celebrity celebrant fantasy #1

Not this

I'm muchos jealous that in the US, it sounds like you can pretty much get ANYONE to marry you. You can even marry yourselves in certain states if you do a Quaker wedding. Or you can get your best friend to marry you, they just have to sign up as a minister at something like the Universal Life Church which you can do online.

Procedures are much stricter in Australia. But it got me thinking if we could have ANYONE in the world marry us, who would we want it to be?

For me, I think it'd be Wayne Coyne from the Flaming Lips. He's completely joy and love personified, and speaks with a worldly wisdom, and well, he's just so darn cool. And he makes amazing music. And the Flaming Lips concert I went to a couple of years ago was one of THE MOST AMAZING EXPERIENCES OF MY LIFE! I am not kidding. It was like being bouncing around inside the most incredible psychedelic, ecstatic utopian bubble for a few hours with the perfect soundtrack being played live.

Marry us Wayne!

I told a music magazine editor friend that and he reckons I should somehow try get a message to ask Wayne when they tour here, coz he's probably crazy enough to consider it.

Though, to get married by Wayne Coyne in a Wayne Coyne kinda fashion, he'd probably be wear a pale blue, bell bottomed suit with ruffley shirt and AA and I would have to stand before him in giant furry bunny costumes. Our friends and family would also all have to be standing around in giant animal costumes and a constant supply of balloons of varying sizes would keep filling up the venue as the ceremony proceeded.

In the meantime though I just bought four standing floor general admission seats to see them play Festival Hall in Melbourne in July. Coz you can't sit back at a Flaming Lips show you have to PARTICIPATE!

venue idea #1 - heronswood, diggers club garden, dromana

As promised I am going to share some ideas I have had for weddings that I think would be lots of fun.

Ever since visiting the Dandenong Ranges and getting engaged up there we have had our hearts set on organising a 'destination wedding' there. We love the idea of being able to share this special place with all our beloved friends and family and rather like the idea of organising a group holiday up in the mountains for the weekend... where everyone gets to come along to a great party, that happens to be our wedding, while they are up there!

I would have really loved to have a wedding at a Diggers Club garden. There are two gardens - Heronswood which is in Dromana, over an hour out of Melbourne, heading towards the Mornington Peninsula. And St Erth in Blackwood, near Daylesford.

Both gardens have fantastic vegetable gardens, which I have a real passion for. The vegetable par terre gardens at Heronswood are particularly spectacular:

There is a Heronswood Cafe which I've never actually eaten at because you need to book ahead to get in, it has quite a small capacity. But they also do gourmet picnic hampers, and there is picnic wedding inspiration aplenty on Snippet & Ink:

I think a summer wedding ceremony on the lawns under the beautiful big tree out the front would be a wonderful spot:

Plus when we were last there at the annual Heronswood Festival (Melbourne Cup weekend) we did a little tour and the guide told us that in early-mid Summer (December) the climbers on the archways have huge flowers the size of dinner plates!

You can see some more of my photos of the gardens from November 2008 and read about it on my other blog here.

I can't seem to find any details about booking weddings on the Diggers Club website any more but I have found them on there in the past. I did come across to a small reference to weddings in this ad here though. So if you're interested, I suggest giving them a call about it:

Heronswood

Garden - Shop - Café

OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK (Closed 24-26 Dec)

Closed Good Friday.
Open Easter Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
105 Latrobe Parade, Dromana, 3936
Melways map 159 C9

Map & directions

Shop: 03 5984 7321
Dining: 03 5984 7318
Fax 03 5987 2398

book wedding reception venue - CHECK!

Despite having a good ole whinge on my other blog, we ended up finding and pencil booking our wedding reception venue this weekend!

I won't reveal it just yet because I don't have any of my own photos of the place and it doesn't have a website but I will say a big thank you to the Down To My Soul/ We Light The Dark blog for providing the lead. If you haven't checked out the blog, you really should because it's just beautiful and very inspiring. And incredibly handy for me, because the author is based up in the Dandenong Ranges where we are getting married.

Anyway, now we have sorted it, and til I have some more details to share with you, I'm going to share some of my other ideas of wedding venues around Melbourne!...