Fresh flowers...

One of my friends is doing a tafe course and she made the most adorable posy of flowers for her second week practical class. They look perfect for what I want to have on the tables at the engagement party and because we can get them at the flower market and do it up it will be a fraction of the cost.

I love the idea of fresh flowers at a party - it gives a feeling of sophistication and flowers are timeless. It keeps the decorations simple but beautiful.

This is what she made up...

... and I love it!

Fools don't rush in...

We had a really big talk about getting married the other day. We have been together for 6 years and we don't want to rush into things. We are very happily in love but marriage isn't something that should be entered into lightly.

We have felt so much pressure from everyone around us to get engaged and now its all about setting a date and most people want us to marry very soon. Everyone has an opinion on where we get married and what we do, who to invite and what to wear. And to add to this stress we really aren't in a financial position right now to wed. I want to travel more, he wants a bike, we need a new family car and want to buy a house. It's just not possible to do all these things if we rush a wedding and spend a small fortune of our savings on it, or worse still go into debt. It's all so overwhelming.

I feel that there has been an odd shift in society where people just have babies with someone before the wed or before they truly know the person. So many of them stay together and marry when it might not have been the thing they would have done without the child. I have had many friends say to me "we probably would have walked away years ago if it wasn't for the children." I think this is so sad, why compromise on your relationship and your life long happiness.

It's very surprising to me how many marriages end in divorce. I'm not sure if it's because people know that they have an exit out now or if maybe it's because people rush in at a young age. I just know I don't want to be a statistic. I want my marriage to stand the test of time.

We have decided that we want to wait... we met each other at 18 and we still are very young in our eyes. We have much more living to do and we feel like our lives got put on hold when Ev got so sick with his epilepsy, broken back and the major accident that broke his femur and left him with a titanium rod in his leg. We want to enjoy life and be ready for a wedding when the time comes. So maybe now rather then 2 years we are looking at 3 or maybe 4. It's our life and we have every right to wait {even if no one agrees with us}

But that's the beauty of it... it's our choice.

It's all about a theme...

So I picked my colours for the engagement party. I am having black, red and white. Much debate was had over this as apparently it could look "gothic" and that is the last thing I wanted, but I think it will be ok.

Some of the ideas I have had include a candy bar for my guests as their favour (as well as adding decoration to the evening) I think I will be doing finger food, cocktail style as I want the relaxed, mingling feeling so everyone can move around and have chance to speak to everyone.

I have been surfing itunes and trying to make play lists for the tunes to play - we don't want a professional DJ, instead we will just have an ipod hooked up to speakers. Also thinking about having fresh flowers all around the room for decoration and fairy lights wrapped around the beams. I am hoping to do a few things DIY to save costs.

Time to celebrate...

So I have decided (after many debates) that we are going to have a big engagement party and a small wedding.

Basically our reasoning behind this is we can't afford to invite our 150 guests {plus} to our wedding and afford to have the wedding we want. Sure, we could cut back and have a BBQ wedding so we can afford to invite everyone, but we don't want to compromise and we definitely don't want to go over our budget, so this was the best solution to our problem.

When we send out our engagement invites we are going to have a small note explaining only immediate family & close friends will be invited to the wedding so we would appreciate if everyone could try to make the engagement party.

I want to have elements of a traditional wedding at the engagement party so people feel they got to share this special moment with us, so we are going to have a big cake and do a cutting of it, we will have speeches and favours for our guests. Also as a little extra I would love to send out a post card kind of thing with a photo from our wedding on it after the event.

The family is huge - we have around 90 family we need to invite to the engagement, then the rest are our nearest and dearest friends. I am sure many will be able to not make it but to be really honest we are pushed to keep it at 150 at the moment.

The venue we have picked is the Mollymook Surf Club. It's BYO and the best bang for your buck - just what we need! With the food and venue hire it isn't a cheap venue, but if it rains at least I know everyone will be dry. I think depending how much I have saved by the time it roles around will depend on how much I decorate. The view is stunning from the venue so that is a great bonus because we have lots of people coming from out of town and I want them to love our home town as much as we do.