#31 Booked!

Big news. A fair bit of it really!

So firstly, we have officially (Finally - Thank goodness she has the patience of a saint) booked Karalee from Angelsmith Photography.

It took us SO long to get around to it, even though we pretty much decided as soon as we saw her work, & decided for certain when we met her way back in November :s

Thank goodness she didn't kick us to the kerb 'eh?

Thank you Karalee!

This weekend just past, we booked our venue.

This is hugely exciting, both because I was starting to feel fairly stressed that nothing ticked all the boxes & even at a compromise the dates were so filled up for next year...

Also, this venue, is the very first i looked at - fell in love with - but we thought we wouldn't be able to afford it.

Having gone over our guest list a few times since then, we didn't realise we had made enough changes to effect our ability to choose this venue until Mr N's parents heard of the place from someone else & re-suggested it...

We decided that it best not to delay given it's popularity so on the fantastic recommendations it has received & the mother outlaw having visited, We booked it.

So here it is, both our ceremony & reception venue - Glen Ewin Estate!

I don't want to give too much away about the decisions we make because I still want there to be suprises for our guests on the day, so I think one photo from afar will do ;)

We have decided to go with Glen Ewin's partner caterers, D&G Catering.

They seem very flexible & receptive to our ideas which is fantastic - because we have a few!

Looking forward to talking menus :)

Lastly, we have changed our wedding date.

It was a hard decision, given that the original date since was our anniversary & contained both our lucky numbers, but it wasn't available at Glen Ewin.

Also, our original date fell on a Sunday, which isn't the most practical for our interstate guests - of which there are a significant number - whereas now the date falls on a Friday which should be a lot easier for them & also makes it possible for them to get cheaper flights before the weekend begins.

So our new & final wedding date is : Friday 11th February 2011

Lots of my lucky number now! hehe

Annnyhow, in my excitement I have babbled on.

I'm just so relieved to have these things booked & not be feeling stressed about them anymore.

Back to all the fun stuff :)

#26 Numbers Numbers Numbers...

Ah yes. It is THAT time. The dreaded guest list number crunch...

In the pursuit of a wedding size comparable to that of our budget some super hard decisions have been made.

Everyone warns you, but it really is an easy thing to think it won't apply to you until you actually sit down and write the wishful guest list...

Look at the not so kind figures, think of house deposits & school fees, & start to break of the little pieces of your heart that you 'can't afford'...

Via tiny wedding by bleuz

Will they understand? Will they know how much we love them? Will they still know what they mean to us???

One can only hope...

#23 First set back...

So what we thought would be our reception venue crashed & burned.

We found it via the website & to give credit where credit is due, it is an absolutely beautiful venue & the decor is gorgeous.

Went there with the boys parents to check it out & taste the food when we were in Adelaide & - oh.my.god.

Mother outlaw & I went searching for the ladies & we were pointed in the direction of a map which lead us down 3 flights of super steep stairs that let me tell you, you wouldn't want to be descending if you were even a teeny bit tipsy, it was perilous enough stone cold sober!

Though to be fair, it probably did me good on the exercise front?

When we arrived at said destination we were almost ill, they were that filthy.

We had to go up to the counter to order, which was odd in this setting but ok.

We waited & waited...

And when it finally arrived it was laughable.

Laughable if we all weren't so hungry & my heart wasn't breaking as I realised that what had seemed too good to be true - really really was.

If you imagine 'Black & Gold' brand Yum Cha (if such a thing exists) from the supermarket freezer section, with zero points for presentation, cooked badly - either watery, sludgy, or overly deep fried but all of them tasteless- then you are kind of getting what we had the misfortune of experiencing.

The fact that there wasn't a chopstick in sight should have rung alarm bells I guess?

I also had a little look through the window in the door to the kitchen & couldn't help but note that it didn't seem to be in a much better state than the bathrooms...

It's time like these I wish I was a food writer & could openly insult them as much as they insulted us having us pay through the nose for such all around yuk! Ha.

Anyhow, I'm not really all that sore about it. Really I'm not!

In all honesty, my heart did break a bit & I hadn't realised quite how much I had thought it was a sure thing.

But I guess I learnt a valuable lesson hey? Something about chickens and hatching?

#21 We're going on a tree hunt...

We're going to find a BIG one!

I don't yet know where... but surely somewhere in Adelaide there is a tree as beautiful as these ones with our name on it.

Well, not on it exactly as that would most likely be a fine-able offense as any trees this big & beautiful are probably national trust, but the tree meant for us anyway.

Can't you just picture it at the end of the aisle...

Gosh i hope we find one!

If you are in/are familiar with Adelaide & know where 'it' is-please please please enlighten me?

Sometimes my picky/stubborn-ness is little bit more than a lot annoying and i wish I could be more flexible with things... but mostly once I get a certain idea/image in my head then nothing else will do.

Hence the headache of the 'one or the other' direction of reception venue!

What to do, what to do?

Do we go with the surroundings we - yeah yeah lets be honest - i want....

Or with the food?

All attempts to get the 2 of them together have hit brick wall after brick wall after concrete slab.

What's that? Concentrate on the tree? Yup.