The Blinker Effect

Nothing major to report this week on the wedding front. Or perhaps wedding is now so entrenched in my day to day that nothing really seems ‘interesting’ or newsworthy anymore. I actually opened up a new blog post a couple of days ago ready to go with an update. As I sat at my computer, the usually frenzied keyboard attack was not forthcoming, nothing had bubbled to the surface during the course of wedding related events in the last couple of weeks. Oh my. Could it be? I’m organizing the shit out of this wedding. And I’m doing it in a very relaxed, stealth like manner.

Even Fiancé followed up last night… “You haven’t done a blog this week.” Perhaps I’m internalizing. I guess we’ll find out. Or maybe I’m just coming to terms with the task at hand, and feeling quite comfortable with where we are at with it all, with most of the major things taken care of.

I’ve taken quite a ruthless, systematic approach to organizing wedding. I made a list, developed a budget, lobbied for funding, and then went about sourcing potential suppliers, with much success. It’s like a domino effect. Once you get started by locking in the venue, the rest flows from there. One by one, things get knocked over, ticked off the list.

For the most part, I’ve really just locked things in, paid the deposits and then moved on, there really is still a few details that may need working out. But I’m banking on it all coming together when the universe deems it a relevant time. There is a natural order of things.

In the last week I have found some potential bridesmaid dresses. This was a fairly big milestone for me having had something in my head but having no idea where I would find it. I shouldn’t have been concerned. Facebook showed me the way. I spent one whole day breathless with excitement and anticipation. I was chomping at the bit to get down to the stockist and whack 3 x dresses on hold immediately. That’s what I do. Make a decision, and act on it. Without a whole lot of consideration or rational thought. That whole concept of ‘sleeping on it’ is a foreign one to me, I much prefer spontaneous, immediate decision making. Let’s just say I trust my instincts. And life’s too short. And whatever other cliché you can think of to support my argument.

If MOH didn’t live 2 hours away, I dare say we’d have another thing on its way to being ticked off the list by now. It’s more than likely a blessing in disguise. Having to schedule appointments and lock in times with everyone forces me to have some time away from it and to “sleep on it” I guess. In fact, I’ve now slept on it for 3 nights. And I’m feeling slightly more calm about the situation. But I still want those dresses. Now.
Oh and I now also have a hair stylist. I based this decision on (another) recommendation, and the fact that she had a website. I felt that this gave her an edge over others I had contacted and allowed me to scrutinize her skills by looking at a huge range of images. Basically, I have a fervent appreciation of people who exhibit sharp business acumen, foresight and organization. She deserves my business.

But I do believe there is such a thing as being too organized! And there is a downside. That is that you live in fear of seeing something better and more perfect than what you already have. Even if you stop looking, being in the wedding realm, you are bound to be exposed to these things. Is there such a thing as wedding blinkers? Like horses wear when they are racing so the other horses don’t make them angry or put them off their game?

Many racehorse trainers believe that blinkers keep the horse focused on what is in front of him or her, encouraging him/her to pay attention to the race rather than other distractions, such as crowds. Or other wedding/bridesmaid dresses/flowers/hair stylists.

Yes, I’m definitely going to need some blinkers.

Especially when it comes to the wedding dress. I’m reluctant to fall in love with anything too early for this very reason. The blinker effect. I won’t, however, be leaving it to the very last minute! I heard of a bride this week who has just found her perfect gown, with 11 days to go until her big day. 11. Days. God, there’s that breathless, anxious feeling again, OMG I’m stressed FOR her!

I will not be faced with this scenario. I’ve already identified about 8 dresses that I have developed feelings for. Without even trying them on. Oh god. How am I going to pick JUST ONE?? Perhaps, we should’ve considered an Eastern style wedding where celebrations extend over 8 days. Then I could have 8 dresses.
So the approach to wedding dress is a matter of carefully considered timing. I need to take a measured, considered approach that leaves enough time for dress to be made if need be, and time for ample fittings – to keep up with the ‘shedding for the wedding’ activities – without creeping into the danger zone.

So the wedding ball rolls on, gathering momentum in a calm, collected and ladylike manner.

Ceeeeleebrant good times! Come On!

As the clock runs down from the 1 year mark, I have felt a shift in my planning from the light hearted, fun stuff to the down to business, serious end of the spectrum. Of course it’s still a relatively long time to go to the everyday human being on the street.  1 year. Plenty of time to get organised one would think. But it’s not long in Wedding Time. To put it into simple terms, a 24 hour day for the normal, everyday, non-bride-to-be would equate to approximately 3 days in Wedding time. They just go faster when you are going through something like this. Therefore, I now have less than 121 actual ‘Wedding Time’ days left before the ‘BIG’ day.

One of the reasons that we choose our date, was to allow enough time to organise the wedding WITHOUT having to stress or be stuck with a less than impressive list of suppliers/venues etc.  Granted, the planning still takes up a large chunk of my psyche on the daily but our (my) decisions are considered and well informed. I know that a lot of people have organized their own wedding in ridiculously short amounts of time, I don’t know why you would choose to rush it unless you were:
a) Pregnant
b) Close to having a Visa expire
c) Hoping to trap someone into a loveless marriage before they realized you were a complete psychopath.

But I digress. There has definitely been a shift in my approach to the planning at this point. It’s no longer a case of having plenty of time, it’s starting to get a little more serious than that.

I think the turning point was finally deciding on a celebrant. This has been an interesting one. For Fiance and I, it was really simply a matter of necessity and nothing more. We hadn’t really placed a lot of importance on the role of this person. For followers of Wedding though, it has been a pertinent point of interest. I remember it being raised by MOB when the idea of Wedding was only in its infancy. She had been speaking with my Nan about it. ?. It is now even, perhaps, in the lower echelons of FAWQ (frequently asked wedding questions). Which was, initially, hard for me to understand.

image courtesy of Blakeney Photography via www.mrbg.com.au

The intentions of interested parties, however, seems absolutely justified now that I have begun to dig a little deeper into the realms of Celebrantcy. It’s one of those subjects, where you only ever seem to hear the horror stories, only one of which I’ve actually witnessed.

Apparently the Celebrant at an Aunts wedding, had such a thick Scottish accent that no one could understand a word he was saying. Perhaps they should’ve all had a few drinks before the ceremony as, in my experience, the more intoxicated you are, the easier it is to understand the Scots.

At MOH’s wedding, there was a case of the old vow switcheroo, not that anyone would have known any different had it not been rectified by the Groom, but certainly not ideal for the happy couple!

I’ve heard stories of celebrants and even their Catholic counterparts forgetting the names of the bride and/or groom, using the ceremony to push their own agendas (religious or not), telling bad jokes and just generally being awkward and weird.

So, unless you actually happen to know someone who is legally entitled to officiate over a wedding and sign off on all the paper work, how do you choose? And why does it matter?

Our (my) initial thoughts were that it didn’t really matter at all. As long as they could speak that should be fine and I’d also prefer someone who didn’t resemble a troll so as not to ruin any wedding photos. After all, all they have to do is say “Hey, what’s up ya’ll? So you want to get married? That’s cool. Do you both want to get married? Awesome. Alright then, you’re married. Just sign here and here and off you go. Have fun kids.” Right? Then we can all go and have a drink, a bit to eat and a dance. Apparently, that’s not how it’s done.

My initial searches proved fruitless. The problem with these celebrant people, is that they all still appear to have real lives of their own. Which means that your wedding will have to fit in with things like family holidays, the unexpected success of other commercial business ventures, overseas trips etc. Being a celebrant is obviously more of a part time income supplement, rather than a full time career, making it difficult to find one that isn’t shit, that doesn’t have something better to do.

As with most of our (my) decisions thus far, this one was also based on referral. And it seems to be working out jolly good so far. Good people like working with good people, and since these people see hundreds of weddings each year, they are certainly more qualified than me to say who is proficient in their chosen part-time field, and who is not. So, on recommendation from our amazing DJ, who was referred from our amazing venue, I contacted Carla, a local Dunsborough celebrant. Although we are yet to meet face to face, it’s so far so good!

It wasn’t until Carla sent through some Ceremony and reading samples, that my attitude towards the whole thing shifted ever so slightly. During wedding hour (lunch) at work I began to read through the extensive materials she had emailed across.

Some of it was nothing out of the ordinary, the usual traditional stuff that you always hear at weddings, usually in the movies. I continued to read. Reading, reading, reading, sniffle, reading, tear, reading. OMG, this is good shit. Something hit me. It was the story of fiancé and I. Right there on the computer screen in front of me. “OMG, that’s it!” Such simple, beautiful words. And suddenly it all becomes a little bit more real and grown up. Less about getting a nice, shiny new ring and more about what it signifies.

It’s so easy to get lost in Wedding time, to get caught up in flowers and bonbonierres, that it’s just so refreshing to be smacked across the face with a big fat reminder of why you’re actually doing it all in the first place.

And so with that, without giving too much away (especially to my fellow brides to be), I’ll leave you with these words:

“One of the beautiful things about marriage is that whilst two lives unite to become one, you do not lose yourself in the other, you find yourself.”

Tear. Sniffle. Tear. 

It's business time - Dunno Part II

We love Dunsborough. So much so that every time we visit, we spend a great deal of time discussing when and how we can move there. This time I have decided I will become a full time writer. I’ll wake up early, walk the dogs along the beach, have an organically grown and locally sourced breakfast of berries and free range eggs, then I’ll head out to the balcony where I will spend the day ‘working’, overlooking the ocean. After a mid-morning nap.

Alternatively, we’ll open a wine bar/coffee shop that appeals to a gentrified crowd, sick of the young hooligans that now seem to have overrun similar ventures in town. Dean from Busso will not frequent our establishment. Preferring instead to loiter in and around the more ordinary watering holes where he feels completely at ease soliciting unsuspecting Perthites and other weekenders for money “for a set of boobs for this chick I have known for like 10 years. Well you know, I promised that I’d buy her a set of tits, so every time we head out, I ask people to help.” He explains, thrusting a middy glass containing a few measly bucks under our noses. We stared back at him in disbelief. I wanted to tell Dean that me and my friends didn’t speak bogan, or reveal to him that a good way to raise money was to get a friggin job, however being on unfamiliar turf, we chose instead to give him some loose change, hoping that he would be satisfied and scamper away, leaving us to pick up our jaws from the sodden carpet and pretend that never happened. But it just seemed to encourage him. What is that? When people have no comprehension of the fact that their presence is not required or desired? Dean went on to hassle our friends about why they were not yet engaged. The wench with the small tits piped up “OMG, I sell diamonds! I’ll do you a deal. I work at Garden City, come see me.” What? So you do have a job? Good on you for that. Obviously you don’t sell enough diamonds to buy yourself a pair of tits though.

These seem like the kind of people that might want to try and crash our wedding after party at castle rock car park with our DJ mate.

Anyway, if the wine bar thing didn’t work out, I’m sure we could find something else to do in town. There already appears to be a sufficient number of surf shops and clothing boutiques, bakeries and coffee shops. Our neighbours out at Dunsborough Lakes already had the mobile rock climbing wall business covered, so that was out.

After a particularly interesting cultural exchange whilst dining at Wise the previous day, when our French waiter served Fiance an interesting looking dessert plated in such a way, that the kitchen had described simply as ‘Viking Pussy’ and suggested that Frenchie use this expression when presenting the food. “My English is not so known but the kitchen people tell me that you might try this before. It is how you say – Viking Pussy? So I hope you enjoy.” He later was told what he had just said and spent the rest of the afternoon apologising profusely. “I’m sorry. Thank you for apologising me,” He said. Sooo, Fiance suggested that perhaps I could simply return to my university days and become a waitress. I could after all speak and understand English, which doesn’t appear to be a mandatory requirement in the industry but it can’t hurt.

Event coordinator? Wedding planner? A liaison for engaged Perthies getting married down south. Wedding celebrants seem to be pretty popular down here – how hard could that be? Yoga instructor? But my favourite is to become an artist and find a place on the Yallingup hills and wile my days away painting sunsets and writing screen plays. It shouldn’t be too much of a problem that i have no talent in either of those areas.

I guess it happens when you go on holidays. And that’s why we go. To escape to somewhere amazing that has the power to make you want to uproot your entire life and relocate there immediately. It’s a powerful thing.

One of the big pluses about Dunsborough for us, is the picturesque beaches, especially the one that, when the tide goes out, exposes the shallow sand bank and the many little ‘islands’ that can be walked out to. Especially handy when you have two crazy, overly sociable Staffys. Ingenious of us to walk them out there through calf deep water and then let them loose, water locked, so they couldn’t run away.

They loved it, frolicking through the shallow water, chasing the seagulls, forgetting the water and finding themselves in way too deep, sploosh! Jackson stopped every now and then to pluck a starfish from the shallow water or chew on a piece of seaweed. Until he spotted another dog on the beach that he thought he might like to say hello to. He stopped. He looked at the dog, then looked back at us, a plan formulating in his little pea sized brain. Pity he was surrounded by deep blue water. He looked at us again, then went for it. Swimming for his life, his stumpy little Staffy legs doggy paddling like they’d never doggy paddled before. Fiance sprang into Staffy rescue mode as little Jackson became less and less buoyant by the second. We’ll never know if he would’ve made it to shore or not, I think it would have been a miracle.

So, although it wasn’t an overly productive trip wedding plan wise, it re-established for us why we love the place so much and why we couldn't find a more awesome place to get married. It’s not hard to figure out why everyone who lives there is ridiculously happy and friendly. Figuring out how we can become a permanent part of the scenery is slightly more difficult!