Some of my favourite wedding photos

We have received the DVD with the professional wedding photos and I just wanted to share of few of my favourite with you.

I am married!

I've been pretty quiet on the crafting front for the last few weeks because I got married on 1 May 2011. I married my darling partner of almost 10 years, Ben, at Chateau Wyuna in Lilydale, Victoria in front of 70 friends and family. It was an amazing day. Everything went very smoothly on the day and I was very impressed with the service provided by everyone over the day.

Hair and make-up was by Rachel Rayner. She gave me exactly the natural look I was after. I thought she made my sister and bridesmaid look beautiful. She's very willing to take on advise and requests for last minute changes. A lovely person to work with and ensure you are stress-free in the preparations.

Flowers were by Suzanne's Bridal Flowers. Suzanne describes herself as providing a boutique flower service and I really think she delivered. She makes the stems of the bouquets as thin as a pen so your hand doesn't sore from holding it all day. She delivered the bridal flowers to my home at 11.30am then went to the venue at 2pm to pin on the boys button holes to make sure they were all done correctly. She stayed around during our pre-ceremony photos right until the ceremony started to make sure there were no problems with the flowers. She also provided some lovely yellow petals for our memorial display at the last minute for no extra cost.

Photography by Daniel Sheehan. The photography was one of the most important elements of our wedding day to me and Daniel was the second booking I made after securing the venue. Daniel did a wonderful pre-wedding photo shoot with us so we could ensure we would be happy with his style. We picked him for his preference for candid photography shots. He was very easy to work with during the day and took the millions of shots I asked of him. I've only seen the sneak peak shown above but I'm looking forward to seeing all the images in the coming weeks.

Transport was provided by Fleetwood Chauffeured Limousines. I can not speak highly enough of this company. They arrived 15 minutes prior to the booking time. They set up a red carpet walkway for the bride. Both cars and drivers stayed for the entire pre-ceremony photos, with the drivers coming around to all the photo sites with us and offering to help me with my dress and flowers while we walked around. The cars looks great and the ride was very smooth.

Music was provided by Ruby Strings. Unfortunately as the bride I missed most of their beautiful music but what I did get to hear was lovely. A very professional organisation they played a wonderful mix of classics and more modern songs.

Celebrant was Susan Green. When we started planning our ceremony we really didn't have much of an idea what we wanted to include. Susan helped focus our vision and was happy to give us the simple ceremony we wanted.

The ceremony and reception were held at Chateau Wyuna. The site was beautiful and just what we wanted. The staff dealt with the neverending emails promptly. Even having our co-ordinator call in sick on the day of the wedding wasn't a problem and everything went smoothly.

We went to Thailand for a 11 day honeymoon the day after the wedding. It was my first time overseas and an amazing experience. As you can see below, we patted tigers and rode elephants. We also did a 3 day trek across the mountains, white water rafting, cycling tour, windsurfing and so much more.

Happy Easter!

Just a quick selfie to wish everyone a very happy Easter. Ben's mum hid 40 eggs in the backyard just so Ben and I could have an Easter Egg hunt! I hope everyone is enjoying some time with family over this long weekend.

Bonbonairies

I've been doing fairly well creating one craft project a week for the past couple of weeks. Unfortunately, my upload for this weekend is wedding related. I had to create 72 bonbonairies which will double as place tags for my wedding, which is coming up in TWO WEEKS! After spending hours looking through all the different products we could order, we decided just to make our own. I couldn't bring myself to be spending $5, or more, on each person for something they generally forget to take or throw away anyway. We went with the bottles below filled with jelly beans to match our colour theme.

Another reason for my lack of craftiness this weekend is the fact I'm in Melbourne this weekend for my second Hen's Night. We did burlesque dancing and life drawing followed by dinner down the road. It was fantastic and very funny! You can see a group photos of us, including the lovely model, below. :) If anyone is interested in doing something similar I highly recommend Hen's Love Art in Fitzroy. Miss Tanleea is a wonderful hostess and is happy to accomodate most requests.

Hair & Make Up Trial LO

I have been watching the Show Us Your Stuff blog for a while now and really enjoy their challenges however I haven't found time to enter prior to now. This month was a pretty specific challenge: you had to use pink, blue and yellow along with their sketch and include a handmade item. I received a pack of new Pretty Paper Petals flowers as part of their monthly club and was so happy to see these adorable yellow/blue/white felt flowers included. I've added the pink buttons to tie them in to the overall colour scheme.

I mentioned a few posts ago that I noticed a lot of the published LO's contain a number of more layers and details than I normally add so I made an effort to add more to this LO.  I hope you can see the distressing and the stitching around the circle. I'm happier with the result.



Here is the sketch we had to work from. I had to change it a bit because of the size of my photos. I didn't intend to use so many flowers but the clusters both just built up as I went. :)

Engagement Party LO

I'm getting married in less than a month which means my two year engagement is about to end, so I figured it was probably time to scrap some photos from the event! :) This is my entry to the Once Upon A ...Sketch blog for their first ever competition. Nadia is one of the founders of the blog and she does the most wonderfully detailed LO's, as do a number of the other DT members. I tried to incorporate more layers and details into my LO than I normally would. Chipboard is from Scrapmatts, love their stuff!

Here is the sketch I worked from, in case you're interested in entering. You also had to have handwritten journalling of 25 words or more.

Gold Coast Hen's Night Celebrations!

I am getting married in 28 days and to celebrate some of my friends here on the Gold Coast decided to throw me a Hen's Night. Their offer to throw the party was unexpected and most appreciated. We had a High Tea at Lauxesin Broadbeach. Just a tip - it's not a good sign when you have to ask for the pots of tea to be served, at the end of the high tea! :) 

This is me before we left home showing off my pretty new dress. :)

With my friends Emma and Emma.

Back at home with Lynda and Amanda.

It was a fantastic afternoon/evening with lots of laughing and just general catching up with friends.

CraftExpo Cards

Today I went to the Brisbane CraftExpo with my friend, Sarah. We did a beaded necklace class to start with but I sucked at that so there's no picture. :) We also did a card marking class with Scrapmatts. I love their chipboard so I couldn't pass this up. Here are the three cards we created:

We also did a really quick make and take at Kazazz which was the cute frog card.

I got to check out Papercraft Showroom with 50 scrapbooking LO's. It was great to see them in person rather than in magazines. I think the thing that stood out the most was the depth in these LO's, so many different layers and so many with 3D effects. Maybe me feel like my work isn't up to scratch but I guess it really just shows where I've got room to improve.

Giggle LO

I have finally managed to create 4 LO's in the one month for Challenge Heaven so I'm eligable for prizes this month. :) This is entry number four for the themed challenge: Smiles, frowns and funny faces with twine on the layout. My twine is on the tag and I think I've covered all three expressions with these photos. I handmade all the flowers on this LO, pretty proud of myself there.

Kaisercraft Saturday Sketch Card

Kaisercraft went with something different for their sketch this Saturday and gave us a card rather than a LO. I don't make too many cards but decided this would be the perfect chance to use up some of my left over Christmas papers. So here is my entry for MARCH SKETCH CHALLENGE #4.

Here is the sketch Kaisercraft gave us to work with.