make me up

[image from flickr]

This week I started contacting some potential makeup artists to do my make up and hair for the wedding.

I figure, I have bought 2 x vintage wedding dresses. I love them, they're much more my style that a giant showy boofy white wedding dress. But they're probably not what people expect. I'm not planning on spending a huge amount on a pair of shoes for the wedding either, and whatever I get, they have to be shoes I will be able to wear again otherwise I think that'd just be silly.

So if I'm going to splurge on anything... I think hair and makeup can be justified. Afterall, there's going to be a lot of photos taken! And I'm not in a super showy dress and in stressful situations, my insecurities are magnified, I really don't want to be feeling self conscious on my wedding day. I want to look and feel HOT! Ha. I just want to have some really nice makeup, an enhancement and refinement of my usual look which is pretty minimal but with a nice splash of red lipstick. I want a radiant, dewy complexion that looks healthy and glowing without looking overly shiny and definitely not oily. I just want to know I look great and so I can feel confident and enjoy the day.

Anyway, I have contacted two highly recommended makeup artists and they both seem fantastic, and both have mobile set ups and can come to me on the wedding day (which makes the most sense seeing we are getting married in the gardens of the place we will be staying at).

Both of their on the day prices are comparative, but one has a more expensive trial session. It does seem incredibly thorough though: 3-4 hours to run through everything at their beautiful studios, they encourage you to bring your dress, your accessories, as much inspiration as you like and they work out exactly what they will do on the day and down to the final lash! And they encourage you to bring as many of your girlfriends as you like to the session to hang out and offer their suggestions, and they put on tea and cake and turn it into a kind of high tea/ make up session. To be honest, it sounds SO girly it scares me a little but I like the idea of having a thorough run through.

I've talked it over with AA and he's really supportive and thinks it will be worth if it's going to make me feel great on the day. So I think I'm going to do it!

venue idea #2: Morocco Lounge

[Morocco Lounge - Prahran]

Time to catch up on rolling out all the little links and ideas I have been hoarding, meaning to share on this blog!

I have a soft spot for all things Moroccan. I love the decor, the food, the music, the coffee! I love the exotic nature of it all, the history and the wonderful sense of intimacy that Moroccan decor sets.

A friend had a joint birthday party at the Mofo/ Moroccan Lounge a couple of years ago and I just loved the setting. It is in Prahran, Melbourne and I think would make a fantastic casual setting for an engagement party or reception. It'd be really conducive sitting in small corners and chatting with friends and family and mingling.

There are 2 rooms available at the Prahran location:

Mofo Lounge - capacity 15-30 guests

Quite small so probably more appropriate for an intimate engagement party or a very small wedding cocktail reception.

Morocco Lounge - capacity 60-80 guests

This the venue I attended the birthday party in and it's a great space - room for dancing, room for sitting and chatting, room to stand and mingle.

They also have recently opened a third, larger venue available for functions, but this one is situated in South Yarra:

MOSQ - capacity 70-80 guests

The have a very informative website with food and drinks packages available, drink menu and cocktail list, and even have a website set up with tips on party plan tips. I like it!

why wed?

[image from flickr]

I was recently talking to someone who 'doesn't get the whole wedding thing'. It was an exasperated: 'WHY? Can you please tell me WHY? WHY do people bother? I JUST DON'T GET IT!'

It was in interesting excercise in getting me to articulate aloud the reasons I do want to get married.

My fiance and I have been together a long time. By the time we marry, we'll have been together for eight years, and spent six of those years living together. Amongst our circle of friends, getting married isn't automatically assumed as the done thing. Marriage is something that has become increasingly recognised as a personal choice of the couple rather than a social expectation. And living together without being married is considered the norm rather than 'living in sin'!

From the outside, I guess it's like we have been like a married couple for years now. So why bother legalising it? Will 'having a piece of paper' make any difference?

For me, I don't see getting married as being just about getting that piece of paper. I do feel there has been a shift of mentality for us since getting engaged. And despite being together for a long time before we got engaged, I do remember that after the initial tears of happiness at getting engaged, we sat on the couch together, clutching hands with an expression of slight terror of our faces feeling this was an enormous step into the abyss we were taking together. Like, we were deciding to be grown ups, get married, have children and do all the things adults do!

But when questioned WHY I want to get married and why it means so much to me... and my idea of a good marriage, my mind drifted to friends whose relationships I admire and am inspired by. I have some dear friends who have married in the past couple of years and have seen how becoming married really has transformed their relationships and it indeed did make a difference. I see the way their faces light up and the joy they take in calling each other "husband" and "wife" and how their bond has noticeably strengthened since they tied the knot.

When we were thinking about what kind of wedding we want to have, AA said "I don't just want it to be a celebration of what we have, I want it to mark the start of something NEW" and I guess that's the thing for us. We could just continue living together, have children together, and be with one another for the rest of our lives without getting married. There's nothing stopping us from doing that.

When I explained this, the response was "Oh ok, I can kind of get that now. It's like a punctuation" and I guess perhaps that's one way of describing it. To me, getting married isn't so much the 'signing the piece of paper'. The important part to me is the wedding ceremony - it feels like an incredible powerful and symbolic ritual. It's calling upon our dearest friends and family to witness us make lifelong vows to each other, and to hold us and support us in those vows. This ceremony will be something I will feel much more bound by than a piece of paper.

And that is why AA and I want to write our ceremony from scratch and have it "officiated" by someone we know rather than a stranger who is a celebrant. For this reason we have decided that a couple of days before our 'wedding day' we will go to the registry office with our parents to sign the legal documents to make us husband and wife before the law. We will not exchange rings but just say the words and sign the documents that make it all legit. But on our wedding day in front of our closest ones, we are going to have a friend lead a ceremony that we have written together and is most meaningful to us. It isn't the traditional way of doing things but we feel is the best and most honest way for us to express our vows.

I'd love to hear from anyone else whose been put on the spot, to articulate their own reasons for getting married!

if money was no object...

... I'd have this thank you!

Or any of these: Martha Stewart Weddings Perfect Gowns for an Outdoor Wedding

But as it turns out we're not willing to plunge ourselves into debt and spend our future children's education fees on our wedding. And if I did spend the kind of money required to own one of these numbers, just on ONE item of clothing, it'd be a tad awkward wondering around greeting my guests, looking so fabulous while they dined on bread. Let them eat cake! Make that sponge cake!

And besides that would just be greedy. Afterall I already have TWO dresses picked out, both vintage - one 1920s and one 1960s. Together they cost less than what the hat above probably costs.

I have finally made an appointment to see a dressmaker on Saturday morning to get a quote to alter and line my 1920s number. It's gigantic on me at the moment. I'm a little scared, hopefully the dressmaker is nice to me.

Here, I'll let you have a sneak peak:

So which one am I going to wear? Well, uh at the moment, the plan is BOTH! More details on that to come later :)

AND I have also booked into a class at Thread Den to learn how to make my own fascinator. I'm hoping to use these skills to make my very own French veil.

Surely if I can make something like this:

I could adapt those skills and make something like this:

Don't you think?

Anyone else out there DIYing accessories for your wedding?

did you miss me?

[image from flickr]

Ah, so sorry about that! The break was a lot longer than I had intended. But you know what? We went to Bali and had all these good intentions that whilst on holidays, in the relaxed atmosphere, we'd find some time to sit on a beach and talk about what we'd like to say in our wedding vows.

DIDN'T HAPPEN.

We had the most awesome holiday, we had such an INCREDIBLY good time. So good that we didn't think about the wedding at all! Clearly, we needed a break from it and didn't even know it.

I think it was really the most stressfree vacation I have ever been on! We were constantly asked whether we were on our honeymoon. Depending on who was asking and what we felt was the appropriate response, so as not to offend anybody, we would either say it was or we'd tell them it was a our PRACTICE honeymoon, and we'd all have a little giggle about it.

But really, that was as far as the wedding thought and talk went on vacation - and we loved it! We loved it so much, that when we got back we thought, hey, let's keep not thinking about it for a while longer! We somewhat managed to do that. We had contacted some photographers before we went away and they followed up with us when we returned and so we made a decision on who we'd go with and booked one in. But other than that, we've been cruising.

It's SPRING now though, apparently, so I think it's time to start cranking the ol' wedding planning back into action.

So you'll be hearing more from me shortly. In the meantime though - I highly recommend Bali for a honeymoon destination. In fact, we've pretty much decided it is going to be ours. Beautiful surroundings (just try and stay away from the touristy Kuta), such beautiful people, inspiring culture, and sooooo traveller friendly it's almost ridiculous.