AAAAH!

So it's been a mere 10 days since our wedding, and our super amazing videographer Amy Nelson-Blaine {Wedding Cinematography} has already created a snapshot of our wedding day on film.

Highlights? Oh yeah, there are plenty:

Aly & Jason - Wedding Film from Amy Nelson-Blain on Vimeo.

…That still sounds so weird to say!

Well, it’s official. We’re hitched! You know how everyone says to take time to slow down and enjoy your wedding day, because it will be over before you know it? They are not lying. I think someone hit the fast forward button, because our day flew by. Like, seriously flew.

It was awesome. It was hilarious. It was full of moments that you can’t possibly prepare for. (Bride falling off her chair a the beginning of the reception, anyone?) <– Oh yes, that happened! But wow. The feelings we have had over the past few days are unlike any I’ve ever had before.

We are married. Huzzah!

Here’s one of my favourite pictures to tide you over while the wait for professional ones begins, taken on Hipstamatic by my beautiful maid of honour, Miss K.

See you in a week or so, after our time in Vanuatu comes to an end.

I'm writing this post a mere day before my wedding. Can you even believe it?

Today is going to be pretty busy. There are nails to be done, airport pick-ups to be arranged, missing sparkler packages to be hunted down, and hotels to be checked in to. I've got everything packed for my trip to the hotel tonight, and I'm really, really freaking excited. I'm planning on journaling tomorrow morning too, just so I can remember how I felt on the morning of our wedding.

This past week I've had three 'problems' weighing me down about our wedding. One: the weather, which is forecast to rain. Two: Our venue being sneaky with us. Three: Having a certain monthly visitor arrive on the big day. I'll admit, my first instinct was to panic about it.. but I'm okay. I've learned that whatever happens, it's still going to be okay. (I'm going to go ahead and assume that alternating from fits of extreme giddiness to bouts of gut-churning nervousness is a normal part of the whole process.)

It feels like this post is bringing closure. It's bringing closure to our entire engagement. All of the months of wishing, planning, budgeting.. that would eventually lead up to me being lucky enough to marry my best friend. While I could have dome some things differently, I have no regrets. Tomorrow is going to be amazing.

To my almost-husband,

I can't even begin to describe how much I am counting down the moments to be your wife. We've had ups, downs, in betweens, lows and incredible highs. We moved overseas together, we travelled our butts off, and we adopted our beautiful Oscar-kitty. We're building our dream home, and we're doing it all together. Thank you for being my rock, for being the logic to my emotion, the McDreamy to my Meredith. You're awesome.

Today was my last day at work before the wedding.

I was inspired this morning by a post from Carly at Extremely Hyper - because, as she wrote, it's pretty crazy how fast this year has disappeared so far. I've been keeping track of this year in the form of a photo a day (you can see the set here) and it's been interesting to see how much has happened.

January saw us move into our new home in Sydney - our very sweet apartment that we'll be renting until further notice. It's not grand, it's not in a great location, but it's our home. For now, at least!

February was when I found my current teaching position, with thanks to the fates. As much as I'm drowning in report cards and exhaustion from my 6 & 7 year olds, I absolutely adore it.
March went by in a flash! I was busy with school work, and celebrated my bridal shower with some of my best girlfriends. Jase and I also took part in an engagement photoshoot, which was great fun! Our wedding RSVP's began trickling in here, which brought lots of warm fuzzies & the occasional bouts of disappointment.
April brought sickness, a fair bit of it too. I went to hospital for the first time in my life, suffered from two bouts of gastro & colitis, and got knocked around by a pretty rotten cold.
May marked the beginning of assessment season at school - meaning report comments needed to be written, pronto! It's also been the month of stress, lots of wedding decisions, payments and deadlines have loomed, and I've been struggling to keep on top of it all.
And June? Well, June is the month I've been looking forward to now for almost two years. In June, just two short weekends away, I will marry my best friend.

There are 19 days until the wedding. We're in the TEENS, people. Hold me.

After battling the gastro/colitis bug o'doom, I've now got a cold. I feel like ass, I look like ass, and I am more than a little bit whingy because of it all. Any other illnesses that the universe would like to throw at me? If yes, please do so now. I will be gutted if I'm sick for the wedding.

I have 25 report cards to write. Considering there are six Key Learning Areas, plus a General Comment for each child, that equals 175 unique blurbs that I need to write, based on achievements, outcomes, indicators and assessment and observation tasks. I know I don't drink coffee, but I think I'm going to need to start. Now.

People are actually asking me for timelines for the wedding day. As in, for what's actually supposed to be happening on the wedding day. And to that, I am getting a bit twitchy because um, I have no idea yet. And then I look around for someone else to ask but... there is no-one else. I'm supposed to know these things. Bride fail.

We received our first wedding present, and to fit all clichés? It was a toaster. Luckily, it was an awesome toaster that was on our gift registry, so that makes us very happy. I've now started stalking our Myer registry to see if anyone else has bought us anything, which is really naughty and very addicting. Must stop doing this.

I have so much to do. I have to organise programs. I have to get final numbers to our venue in the next week. I need to arrange tables and music and escort cards/place settings. I need to pay our final amounts to our vendors and make sure everyone is happy and has what they need.

It's Jason's birthday on Thursday and I've not bought him a present yet.

Please distract me with some randomness of your own before I self destruct, won't you? (It might be messy.)

I realised that in blogging at weddingbee, I've ended up not mentioning a lot about our planning over here. So, in the spirit of sharing, I've decided to share my bridal shower. It was held a few weeks ago now, and it wasn't just any bridal shower, oh no. The theme was a high tea afternoon complete with 'frocks & hats', and looked fabulous!

Despite there being a few morning showers (before the shower, how fitting!) the day turned out to be lovely - and the set up was just fabulous. My mum & three wonderful bridesmaids had spent the morning setting up, had baked for the past few days and had planned all sorts of lovely surprises. Nearly everyone followed the instructions and turned up wearing some form of hairpiece. It was a really great turn-out.

First things first, the decor. My mum had borrowed a marquee from a friend, and set it up with ivy, tables & chairs, as well as flowers in vases. The girls had set up separate tables for fancy teas, for mismatched vintage tea-cups, and for food - plates and plates of sandwiches, mini quiches, scones and sweeties. Yum!
And then there were the games! As the guests arrived, everyone was given a peg to clip to their outfit - if you said the "W" word (WEDDING!) & someone heard you, you got to steal their peg and whoever had the most pegs at the end of the day won a special prize.

There was also the traditional game of creating a wedding gown - but since it was drizzly, the toilet paper was replaced with garbage bags. These were the top three designs. (The gown on the left won.)
And, best of all, there was a cupcake decorating station! Fresh cupcakes were baked, decorations were bought, and all of the guests had to make their own design - with lucky me getting to choose the winner. I had to have a turn too, although I'll admit, mine came out rather terribly. I fail at piping. Some of them were pretty clever.
The day was so much fun - I ran around like a crazy person trying to catch everyone and make sure I spent some time with them, but I still feel like I missed out on a few things. If this is any indication of what the wedding's going to be like, I'm slightly daunted. But, I was spoiled by my loved ones and thoroughly impressed at how much planning & detail went into the event - I'm a lucky girl.

Last night, Jason & I attended an engagement party - thrown for two of our bridal party members. While it'd be cool to imagine two strangers being thrown together in wedding preparation, falling in love & deciding to get hitched themselves, it wasn't quite like that!

My brother Ajay is one of the groomsmen, and Hayley is one of my girls - they've been dating for a couple of years now. They announced their engagement just a few weeks ago and there's been loads of wedding-related excitement in the air ever since. They're a gorgeous couple, both physically and personality-wise, and I'm thrilled to be (finally!) getting the sister I always wanted.

Their engagement party was 'red carpet' themed, and everyone looked awesome in their suits & ball gowns.

Needless to say, the night was filled with lots of mingling between the two families. And the question for Jason & I that was on everybody's lips? Are you ready yet?

It's funny, because you can take this in a few ways. In a literal sense, no. We're so not ready. We have oodles of things we haven't done yet, I'm doing my best to get things done in the right priority order, and we're both working full-time. I think props have to go to anyone planning a wedding and working at the same time, because finding the time to do everything is no easy feat, especially in the final weeks. The next few weeks are filled with little bits & pieces that need to get done - and it's amazing how quickly time is flying. Sometimes I really do wonder how on Earth I'm going to get everything done.

But then, I'm oh so ready. I've been ready for this for years. It's a little cliché to admit it, but I knew I would marry Jason very early on in our relationship. And whether you've been with someone six months, for two years, three, six, eight, nine... you just know when its the right person. All these countdowns, all the waiting during our long engagement, waiting for the 'right time', yep, I'm ready. I'm so ready. And best of all, he's ready too.

One of the hardest things to deal with in our waiting phase was not being on the same page. I was ready, he wasn't. I nagged, cried, drowned in a sea of other people's engagements, and he waited. It hurts when you're ready, but they aren't - it makes you doubt yourself, makes you think you're the one who cares more in the relationship, or that your partner doesn't feel the same way you do. Looking back, I know now that he still loved me and wanted to the same things that I did - it was just the timing wasn't right. Now that we're so close, hearing Jason tell me that he's looking forward to being married, well, it gives me the warm and fuzzies.

So are we ready yet? We're as ready as we'll ever be. And even if we scrap a few projects, or cut a few corners, or just plain turn up on the wedding day in a dress and a suit, we'll be ready.

It's been a while since I mentioned how our plans for home building are going so far.

Last time I spoke about it, we were getting ready for our meeting with the building company, to sketch up our plans and to figure out our internal and external colours. That was back in March. Since then, it feels like not much has happened - which is apparently normal in the grand scheme of things. We waited for weeks for our builders, Allcastle Homes, to finalise our official plans and to work out our electrical pricing and BASIX certification, and it was finally, FINALLY, sent off to Blacktown City Council on April the 8th.

So what happens now? Well, we wait some more. (Of course!) I am the most impatient person ever, so I am finding this whole process horrific - and it only gets worse once the actual build gets started.

I was optimistic and hoping that by the time the wedding rolled around, we'd have already gotten our approval and had a slab laid ready to get working on, but now I'm not so sure. The reason we got started on this build last December was in the hopes that it would be completed by this December, but every agonising day that we wait around, that dream is looking less likely.

If you're up for sending some good building juju our way, we certainly wouldn't say no to it - here's hoping our council approval happens sooner rather than later so we can get on with it.

Do you want to actually see the home we're planning on building? Here it is!

There will be a few things we're tweaking on our design - the windows will look slightly different, and we're getting panelled garage doors - but the look of the place will be the same.

I can't wait to share more details about the process with you, once more is actually happening. :)

What happens when you're trying to take on too many projects at the same time? You end up stressed out, being mostly useless at all of them, and becoming slightly delirious.