The ceremony

J arrived an hour before the ceremony was due to start. I’m not sure if he intended to inflict pain on himself by standing and waiting for that length of time, but we have several funny guest shots of his little nervous face. After questioning it was revealed that he would rather wait in the church than in our flat, and that he simply did not want to be late. Fair enough.

Lucky for him, I was not far away. In the week leading up to the wedding, I’d say that there was one small plea from J that was repeated more often than any other thing: Please don’t be late. Please don’t be late. If you are going to be late, get someone to text someone. Please don’t be late.

So. I was early. Dad and I had possibly the cruisiest ride possible, sailed through green lights, and almost overtook the minivan carrying the rest of my family, until we told the driver that the bride arriving before the mother of the bride was probably not the way to go.

We circled the block a few times. I was suddenly super thirsty, and lovely eager driver produced a bottle of water. Dad panicked that I would spill it on my dress. At 2.59 we decided it was probably safe to arrive, and we were greeted by our priest, who was nothing short of thrilled that I had arrived on time. Whilst he did a small celebratory tap dance and shook hands with my Dad, a few last minute interstate guests arrived – with their uninvited toddler son. No matter. A quick rack of the brain to think where we’d seated them at the reception – and by a small miracle, it was on the end of a table with space for a stroller.

We waited in the little vestibule at the back of the church. The girls chatted and grinned and remarked on my calmness. Dad and I debated on which arm was the correct one to walk down the aisle on. (Left, it turns out).

Then in a flash, the music was playing, the girls had gone, Dad whispered a quick and shaky “I love you”, and suddenly I was walking the aisle. My face froze into a grin as I saw everyone in my life, my friends, my colleagues, my distant family and my close family, the Mexican aunties, the baseball boys, everyone smiling back at me. I got teary. The emotion coming out of that space hit me straight in the chest. I don’t think I breathed.

We were halfway down the aisle, which seemed to only take half a second, when I realised that I hadn’t looked at J. The little voices of many dear wedding bloggers echoed in my head: Don’t forget to take in every single moment!  I looked straight at him and didn’t look away until we had arrived.

We sat to the side while the priest made his welcome. I spent the next 5 minutes trying to hide my hand beneath my bouquet and wrangle my engagement ring off, which I had completely forgotten about. Difficult. Our dear friends made readings and their voices filled the space.

We remembered all our lines. We chose to say the vows ourselves, rather than having the priest say them as a question. This meant we didn’t actually say “I do”. Let’s see if I can remember them now, 6 months later? Hmm. I, Emma, take you, J, to be my husband. (Missing part about health) I will love you and honour you all the days of my life. Ok that was a bit of a fail. The missing bit is, I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health.

Rocking the necklace.

We then did the lazo and the arras. We decided to ask our two godmothers to perform the lazo-ing. Gosh I love a whacky face, don’t I?

All done, register signed, time to leave.

My grandma was the first to come and congratulate us. I love this photo.

We had planned to mingle with everyone on the lawn outside the church for 20 minutes or so. However, it seemed that a crowd cannot resist a waiting bus:

And so after a few brief hellos and more kisses on the cheek in 10 minutes than I have ever received, we were on our way to the gardens.

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All photography is by Jonas Peterson. Please do not reproduce without his permission, and do not repost.

High. Low.

I am incredibly hung over and feeling sorry for myself today. I went to an 80′s theme costume party last night. Today is grey and dull and I feel the same. Cheery, aren’t I?

This past week I started my new job. It is great. I feel good about it, it is the right way to go on my path to starting my own floral business. But now I can’t stop feeling like I just want to be done, in the middle of having my own projects and running my own show.

Classic Gen Y, no? (Although I am actually an X/Y cusp.) Just want to get to the good stuff and not do the hard yards. Blah.

Anyway, that’s where I’m at. Flower school started again this week, and I made a depressing funeral-like arrangement that feels like it belongs in the reception of White Lady.

But I also made a pretty bouquet.

The little chrysanthemums look like they’ve been sprayed with neon paint, but that’s how bright they were. And the lovely purple Erica is a new favourite.

More wedding recaps to come this week…

 

Game Changer

You guys, I have Big News. Exciting News.

I got a job – a flower related job.

In the last two or three weeks I have done a lot of thinking. You know that I got excited about flowers, enrolled in flower school, and then stopped working at my very long-term full time job. I was freaking out about “putting myself out there” to get more work in my industry when really, the passion wasn’t there. So I thought on it. Long into the night, through the quiet and non-eventful days (with no job, and no prospect of one, the dollars were tight). In the shower. In the car. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. And what I came up with at the end was: I don’t want to keep living like this.

And I guess you could say that I have taken the plunge. I applied for a position that will let me explore my love for flowers, teach me some useful business savvy, and let me work with a fun bunch of ladies. And I got it.

I am super excited and shit scared. Essentially, I have just thrown 4 years of training and 8 years of experience out the window, and that is something that makes me feel both exhilarated and absolutely mind-numbingly stupid at the same time.

I also feel embarrassed. It is ridiculous and crazy, I know, but I just can’t help but feel a little ashamed. Because I didn’t have the balls to push through and succeed in my (previous?) career. It makes me feel cringe-y and awkward.

The worst thing is this. I am so excited about my new job. I am thrilled. I have told my parents, and I have talked with J about so many possibilities for our future. BUT. I cannot tell my friends. I haven’t told them anything. I have LIED to them and told them I have no work lined up.

Why is this? Because I feel like they will judge me for being that craziest fool they ever met, and that I will be a laughing stock.

Because I feel a failure.

Somewhere inside me there is a little feeling gripping on tight that is preventing me from sharing my happiness with these people, and it is the knowledge that I have failed. I couldn’t cut it in the end. I wasn’t a good enough worker to build that career into what I wanted.

Isn’t this awful! Obviously I cannot go on like this. At some point people will have to know that I have essentially quit one industry to work in another. Does this mean admitting failure? Or will I be able to see that it’s a step in the right direction for me, and really, screw what anyone thinks about it? What does it say about how I see my relationship with my friends? Of course, friends are friends because they are supportive, and love you. So why am I so worried? Why did I tell one of my very close girlfriends, one of my bridesmaids, that I have nothing going on this week when she called to see how I was going?

Clearly I am an idiot. But a happy one.

 

The flowers

As you may remember, I decided to do all the flowers myself, with help from my Mum and my bridesmaid. And so it was that at 4.30am the day before my wedding, I woke up, was dressed and in the car in a snap, dragging Mum along with me, and we tackled the Sydney Flower Markets.

I had a list. Dahlias, please let there be dahlias. Because of all the rain in the lead-up to our wedding, many florists had advised that the crops were delayed. (Yes, I surveyed florist shops in desperate hope of spotting a happy dahlia.) Snapdragons, cosmos, sweet peas, cornflowers, hybrid tea roses, paper daisies and stock. Foliage great and small.

I had $350 in my pocket, and I had two blue IKEA bags.

It all sounded great in my head: we would be in and out in less than half an hour. I ran it through with Mum as we drove the 30 minute drive in the dark to the markets. There was to be no gerberas, no lilies, no baby’s breath, no lisianthus. Absolutely, she said, I am on board. We arrived.

“Gosh!” Mum said, as we drove in and narrowly missed seven forklifts zipping past.

In what can only be described as a wedding miracle, we found a park in the closest parking station right across from the entrance. Loaded with our IKEA bags, we tried to cross the road.

“Gosh!” Mum uttered again as a forklift shaved skin off her nose. “This is like being in Vietnam!”

The markets were madness. There were people everywhere, trolleys of flowers everywhere, brides and their mothers everywhere. There was no cosmos, and there were no paper daisies, and there were no sweet peas or cornflowers. But there were peonies. Oh yes, what every bride wants and is told she can’t have due to the season: buckets and buckets of pink peonies, closed up into tight little bulbs. Not a flower I had really considered, but the main thing at the markets is to be flexible. They became a part of my loot. Most excitingly, there were dahlias. Not many, but I swooped on the few bunches there – which just happened to be in my favourite colours.

Money spent, we lugged the blue bags back to the car and surveyed our haul. I still had $50 in my pocket, and enough flowers to decorate a small football stadium. Satisfied, we headed home and set up the back deck.

Actual flowers purchased: Dahlias, delphiniums, liatris, snapdragons, peonies, hypericum, kale, easter daisies, zinnias, tea tree, ming fern, and lovely branches from apple trees.

I just want to repeat this most important point in case anyone is thinking of doing this themselves: get your flowers into water VERY quickly, and keep them out of the sun.

We started off with the bouquets, as they would use the best flowers. I claimed my favourite striped magenta dahlia and a lovely streaky peony,  and I built my bouquet, using the awesome and helpful guide from Blooms by the Box. And I was so pleased with it. We built the bridesmaids’ bouquets in the same way.

Photo by Jonas Peterson

 

 We tied the bouquets off with velvet ribbon. Mine had my Mum’s white lace handkerchief pinned on the back as my “something borrowed”.

Photo by Jonas Peterson

Photos by Jonas Peterson

And then… the centrepieces.

Photo by Jonas Peterson

Photo by Jonas Peterson

All the leftover bits and pieces we used to fill lots of ceramic jugs to put around the reception venue.

Total flowers: 4 bouquets, 10 centrepiece boxes, 9 ceramic jugs, and 6 buttonholes.

In hindsight:

• I LOVED my bouquet. It was exactly my colours, it was my favourite flowers, and it still looked wild and fresh out of the garden. I kept it in my bedroom in a vase for 2 weeks after the wedding and almost cried when it got so dead I had to throw it away.
• It would have been nice to spend a little more time on the centrepieces.  However, I would probably have spent an hour on each one, and with ten of them, I did not have that sort of time. So.
• The centrepieces and jugs were great but I could have had more of them. The gap between the centrepieces on each table was probably too large, and though I didn’t mind the white, an abundance of flowers would have looked awesome. And would have cost a lot more, so, probably for the best.
• The buttonholes, as mentioned in my previous post, were made the morning of the wedding, and I did not wire any of the flowers, which really should have been done. J had a dahlia bud in his, and after the first person hugged him, the poor thing had bent and flopped over. Had I wired it, this photo would not cause me so much distress:

Photo by Jonas Peterson

The morning

I woke up with puffy eyes after being up late sewing my reception dress. I forget if I ate breakfast, but I probably had avocado on toast. I was in the shower when Mum knocked and informed me that my hair and makeup ladies had arrived half an hour early.

A strange feeling was hanging around me. It was some kind of midway between foreboding and calm. It didn’t help that I was extremely aware of the photographer and found it hard to be natural, and so my feelings about the upcoming events kind of got blocked. I wasn’t stressed or anxious, and I was glad to have the regular family activities going on around me: my Dad positioned on the back deck, relaying commentary about the position and colour of the clouds; my grandparents sitting on the couch, watching morning tv with a cup of tea; and my brother playing video games until he was told to go and do stuff.

I was so pleased to have a friendly face and a steady hand in an old school friend doing my makeup. However, word to the wise: don’t have your manicure done in the same hour you need to make buttonholes. Obviously.

It was all going along slowly, placidly. People were chatting about bad haircuts and choosing earrings. We voted on festoon lighting colours as texted through by my friend at the reception venue. We ate and sipped champagne. And then, suddenly, everyone had to be ready. The transport arrived and was waiting. It was time to dress. A flurry of activity and somehow I found it impossible to look at a clock.

With the bedroom door shut firmly against the crowd as I wrangled myself into control underwear, I thought about J, who no doubt had already been standing at the altar for 15 minutes. He had asked, pleaded, beseeched me not to be late. That if we were going to be late, someone had to call and tell him. Dress on, I opened the door. Are we on time? Assurances came from all angles. We were on time.

In all the goings-on we almost forgot the bloody necklace. It was being kept safely in my parent’s room. A last minute dash before descending the stairs.

Meanwhile… the boys were waiting.

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All photography is by Jonas Peterson. Please do not reproduce without his permission, and do not repost.

In which I cut my hair and attend a wedding

How was your weekend? I was in the ever lovely Melbourne, sighing and strolling around in her streets, lazily eating delicious food, catching up with old friends, and attending a wedding.

I also cut off all my hair. I have been itching to do it for an age. Even before  my wedding, I wanted it gone, but in true bride style the mantra of “you have to grow your hair for the wedding” successfully brainwashed me. Anyway, I finally caved. Something about being in Melbourne and feeling daring. It is all chopped off. At first I had a little bit of an old fashioned freak out – I kept seeing my reflection in shop windows and thinking it was a boy. Not great. But J has assured me that it is good. He has a huge bias towards short hair. Constant utterances such as “It’s like I have a new wife!” help also.

Favourite things: Checkerboard dance floor. Wedding necklace re-used for the first time. Champagne. Flowers on strings. Purple haute couture dress that cost me $30. Nabbing one of the few bar tables at a cocktail reception. SHORT HAIR.

The wedding was lovely. It was in the classic style of my friend, which is, over the top, crazy, feminine, romantic madness. She wore a floral ruffled dress and red lips. Her guests did the best impression of haute couture that they could manage, and damn it was impressive. What a well-dressed bunch. One of the things that we really loved, appreciated and will remember always about our wedding is the effort and care that went into our guests’ outfit choices. People were bright, interesting, colourful and elegant and really knocked it out of the park. It was nice to see that same effort happen again.

I decided to make my haute couture outfit. I didn’t like anything in the shops and was struck with a classic case of “nothing in my wardrobe is suitable”. So I bought 5 metres of deep purple mesh at $6 a metre and draped myself a frock. I am sorry to say that I don’t have a decent photo of it.

Being at a wedding was funny. I was reliving all of our moments as they progressed through the day. The waiting for the bride to walk down the aisle made me teary as I thought of waiting at the back of the church with my Dad. The champagne time immediately following the ceremony made my cheeks hurt in empathy of all the “thankyou so much! I’m so glad you could make it” greetings complete with pasted on smiles, a whirlwind of people commenting on the dress, the words, the setting. It took me straight back there.  I found that through the reception I watched my friend and experienced my night all over again. I watched her  float around the room, making sure to say hello to everyone, and I revisited my own feelings of detachment. I saw her find time to eat (hurrah for brides eating!), catching a tiny moment to brush past her new husband and feel his hand on her waist, and I remembered the quiet glow I felt at the good things happening that we had made happen. I saw her face as she took in the decorations of the room as she entered the reception, and how her eyes lit up on seeing her carefully crafted party come to life, and I remember saying to J “it’s exactly how we imagined it.”

I had only a small conversation with her on the night (or course). And what I said was “the best thing is when you wake up tomorrow morning, remember everything, realise how awesome it was, and then know that you never have to do it ever again“.

She looked at me, her shoulders dropped, her head tipped back, she exhaled. “Oh, man, YES”.

The week before the Day

From Mon cabinet de curiosities

During the week before the wedding:

• Heavy rain was forecast for every day in the upcoming two weeks. My caterers rang and spoke with sympathetic/scared voices, worried I might think it was their fault, explode with stress and anger whilst on the phone to them, and send evil electric death rays through the phone line. We booked a plastic “wall” to extend over the table seating.

• A hot water pipe burst in my bathroom,  flooding half the house and ruining all contents of our bathroom cabinet (perfumes, makeup, hairdryer, etc.)

• My best friend and maid of honour arrived from London and her mum told me she didn’t like the dress I had made for her daughter.

• I came to the realisation that our church music (traditional organ music) was totally wrong and that Sigur Ros was the only thing that would suffice. Listened to Glosoli at full volume whilst driving to my parents’ house, pictured myself walking down the aisle, and had a complete and total sobbing, hiccuping, stomach-heaving hysterical breakdown. Had to pull over the car in a side street to recover.

• Ate McDonalds three times in a bizarre self-dare to make myself not fit into the dress. Any psychologists out there? Try to analyse that one.

• My boss pulled me aside at the work Christmas party and essentially told me that instead of a year’s contract next year, I would only have 5 weeks.

• On hearing the Sigur Ros sales pitch, J shook his head at me like I was an alien and said “No.”

• I decided to fish out of the cupboard a half-arsed attempt at making a dress to dance in, and elected to finish it. At midnight. The night before.

So, yeah. The week before. Hmmm. I don’t really want to talk about it. Let’s just sum up with, it was not the greatest week of my life.