What to do

My mother was directed to my blog, I say directed because I can’t see why she would search for it considering blog reading isn’t what she normally does on the internet.

I’m pretty sure I know who did it and it only reinforces why I no longer speak to them.

My mother no longer speaks to me over an offense that pales in comparison to things I have let go for her that there is no point getting in to.  It’s probably for the best realistically.

So I am at a lull blog wise while I decide whether to pull the whole thing and sacrifice a place to put myself on paper so to speak, whether I continue on as if this hasn’t happened, or if I go all out and let all the family skeletons out of the closet .

But at least between this and my so called father not attending the wedding I can safely consider myself parentless.

The tale of the missing necklace

I’m surrounded by some sort of black hole phenomena, you see if I put something down say a pen or a necklace and look away for a second that thing will disappear.  This would be fantastic if I could do it at will, because I could probably make some money off it.  Unfortunately as it is it’s just really annoying.  A few days after the wedding I lost my wedding necklace, and because I couldn’t remember putting it down it made the feeling that it was never going to be found that much stronger.

I thought maybe I had left it in the cabin in the caravan park, which was worrying because the Wolff’s parents had vacated so there was little chance of getting it back if that was the case.  The Wolff rang his parents to check that it hadn’t gotten in to their stuff somehow, it hadn’t.

He consoled me and said he would find it or get me another if he couldn’t.  I was a five year old and didn’t want another, it had to be this new but sentimental piece of jewelery that I wore on our wedding day.

So he went through the house, the bags we had used for our swimming gear and our awfully-skanky smelling wheely bin, in case I had somehow thrown it out.

I went to bed disappointed that I had yet again lost something important by just putting it down.  Wolff tried to call the caravan park to see if it had turned up there, there was no answer so he promised to go there the next day and check.

I went to bed and he started tidying up in preparation to follow, he came to bed with a big smile and my necklace in hand.

It was down the side of the couch and the first thing his hand touched when he decided to check there.

This long and largely pointless story tells you how I know I married the right man.  Someone who will hunt for a small piece of metal, for no reason other than it means something to me.  Someone who comforts me when I come home from a long distressing day at work and soothes my ego when I miss out on yet another job that would get me out of where I am now.

Marriage changes nothing and everything, it has definitely opened my eyes to how loved and lucky I am.

Role Model Couples

So I’ve talked about the bad/ sad whatever you’d like to call the Anti Role Models, now for the positive couples that I look to for inspiration in building our marriage.

My Aunty and Uncle - Aunty T and Uncle D are one of the few good examples of marriage that I had growing up, and still have.  They have been married for over 33 years which I think is amazing. They have a great balance of family, together and independent time.  Even though their belief system and mine don’t align they are a great example of making a marriage work, despite a lack of support from family and a lack of good examples from their parents on what a marriage should / can be at it’s best they’ve worked together to make theirs amazing.

The Wolff’s Uncles – I really admire the Wolff’s Uncles, I’m not sure exactly but they’ve been together for well over 20 years.  One of them successfully avoided fighting in the Vietnam War by going to court and defending his right to be a conscientious objector.  Strong willed, witty and loving people who make a striking couple, especially when dressed up for our wedding.  A reassuring example of love that may not fit what others think it should be and still flourishes anyway, an example that I am glad to have.

The Wolff’s Parents – The Wolff’s parents have been together since they were young and have had some pretty tough times, yet have still come out as together, funny and supportive people.  Who’ve managed to raise amazing men for sons*  The Wolffmother is everything I hope I can be to my children’s future partners.  They have all not just accepted my two children but have gotten to know and love them which is pretty amazing to see.  But mostly my awe of them is summed up in the time that I caught Wolff’s father stealing a kiss from Wolff’s mother, it was a nobody can see us, quick moment that just radiated the early stages of love.  To be together for such a large portion of their lives and still have that new love shine is pretty awesome.

Much like the Anti-role models we will never be exactly any of these couples, but it’s nice to have inspiration and the hope that our relationship will continue to strengthen like theirs have over the years.

*Massively biased I know

When you do the right thing

..sometimes you are rewarded.

We thought about making a statement in our wedding ceremony regarding marriage equality, for oh about 5 seconds.  You see there really was no choice as far as we were concerned.  We both strongly support marriage equality and are both a bit shocked that it is such a back-burner issue in our country.  Actually shocked is wrong, I’m not even surprised when Christian groups are consulted by the government on restricting our free speech and internet access but the general public are not, we are more appalled.

For both of us it devalues our marriage to say that our love is better or of more value or in any way different to that of a same sex couple.  We’re not a conventional couple for more than one reason and if we had been born in a different time then the fact that we are not the same colour would probably have been an issue.  Love has enough hardships thrown at it and I don’t think that the government needs to govern love.  They are crap at it anyway, counseling sessions to get divorced?  You’re doing it at the wrong stage of marriage you bureaucratic twats.

Back on track from my ranting. Once we had the brief “of course we are” conversation about making a statement in our ceremony it actually took a while to nail down what to say.  I have to say we kept it non confrontational as I have some family members who, while I don’t agree with their values I still love them and had no intention of hurting them to make a point.  If I did they love me enough to overlook it.

What we ended up selecting was this:

- Lego does not have to be built according to instructions. Wolff and Lila feel lucky to have a relationship that fits so intuitively while not matching standard designs.  The beauty of love is that it comes unexpectedly and in different shapes, sizes and colours.  Love truly appreciated is not exclusionary; it is a connection to the love that others share, when love in all its forms is recognised it enhances the love of all.  Wolff and Lila wish to acknowledge and express compassion for those who do not have the freedom to marry. They appreciate how fortunate they are to have this freedom and hope for the day when state truly removes itself from church and embraces marriage for all.

It was important to us to do this and if nothing came of it that was fine too, we said what we needed to say.  But, after the ceremony while we were mingling and I sat down to give my feet a break the Wolff’s uncle came and sat next to me.  He told me how beautiful our wedding was, that I looked fabulous (and who doesn’t lurve to hear that) then he said to me “I particularly liked the part about marriage for everybody, we were really touched by that”.
It’s one of the moments that I most treasure about our wedding day.  The Wolff’s Uncle’s have been in a relationship for over twenty years, they are a solid wonderful couple who are one of my role model couples.

It would be lovely to be able to be sitting at their wedding telling them how fabulous they are.

I like my new family

The Wolff was on the phone to his parents the other night in his search for my necklace* The phone call was long and I don’t like to intrude on his family calls so I wandered about doing heaps of nothing.  After the call we were snuggling and talking (which is pretty much all we do, we aren’t really very exciting), and he told me about how much his parents enjoyed their time here with us around the wedding.

They stayed at the caravan park so we spent a bit of time there swimming, bbqing and walking to the Australia Day parade and generally doing family stuff.  I was still knackered from the wedding so I fell asleep twice in front of everyone, which I am not normally comfortable doing.  All in all it was a relaxed lovely bonding time with my new family.  I didn’t really think too much about how they felt about it, until the phone conversation was relayed to me.  The Wolff’s dad had told the Wolffmother that “He likes his new family”.

It made me all oozy and soft inside, I like my new family too.

It helps to remember that on crappy days like today.

*I lost my damn wedding necklace but that’s another story

Protected: Anti Role Model Couples

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Recommended reading

There are probably a lot of books that are helpful to read in the wedding planning phase.

I only read one properly, I actually devoured it cover to cover and re-read sections when I needed calming down or inspiration.

It was helpful to me, it might be helpful to you, and you can now pre-order the second edition, which I would love to read out of interest even though I no longer have a wedding to plan.

So if you want an interesting read, that does not try to be a step by step list of directives of how your wedding has to be, but is more of a support system while you figure out what you really want out of your wedding I would recommend checking this out.

This is not a paid or solicited recommendation.

Protected: Where the cash went

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Didn’t have it

…didn’t need it

There are a few things that got ditched on the way to the altar and in the end they really were not needed there.  The amount of time wasted thinking about these things, trying to organise them, or making them and trying to work out how to get them to the venue was a bit pointless but I guess that happens.

The light fitting - We just didn’t think it worked with the overall look of the venue in the end.

The Vinyls -  because the day involved way more running around or waiting on other people than it should have we just didn’t have time to set these up at the venue

The damn motherf’n late blooming flowers – self explanatory

A veil – they just didn’t suit me at all, not that I tried any of the ones shown here, but the ones I did really didn’t do it.

We also didn’t play our first song as the Wolff felt like we couldn’t pull it off I was a little disappointed but I think trying to talk him in to it wouldn’t have been fair.

A Band – it was never our intention to have a DJ but a band was considered, the ipod worked out fine and saved a lot of money.

Speaking of money does anyone want a where the cash went breakdown, I’ve avoided putting the costs out because I know that it is a contentious and competitive thing out in the bridal blogging world, but if anyone thinks it will help them in their planning I’m happy to share.

No fuss… definitely

Vendor review number 2

Our choice of a lovely, lovely venue, determined our caterer as they are the preferred supplier for catering at The Promethean,  This initially had me worried as I thought they would probably be extremely expensive or very mediocre, they are neither of these things.  No Fuss Catering really do make providing a fabulous meal for your guests a fuss free task. Don’t let the simple website fool you either the food is presented beautifully, tastes amazing and is more than enough to satisfy even the most ravenous guest.  Not one guest was unhappy, including the vegetarians, so obviously we too were very happy.

Another big thank-you to No Fuss Catering who truly helped make our wedding everything we wanted it to be.