The Wedding - Part 2

So it was a battle between the Convent (Beau's choice) and Margan wineries (my choice).  We both lobbied hard for our choices but in the end the winner was Margan.

I am so excited to be having our wedding there as I feel it already has memories for us and has an amazing backdrop of the mountains where I would one day like to have a property.

We have decided to have a morning wedding.  We will be married at 11 am and then have a lunch - consisting of canapés and champagne, 2 courses and then our wedding cake for dessert.  We are inviting about 60 guests.  We invited 130 to our engagement party but just can't afford to have that many for our wedding.  Also a lot of those guests were far- flung family that we never see or have any contact with.  I felt bad inviting them to the engagement party knowing that they would not be coming to the wedding - but everyone else seemed to think it was ok.

We are getting away with just having who we want at the wedding because we are paying for it ourselves.  My father has remarried and had children with my step-mother so I don't expect him to offer anything (not that I want him too - I don't even know if I can ask him to walk me

 down the aisle).  Also my Mother wants to pay something toward the wedding but she has already bought my dress.  We want to feel like we don't have to do what other people want or invite them because of this or that.

I can envisage it will be difficult though.  

To make myself feel better here is a picture of my wedding gown.  Not very vintage - and not at all what I thought I would go for but I love that it's not white.  Which is making it hard to select wedding colours for flowers etc and the Beau is refusing to look at it (he is very traditional about things like that).  Any suggestions?

La Sposa, Pronovius "Paradiso" gown in Chardonnay

Holiday Slump

At the moment I am on school hoidays but not for much longer.

Due to my Beau being away with college still I have no one to go away with as everyone else who I would like to go away with (and those that could out up with me) are working.

I feel like I haven't really done anything at all these hols -  although I know I have.  I haven't just been doing "nothing".  So in the interest of making myself feel like they were worthwhile, here is a list of things  have done:

• Booked a wedding venue (more on this later)
• Spring cleaned the kitchen - although you can't tell anymore
• Spent a day driving around an area I may be moving to at the end of the year (depending on the placement that we get) to decide where we might like to buy our first home together (and the first house I will have ever lived in).
• Done my tax return for last year
• Eaten about a million pieces of nougat.
• Cooked some lovely food
•  Done a few days of thrift shopping with my Mum and Grandparents
• Designed a wedding website
• Gotten my car fixed (someone crashed into my while it was parked - in a car park -  and didn't leave a note).
• Done some Christmas shopping and made some present idea lists.
• Caught up with a few friends I haven't seen in ages.
• Had my hair "done"

To make this post a bit more interesting I thought I would do a list of all of things that I am in love with at the moment:

• Nougat as previously mentioned.  My favourite is Massam's honey and almond.

• Sleeping-in while everyone else is getting up.   I love my Tempur mattress.  My bedroom feels very calming in the morning.  This isn't my bed but kind of has the same colours and head board.

• The ocean temperature - it's about 20 which is the same as out.  I know because my brother made me go for a swim.

• Champagne - I'm averaging a bottle every two days!

• CD player in my hire car - my normal car doesn't have one - I can listen to jazz all day!

The Wedding - Part I

Here we go,

The planning has started in earnest.  We have a date: 27th August 2010.

Over this long weekend, the Beau and I went for a drive to the Hunter Valley to look at our short-listed venues for the wedding.

The places we looked at were:

• The Sebel Kirkton Park
  
• Margan Family Winery 
  
• Pepper Convent

The Beau likes the Convent and I like Margan.

The Beau turned into a gushing bride the moment we walked into the convent.  It's very shabby chic/French country.  I do like it - just not as much as Margan.  The convent does have an

 outdoor reception option - where we could sit under a trellis of Wisteria with long tables.  It also has a wet-weather option of a beautiful breakfast room with French doors looking onto gardens and said terrace.  We are going to be married in the morning and have a wedding brunch.

The ceremony can take place next to a lake, which has willows around it.   The Beau also think it could be nice that it may be haunted!

It kind of reminds me of school - where the was a convent - which I did sleep in once!  It smells the same, everyone whispers and you can hear everybody walking around.  I also think that the upkeep is not that wonderful - I saw beer bottles around the house and the verandah hadn't been swept.  Inside all looked ok.  

I forgot to the camera but here are some photos:

Here is one of the rooms - upstairs though - so for some of our guests.

This is the breakfast room which would be the wet-weather option.  I really don't like the chairs and their covers though.  I feel it's too "done". 

Margan winery is in Broke  - which is out of the centre of the commercial area for wineries.

Margan is also a bit unusual - it is quite new so it doesn't have all the history associsated with some of the other places we saw but all inside is modern and clean.  I thought that I would have like to go for something a bit older in style but I like the fact the the modern decoration and design means that it isn't "geared" towards weddings.

We are able to have an outside ceremony at Margan, with the mountain range behind us.  We can also have the reception on the verandah which is great because it is still a possibility when it's raining.  We actually had lunch on the verandah and it was raining but it was so quiet and beautiful.  The verandah overlooks their own chicken run and veggie garden at a distance.  On the lawn in between we could have croquet and boules set-up.  

The wedding planner was a dream and she didn't think that anything was too hard or impossible - she even said I could bring my antique linens to dress the tables!

 Here is view to the mountain ranges through the vineyards.

Here is one of the ceremony options - the courtyard.

  This is a picture of the verandah were we would have our tables for the reception.

This is the area that the verandah looks out onto.  It is not usually this yellow.  It is also an option for the ceremony.

Here is another picture of the courtyard but from the other side - the entrance.