The wedding so far

With the wedding only 6 months away now, it seems quite a lot closer on the other side than it was say, with 7 months to go. Things are getting so much more real. I can't wait for the big day, but on the other hand, I'm also trying to savour every last moment we have just being us, as separate entities (albeit living together and behaving like a married couple anyway) and not as husband and wife. Don't get me wrong, I can't wait to be Mrs HSH and love him to no end, but getting married is an enormous decision to make and inevitability, you realise that life will never be the same again. After marriage, comes buying and building a house, then kids, then more kids, then....who knows where live will take us after that.

Anyway, here's a recap of the fantastic vendors we have chosen for our wedding and our experiences with them so far.

 Emu bottom Homestead

The girls there, Deanne and Liz have been very professional and helpful. We wanted to do something different. Ie, a outdoor reception under the stars and they were very willing to accomodate that. The menu sounds gorgeous and from what I've heard, Emu Bottom have recently good food. This is very important as I'm a bit of a foodie and may just be slightly horrified if the food turns out to be bad. Unfortunately, a tasting wasn't availabe, so I guess we'll have to find out on the day.

The dress maker I'm going to is a passionate and experienced couturier and I have 100 percent faith in her that I would be happy with the dress. I love the idea of being involved in the creation and design of the dress (and also with other things in the wedding), so although I didn't fall in love with any of the off the rack dresses I've tried on, I think this dress will grow on me regardless of how it turns out.

Ben Adams Wedding Photography

Ben Adams is a photographer I found through Polkadot bride (saw one of his gorgeous weddings featured) and I just instantly loved the style, clarity, and candid but whimsicle images he takes. We will have to fly him down from Newcastle (where he is located) for the day but I think it will all be worth it. We will also have our engagement photos taken by him at the Grampians in November. Can't wait!

Lisa Carter-hair and make up artist

I heard about Lisa Carter through the vogue forum. She is a western hair and make up artists who specialises in asian make up. I have yet to have my trial with her but have booked her services (due to her reputation) for our wedding already. Hoping I haven't made the wrong choice!

Momental Design

I can't stop raving about Momental Designs at the moment. We have just booked them them for our invitations and they are just devine. They basically design (as directed by us) and hand paint (in part) the invites. We have already seen the first draft of our invite but I didn't post it as it has some personal details on it. We are already delighted with the first draft and will be making some changes to it. I have no doubt that the end result will be just what I want.

Further, we're going with Sassy hair and make up for the bridesmaids, wedding rings will be from Holloway Diamonds, Mr HSH and his groomsmen will be hiring their suits from Spurling and i'm starting to look for jewellery to wear on the day.

To be organised:

Florist
Cake
Dancing
Decorations and other details

I'm sure there are more to do. Regardless, I feel reasonably organised. I'm sure that after our trip to the Whit sundays, I will realise that theres only 5 months to go and will gear up once again for more wedding planning!

wedding dress-2nd fitting

I was delighted to finally go to ++ for my 2nd fitting! This second fitting involves me trying on the Calico or toile which is a plain cut version of the shape and cutting of the dress before they cut the official fabric.

Anyway, apart from being 20 minutes late for our appointment, we spent about 30 minutes talking about tulle versus silk chiffon, french versus english tulle, white versus ivory etc.

To be honest, besides the obvious choice of choosing tulle over silk chiffon-I felt that tulle would give the dress a more soft and floating look, something that was more suited for a wedding compared to silk chiffon which was beautiful to touch, but maybe more suited to an evening dress. I had a hard time choosing between the types of tulle and colour of the dress.

In the end, it did occur to me that french tulle was devine to touch and had a more shimmery glisten to it compared to english tulle. However, it was also a fair bit more expensive. Ultimately, the decision was to have 3-4 layers of english tulle on the bottom and 2 layers of french tulle on top.

In terms of colour, I'm still not really sure what I went with...LOL, I think it's a shade lighter than Ivory....honestly, I'm not really sure. It looked pretty good though.

The lace pictured above is not french. I remember going for one of my first appointments and was shown this lace, which the dressmaker recommended for my budget but for some reason, I wasn't taken by it. However, when I saw it again, I thought it looks quite beautiful and even had some beading sewn into it already. In any case, we will be talking about the lace etc in one of our future appointments. Will I stretch my budget for french lace? Now i'm not so sure...I was quite happy with what I saw today.

Anyway, the 3rd appointment is in October! Seems so far away! Alas, it probably isn't. I'm going interstate to sail the whitsundays next week. Will hopefully return to blog about my first trip on a catamaran after some family bonding with MR HSH's parents.