A Wedding in Sydney

A friend I've known for a long time got married over the weekend in Sydney and a couple of us made the trek down from Brisbane for the beautiful ceremony and reception. As the wedding was on a Friday, we also decided to make a long weekend of it and see a bit of the city and its surroundings. A few of my posts this week will therefore be about Sydney.

The wedding ceremony took place in a beautiful Uniting Church in the middle of the city, whilst the reception was at the decadent L'Aqau Restaurant in Darling Harbour. It was a spectacular view to take in at night and a great reception, themed around racing tracks. This theme came about because the couple met when both working for a well known car manufacturer.

Whirlwind is the word I would use to describe their courtship (just over a year from their first date to being wed) but as the back of our name places said, 'when you know, you know'. This was certainly the case for me and I don't doubt it was for them too.

A Race Track Theme

Our Table

 The Cake

 Amazing Dessert Number One

Amazing Dessert Number Two

Fashion Dilemma Solved!

My mission over the weekend was to find a formal, maternity dress for my friend's wedding. With the help of my mum yesterday, I was able to do just that. We visited Mama's Home in Newmarket, one of my favourite maternity stores and found this number. The only difference between the image below and the dress I picked is the length. My dress is floor length.

A big thanks to mum for her generousity and helping me find a dress. I hope I can find another occasion other than this wedding to wear it in future - it's such as beautiful dress!

 

Wedding Guest Dilemma

Earlier this week, I got a beautiful wedding invitation from a friend I've known since high school days. His wedding is to be in Sydney this coming April. I was so excited to receive the invitation, until I realised the dress code said formal attire. Normally, I would love an occasion to dress up in formal attire but things suddenly seem a lot more difficult now that I'm pregnant and have to find a formal dress.

Ideally I'd love to wear a dress that flows, maybe something the below but where do I find this at a reasonable price in Australia?

 Source: http://www.fashionlande.com

Admittedly I did find this dress from www.maternityrevolution.com.au but it's not quite what I'm after. It definitely doesn't need to be in the colours shown on this page. Suggestions of dress store locations are most welcome at this point

.

Wedding No. 2

The wedding of my beautiful bestie to another friend I've known for 10 years, was held 2 weeks ago and yes I know, once again I'm slow with the update of photos to my blog but better late than never.

Now this girl is unfortunately known for bringing the rain to her travels and events, so I'm glad to report that the rainy skies cleared by the afternoon and it turned out to be the perfect day for the happy couple.

The Bride's and Bridesmaids' Dresses

 The Happy Couple with Champagne

 The Bridal Table

Hubby and Self outside the church

Wedding No. 1

My beautiful, younger sister got married over the weekend to her partner of 9 years, so I thought I'd share some memorable (and pretty) photos of their day with you. These photos are more so for my mum than anything, as she doesn't have a facebook account...as yet.

The view from level Brisbane's Meriton Apartments the afternoon before

 The view was just as good at night

Bridal bouquets

 The beautifully decorated reception tables

The bride and groom on their big day

 Il Centro's famous Sand Crab Lasagne for entree

 Swordfish for main

 Creme Brulee for dessert, which I may have already taken a

bite out of

 Hubby and self at the reception

How stunning is the dress!

 Mum trying out some moves on the dance floor

Wedding number 2 (also as bridesmaid) for one of my 'besties' is next weekend. I'm really excited about that one too! All this delicious food and drink too, mmm! Good thing I''m eating healthy and exercising at the moment.

A little bit of this and a little bit of that

The blog post is admittedly a little bit random, as it's a little bit of this and a little bit of that from the week. For instance, I found these cows outside the Love Love Studio in Teneriffe this week after the Teneriffe Festival last weekend. They reminded me of the old cows that used to be around Brisbane at the time of the EKKA (Brisbane's Royal Show).

Hubby and I have been working solidly on the 2nd bedroom this week with our goal to have the room complete by the 15th July (yes, this is tomorrow). We installed the shelves tonight, with the bottom one also acting as a bedside table. What do you think? Exhaustion from working nights is starting to set in, so we'll be glad to have a short break after this one. 

After meeting our renovating goals for the day, we were able to make it to a friend's cake testing. The bride and groom were undecided on the flavour of their cake, so they invited round some critics - I think this was a good idea and my stomach agreed. Here are the amazing cakes to test. The actual wedding cake will be tiered and use a different icing. 

My verdict - the caramel.

The decision - a chocolate layer, a marble layer and a caramel layer. Job well done! The cakes come care of the French Patisserie, in case you're wondering.  

I thought I'd leave you with something fun for the weekend, so here's Cookie Monster's version of Carla Rae Jepsen's song 'Call me Maybe'.

Here comes the...sister

So my sister got engaged just before the christmas break and I have taken it upon myself to take her to her first bridal expo this weekend. I MAY even be secretly excited about it myself, being interested in event planning and having studied it. I do love arranging events, even though it is stressful at times. I enjoy it more than my current job but sadly it's way too difficult to get into the industry. Maybe I should join a charity and start arranging their events.

Anyway, I've been doing some research for her and thought I'd share a few of my favourites:

Vera Wang Wedding Dress

via stylst - headdress
I actually think Natalie Portman wearing this in Black Swan
is really beautiful

Simple but elegant
http://paradoxweddingshoes.com

Bridal bouquet via Women Fashion Info
I actually love this for my friend getting married in October