No longer a bride

Nearly three months after our wedding, I can finally say we're officially done with wedding-related stuff.

Posted out the thankyou cards a couple of weeks ago, which I should have done earlier, but had to wait for the cards to arrive from the photograher, and come up with something to write in them!

And the last wedding thing happened this morning: the big official wedding photo album arrived by courier from NZ. It's a lot bigger than I expected (takes up the whole coffee table!), so I'll have to find a good home for it in our teeny flat. I'll post up some 'unboxing' photos later.

Almost feel a bit sad that the wedding stuff is all over - guess I'll have to unsubscribe from those wedding related blogs now huh :)

Edit: I've just uploaded some unboxing pics to flickr

I'm a married woman!

The wedding has been and gone - went by so fast!
The good:

• Outdoor ceremony - would have been ultra hot in the sun (hit 24-25 degrees, and no clouds. NZ is pretty harsh when there are no clouds). Also we had lawn games set up which gave some of the guests stuff to do - croquet and petanque, which was a bit different
  
  
  
• Getting the 'formal' photos done before the ceremony/guests show up, as that gave us about 30 mins to actually socialise with guests before going in for dinner
• My 'tealight' candles - looked great, went with our slightly 'English' theme, and got lots of comments! Idea was found in a NZ home decorating magazine (can't remember which right now), and the total cost was about NZ$30 for all the cups, saucers, teapots and jugs and another NZ$60ish for the candle wax and wicks - cheaper than buying nice candles in normal holders, and some of the cups and saucers are really nice (Queen Anne, Royal Doulton etc). Can't find many pics of them actually in the venue tho.
  
  
  
  
  
• Paper parasols for outside - still got a bit sunburnt, but they looked nice and worked well!
  
  
  
  Got three of them in Wellington, NZ at a store called redcurrant I think (I'd buy most of the store if was living there! Gotta find a link for them), but Lucy and Abi forgot to use them! Never mind :)
  
• Having the bar open when guests arrived - got heaps of good comments from people that they could sit with a beer/wine while the ceremony was on!
• The cake! It was HUGE (probably still some of it floating around Nelson), and tasted great. Thanks to Chocolate Velvet in Nelson for this.
  
  
• My dress! Thanks Vera Wang, and The Wedding Shop at Selfridges. And thanks to my sisters and cousin for making the matching sashes on the dresses (sorry Vera, I wasn't paying £400 or whatever for a bit of taffetta silk!)
  
  
  
• Four days of no carbs for the leadup! Didn't really loose much weight, but lost some of the fat on my face (yup, chubby cheeks!). Might try to keep up the no or low carbs in the future if I'm not hard out exercising, as I felt pretty good. Was hard tho, as I pretty much live on pasta and rice!
• The 'first dance' song... 'Let's stay together' by Al Green (ya know, the one from Pulp Fiction). And since our wedding, I've heard it played at least 4 times in different places, spooky
  
• And so much more that I can't remember!

wedding songs

I've been trying to think of songs to play at our wedding - either at the ceremony, or at the start of the reception. I would love to get some acoustic guitarists to play...
I have few ideas, but need more!

Here's what I have:
Foo Fighters - Another Round (From the In Your Honour Album)
Foo Fighters - Everlong (From The Colour and the Song Album) - also played at Monica and Chandler's wedding on Friends by a string quartet, so I can't decide if this is totally tacky! :)
Led Zeppelin - The Rain Song (From Houses of the Holy Album) - just a song I've always loved
Faith No More - Easy (hmmm not too sure, easily mistaken for lionel richie!)
Lou Reed - Perfect Day (again, possibly a bit overdone?)
Nirvana - Oh Me (from the unplugged album - not sure if this was a cover?)
Outkast - The way you move. I'm sure is a cover?
The Police - too many to name!
Guns 'n' Roses - Patience...

If we had the unlimited budget, and connections in high places, I think I'd be hiring/kidnapping The Black Seeds (NZ dub/reggae/whatever) to play :)

little blue-green box

went with k to Tiffany's & Co at the Royal Exchange, Bank, after work today to get our wedding bands! very exciting (for me!)... nobody's allowed to peek in the box tho!

the salesman was really nice, and put up with me showing up earlier in the week and trying on lots of stuff. I was suprised that platiunum rings are pretty much the same price there as they are in the High Street, and it was so much more relaxed in Tiffany's.. no waiting around to get other sizes rushed from other stores, no hordes of people bustling around, no queues... mmm

dainty toes

Now I have my wedding dress (yay!), am looking into shoes...

The dream shoes are jimmy choo's and waaay to expensive (around £300+). But I've come across similar designs at about a third of the price!

The jimmys: 'Syria':


From Benjamin Adams (at Bridal Rogue Gallery in W1)

'Miranda'


'Christie' - almost the same as the jimmy's but with some kinda cute diamantes


'O'Hara'

successful weekend

one of the busiest weekends for ages for me..

• got my wedding dress (vera wang!) and it's perfect - too expensive of course :)
• ran in the Race for Life (did the 5km in about 35-40 mins) - was baking hot
• got most of the wedding invites made - ran out of a few things towards of the end, and still have to write in the names and addresses, but the hardest bit is done!