You and Me: The Girls Get Glam

While I lounged around the hotel room in a white robe and black fluffy ugg boots, it was time for my bridesmaids and mother to begin getting made up.

After discovering Jenny from Le Fabulous online and having a few trial runs before the wedding {once for a trial, once for our engagement shoot}, I knew I was in great hands - as were my bridal party.

Image via Amy Nelson-Blaine Wedding Cinematography

Personal picture

Now I happen to have some completely gorgeous women in my life who looked amazing even before the makeovers began. But after the hair and make-up was applied? Talk about stunning!

Then it was time for my beautiful mum to visit the make-up and hairdressing hot seats!

Previous two images via Amy Nelson-Blaine Wedding Cinematography

In the meantime, the girls kept themselves busy, looking fabulous in their matching robes.

I was planning on keeping their hairstyles sleek and elegant with no clips or additions, but then decided at the last minute to add in some tiny sprigs of babys breath. I love how it turned out!

By now, the girls were all done - and sporting their gorgeous necklaces and pearl earrings that I'd gifted them too. My mum was almost done with her hair...

But who's that I spy lurking in the background, still wearing her robe? It was almost time for me to get into full blown bride mode.

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!

You and Me: When Morning Comes

I slept like a baby the night before the wedding. That is until just before 6am, when I was woken up by the phone ringing. You guys, I got pranked on the morning of my wedding! I remember staggering over to the phone, listening to some guy called 'Gary' speak for a little while, feeling tired, telling him it was my wedding day today and hanging up on him to head back to bed for another hour. To this day I still don't know who that caller was or how he got my hotel room number. Mysterious, very mysterious.



When I woke up the second time, things felt more real. The room was still in a bit of a mess from the night before, so I put some music on while I tidied things up, had a super fast shower and re-arranged some furniture ready for my hair/make-up artist to arrive. As I looked out the window I saw that despite the damp ground, there was sunlight streaming through the clouds - huzzah!

Personal picture

I laid out some of my important items, including quite a few of my 'somethings'. My mum took this snapshot, which I love. You can also see Jason's present in the background, along with my perfume for the day: j'adore by Dior.

Something old: My great nan's handkerchief & button-hook.
Something new: Hair flowers & bracelet.
Something borrowed: The veil, which you'll see later.
Something blue: My right hand ring, which you can see in the jewellery box.
Something special: My wee Jaguars, of course!

Gradually, the hotel room began to fill up with loved ones. My parents, who had opted to stay at the hotel the night before to make it easier in the morning, arrived with gifts in tow. My lovely stylist, Jenny, turned up with hair and make-up goodies. One of our photographers, Andrew, arrived with his fancy camera. My three bridesmaids arrived in comfy clothing, toting their gift bags containing their getting ready robes and bridal jewellery. We sent my dad out on a breakfast run and chilled out in the room. The atmosphere was relaxed and laid back, just the way I would've hoped.

But time started speeding up, and before we knew it, it was time to get started. The make-up and hair products were displayed, the inspiration pics were out - it was time for the girls to start the day and get beautified!

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.

You and Me: A Little Alone Time

There was one last thing I needed the girls to help me with before they left me to my thoughts on Wedding Day Eve. It was the most precious of my parcels: the dress!



With a little hoisting and a handy curtain hook, we got it hung up and flattened out.

You'll have to excuse the blurry iPhone pictures - action shots.

With the dress up, my girls bid me goodnight... and it was just me. I got in my jammies, took a few snapshots of the hotel room, tried to get the majority of wrinkles out of my veil, and stared at my wedding gown for a while longer. Being on my own was nice. It was still. It was peaceful. It let me appreciate the quiet before the storm.

With nothing else to do but play a little Solitaire on my iPhone (a bit of a bedtime ritual for me) I called it a night, and eventually fell asleep...

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.

You and Me: My Last Day as a Miss

I feel a little bad admitting this, but I hardly saw Jase on the day before our wedding.

Two of my best girlfriends were arriving into Sydney specially for the wedding, so I kissed him goodbye and headed off to meet them. I spent the morning with them (and my mum & Maid of Honour) getting our nails done.

Ah, pampering. I usually have fairly average length fingernails, so I decided to splurge on the day and get french tipped acrylics put on. I also snuck in a pedicure while the girls had some fun things done to their nails.  And then we waited for everything to dry!

Pretty nails in tow, I headed back to our apartment to pick up all of our wedding goodies and the dress. I gave Jase one last cuddle and made him walk down to the car with us to help us pack it all in... and then we drove away, with him waving us off. I can't even tell you how strange it felt leaving him behind. It was seriously weird.

The girls accompanied me to my hotel room for the evening, and we settled in there for a few hours.

Showing just how much space there was in the hotel room.

We had dinner at a beer hall near the hotel, having met up with my little brother and some other superfabulous wedding guests who joined in to celebrate my last night of Miss-dom.

And after that? Well, we got girly. We chatted. We lazed about. We posed with giant sunglasses.

(Bridal confession:  those awesome props? I completely forgot about them on the actual wedding day. Other things I forgot about: our message chalkboards, our toasting champagne for mimosas on the morning of the wedding day, and lots of posed pictures that I didn't request. Bride brain: it's a real thing.)

This kind of light heartedness was exactly what I would've wanted to do on the night before the wedding. The girls kept me distracted, encouraged my random bouts of giddiness, and made everything perfect.

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.

You and Me: The Final Countdown

Do do do dooooooooo, do-do-do-do-dooooooooooo!

Sorry, sorry. My apologies if I've now got that tune stuck in your head - if it makes you feel any better, it's in mine too. I was lucky enough to take a few days off work from my teaching job in the days leading up to the wedding. I thoroughly recommend this to any bride-to-be, it really helped me get my head around what needed finishing during the home stretch.

There were minor stress attacks to be had.
Our charity ribbon favours hadn't arrived yet and when I phoned to check on their arrival, I was told they'd sold out... and nobody had told me! WHAT? Thankfully a friendly receptionist at the Breast Cancer Foundation scrounged around through some old charity boxes and found me the ribbons I needed. Crisis averted.

There were last minute projects to finish.
I needed to assemble our table number lumies, our home-made wedding programs, and our place cards & charity favours. I don't think we saw the top of our dining table for a good month prior to the wedding.

Thankfully I had lots of help with Jason, my parents AND my wonderful Maid of Honour all putting in some serious crafting hours with me.

I call this shot: when good crafting goes bad. (Don't even ask about my crazed expression. I am the queen of dodgy face-pulling.)

There were delivery runs to the venue to be made.
With several boxes of goodies in tow, my Maid of Honour & I hoofed it across town to our reception venue to get everything dropped off and ready to go for the weekend. We managed to get everything in the car in one trip between us, thanks to pure adrenalin. It took us a good few goes up and down the stairs to get it all into the reception venue though, with my lumie table numbers choosing that moment to fly out of the box in the wind and attempt to make a break for it! Arms full, we eventually managed to round them all up and get them into our reception room, safe and sound.

I'm happy to announce that no Lumies were harmed in the making of this wedding.

There were random shopping trips for last minute bits & pieces.
I thought I'd gotten everything under control nice and easy... except for a few things that completely slipped my mind. It's a fairly well known fact that I declared I MUST HAVE SPARKLERS at our wedding, I simply must. Thankfully our venue okay-ed them (provided we were outside, of course) and I happily went about my merry way, thinking we'd just use regular sized ones and be done with it.

Until, that is, I random decided to time the burn-down rate of a sparkler or two a few days before the wedding - and started to panic (again!) when they only lasted for around 24 seconds before fizzing out. There's no WAY they would stay lit long enough for our send-off! I ended up finding a party store that express posted me some extra long ones, which ended up working beautifully.

It's no wonder the wedding day comes around closer than you'd expect. Things to do! People to see! Projects to finish! Cheesy self portraits in front of mirrors to take!

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

You and Me: We Rehearse

Ah, our wedding rehearsal. Otherwise known as the Tuesday evening before the wedding when we practised saying our vows in our lovely old church while freezing our pantaloons off.

I was really quite nervous leading up to the rehearsal. I think it might have been the idea of having all of our bridal party gathered together in the one place for the first time, particularly since Jason's older brother/best man had just flown in from the UK the night before. We headed straight for the church after work, with gifts for our bridesmaids, groomsmen and parents in tow.

When we arrived, we introduced the few remaining members of the bridal party who hadn't met one another yet & got straight down to business. Now I should preface this by saying that don't have many pictures from the rehearsal because my mum, bless her, was far too busy bawling her eyes out to remember to use her camera!

Pretend-walking down the aisle with my dad was so just what I needed to calm me down. My dad was making me laugh, our priest was hilarious as he made faces while telling the bridesmaids to SLOW DOWN. (They were racing up that aisle!) And seeing Jason standing at the altar - even though we were both relaxed and taking it lightly - was such a great feeling. It felt surreal to think that the next time I'd be visiting, it would be the actual wedding day & we'd all be decked out in our fancy wedding duds.

Our ONE image from the wedding rehearsal. 

After the church rehearsal was over, we zoomed off to a nearby restaurant for dinner. We gave everyone their gifts, where I finally got to give the bridesmaids their matching robes & necklace/earring sets that I'd been planning for months. Jason gifted the groomsmen assorted stripy grey ties & cool looking cuff links. We splurged on our parents gifts and gave them tickets to a luncheon and boat cruise around Sydney Harbour.

After eating our meal and thanking everyone for coming, that was that & the rehearsal was over. (Not before a family selfy, though.)

Everyone tells you how quickly your wedding goes by. And when they do, it's really hard to imagine it being over when you're still in the thick of planning. It's easier to just fuzz over it and carry on in your happy wedding bubble. Until it really is all over, quick as a flash. And you're left with beautiful memories, black spots and hazy moments... and a husband. A husband. Squee!

It was like this for the rehearsal too - it felt as though it was over before it had even begun. It was hard to imagine at this point that the wedding was only five short days away, or that this would end up being our last picture together as an engaged couple.

As for the rest of the wedding week... it went by in a blur, too.

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

You and Me: Let the Wedding Recaps Begin!

So remember that time back in June when we got married?

Image via Amy Nelson-Blaine Wedding Cinematography

You may have had a sneak peak of our wedding through our fabulous video trailer, but it's time to get down into the nitty gritty details of the big day. Our professional photographs have arrived from the folks at Follan Photography, and I'm so excited to share the story of our wedding day with you all.

From the pre-wedding activities that occurred before the big day to the dawning of the day itself.
From the early morning preparations to the all important I DO's.
From the really, really bad luck we had with the weather to the laughter and the tears that occurred throughout our evening reception.
From the tiny details that I spent hours putting together to our happy ending, where we bid farewell to our wedding day through a wall of sparklers into a wet and cold night as husband and wife.

The Jaguar wedding is about to be unveiled - I hope you'll stick along for the ride!