You and Me: Speeches, Love & An Awfully Big Adventure

After the falling-off-my-chair-in-front-of-our-entire-wedding-audience incident, we got down to the good stuff - the food. We snacked on the most scrumptious cannelloni, yummy chicken & herbed lamb, and the most gorgeous pastry slice for dessert. Amazing. Soon after that, it was time for the most beautiful part of the evening - the speeches!

Being a bit of a control freak, I have to admit: I was a little nervous. Not being able to know what our family members and friends, and even Jase himself, were planning on talking about in their speeches was scary - but turns out, those fears were completely unfounded. You guys, they blew me away. I laughed, I pulled faces, I cried. It was amazing. And seeing pictures like this one, which was my beautiful mum's reaction to my dad's speech, just make my day.


First up was my dad - who did such a great job! Sure, I may be biased, but I do believe I have the cutest father on the planet. He was a little nervous - but his speech was beautiful. He only threw in a handful of 'dad jokes' too.. something which we always tease him about mercilessly.




Jason's dad was up next - he spoke so well, and absolutely loved having the microphone! His speech was lovely & heartfelt, but the highlight was when he finished with: 'Aly. Thank you for loving my son.' Sob!



After the traditional speeches from the dads, Jase had his turn with the microphone. He'd shown me some of his speeches, so I could help him with the thank-you's, but had saved the best part until last. The card he'd gifted me earlier in the day had been a cute cartoon revolving around the general theme of 'Once in a Lifetime'. Jason's speech was gorgeous - telling me he was so excited to have me as his wife, and that I was his once in a lifetime.



Jason's best man & brother followed with another awesome speech - made all the more special, since he'd flown out from London to attend the wedding.


And then, the tear-jerker of the evening - my lovely Maid of Honour.


Miss K started off so well, telling our guests how she'd known us for nearly our entire relationship - and then teared up, as she continued. It was so gorgeous. She made mention of her favourite quote in her speech: do you know where it's from?
               “To love would be an awfully big adventure.”

Hearing her kind words about what sort of a friend I was to her & what we'd been through together... it was really humbling. I'm so lucky to have a best friend who has been there through thick and thin with me, who's travelled with me & survived to tell the tale, who's crashed on the floor of my apartment, and who appreciates what Jase & I have.

If you want to Miss K's speech in its entirety, it made its way on to our wedding highlights video that you can see here.

With the speeches over, it was time to face the wall of cameras to cut our cake!
All photographs by the team at Follan Photography unless otherwise noted.

Let's start at the very beginning - it's a very good place to start.
Our wedding rehearsal went by in a flash.
We finished off our last minute projects at home.
I had some girly time the day before the wedding.
I checked into the bridal suite and spent the evening alone.
A prank call woke me up... to my wedding day!
The girls had their hair and make-up done.
The boys relaxed and took it easy playing pool.
It was finally my turn to get beautified!
I put my dress on & became a bride.
My bridesmaids and I rush, rush, rushed to the church & arrived early!
The wedding began with a processional...
Our guests waved us out of the church with our home-made ribbon wands.
We took some bridal snapshots in the wind and rain.
I took a few moments with my new husband, just he & I.
Our bridal party posed with us as the daylight began to fade.
We relaxed in the bridal suite.. and I got sewn into my wedding dress!
All of our wedding details came together beautifully.
The Jaguar bridal party made their way into our reception...
And on the way there, I took a tumble & landed on my butt!

Monday, 19 September 2011
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You and Me: The Bride Who Fell On Her Butt

Please tell me I'm not the only one who used to imagine all of the wedding day mishaps that could potentially go down on their wedding day? Falling down while walking up the aisle. Having a dress related mishap. Falling into a random pool, aka this couple. You name it, I'd thought of it. I even had the crazy wedding nightmares going!
Well, before I say anything else, I think it's appropriate I start this post off with a lovely memento I have from our wedding day. What do you reckon: blow it up on a canvas?

Oh yes. THAT happened.

(Special mentions to a) my boobs practically exploding out of my dress, and b) my brand new husband who thought this was the most hilarious thing he had ever seen.)
So... you want to know how I ended up down on the floor in a puff of ivory lace?
Right, let's rewind a little bit. We'd just walked into the reception room, our music was playing & we each walked our own separate way around the bridal table to our seats right in the middle. Everyone cheered and clinked their glasses, and the MC invited us to take a seat. All went well. We sat down. We looked like this.

I'd sat down with Jase and was checking out our lumie table numbers as well as the floral arrangements around the room - it was the first time I'd seen it all come together, after all! The rest of the bridal party had sat down too, and everything looked calm. It was then that I looked up and saw my mum gesturing wildly from the side of the bridal table - I stood up to see what she was talking about, realised it was that two bridesmaids were sat in the wrong order, didn't care about it, and promptly sat back down.... except, my chair wasn't there any more.
I let out a WOO! shriek, banged my butt on the side of the chair, and ended up sitting on the floor of the venue in my wedding gown... absolutely mortified. Helpful note to venues everywhere: don't team your chiavari chairs up with new spongy carpet - they will fall down. ALL THE TIME. (It wasn't just me: we had a lot of guests have chair issues over the evening - not good.)
The funniest thing of all though? Other than my bridal party and a few concerned wait staff, nobody saw me fall. Seriously. I remember sitting back in my chair afterwards, red in the face and completely positive that I'd ruined the wedding - that the reception would be remembered as the one with the bride who fell on her butt. Lucky for me, apart from the trusty photographer who just happened to be hovering by & thought it was hilarious (though he did ask my permission before he snapped the shot, good man) everybody else was too busy settling themselves into their own tables - I managed to plan my fall at the one moment that most of our guests' eyes were NOT on the bridal table!
So what's the moral to this little story? It doesn't matter how much you prepare for your wedding day, there's a pretty good chance that something random will happen. My best advice for brides-to-be out there is to just laugh it off. Smile, wave, check your boobage is in order, and then take a moment to celebrate the occasion. It may not be the most typical of wedding photos, but it's certainly one of the highlights of our evening.
Did you have anything unexpected happen during your celebrations? Do tell!
All photographs by the team at Follan Photography unless otherwise noted.

Let's start at the very beginning - it's a very good place to start.
Our wedding rehearsal went by in a flash.
We finished off our last minute projects at home.
I had some girly time the day before the wedding.
I checked into the bridal suite and spent the evening alone.
A prank call woke me up... to my wedding day!
The girls had their hair and make-up done.
The boys relaxed and took it easy playing pool.
It was finally my turn to get beautified!
I put my dress on & became a bride.
My bridesmaids and I rush, rush, rushed to the church & arrived early!
The wedding began with a processional...
Our guests waved us out of the church with our home-made ribbon wands.
We took some bridal snapshots in the wind and rain.
I took a few moments with my new husband, just he & I.
Our bridal party posed with us as the daylight began to fade.
We relaxed in the bridal suite.. and I got sewn into my wedding dress!
All of our wedding details came together beautifully.
The Jaguar bridal party made their way into our reception...

Friday, 16 September 2011
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You and Me: Getting Our Reception On

By now, our guests had been mingling in the foyer for about a half hour. While we prepared ourselves for our reception entrance, our friends and family members began making their way into the function room and finding their tables. The central focus as they walked inside was to be the cake - the cake I'd been lusting after for months and months of planning.

Unfortunately, the venue let us down with the cake itself (which I'll go into later, promise) - but it was still a nice enough entry point all the same. Our guests were seated and our MC began making introductions; though the following picture sort of looks like he's telling someone in the naughty corner to sit down and shut it!



I spent ages deciding what sort of music I wanted everyone to walk in the room to - it's one of my favourite highlights at other weddings, I love clapping along. I've seen everything from super slow entry songs, to novelty songs like 'I'm Too Sexy' or 'Baby's Got Back': both of which were used at the last weddings Jase and I attended! I couldn't decide on one song for everyone, so ended up compromising by picking three favourites. I let the DJ know well in advance what timing I wanted the songs played from (mainly from the chorus, but some were instrumental bits) & just left the rest in his hot little hands. Feel free to click & play along if you want a little background music!

First into the room were both sets of our parents. As they received their introductions, I waited impatiently in line with Jase & the bridesmaids, bopping around nervously to the music. Song choice: Open Your Eyes, Snow Patrol.



Next up were our bridal party members. Song Choice: Use Somebody, Kings of Leon.



And then, it was just us! I picked a personal favourite song of ours for this entrance, one that I've loved for years and years now. Song choice: Look After You, The Fray.



We made our way to our bridal table which was set up and waiting for us, while our guests gave us a lovely round of applause. Mr. and MRS! Huzzah!


The hard part was over - we'd managed to get to our seats without anyone falling, any cakes topping over, any major mishaps... or so we'd thought!
All photographs by the team at Follan Photography unless otherwise noted.

Let's start at the very beginning - it's a very good place to start.
Our wedding rehearsal went by in a flash.

Tuesday, 13 September 2011
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You and Me: Wedding Details

Some of my favourite moments from weddings gone by come from getting the chance to see some of their pre-wedding plans come into fruition and be captured on film during their event. I hope you'll enjoy seeing some of our little details as much as I've loved seeing them in the past.

Let's begin with a snapshot of our invitations - which I am still lusting over as the months go by, because omg, the paper. So soft. So textured. Swoon!


To match the invitations and our grey, green and ivory colour scheme, I created (& had help assembling) our home-made wedding programs for the church ceremony. I love how they turned out.


While we're still talking about the ceremony, there were our lovely ribbon wands which you've already seen in all of our church exiting images.
As for our reception venue, well, the room itself looked amazing.


One of my main wedding goals was for our wedding space to be filled with candles. I stocked up on mini votives and tealights from Ikea and made sure they were scattered all over the place. Added to the already very-pretty room, they ensured it was literally glowing.

I elected to have the chiavari chairs provided by our venue decorated with a simple and sheer organza ivory sash.
The tables were round, kept simple with ivory linen tablecloths and decorated with a simple low-lying floral arrangement (made to match our bouquets) which sat on a mirrored plate with even more candles.
Guest Photograph
Our table number lumies looked amazing, if I may say so myself! They lit up each table, since each was placed over a small candle.
The table menus also turned out great; these were the ones I'd created using the Ikea Tolby frames (for $1 a pop!) & a little Microsoft Publisher action.
The last thing set up on each table was our charity favour pins, which also doubled as place cards. We were thrilled to see our guests wearing theirs throughout the evening.
Our venue wanted our guestbook table to be outside of the main function room, but we had plenty of space so I insisted it stayed inside. I wanted as many guests as possible to visit it and use it throughout the night.

I made sure I had brought my favourite artistic portrait along from our little apartment - my way of incorporating Oscar-kitty into our wedding day.
The lovely Mrs. Gloss hooked me up with a fantastic scroll for our guests to sign, which turned out amazing. You can see it fairly clearly here.
I paired that with a plain guestbook style album for the more traditional older guests who wanted to leave a message.


To match the guest scroll, Mrs. Meerkat created a poster to help our guests locate their tables. I ran around like a mad-woman the week before the wedding, trying to find the right sized shadow frame to match. It turned out really great!


If there's one thing I'm grateful for throughout my time spent blogging for Weddingbee, it's the generous and helpful spirit of my online wedding friends. You've seen the fantastic graphics that Mrs. Gloss and Mrs. Meerkat helped create for our wedding day, and it didn't stop there. There were the Bee charms, also shipped lovingly to Sydney from Mrs. Meerkat to be sewn on to my bouquet. There was my 'Something Borrowed' from Mrs. French Fries; her beautiful cathedral length veil that I wore for our wedding ceremony.

But there was one other borrowed item from a Bee that didn't quite make it into our wedding day, not for lack of trying. One of my many, many favourite Bee weddings was that of Mrs. French Bulldog; I'd been swooning over her birdie theme for the longest of times. Well, she offered to loan me some of her gorgeous lovebirds, shipped them all the way to Sydney town and got them all ready to go on the side of our cake. Until, that is, the venue forgot to put them on. Sigh. No birdies for us. Turns out that they'd forgotten to put them on Mrs. Frenchie's cake, too. They just weren't meant to be!
While the birds never did get their chance in the spotlight on our wedding cake, I did manage to snap a photo of my wee Jaguars in their nest for good measure. The thought was there!
Did you incorporate any 'Something Borrowed's into your wedding day?
All photographs by the team at Follan Photography unless otherwise noted.

Let's start at the very beginning - it's a very good place to start.

Saturday, 10 September 2011
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You and Me: Relaxing in the Bridal Suite

When it comes to weddings, even the best laid plans can go astray - which can be hard to take if you're an obsessive-compulsive planner, like I am. Our plan upon entering our reception venue was to relax in the bridal suite for around half an hour, having a drink with our bridal party and taking a moment to catch our breath. While we were doing this, our guests were due to arrive and begin their cocktail hour on the balcony.
Well, down came the rain. And in came the guests to get out of the rain, early. And oops! Someone at the venue misplaced our bridal suite booking - so we were left standing around awkwardly in the foyer waiting for it to be sorted out. That's just part of a story for another day... suffice it to say that we eventually found ourselves a quiet spot to relax in for a little while with our bridal party and our parents.
And after that, relax we did! We had a glass of champagne, nibbled on a canapé or two, took happy snaps together and bounced around like balls of nervous energy, listening to all of our guests outside mingling in the foyer.
Some of the pictures that our bridal party took during this time turned out to be some of my favourites of the day, including these hipstamatic shots that I plastered over everything in the days after the wedding. Swoon!
Our make-up stylist, Jenny, was also on hand - she was a guest at the wedding and popped in to take a few pictures for us. She charmingly offered to quickly touch up our hair and faces, which were looking a little worse for wear after our pictures in the rain. She gave me the option of changing hairstyles for the reception, but I'd grown rather attached to my sde 'do and decided to stick with it - it was perfect up off my face for dancing! Jenny is responsible for these next two pictures, both of which I love.
Seriously, are my girls not stunning? What beauties - inside and out.
Now... for a bit of a backstory.
I wasn't particularly fazed about my dress bustle. I know lots of Bees stress out about how they're going to tie up the dress during the evening, or have trouble deciding between which style bustle works the best with their dress... but I didn't mind. As long as I could hook it up and out of the way before the dancing, I was happy.
Our seamstress added in a ribbon/button hook ready to just link up and tie, and it looked quite nice when it was yanked up and tied. Don't ask me what style it was: it was pretty much style-less. Let's call it the 'hoisted train bustle', shall we? You can sort of see the top half of it here:
Anyhoo, that didn't end up going so well... as when I got out of the wedding car to take our photographs in the rain, that button snapped off - leaving us with no bustle option AT ALL. My mum whipped out her creative genius and ended up looping the skirt ribbon up over one of the lower buttons on the gown, and it held... for about ten minutes. Jase and I were practising our first dance together (first time with a big skirt on!) when PING! The buttons flew off and the train collapsed.
I wasn't quite sure WHAT to do next - it looked as though I'd be holding up the train the entire evening. Luckily, I had a few seamstresses on hand to help patch me up. Enter my mum... and my new mother-in-law! They whipped a sewing kit out of thin air and began literally sewing the ribbon/bustle on to the gown.
I never imagined I'd have so many hands up and under my gown before the reception had even started!
After some panicked moments and a few deep breaths, the dress was bustled - and I'm thrilled to say that it held up all night. So well, in fact, that I actually needed to have my mother cut the thread at the end of the evening so that I could get out of the gown!
With the bustle situation sorted, it was almost time for our reception to start!

Let's start at the very beginning - it's a very good place to start.

Wednesday, 7 September 2011
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