I would have driven to Canberra and spent some of the long weekend down there. Going down for Sunday afternoon didn’t seem worth it. Had I not felt that history was merely repeating itself (and I was the only thing being palmed off) then I probably would have taken the above more in my stride as well. As it was however, my plans didn’t work out and I was not enjoying one of my finest moments. Maybe it was just an off weekend though, cause I swear, if I didn’t know that I wasn’t in the middle of a PMS attack on the Saturday I might have wondered.

Normally I like walking through the city on sunny weekends, especially around this time of the year when around every corner there is a bride and groom getting their photos taken or a young family out spending time together. On this particular day though it seemed that everywhere I went there was a pregnant woman or a wedding party just ‘in the way’. Hmm…I was just an all round whiny chick this weekend wasn’t I? On the upside though, I did get to check out the Manly jazz festival on Monday. I headed out that way with my camera and my book and just soaked up the sun, sand and jazz. It was a pleasant and relaxing way to finish up the weekend and definitely left me in good spirits. So all in all it was actually a good long weekend.

Aversion Therapy

2006-09-29T16:01:00.000+10:00

Well recently, I have been trying to take my mind off things that I don’t want to think about. I have been out to lunch a few times with men (although I was related to one of them and totally the wrong gender for the other so its not quite as exciting). I have been out to a museum and a movie, I have hosted a ‘Bring Your Own Beef’ at The Mansion and I have been out for drinks with mixed company. On the plus side I once again participated in (or was the recipient of) much kissing, butt pinching and arse slapping (often an amusing pastime with the right person), sadly however, on the occasion in question it was all platonic and meant to go nowhere. Not that I actually wanted it to go anywhere, because I didn’t, but it might have been nice if there was something else that could’ve gone somewhere. You know? Maybe not.

As far as distractions go however, these were effective but only temporarily so. With the rest of my time I have been going with the theory that if I tire myself out then I won’t have the energy to think about stupid stuff. The most I seem to have gotten out of this is more muscle tone. Which in and of itself is actually a benefit anyway. Still, there is definitely nothing exciting to report and I am hanging out till my sister, the Pussycat, comes to stay. We have a plan to go out and potentially meet people. Whether we actually end up meeting anyone or not isn’t actually the point. Its more about doing stereotypically social things that other young, single, stupid and alcoholic people our age do, ie. putting ourselves in situations where we could easily meet people.

So maybe that activity will actually net something interesting to talk about and stop me returning to the fact that what I want and what I can have are sometimes two very different things. Not to mention the fact that what I want and what I think I want are also sometimes two very different things. I do try to keep these particular occurrences to a minimum as they tend to confuse the crap out of anyone for whom they become obvious but nobody’s perfect. Which reminds me of two things, the quote by Ashleigh Brilliant, ‘I may not be totally perfect, but parts of me are excellent’ (I rather like that) and the song I’m Just A Girl (which I actually heard again the other day). Neither of which are particularly significant, I just thought I’d share.

Anyway, before I get to the weekend of fun and childish larks that my sibling and I will embark upon together, there is the long weekend to fill. Assuming some other individuals do not bail, pike or otherwise act like total pansies, I should be occupied for most of it. I may even try to write more. To be honest over the past couple of weeks, anything I’d have written would probably have sounded pathetically whiny and even I get sick of the sound of my own voice. Just as I get sick of other people. I swear, whenever I read the comments on the SATC blog there seems to be an inordinate amount of trash talking between the sexes. Of course, I could just stop reading it but sometimes it is nice to remind myself that there are people out there with way bigger problems than me.

Crushed

2006-09-15T12:06:00.000+10:00

How do you crush a crush? How do you stop the mind from wandering where you prefer it wouldn’t and dwelling where you wish it didn’t? How do you stop thoughts from rattling around your head whose purpose really only serves to make you tired as opposed to actually getting you somewhere? Perhaps I should have taken notes last time. All I remember was that awareness that something was there and later the realisation that it wasn’t. But I don’t remember what came in the middle. Which could either be because I have a mind like a goldfish on occasion or perhaps because it is hard to remember something of which you might not have been totally conscious in the first place. Either way, I am feeling at a loss now.

What advice can you really offer to anyone in these circumstances? Even if its not a crush per se but perhaps a relationship that has been redefined as being less than what it was. What actually helps? Find something to take your mind off it? Remember that this is only one day out of many? Hold onto the fact that time heals all wounds? Be thankful that you don’t have a job cleaning up camel dung in Egypt? I can’t say that any of those would really do it for me. Or for my sister the Pussycat either I’m sure. In some respects we have been two different sides of the same coin recently and I feel just as inadequate trying to offer her consolation as…well I don’t actually know that she felt inadequate at all really, I just know I did.

I hate seeing people I care about struggling with anything. I always wish I could somehow make it better. However that might be accomplished. I was bored the other day and I got a questionnaire emailed to me about identifying what it takes to be my friend or something like that. One of the questions was if my friends could only be one thing out of four – what should they be and another was if my friend was going through a rough time, what would I try to do about it. I found both questions equally annoying because I don’t think my friendships can be defined that simply and they are all individual. Sometimes you need a bit of the silly and sometimes a little bit of the serious. Although I can’t always tell which would be more appropriate.

We usually all figure it out though in the end. You put one foot in front of the other and deal with the fact that Monday follows Sunday. You try to ignore the flat forehead you get from beating your head against the wall and whenever life knocks the stuffing out of you, you end up spending a little time putting it back. And as this is getting reflective, I now I think I need to go and do something frivolous for it is Friday. Yay. Any ideas?

I Need A New Hobby

2006-09-08T13:59:00.000+10:00

There is something to be said for being of a cautious nature. Or perhaps that was being lazy. Basically whatever it is that has stopped me from going broke, starting a degree I’m never going to finish, moving somewhere I really don’t want to live and generally getting myself in way over my head. It seems that occasionally when things throw me emotionally off balance (although not in a bad and falling on my arse way, just like when you’re walking across something and you find you need your arms out for balance kind of way), I grasp onto something else that will keep me busy and possibly be that elusive answer to the riddle of my life. Or perhaps that was the riddle of me. I have been told on more than one occasion by men that I am a riddle wrapped in mystery inside an enigma. What is that? Apart from obscure I mean. Or maybe that was an I am obscure…?

Anyway, my most recent Grand Idea was that I could afford a house. By myself. And not just any old house but one with at least two bedrooms and in an area that is not so out of the city that it may as well be in another state. Which is a plainly ridiculous notion at this point in my life. I’m not saying I could never do it, but tomorrow? There’d be a bigger chance of hell freezing over I think. So due to my not actually pursuing my Grand-Ideas-as-a-result-of-not-thinking-clearly over the past year I won’t become a proud home owner yet, I’m not living in a big city where English is a second language, I’m not living in a small country town either, I’m not employed as a pole dance teacher and am not earning qualifications in Stupid and Pointless Areas. Amongst other things.

Now I don’t think any of those could really be considered as particularly radical which now that I think about it, takes a little fun out it don’t you think? I mean if I’m going to be impulsive and act on all my whims (for which I am eternally grateful that I don’t) then fine. I would definitely have some more interesting stories to tell, like that one time, at band camp (sorry, lame joke), but since I don’t (and my band camp stories aren’t that interesting), I may as well have some more bizarre ideas that I have no intention of following through on. A quick scan for unusual careers has netted the following possibilities for my next coordination challenge: Golf Ball Marshal (its outdoors, sporty and has the potential to inspire bad jokes), Mortuary Beautician (you get to be a make-up artist and you never have to worry about your subject moving or making your job difficult) and Actor for a Haunted House (possibly involves travel and it could be kind of fun to scare the crap out of people continually).

With so many possibilities out there just imagine what I could come up with next time I feel the need for a distraction. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade they say. In the mean time though, writing about it will just have to do. Or perhaps not writing about it is more apt. Occasionally I write things that are quite specific (which does actually help me) but sometimes references really are obscure. Perhaps there’s more truth to that whole riddle thing than I thought.

Heart To Heart

2006-09-07T23:04:00.000+10:00

I got asked the other night how my love life was going. In one of the random and rare moments of near quiet that happen in The Mansion where I live, the PSW and I found ourselves sitting down together at the table to share a meal and a beer. Well actually he had the beer and I had the meal, I have never had a taste for the beverage. We also had a catch up on what’s been going on in our lives recently and pretty much on both sides, it was a whole lot of nothing. Not for want of trying however. You might say I just had the shortest, um…‘something’ that I’ve had in a long while (well, not including a few pash-and-dashes that is). It is probably preceded only by the couple of days I was ‘going with’ someone when I was twelve. Ah…those were the days.

So yeah, in the space of about half a week, things were, you could definitely be forgiven for thinking, ‘on’ and then definitely ‘off’ again and the whole thing seemed slightly complicated at the time because there was ‘history’ there. And no, it wasn’t the person I ‘went’ with in year six. Rather this was a person who I have been continually drawn back to over the past six years but with whom I seem to share monumentally bad timing. Since we both found we were living in Sydney, we have caught up only a handful of times but at those times it seems the possibility of an ‘us’ gets floated and then systematically thrown out. Only this time the idea was a little more than floated. And then it was thrown out. And I’m still not quite sure what I think about that.

Our relationship in my mind has always been kind of unique. Perhaps because he’s one of the few people who know me well and can call me on my bullshit. Conversation always seems to flow when we’re together and I rarely ever need to explain myself but at the same time, he frequently comes at things from another angle entirely which intrigues me. Because we can talk about practically everything, we have had a discussion about what was and what wasn’t and we are officially ‘cool’. We have also talked since and we are still cool but I guess its also kind of been on my mind. I am not desperately unhappy with the whole situation (and am therefore wondering if that lack of intense emotion signifies something) and truth be told, I still actually feel like a bit of an idiot.

Part of me wonders whether I deliberately get myself into situations that I know won’t go anywhere. The situation I am in now is vaguely familiar. ‘Its not you, its me’ doesn’t ever really make you feel any better in these circumstances although maybe it stops you obsessing what it was about you. So I am not upset but I would say that I was disappointed I guess. For once I wasn’t all weird over the situation which seemed a good thing but at the same time, that didn’t stop me from looking forward to some degree. Which was obviously now quite premature. And then, there’s another part of me that wonders whether this is really for the best and may serve as some sort of closure to the ‘what if’ question that occasionally pops up. Who knows. I really don’t. They say everything happens for a reason – maybe I just haven’t figured out the right one yet.

Slow News Day

2006-09-07T22:35:00.000+10:00

I suppose I should have tried to back date this post as it now seems rather inacurate but oh well.

Well I have to say that there is not really much to say at the moment. Despite spending part of my weekend in Bondi and Oxford Street, things have been relatively quiet. Or perhaps that was relatively comfortable. I had a long overdue catch up with the Italian Man and Nature Girl and also Mr Flatmate and as I have recently found out, his now fiancée. We ate, drank and were merry and its always nice when you can go out with couples and not feel like the third wheel. It doesn’t necessarily stop you from looking at them and hoping you can find something similar but I think an enjoyable evening was had by all.

A few other people joined us that evening as well and we each caught up on the comings and goings of everyone else (whether we knew them or not) and just let the evening flow. I believe we did start out with grand plans for a massive pub crawl but somehow bums got planted on seats, additional rounds were ordered and we forgot to migrate. We were all enjoying talking about everything and nothing, from wedding plans to racing around town with giant inflatable dinosaurs. As you do. There was of course the almost obligatory recap on my dating prospects or lack thereof as well.

Fortunately or not (whichever way you want to look at it really), I actually had something to report this time. I had pretty much decided this week that it was all past tense but the night managed to put a positive spin on the end of it for me. I just needed to hear a ‘yeah, right on, you deserve more than that’ this week and funnily enough that came from the Italian Man. Sometimes I probably do need to be told that I should just chill out and give things more of a go but sometimes I just want to pander to the girl part of me that doesn’t want anyone else to solve my problems or offer advice but to just listen instead. And I know there is no logic to that but thats women for you.

As an aside I would like to point out here that there was nothing inherently bad about the so called ‘dating prospect’ (or the experience as a whole). It was just that whilst he ticked a lot of the right boxes, the ‘it’ factor was just missing (I am assuming for him too as he didn’t contact me either). That connection that has you wishing you could share something with them to find out what they think, or wondering how soon you can talk to them again just wasn’t there. My only wondering about someone else at the moment, and its more curiosity than anything else I think (inspired by something else entirely), has actually been directed towards someone else. Hardly a good sign really when you think about it.

And speaking of that someone else, I just thought you’d like to know that in my effort to get in touch with this person again I got to feel like a prize knob by exhibiting behaviour which seemed unfortunately stalkerish. After calling an old work place to be totally fobbed off by the wicked bitch of the west (‘well if you are a friend I can only assume he will be calling you’), I rang seemingly random numbers in the phone book till I located his parents. Sad but true. You may commence laughing. Now who says I don’t know how to have fun?

Heartbreak Hill

2006-09-07T22:25:00.000+10:00

Something that I didn’t mention at the time was that Sydney recently hosted, the City 2 Surf. This is the annual race where thousands of people from all over Australia come to run through Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs. The route is about 14k’s long and goes from, well, the city to the surf really. It starts off at the intersection of William, Park and College Streets in the city and finishes up in Bondi just short of the Bondi Beach Pavilion. This year it seemed like half the country woke up early to be part of the race as either a participant or a spectator. There was a record number of entrants at over 63,000 people, which is a lot for Sydney, and I hear Bondi was packed. I actually wasn’t there though. I was part of the other half of Australia that Sunday and I woke up late with a hangover.

I was out the night before celebrating the imminent departure of two of the Bring Your Own Beef Crew*. Or that was celebrating their presence while I still could as they were about to depart for their new adventure in Melbourne. Many of us were partaking of pints or other measurements of alcohol served by that fine establishment, the Lord Nelson and it was a fun night. It would have in no way prepared me however for ‘Heartbreak Hill’, a notorious stretch of the race route which would be a breeze if only you were travelling in the opposite direction. Unfortunately though, for the less than extremely fit, it has been most aptly named. Now this has absolutely nothing to do with the price of fish of course but it somehow got me thinking – can anything truly prepare you for Heartbreak Hill? At least in a figurative sense?

In my more cynical moments I start to wonder if I’ll ever really find myself in a serious relationship that doesn’t end in heartbreak. And I’m not whinging ‘poor me’ here, more questioning why it could actually work without said heartbreak. I know it does of course but still, sometimes I wonder if I could live with one guy for the rest of my life. Maybe I hear too much living with five boys and need to remember that girls are not so innocent either when we get together. Maybe I see too much as well. I mean as much as I’m rather amused that ‘Dick Masterson’ obviously read (at least two sentences on) another entry, and I happen to find parts of his site quite funny, I can’t really imagine wanting to spend more than about 10 minutes with him or any of the people who take him seriously. But I’m sure that’s not really a problem because I assume at least, the sentiment would be totally reciprocated.

So occasionally, faced with members of the male sex that I don’t understand, I am left pondering just what sort of person could possibly turn out to be ‘the one’. Or in other words, who could I put up with and who could put up with me. By and large I’m sure this is a reasonably pointless exercise. No one gets to plan out their life to that extent (and if they do, they’re probably not very happy with it anyway). Occasionally though (and unfortunately sometimes), I don’t come up with something better to do with my time and I figured the net was as good a place as any to publicise some insignificant thoughts on the topic.

*This is literally ‘BYOBeef’ as a group of us get together every Sunday for a BBQ dinner and we provide our own meat.

This Is Why I Don't Date

2006-08-14T14:45:00.000+10:00

Dear Gauchegirl,

I have a question for you. As we all know, playing the dating game induces a lot of stupid behaviour. Normally rational and logical people can become complete and utter idiots as they start analysing and over analysing everything. Whatever actual mental capacity they initially possessed seems to take a leave of absence and the results never cease to amaze me. I mean take the example of this girl meeting a guy she’d been communicating with for the first time. You’d think this kind of thing should be easy.

This is the kind of situation where you write and you talk, you agree on meeting arrangements and there you go. If you like each other, you’ll go out again. Uncomplicated. Except for when someone can’t even commit to being in town in the first place and say they’ll let someone know mid-weekend. I don’t know about you but the words flaky, disinterested and to be honest, rude, come to my mind. That might be excused however by them later advising that they will definitely be around and would like to meet up, but coming in an email (somewhat immediately on the back of a phone call and another email)…other words come to mind. Words such as ‘back’ and ‘off’. It should never be necessary to come across as a stalker.

As far as first impressions go though, would that be any less favourable than ‘high maintenance’, which is possibly how this girl appeared when she again couldn’t seem to make up her mind. After agreeing on a meeting place, she asked to change it half an hour later and didn’t really give the actual reason. And this was before she’d even met the guy. Afterwards, probably in the space of about an hour she managed to bring death into the conversation, generally try and talk the man’s ear off and introduce him to her best friend. Not exactly typical. Shortly after that she practically pulled out the family pictures and began telling some of the stories that are probably best kept reserved for a later occasion.

Now none of this is actually the end of the world or anything. Although one might question the sanity of asserting you can be both neurotic and a good bullshit artist – keeping your mouth shut occasionally does have its merits. Surprisingly enough though, her evening actually lasted more than a couple of hours (which is longer than some of her friends can put up with really). At the end she tried not to put him off too much with her driving skills as she returned him to his car but then they parted ways with a perhaps somewhat vague assertion that they should do this again. Since then she has spent time going over what was said and done in an attempt to work out what his impression of her actually was. She’s not getting anywhere funnily enough.

Now my question to you is what breed of moron gets nervous about going out for a drink, makes a production out of meeting up with someone, leaves things kind of in the air and then spends her time worrying about where it all might go from here - by herself? Oh yeah, that’s right, YOU.

Sincerely,
Yourself.

P.S. I’m not talking to you till you get your brain back.

(I would just like to say that I am now over my slight aberration and back to my 'normal' slightly odd self)

Everybody Is Looking For Something

2006-08-11T00:08:00.000+10:00

Well if you happened to be browsing through Sam And The City on the SMH website today, you might have come across What Modern Women Are Looking For. Yet another piece that purports to inform those disillusioned daters out there what it is that today’s gals happen to desire in a guy. Does it actually accomplish this? Well no, not really. It talks about the confusion felt by many out there at the moment. It talks about us wanting metrosexuals and retrosexuals. It also talks about women who don’t need men but nevertheless want them to be the type of guys who would be quite useful if in fact they were ‘needed’. No absolute conclusions are reached in the post, however it is expressed that at the end of the day, we still pretty much want what it was that we wanted a couple of decades ago. Whatever that was.

To be honest, I’m not actually knocking this lack of a definitive answer. As one of the commenters so rightly states, in order to answer what it is that women actually want - it really just depends. It depends because everyone is an individual, so no single standard will be applicable to everyone (duh!). And lets face it, it depends because women change their minds faster than the time it takes to order a Big Mac (if they happen to have made a decision in the first place), so whatever they want now, might only be good for the next five minutes or so. I’m not sure if I was being facetious then or not. In any case, theres no easy way of knowing the answer despite all the posturing that’s going on and you just have to look over at the other sam to see how some guys are getting caught in the crossfire.

And I do have sympathy for the guys. Really. Despite the fact that some facets of society have undoubtedly progressed, I think they still have the harder job. Women sometimes make it difficult for themselves, sure, but we’re not exactly blameless in the battle of the sexes. For example, the dark and brooding thing is definitely out. We are not doing the enigmatic persona right now. Strong and silent is a description that should fit your white goods and not your man. We want someone who will sit down to openly communicate and share with us instead. Someone who is in touch with their feelings and who seeks to function effectively within a co-dependant relationship (this is beginning to sound like a bullshit bingo wordlist). However if James Bond were to turn up tomorrow asking for a date…well we could definitely overlook any minor flaws.

We tell guys that all we want is someone with honesty, integrity and a great sense of humour and in the next breath allow that they have to be able to fix whatever is broken around the house, eradicate (and possibly exterminate) any insects or rodents, be willing to take out the trash and to look sexy doing it. Its not like women are fickle or anything though. We just think ahead. Or we don’t always think. You would have to say that we certainly think nothing of indiscriminately combining values, characteristics, traits and abilities on our running list of the perfect guy. But this is the way it always is. Its not as if people haven’t discussed this topic ad nauseam already but it inevitably gets brought up and off we go again. Its not that I mind though really, obviously, but I do kinda wish some people weren’t so self-righteous about it.

Not Quite The Ring Of Truth

2006-08-10T09:04:00.000+10:00

Well it was brought to my attention the other day that I have perhaps been shooting myself in the foot. Figuratively speaking of course. I’m sure it would be possible to literally shoot myself in the foot…which now brings to mind the story of a guy I went to school with who went spear fishing one afternoon and didn’t account for the refraction in the water…but that’s a different topic altogether. In any case, I have a love of jewellery you see, its one of my concessions to being girly, and it is such that I feel sort of naked if I leave the house without it. As a consequence, people rarely see me without a pair of earrings and a number of rings, one of which I wear on the fourth finger of my left hand.

Now I know that there are guys out there who use this as a method of ascertaining whether a girl is single or not. When checking someone out, they manage to scan the chest, face and ring finger in about 2.3 seconds (it probably only takes about .3 seconds to check for a ring but why miss out on the whole show – and I am not particularly bothered by this as some women assess men just as blatantly, we can only identify men who are definitely married however). Anyway, if she is ‘encumbered’ shall we say, it is easy to assume that she is attached and therefore not fair game. At which point most guys move on. Now I also know that men are not always the most observant of creatures so I’m not sure why I thought it might be significant that the item I wear on my ring finger contains no stone. But I think I did.

Like the majority of females out there I assume, I am traditional when it comes to things like engagement rings. Well, in the sense that I think they should contain a diamond set in gold at least. Woes betide the person who gives me a round cut stone in yellow gold. Actually, I would probably count myself damn lucky to accept any ring that was offered out of love but given the choice, I’d opt for the princess cut in white gold. So sue me. Until I get to wear a ring for a reason other than my own vanity however, I choose to stay away from wearing anything that I believe might be confused as representing something that it doesn’t. Except that I obviously do because I was asked about it the other night. Or rather, I was asked if I was ever asked about it.

I must admit that I am asked about this ring a fair bit but mostly by females and pretty much because they think that its funky and slightly unusual. I’m not usually asked by guys – but then I wouldn’t be would I if they thought I was attached? I don’t think anyone could assume that it was a wedding band though, or an engagement ring. And even if it was a commitment or promise ring (and don’t get me started on what I think about those), you’re supposed to wear them on the other hand aren’t you? But maybe I have it backwards, and a girl is just not supposed to wear anything on ‘that’ finger till she’s no longer single. Maybe I have been sabotaging my chances because I’m actually comfortable being single. And maybe I don’t much care one way or the other but came up with nothing else to crap on about today.

Census Night

2006-08-09T15:21:00.000+10:00

So last night was Census Night. Theoretically the whole country* sat down to fill out forms asking us about our key characteristics. Namely things like where we live, how old we are, what we do for a living and how much we earn. All for a good cause naturally. The Australian Bureau of Statistics gathers this information every couple of years and it becomes part of the basis on which things like our social services and facilities are planned and applied. At least that’s my understanding. It also has a number of other ramifications and the potential to tell us some really useful things**. Like where all the single men are!

Ok, that was a little tongue in cheek but the census does provide the means to do this. There are a number of nice little boxes corresponding to different forms of marital status (and why is it ‘marital status’ can I just ask, why can’t it be ‘singular status’ since that’s the way you started out– that way being married might be seen more as something you haven’t yet moved on to and not a state which you haven’t actually achieved). I of course had to fill out the form by striking through the box relating to the ‘single’ status so now that my form is completed, I will officially be recognised as being such. And just another statistic really.

That aside, whilst I was completing my bit on the house form, I had the vague thought that if they just asked a few additional questions then we could get a whole lot more out of the project. I mean I can understand that government bodies may wish to know if we are providing unpaid care and assistance to the elderly. Your average Joe however, might be more concerned with say how on Earth one can understand women...well it sounds plausible. The short answer here is of course that you don’t but experts seem to believe that you can intuit a number of things from multiple choice questions so you might at least be able to get a little closer.

For example, you could ask women when they want a man to do something for them do they a) hint, complain and / or nag repeatedly till it gets done, b) consider that as a female they do not need to ask for what they want but reserve the right to be pissed when they don’t get it, c) go out and do it themselves ensuring that it gets done properly and in good time, d) ask politely or e) achieve the end in another way, the logic of which would only be understandable by another woman. To the men we could ask are you of the opinion that women should a) speak when they’re spoken to, b) speak only in the ad breaks, c) only discuss topics that they actually know something about, d) converse if they can actually articulate a point in less than ten minutes or e) always express themselves as you value all forms of communication and would like to place no restriction on what actually comes out of their mouths.

I’m not exactly sure what the answers (in general) would tell you from these questions. If nothing else however, they would at least make filling out the census more interesting. What do you think?

*I read somewhere that some travelling circus performers did not get census forms despite them having been stationed somewhere for several weeks.
**For instance did you know that in the last census, 70,509 people declared themselves members of the Jedi faith.

How To Lose A Girl In Ten Ways

2006-07-31T22:38:00.000+10:00

Many of us are familiar with the movie How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days. Maybe not everyone has actually seen it because lets face it, a lot of people don’t really go in for the whole hearts and flowers genre of romantic comedy. It was a cute chick flick however that was widely advertised and it did good things for sales of ladies eveningwear in yellow. It also gently brought up the topic of things women do in relationships that more often than not produce negative consequences. They were portrayed in the typical Hollywood fashion which was over the top of course but it may still have made a few women think. It made me think – about the reverse.

I can easily see how a girl might get rid of a guy (whether she means to or not). Once that obsessive compulsive cupboard gets opened for instance there could well be a rush for the back door but what happens when a girl just won’t let go? Or more to the point, what do guys do when they are not man enough to break things off themselves? I am female and on behalf of my suffering sisters I am allowed to be biased here. As some people might have experienced, there are guys who find it easier getting the woman to do the dumping. And wouldn’t you know it, if you were wondering on exactly how one might accomplish that, there are sources on the internet that can tell you. Just askmen.com.

The suggestions I read actually started off with a warning. It was strongly recommended that you first gauge your subject’s personality prior to trying anything out. Just in case they were they type of person who saw problems as 'projects' and would want to help you work through them. Assuming that the soon-to-be ex was not in need of getting their head read however (and that you didn’t find that so patronising that you couldn’t read on), they had the following to say…Hang with her girlfriends. The tactic here apparently is to make her feel unloved, unwanted and insignificant. That’s certainly a one way to start I guess, and that was only number ten. The next was let yourself go. Which is also self-explanatory really, with just a touch of poetic justice if it worked.

From there it moved on to be a bad date and become what women ‘want’. These were about appearing incompatible and discouraging all desire to be around each other. If she likes going out, break dates to watch football on tv and if she craves communication, share every single feeling with her, call her constantly, get emotional on her and simply smother her. Like she wouldn’t suddenly find that odd? But if that doesn’t work you can always bring out the kink or perhaps start stupid fights (a lot of them I assume). They suggest attacking things she has pride in. I personally would suggest growing up but that is obviously not the point. The next point was start the ‘talk’.

It is considered opinion that when women dump their boyfriends they couch it gently in long-winded explanations. If you can get the head start on this however and be ambiguous to boot, she might just get sick of it first. If that doesn’t work, you can always compare her to your mother. Unfavourably. That will most probably tick her off but if its not enough, utter the F-word. And just to be clear here, they weren’t talking about swearing (although who would want that?), they were talking about ‘fat’. Pot shots on a girl’s weight never go down well. If however she is strong and you want to show her exactly how much she doesn’t deserve you, there is always the option to cheat on her. Like that will solve more problems than it creates. Its just great what you can find on the internet these days isn’t it?

So ladies, just a word to the wise, if your guy is acting weird, make sure he’s not running down the list. And guys who think these ideas are great, what I wish for you is not repeatable in polite conversation.

A Dubious Honour

2006-07-24T15:28:00.000+10:00

Like many women I do periodically suffer from the ‘why wasn’t it me’ affliction. This is more often than not, a totally pointless exercise where something happens to your best friend, your work colleague, the person who happens to be standing beside you or just about anyone else really and one of your main responses is to bemoan that fact that it didn’t happen to you. It could be about something significant like a promotion or a bonus, or about something so ridiculous, it should actually be embarrassing. Like getting felt up in a nightclub. What? I’m not attractive enough? Why’d everyone else I came with get touched inappropriately!? Stupid but true. I’m not proud here, just sharing. Basically because I got to be that girl on the weekend.

I headed out of town on Friday and got to enjoy the happy hour at the hotel I was staying at and the evening meal on the company tab. I then went out to sample the nightlife and within about ten minutes or so, some enterprising guy decided to cop a feel. As a female, I think I’m supposed to be morally outraged by that. Perhaps have a rant about the objectification of women – or tell you that I punched his lights out or something to that effect. Nothing that exciting happened unfortunately. I basically just turned around and laughed at him. And a small part of me does actually hope that he at least enjoyed it because it sure did jack for me. That way it wasn’t a complete waste (although that’s very un-PC I know).

Of course, it might have been a different story if I hadn’t partaken of a little social lubrication prior to going out or if it had actually happened to one of my work colleagues and not to me. I can get a little aggressive on behalf of other people. I once endeavoured to claw a guy who refused to let my friend go in a bar and I sincerely hope it was painful. On the weekend however, I wasn’t really that fussed. More bemused I think by the fact he’d gotten that fresh and where it wasn’t at all crowded. This definitely does not happen to me very often. I guess I know why people do it, I’ve heard commentary from sociology and psych majors before but I must admit that I still don’t get it.

To my way of thinking, what do you actually accomplish in a couple of seconds that makes it worthwhile? The fact that you did it so your mates know you’re capable of feeling up some random female? Woohoo! It sure as hell isn’t going to improve your technique with women, that’s for sure. And personally, I would think that in this day and age, that there is the very real potential to get the crap kicked out of you for this kind of behaviour. More and more women are taking up kick-boxing classes and the like and we are all told that we don’t have to put up with unwanted attention so there is in fact a good possibility of the guy coming off second best. Before another male steps in on her behalf. Each to their own though I guess.