On the morning of my wedding day I will not be enjoying a delicious breakfast in bed. I will not be basking in the morning sunshine, contemplating the day ahead. Nope, not me. Instead I plan to get up at dawn for a run, and after a rushed breakfast I will be dragging my brothers and sisters out of bed and heading to The Riverside. Why? Because we only get the venue for all of the Saturday and till midday on the Sunday, which means all decorating has to be done on the wedding day, We plan to get married at around 2pm, and I hope to have the reception venue decorated by 10am!

To save money and my sanity I have decided on a simple table theme of old boys and girls annuals (does anyone remember those?!) and mismatched glass jars, kinda like this:

From here.

To prevent decoration burnout, and to keep things on schedule my "team"and I are also going to put up a couple of large scale decorations, hanging from the small stage and the peaked roof, instead of multiple small things. I am super excited about our main and (depending on the size we make it) possibly only ceiling decoration...a giant mobile of origami hearts!

YAY!

Look at this beautiful flock of origami birds!

I like the idea of hanging them from a branch, or a twisted piece of driftwood?

Here's a good use for some of the hearts post-wedding.

I love the idea we will make hundreds of  hearts, and hang the mobile like a huge cloud of love over our guests!

The origami hearts will also tie in with our invites.....oooohhhh...the suspense!

(I have no idea where I got the last few pictures, sorry)



And the winner is...

The Riverside community and cafe! We are hiring the hall on the property, and the wedding will be catered by the award winning cafe, with food grown on the grounds and locally sourced meat etc...Yay!
Riverside appears to essentially be a commune, the hippy sort, which has been in existence since the 1940's. I never knew it was even there until I stumbled over it in a random web search while panicking about our lack of venue. Mum and Dad visited it for me and pronounced the staff lovely, and Mum stated the decor didn't make her "want to puke"....charming.
In fact, the surroundings are lovely, the food is excellent and we hope it will great place for our reception.I have all sorts of plans for the decoration, including an installation of sorts...

I am not sure if this particular cow comes standard,time will tell..but aren't the views of the mountains lovely?!

Lets start with the where.

Our wedding is going to be held in New Zealand, in the Tasman region. This area is known for its national parks, lovely beaches, stunning scenery, and best of all mild climate! The cherry on top for us is that my parents happen to live there...and have an extensive garden....

That extensive garden will hopefully be the key to saving money, as not only are we having the ceremony there, but we are also gathering and DIYing all of our flowers. This will be a big job, but I plan to rope in a few people to help me out!

With that plan in place, I began looking for a reception venue in the area, and that is where I ran into trouble!

Originally I wanted to hold the reception in the small seaside town of Mapua...near my parents and a convenient place for all of our out-of-town guests. This was a big Fail!

The first venue double booked us, then tried to charge us extra to book the following weekend. Because the location of this place was so good we hoped that third time would be the charm, and I flew to NZ to meet with them and sign a contract...and then barely four days later, once I was safely back in Australia they emailed me and informed me they were selling up! I was so annoyed, as they would have known at the time that they were going on the market, yet the owner stood next to me and watched me sign a contract for the end of the year. We have now realised they did this because they wanted to sell the business as a going concern...complete with our "future business". Needless to say, we cancelled our contract and eventually got our money back!

So then the hunt really began. I saw some awful places, too tacky for words. Some places were so lapse in their email communication that I gave up, and some venue managers were just plain uninterested and rude.
I was looking for a place with some character, and nice surroundings. If I had REALLY wanted character I would have defiantly gone with The Playhouse. The staff were super friendly and helpful, and the food was very tasty, but I sadly couldn't ignore the inside cave decor. Another option was the Moutere inn, but I wasn't so keen on having to organise a caterer, we may get some local brews from them though. Founders park was also an option, but as cute as it is, it is just too far from the ceremony location. After emailing more than fifteen possible options, I finally had a shortlist, all meeting the character/low budget requirements!
Mum and Dad went and checked them out for me, and they came up with a winner.....

Hello old friend.

So, I'm back! I thought I may just stop blogging for good, but I found I have missed it.
So much has happened since I was last here. A friend has been buried, and a number of our friends have fled Christchurch, with no plans to return. I sold my wedding dress, and made the donation to the Red Cross. Since then there has been the horror of Japan, the death of Osama Bin Laden, Kate and Wills getting married and the controversial refugee issues here in Australia, just to name a few.
Things are going well for us. Dickie has celebrated his 30th and I my 28th. We have a number of NZ friends moving over here in the coming months, something we are both looking forward to. Ironically we are now planning our move back to NZ, sometime before our wedding!
Yes, that's right, we now have a date...and a reception venue...and a photographer....and a celebrant.
I will start again with the wedding posts tomorrow, but today I just wanted to say Hi :-)

I just don't know what to do with myself.

I just returned from New Zealand, where I saw firsthand the devastation caused by Tuesdays earthquake in Christchurch.

A city I used to call home, and that most of NZ friends and family still do has been decimated. Iconic buildings and areas lost. The death toll keeps on rising, including now people I know. As a nurse, it was frustrating for me to be watching the news unfold from my parents home in Nelson, yet be unable to get there to help. I took the first possible flight to Christchurch the next day, but by then they were standing down all volunteer medical staff. So, to do my bit I am auctioning off one of my wedding dresses, with all proceeds going to The Salvation Army Quake appeal. Please help me with this by posting about this on your blogs/facebook/twitter...the dress can be sold to both New Zealanders and Australians...

If you want to donate, the agencies are listed here.

Works in progress.

Here's the DIY so far. I made ribbon "flowers" by hand sewing wide running stitch along one side, I then pulled on one end to gather it all together in a rosette and stitched the two ribbon ends together. Once I had a wee pile of these, complete with seed beads sewn into the centre, I started to put things together!
The "leaves" are made by using blanket stitch to sew two pieces of felt together, and the "veins" with  running stitch. I have made all the corsages for the grooms party and my dad, and am now using the pieces from the top picture to make some hairpieces for my bridesmaids....

From here.

from here.