One year

One year ago today a handsome man got down on his knee on the ship's deck and asked me if I would marry him - of course I said yes!

For those of you who are interested, you can read the entire proposal story here.

I don't remember much of what A said to me once he got down on his knee that night, it is all just a happy blissful blur, but I do remember feeling my heart race and feeling like I was on a cloud, thinking "is this really happening to me?", "is this the moment I have imagined my whole life?", "he's doing what I think he's doing right?".

Before I knew it, A had stopped talking and had pulled the ring box out of his jacket and I just jumped on him. In that moment right there, with tears pouring out of my eyes, jumping on the man of my dreams, I the chatter box of all chatter boxers was SPEECHLESS.

We hugged, we cried, we smiled and I took millions of self pics, posing with my new ring. Every minute I was with A I couldn't stop shaking, grinning and staring at the beautiful man who would now remain by my side forever. Every second I was away from A, (usually only in the bathroom) I would stare at my ring and try to comprehend that I was now engaged, I was someones fiance, someone wanted to spend the rest of their life with me and that someone picked the DAMNDEST most perfect ring for me all by himself.

I remember thinking in those few days that I had I never felt so in love, I remember thinking how much I loved A then and how no one could ever feel that happy or that in love EVER at any other moment in their life.

Boy was I wrong.

As I write this now, I am smiling about how blissful, happy and in love I was this time a year ago, but I am also smiling at how naive I was. I thought I could not love A anymore than in that moment right then, but right now I love him so much more, with every day I love him more, I care for him more and I feel closer to him.

I once heard a priest in a wedding video say, "remember this moment right now, because this is the least you will ever love each other... from here on in your love will only grow and become stronger". I feel that way about A.

The boy just never stops making me feel amazing and I hope I do the same for him!!

A and I have lunch together regularly, as we work only a block away from each other. Today, I actually ran into him at Court (no joke) and he told me to make sure I eat before our break today. I agreed, thinking nothing of it. I should know better.

The wonderful boy had planned to take me to The Tea Centre for tea and scones. Originally he wanted to eat there, but I had made us pasta for lunch, so there was no use in wasting that.

We had the strawberries and cream black tea with scones - it was delicious!! The tea actually tasted like strawberries and cream, the scones were soft and the cream was smoOoooth... MmMmM.

The cafe was soo cute and excluded from all the outside noise of busy Pitt Street Mall. The waiters were very friendly and helpful and the whole place just had a cosy, relaxed vibe. I didn't want to go back to work afterwards.

It was an awesome "celebration" and lunch time break.

A is such a sweetheart. I am spoilt.

Soo A... if you are reading this... S'Agapo ;)

Signing off now, with my outfit of the day...

Love this cape!



Tharens

For our engagement, two of our friends bought A and I dinner at Tharens with 11 of our closest friends.

Tharens is a cosy little themed restaurant in Kings Cross.

As soon as I walked into Tharens and was greeted by a waitress dressed as Snow White, I knew it was going to be a good night! All around the restaurant and at the table were a  plethora of hats, wigs and feather bowers and I am pretty confident in saying that we tried most of them on!

First hats with bestie

 

 Where'd I go??

After all of our guests had arrived and we settled in, the waitress bought garlic bread and salad to the table, and then asked us to pick one entree and one main each. The choices were great. I had the prosciutto wrapped chicken with bocconcini for an entree and the three cheese (mmm I love cheese) chicken for the main.

my entree

I'm a happy little Vegemite!

The food was deeeelicious! As Tharens is a themed restaurant, I have to be honest, I was not expecting much at all from the food. I thought the food would be average, but the entertainment would make up for it. I was wrong. The food was yummy and plentiful. So were the many many alcoholic drinks we consumed that night (as can be seen by the pictures) haha.

During the courses we were entertained by a Magician called Dodgy Dave, who got us involved in a variety of card tricks. He even managed to make a hanky disappear into his hand and come out in A's fly! He was awesome and a good character.

 pulling out the hanky lol

Drunken Witch

After dinner the old school tunes were cranked up a bit more, but then a COP walked in... ..... a naughty COP!!! The party next to ours was a birthday party and they had hired a stripper. I had made friends with that table throughout the night and so one of the girls grabbed me for pole position before the action started. Thank you honey!! A kept trying to shield my innocent eyes. Bless him.

hello police man!

After the stripper cleared we continued dancing in the restaurant with our funny hats on until we decided we all needed to go home. We had drank ourselves to bedtime.

Birthday hat!

All in all it was a great night!! The staff at Tharens were so attentive and fun, everyone enjoyed themselves and I would go back there any day!

Until next time, here are some more drunken hat photos :)



apparently this is how I roll...

On Getting Engaged

In the midst of all things Easter, I thought I would write a non Easter related, semi-serious post about a part of getting engaged that not many people seem to talk about.

I am writing this post after being engaged for almost 11months (WOW!) now and after talking to newly married friends of mine, who have been through the exact same experience. I am writing this post to hopefully make one engaged man or woman stress just a little less.

When your man or woman proposes to you, for most it is the single happiest moment of your life to date. You are overwhelmed with emotion, happy, excited and madly in love. As you start to inform your friends and family about your decision to spend the rest of your life together, for most people, the excitement continues, as well as the many celebrations, the silly smiles and the feeling that you are the luckiest woman/man on earth!!

The weeks, even months following the proposal, continue to be filled with this giddiness and excitement. You find yourself just staring at the rock on your finger in awe and shock, and giggling every time you say the word fiance. These are the weeks and months, where for most, it feels like life could not be better. You don't know what you did to deserve this state of happiness, but you still enjoy every second of it.

Of course, after some time, the after proposal glow starts to wear off and you and your fiance are faced with many decisions, situations and problems you never had to deal with before. Every ones situation is different, but I think it is very rare that nothing would change for a couple after the proposal. For some, they face the idea of sharing finances and moving out together. While for others, it is more about planning the engagement party, the wedding, pleasing the new in laws and fielding questions on when you will have a baby, buy a house and a station waggon. Regardless of the size of the change, there is change and most newly engaged couples are discussing things and doing things they hadn't even thought of before.

It is these little changes, that you now need to face not only as a individual, but as a couple, which I think is what leads to the little tiffs between you and your partner. By tiffs, I don't mean fights which are necessarily about anything important or significant at all. They can be and generally are about things, which in the scheme of things don't really seem to matter at all, but regardless of that, they still seem to happen more after you become engaged. These fights, coupled with the idea that this is meant to be "the happiest time of your life" make these insignificant things, seem a whole lot worse!

My newly married friends and I all admitted that there is so much pressure to be happy during your engagement... every time you tell someone the news or you see people out and you hear, "I want what you guys have" or "congratulations, you are so lucky" or "I can't wait to find a man like..." you can't help but think, hold on, I'm engaged, meant to be happy... why are we fighting so damn much?? Those thoughts tend to lead to more stress and maybe even more tiffs. Yes that's right, you start fighting about the fact that you fight. A & I had a fight just like this. If we are meant to get married, why have we started fighting more since you put this ring on my finger?

Now don't get me wrong... as a couple you are still madly in love and you know that you want to spend the rest of your life with this person, but damn you never signed up for this. You thought by saying yes you would be entering a period of love, smiles and happiness, not family feuds, money stresses and arguments over whether what's his face's girlfriend should attend your party.

So what am I trying to say? I am trying to say that this is the reality of getting engaged... it MOST DEFINITELY is an amazing time in your life, but it is never going to be perfect, it is never going to live up to what your friends, who see you once a month, think it is or what those stupid girly movies make it out to be.

THIS IS NORMAL.

Yes, if you are seriously doubting waking up with this person everyday, you should listen to you instincts, but apart from that.. these little tiffs, these annoyances, that is what growing as a couple is about and I guarantee you there is a lot more engaged couples going through that stage in their relationship, than a perfect, teddy and bubbles stage.

This post is to tell those recently engaged or hoping to soon become engaged, that no it won't be the toughest time of your life, but it won't be perfect either and that is OKAY. This pressure society puts on us to be in a Cinderella type relationship is unrealistic and unneeded. You may not think you are one to listen to outside pressure, but since we were little we have been fed this idea of being engaged= perfect happy ever after. As soon as you push that idea away and realise this is actually what happens when your engaged, you will have one less thing to stress about.

Disaster Embraced!!!

Do you all remember my Dress Disaster? Well I was thinking about it on the train this morning and I decided I am actually really truly happy that it happened! I love my new Engagement Dress and I think I would of looked laughable in that ballerina inspired number!

My motto stands proven.... eveything does happen for a reason :)

To Mumma…

This is just a quick post for my mumma and all the other mums out there that keep us daughters sane during the event planning process!!!

I am currently planning my friend's hens party for next weekend and my engagement party the weekend after. Both involve crafty elements and of course decorating, organising and planning. I often tell my mum that I am the thinker and she is the doer, meaning I think of all these wonderful ideas for centrepieces or accessories, but I am too clumsy/not artistic or crafty to be able to bring them to life. My mum on the other hand is Mrs Craft, she can do it all and actually enjoys it!!!

Sooo this blog is to thank my mum for all her help these past months and especially this week as I have started to stress more. Thank you for telling me countless times that my engagement party will look pretty and that it will be a wonderful night. Thank you for laughing at my lack of craftiness and thank you for nodding and smiling, every time I say "no I don't like it that way it is too…*tacky,big,unual,wrong* or doesn't go".

I love you mumma and could not do any of this without you and your constant support!!!!

Me and My mum at my graduation earlier this year.

You're invited...

We have finally received our engagement party invites and sent them out…. HURRAHHHHHHHHHH!!! We wanted something really fun, not formal (or mini wedding like ehehe), different and totally us and with the help of my BIL and his wife, I believe we have achieved it! Rockin' it  ol' school style, with the retro photobooth strip…

"We are Engaged"

It was so much fun taking all these silly photos.

Anyone who knows A and I, knows this is very much us. We had a few printing dilemmas at the start, but the wonderful people at Dashing Print in North Sydney quickly sorted out our problems and had the new and improved, perfect invites couriered to us promptly.

Now I think the excitement has really kicked in and I am ready to begin looking for shoes and other fun accessories =)

What do you guys think of the invite???

Dress Diaster

As I have mentioned previously, my engagement dress was purchased online. I purchased it from an Australian store who order it from American designer Sherri Hill, after trying on similar styles in their store.  I had looked at many dresses online after first seeing this one, but none of them compared.. so around a month ago I made the purchase. Just over a week ago I started to get curious about when my dress would arrive and contacted the store, who more or less fudged me off. I then called again last Thursday to finally find out that apparently 5 weeks ago, a storm (the lady said hurricane- but who knows?) damaged the Sherri Hill warehouse, which resulted in the damage of many dresses, including mine!!! Due to the large amount of damage, there are certain styles she has decided not to re-make.. and you guessed it- that includes mine!!!

What are the freaking chances huh? A storm, on the OTHER SIDE OF THE FREAKING WORLD… stops me from being able to wear the beautiful little dress I wanted to wear to my engagement party… :(  This is the dress I was going to wear….. I found this photo on an American site, but if the story the lady in the store told me is true.. then no one will have any left, right???

In hope of possibly finding another dress as unique, I went with my friend Priscilla to search Chatswood Chase and surprisingly in George I found a dress that made me feel so pretty, whimsical and romantical… Priscilla is great to shop with too because she made sure I knew how it looked on me, suited me and was the type of dress people go "ooohhh" at! It was exactly the boost up I needed after the first disaster.. but I still couldn't commit so I left the store, only to call my mum and explain everything to her, including the fact that it was the last size 8 in the store and the dress was HALF PRICE!!! She claims she could hear it in my voice that this was the dress and I should go back and get it- I didn't. Instead I called A panicking and went to meet him at his nephews birthday party…

After explaining the situation to my future SIL's and MIL they all screamed at me to go back to the store and purchase it! I scoffed down some food, sang happy birthday and then grabbed A to go back to the store with me, I needed his support (I know completely lame of me…so terribly lame!). Anyways when I tried it on he had nothing to say… I was waiting for a get of the jail free remark but he had nothing, he said he loved it and that I looked super pretty in it…. He even said he liked it wayyy better than the first one, so that was it THE DRESS WAS PURCHASED!!

Conclusion-  I have found my engagement dress AGAIN and pending any other natural disasters I would feel pretty in pink at my engagement party.

Mini Wedding?? No thanks!!

So after the proposal, comes the engagement party plans and before I continue there is something I feel I should say- weddings and engagements are personal events, everyone should have what THEY want, everyone is different and it is very much an each to their own kind of thing, BUT this is my blog...so these are my opinions :)

My opinion on engagement parties is simply this- IT IS NOT A MINI WEDDING!!! I cringe at the idea of having an elaborate, expensive, formal event, with set seating, a 3 course meal, ball gown, up do and speeches from every member of the family! If our engagement has all of that, what is left for the wedding except the church and exchanging of rings? I don't want anything to take away from our big day.

In saying that, A and I love love love a good celebration (friends reading this will be nodding right now), in the words of one friend, we will use any excuse to have a party-  so we have opted for a cocktail party.We are having our engagement in a function room of a club in a beach side suburb in Sydney. We have decided there will be lots of dancing, food (casual buffet), drinks, family friends and all round merriness! Other decisions which have been made...

Our DJ has been booked(this is me pretending to DJ- don't be alarmed I will be nowhere near there at our engagement party I just didn't have one of the actual DJ)

We are going to fill Martini glasses with blue, purple and clear baubles like this (minus the candles) for fun cocktail centrepieces

Ad libs like these will be on a table for guests to fill in (thanks to a voguette who shared the idea on a forum)

My dress and a few other surprises have also been decided on, but they can't be revealed on my blog until after the party ;) My dress will actually even be a surprise to me as I purchased it online (eeeeksss- I know!!).

We are making our invites this week and the only other thing to decide on is the cake... again going against the whole mini wedding concept, I do not want a white cake, I want something fun and bubbly.. I was thinking maybe something like this, what do you think??