This is hannikay's Pink Wedding!

Hi ladies!

It's been a whole year, can you believe it? Jason and I have had the best year of our lives and love that this is our foreverness!

It's been a great year, I'm enjoying my job in this new state, and we hope to buy a house in the near future.

The downside to the year is we lost our first baby, but we know that it is being cared for in the Arms of our Heavenly Father.

Looking back, it has been a year where we have gained a better understanding of each other, and there have been things/issues to work through together. But all in all, we wouldn't want to be anywhere else. When you come across things in your partner/husband that you mightn't like so much, remember we have to take the good with the bad. And that is the same in every relationship (even in the ones we think look 'perfect').

That's my two bits said! I miss you ladies and my blogging days on here so much. If you want to follow my other blog (miscellaneous stuff) the url is

http://moreicingplease.blogspot.com

Love to all of you!

Hannah

Hi beautiful brides!!

I'm back with exciting news (for me anyway)... our wedding has been chosen to feature on Style Me Pretty's spectacular new AUSTRALIAN blog!! Oh you should have heard the shrieks from the computer room at 7am when I logged onto it! I dragged hubby from the bed and we poured over it together. I feel very honoured and humbled!

Click here to see it! And leave a comment there if you like. :)

It has been SIX months since the wedding and I can't believe it!! I haven't been on here as much as I'd like... missing you all! Hubby and I are loving married life, I've got a great new job here in Victoria but we're trying to work out if we are really in the town we'd like to settle down in, or whether we'll up and buy a place in Qld to get toasty warm (hating the cold drizzle atm).

There are lots of great projects going up on WBC I've noticed, and new brides all the time. Don't forget to comment lots on other bride's posts and be encouraging (you all know how great it feels to have lots of comments on your own posts).

Love to you all!

Hannikay

This final re-cap is the reception... photo shoot over.. it's been a PERFECT day of sunshine and just the right amount of breeze. We take a stroll up to our reception venue, an old colonial inn. I couldn't be happier with the amount of photos we fitted into our 1.5 hours of allocated time. I think we were a little tardy for our entrance, but only by 5-10mins. It seemed that all the guests were already in and waiting, we could hear loads of chatter and the music playlist we had arranged was playing, thank goodness.


My little brother, Tim, was hovering around waiting for us, and went up with the news that we were ready to come in. I couldn't work out who had my lip gloss for touch ups, so that had to be skipped. The music stopped, and we were all huddled on the old, red-carpeted staircase ready to burst through the doors when our music started {In the Mood}. Everyone was asked to stand, music started but.... Meh, it wasn't the right piece. I had specifically burned a CD with Track 1) labeled "ENTRY MUSIC" and Tract 2) "Cake Cutting". How could this be gotten wrong? I told someone it was the wrong music and our music guy came over (at this point I'm getting a bit nervous) and I said it was a Big Band Jazz piece, wasn't sure of the name, but it should be Track 1!! Anyway, I don't know what happened but he found it, as Track 3? I have NO clue.


So the music started, it's a boppy jazzy piece and we grooooved and shook our stuff all the way through the guests.

Everyone thought it was great. But then the room got awkward because after we sat down everyone was quietly sitting, and the music playlist wasn't starting up again (and I had written THE most detailed list for the music man, saying to reinstate the playlist from where it had been stopped before we walked in. I was getting tense and only moments away from jumping out of my seat and running over to the laptop to switch it on myself. But I knew I shouldn't! So I kinda was trying to nudge my bridal party to get a message down there, and after what seemed like HOURS the music started up again. But now I was all stressed, and Jason didn't help coz he was whispering in my ear that I needed to RELAX because I was making the whole room nervous! That made me panic even more! So I tried REALLY hard to smile and and get back to how I was feeling earlier. Haha, poor me!


Entre' was served and that was cool, people were loving it, but I was still I bit unsettled. Then there was a loud knocking at the door, and in burst my friend Nicole in a little 'telegram man' hat and satchel. She ran over to the MC and took over with an 'urgent' telegram for the newlyweds from our 'esteemed patroness, Lady Catherine DeBurg'. It was an EXCELLENT skit, she pulled off the Pride and Prejudice terminology to a tee, and had everyone in fits. That completely threw me back into relax+party mode, because it made me realize, "Hey...that wasn't on my schedule... I'm NOT actually completely in control.. things don't HAVE to be just how I imagined it to be... it's going to be a night of surprises!"


From then on it was GREAT! Things went way out of time but we just had it really casual... we were up more than we sat I think, walking around through all our friends. And if we were sitting, they were up behind our table too, it was super! Other family items did hilarious items, poems etc, and we had the main speechs just after the main course was served, starting with Daddy, then Jason sort of 'replied' and then we had the best man do his (epic!), concluding with the appropriate toasts and then the cake cutting announcement.


We cut the cake.... that glooooorious cake which Jason's mum made.



It was just so much what I wanted, but better! And then it was whisked off to get cut up, and the icecream was brought out and placed in the wooden stand Dad made for the tubs to sit in.

I had made this patty-pan poppies which were in old bottles for the icecream table decor. It looked really sweet.

Obviously, everyone had to get UP for the icecream and line up, so it meant everyone started mingling even more among themselves.

Somewhere in the middle here we threw in the shoe game, which was a roaring success.. everyone has got to do this! Get a list of questions off google. I think our MC added a couple though = lol. And the night progressed.... I think we did our first dance at nearly 11pm when it was scheduled for 9:30pm? What the heck. (the dance floor -->)


We did the 'circle' thing to say goodbye... our videographer wanted to do the tunnel of hands that we would run through, but I needed to hug EVERYONE who had come so far. Plus our room was so full there wasn't room for a tunnel anyways...



We got away about 11:30pm I think.. our venue needed us out by midnight, which we were cool with. We slipped down to the honeymoon suite at the same place (didn't tell anyone though) and there was a courtesy bottle of champas in ice, along with chockies... awww.... And the rest is history. :)

Now just a couple of extra things if you were interested.
1) Cootie catchers doubled as our menu's on the inside (see my other post for a peek), and also as our free drink vouchers. We ended up giving each guest 4 free drink tickets inside the cootie catchers.

2) Centrepieces were vintage lampshade thingies turned upside down with a plate on top (see picture above) to make a cake stand (we had a proper cake stand, see picture below), these were piled with marshmellows, which people enjoyed nibbling on while they waited for courses, PLUS they popped them in their champagne and white wine!! Brilliant.

3) The favours were my little handmade paper bags out of old books, stamped with a chandiler and filled with personalized rock candy (pineapple flavoured :)).

4) I did a bouquet toss, but with a replica of mine. I love bouquet tosses :-D
5) GUESTBOOK was made from an old record book (records as in music records) and rebound, then each guest was stopped on the way in and a photo was taken of them. In the guestbook we had put little photo corners here and there, and each guest (or couple) had to write a message next to one of the photo spots. Afterwards, we matched all the photos to the messages. It was a huge success!! We also had a vintage easle with a finger print tree which everyone had to do upon entering, so it made sure that everyone did it! (btw, that's our vow cards in a frame, in the picture below, next to the guest book).


6) Our CEREMONY FANS didn't get photographed at the ceremony, so the photographer got a shot during the reception. Everyone loved them!


And thats about it! My family were fantastic, and packed up the room in record time, mum slipped by to pick up my dress from our room (I didn't change at the reception) and took it home for me. Hope some of the story may have helped you in some way. The main advice I would give is that, do your very best to organise and make sure someone has the responsibility to do each task that is going to have to be done (for example, get someone to take your vow cards over to the reception if you're going to have them displayed in a frame, as we did). Don't leave anything to chance or presume that they'll know what to do on the day (esp if they aren't experienced or 'on the ball' with the type of job). Then once you've done all that you can do, take whatever comes. :)

Sorry that was soooo long winded. It was just so much fun. I wanted to do it all over again! With the same man, of course. ;)



Hannikay

Ooo ooo I'm so excited to share this set with you!! There isn't so much to say along with it, except that it was SO much fun, very relaxed since the photographer was making sure we'd get up to the reception in time (which, was only one block away from this park - our third and final location).

Tell me which is your fav!! :-D



I think this looks like a movie cover.. or Packed to the Rafters lol!











This next one I LOVE... it looks like something out of a theatrical!


Hehehe.. fuzzies!!

And this is one of my favourites too!! MMM!


Sorry it's a tad hard to see our rings in this small res version

On our way walking to the reception...


Next up will be the reception... probably the only time I got a bit stressed the whole day, so hopefully I can share some tips with you gallies. :)

Love you all! Have a beautiful weekend!!

Hannikay

Sorry to drag them all out like this... hope you don't mind the installments! I just don't want to overload you otherwise.
So were we up to nibblies in the trees? I think so.



After the ceremony and the family/relative shots (which were directly after), we allowed an hour (from 4 - 5pm) to mingle with guests while drinking strawberry punch and nibbling on giant old-fashioned cookies!


This was so much fun.. I was just floating around from person to person... trying to get through them all (esp the ones that weren't coming to the reception that night).

The biscuits were a huge hit! Mum and I made them all at the start of the week. The tea, coffee and punch were arranged by a lady at the church who did it for $150, so that took the pressure off us.



Our photographer was almost like our Coordinator, as she came and dutifully pulled us away from our guests at about 5pm to begin our professional shoot. We started at the church front.



We moved down to a park for a few more with the bridal party.


Then just across the road we spotted this old boathouse with weathered boards and rambling ivy... we decided this looked perfect for some polaroid love...





Say hello to the hottie....

Weensy bit of tushie lovin' please...

Mmm this is such a juicy one :)

Jase adores this one.. I don't mind it myself actually teehee..

The wind was just right!

And my beautiful sisters....



A lot of them were a bit more artsy/alternative than what my photographer would usually take on her own, but I had a few 'must have shots', so I printed a dozen or so of these off, and sent them to her, so she could see my vision. She carried a couple of these around with her on the day, to make sure she got what I wanted. I wasn't taking any chances! That is a tip I'd definitely recommend. Or give them links/email photos. The trick is to get your message across. You have ONE chance to get the RIGHT photos on your day.

Next installment has some of my TOP favourites.. can't wait to share them with you all!!

Hope your wedding plans are getting there, and that you're relaxed and enjoying every minute of building up to your own day!!

Love Hannikay

Ooh.. finished work early, it looks like I have time to post some more pics and stories, yays...

Sorry the photos have the watermark on them.. I do have the full resolution versions but they are 3MB each and I really don't have the time to downsize them all. The photographer kindly include this disk of pre-downsized photos but they have the watermark...


So it was around 5mins before the ceremony when Dad picked me up for the church. We just swung around the corner of the block to see 5 of my friends standing there looking very lost. I was like "Oh no, they'll see me!" and ducked. But they jumped out and stopped the car and pleaded for directions because they had been walking around for 1/2 an hour, been to every church in the vicinety because they lost their invite lols. So I was compelled to put my head up (Dad thought I was so rude to duck, but cummon....) and give directions.

But they weren't the only ones running to the church, we passed two more sets of rellies. Crapola! I guess I was 3 mins early... Damn.

So we drove up, past the church and went down a back street and parked the car, to give people time to get a seat! Haha, it was so funny, but it was a precious lil moment with me and dad (oh and my sisters in the back). Some random dude walked past, stared, then waved. He must have been so confused!

After a few mins, we headed back down. Oh boy..


Here goes!!





We entered with The Ten Tenors rendition of "Just to See You Again" which starts off slow, but after the first verse just erupts into a huge symphony which gives my whole body goosebumps everytime! We had it timed so that I would reach the top of the aisle runner just as it exploded and I started down towards Jason.




It was AMAZING walking into a church just brimming with all these warm, smiling faces of people I KNEW. All there... for us!





The ceremony was one of the absolute highlights of the day for me. We had written the whole thing ourselves so I was a tad nervous to see how it would flow, but it couldn't have gone better.




Jason's vows had everyone crying...



This is us giggling, after the celebrant announces, "You may now smooch the bride!"


Wow.. we're married....



Back out, REJOICING! The Cheshire Cat had nothing on our grins.


We loved the aesthetics of our church, and we made an announcement that all family & relatives of the bride and groom were to exit out the front of the church for immediate professional photos, while the rest of the guests were to exit out the back door, where refreshments were being served. And then we'd join them in a moment. :) It worked well, because then all the family were all in one place, and no one had to go running to look for Uncle Bruce etc lol..


I won't bore you will piccies of relatives, but I had to share the one of me and my immediate family. Just loved them in the lil bow ties mum made!


And here's me and mummy... oh gosh I want to cry right now!!



And my darling daddy....



So that's all I can fit for now sorry... next post will be the afternoon tea & antics, followed by pro shots at a few selected locations.

Love Hannikay

Back again... still without internet at home, but hoping to squeeze in some posts at work. :)

We have all our wedding photos back now and we are enthralled by the results! I want to share so much with you about how the day went - what was good and what was not.. and now I can put photos in amongst the story.

So starting with.. the start. I woke at 6:30am, but we all had a 2 hour drive into the city we chose for the wedding.



I was quite relaxed.. actually I was on a high! I had spent all Friday fixing up the dramas that had unfolded during our rehearsal on Thursday night, so today I was confident everyone knew what to do!

I had written our a spreadsheet in Excel, with names across the top and times down the left hand side. In 15min intervals, I had the ENTIRE day mapped out from 7am in the morn to 11pm at night. If anyone stuffed up now, it would not be my fault!



Writing an entire day's events isn't that hard. You just enter what you KNOW has to happen (for eg. hair appointments, church entry time, estimated church exit time, reception starting time) and then put all the other details around them (eg. Dad pick up Hannah 15mins before church start time).

I printed off copies and gave them to everyone. People on the spreadsheet included bride, groom, b/maids, dad, mum, videographer, FMIL etc). I knew in my mind where I wanted all of them, so this put my thoughts into their head. I also put errands on it, for example, at 4:45pm in mum's column, I had "Put presents from church in car to take to reception".



The boys didn't have a lot to do in the morning, no length hair and make up appts, so I had for them to go and check the sound at the reception, practice playing the videos that we were going to display etc.





I was so ecstatic about how my hair turned out, but disappionted with my sisters turnout... I could have done a MUCH better job with a curling iron and hairspray at home! It was supposed to be all tight curled, but ended up being long spirals that eventually hung themselves out.... but it was ok - they still looked cute with their headbands.



Because we lived so far from the city, we arranged to get dressed in our honeymoon suite room, which was the BEST thing ever, because as you can see by the piccies, it was a classic vintage room with heaps of glitz.



We were well ahead of time with our preparations.. I was starting to get jitters, no appetite for lunch (4 grapes I think I had?) and rush around helping the girls & mum get dressed. Then the photographer, Sarah, arrived and she made me feel soooo much more relaxed!



She LOVED my little handmade touches, like my paper bouquet, girls shoes, dresses & my sleeve.. she started jumping up and down and getting all excited (she's a gorgeous petite lil thang!) and I knew I'd made the right choice :)



We had nearly an hour of her taking photos of me, my sisters and parents before the wedding, because our "First Look" was to start.





I don't think it was the plan for all my little brothers to come by with Dad but they did and it made my day seeing them in their lil bowties mum made!



By now, Jason was ready for the first look. We had a little scary moment, because the poor boy freaked out when he saw a few of his friends lounging around in the park we were going to do our "first look" in! He rang, and said there was no way we were doing the first look there, and he was driving away again.

So I freaked out too, and I pleaded on the phone (via my brother) for him to come back, and we'd make sure no one was around. We had to get the bridesmaids and the videographer to walk around the entry and exits of the park, keeping everyone out. It was a nervous couple of minutes while Jason requested some "time alone" before I came out to see him.

After 5-10mins he said he was ok, and I walked up behind him.





It was a gorgeous moment.



Now, Jason was ahead of time actually, and we had 1/2 an hour to get photos before the wedding (getting our value outta this photographer.. hooo-yeah!).

The following piccies were the result. I couldn't have wished for anything better than a relaxed, quiet 1/2 hour before our wedding ceremony.













Then it was time for Jason to go. Mum & the boys had already left to get into position at the church. It was still 10mins to 3pm, with the church only 2 blocks away. We were going awesome for time!!

Daddy and I hopped in the car together and started off at about 5 to 3pm.

...... I've run out of time. To be continued......

:)

Hannikay

eeeeeiiiik!!!

4 weeks after my wedding and the piccies are IN!! My heart is in a mighty flutter.



Our beautiful photographer said that she usually ends up with about 350 photos after a wedding, but she simply couldn't trim ours down any lower than 500 photos!! glory be...!

The CD disks are in the mail, but in the meatime, she popped me through some previews, and here you go!! They are rather a jumble but the uploader was giving me poo.

I'm SO SO happy with this peak, I can not WAIT for the real deal!!!



Btw, I'm sorry I haven't done a series of {good/bad/uglies} but I will post more often once we actually get internet in our new home. I've been waiting to get a job (which, I have just started this week! Yeehar!). So that shouldn't be too far away.

Hope you are all happily working away towards your pretty little days!!!

Hannikay

I'm back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Girls, the whole thing went FABULOUSLY!!!! So so wonderful!!! =D

Thank you for the tonne of beautiful comments you all sent me off with... I was overwhelmed with your love & support.

We arrived back from the honeymoon yesterday which was a fantastic, tropical experience in the Whitsunday Islands, out in the Great Barrier Reef. Missing the balmy temperature so much.

But back to the wedding, it was all I could of DREAMED of, esp the ceremony!! That was my favourite part.. it was like a warm dream the whole way through.

These photos are ones I've stolen from FACEBOOK, from different friends, some are so pretty though. Our professional ones will be back in 4 weeks and I'm so pumped for them. Haha, our photographer is almost excited as me actually! She nearly went crazy when she came to the room we were getting dressed in, and saw all my little details! I loved her enthusiasm, she knew just what I wanted and kept me sooo calm, as well as keeping me on track with the time!

Everyone kept coming up and saying how they couldn't believe all the detail that we put into everything!! All the hard work and DIYs paid off for sure!! We had about 30 extra people come to the ceremony just because they wanted to so much (even patients from work!) and I just felt the hugest LOVE as I walked into that gorgeous church, brimming with familiar faces! The music cued perfectly (nightmare in our rehearsal) and the 40min ceremony felt like 10mins..

Our personalized vows were the highlight, and hopefully I will get a chance to share these with you. Jason's were AMAZING, but I wasn't getting teary until I saw Ben (Jason's brother, the best man) start crying.. that set me off! Everything went off without a hitch.

Oh dear, I'm furiously typing out of order here.. just typing whatever comes to my head!! Haven't mentioned the getting-ready parts or the amazing 'first look'. I should really follow some of the other married women and do a post per subject! But I've been itching to get on here and share ANYTHING with you!

The reception was so sweet and went overtime a lot but I didn't care! We had a few hitches.. the wrong entrance music played when we arrived at the reception, despite me burning a CD especially for it, and then the playlist that should have started up again once we sat down did not turn on, resulting in me being very tense (because I was just aching to get up and run to the laptop to hit PLAY myself!!). And the microphone kept cutting out, until we stuck a fork in between the amp and the plug, and that seemed to fix it.. But then a few people had organised items/skits that I knew NOTHING about, and that REALLY loosened me up and made me realize that I didn't have to be in control and I could let the day play out... After all, the MC and music men had EXTREMELY detailed instructions on what to do, play and say when... and they did a great job!

But what can I say when people said it was the most detailed, beautiful, most organised wedding they had ever been too? I am nearly ready to do it all again!! Especially getting ready, dolled up and posing for piccies! Ach that was far too fun!!

I won't be far away with more details (I hope!) but we are still in the process of getting our new home connected with phone and internet.

And now... never to be separated from my man again.. how can this be? I am hit every day with the wonder of that fact. Ladies, never take for granted the fact that you get to see your lover, protector, confider and closest friend EVERY DAY. We are LUCKY AND BLESSED!!

Love Hannikay

Well gals, this is it… (and it’s gunna be LONG).

Had the rehearsal yesterday and I realized how much of the ‘vision’ I still had in MY head, that I hadn’t transferred to everyone ELSE’S heads, so I ended up talking non-stop for hours and giving myself a headache (which I never get). I hope everyone could translate English out of my Hanni-Jibberish.

So last night I couldn’t sleep much (better now than tonight!) and today I wrote out (more) instruction pages for everyone! I am pretty sure I can rest now!!

All in all, it went heaps well though, and I’m ready to attack this. Or, embrace it, rather. :)

But now it’s time to say sign off to you, my darling bride sisters. Oh my goodness, what a journey!! I can NOT say a BIG enough thanks to you ALL for helping me get through my planning. Your encouragement and support of all my ideas, and advice has been invaluable.

Congrats to the other brides I know of getting married tomorrow! Vintagelover, mibride00610 and selenalovesisaiah.

Got to say some thankyou's… I don't like naming people for the reason that I'm bound to make someone feel left out, but a few ladies have been with me for the whole journey - and I on theirs - so I want to send out my appreciation to everyone I can.....

ileigha (ileigha) - my first commenter :)
Lori (soconfused) -loved following your wedding & you being part of mine
Shayla (Prncss173) - always so lovely! Congrats on your incredible wedding
Rhonda (rodrhonda4ever) - super clever & helpful!
Natasha (tashasita) - our queen mother hehe (thank you darl)
Renee (babygirlnaenae)
englishbrideinaustralia

You ladies welcomed me and made me feel part of the crew, back in the early days. Thank you for helping me stay here. :) Further down the track, these following gals....

Amanda (acowleysoontobe) - aka Fellow-Vintage-Freak & sure fire humour fix ;) You've been a treasure all the way! x
Jeannie (browncurls) - lovely woman you!
May (mayelah) - hunny!! You've always understood the pain of being away from your FH. Your love and enthusiasm always rocked me. X
Amiee (aimee114) - my hero hehe, you are such a caring person & I admire your devotion to WBC! Thank you so much x
Brittany (loveatthebeach) - thank you cutie for always making me feel wonderful x
Sara (bradley1111)
Joy (ladydamm
Jellybeans88
Christa (macbride) - thanks for sending me some of your lovely things!
Misspriss
Chica (princesni) - thanks for being a darl & encourager!
Nidal
Loislovesclark
6yrs2kidsl8tr
Lafuturasrat
Purplenat
Sophie (sofiztk8ed)
Mrsmosley
Amber (lampebride)
Charis (ccranetobe)
Notabridezilla
Bananapants
Shipley2b
Iceangel2011
Mrmrskaz
Sweetlatina
Calan11
Aaronsbridetobe - where have you been lately sweetie?
Sabrina2279
Kittyvenglish - you're so much fun
Kodi24 - my dearest cousin
Missnatasha - aussie friend!
Missde
Mrsbowe2be
Kim (andrewloveskim) - you're such a hunny, wish I met you earlier!
Daniellerenee85
Inluv2myshrek
Laurie88
Finallytyingtheknot
Sexylilbride
Melissaepiphany
Prettyinpink2011
danielleb
deneanrea
blkbutterly
pamnandy
pinkbridetraci
ceccard1
laydeecadbury
smarie333
kittyswed
nursekc
angb13
vicenta
bluphi2b
ccfortune10
michellelynn
skaduk
amberrr
osche2b
lovejones83
ammyrsa
fairytalebride
theredqueen
sparklette9713
spankalicious

If I have missed your name I am SO sorry, but your comments and encouragement was VALUED SO MUCH.

I really have to go.. so many last minute things to do! Thank you AGAIN a million times for being there for me over and over again.

Love Hannikay