Wedding dreams.

I had the funniest dream the other night.

In my dream, I wasn't married and I don't think I knew Zac!

All these boys were asking to go out with me because they wanted to marry me - first is was THIS boy and then is was THAT boy. They took me all over the world and tried to make all sorts of things fun but I didn't want to marry any of them! It was getting very distressing!

I said, "I DON'T WANT TO MARRY ANY OF YOU!!!!!" It felt so real and so heartbreaking and horrible!

And then in my dream I said, "I think the only person I would ever really want to marry would be Zac, why aren't I with him? He's the one I would be happy with..." It felt like it was some huge resolution in my heart and all the distress of the dream went away, but at the same time in my dream is was like this impossible fantasy.

So in my dream I started to plan a wedding to Zac...

Then the alarm went off and for those few seconds where you wake up but you are still dreaming I kept planning the dream-wedding.

Then I woke up to my favourite dream, lying next to me and laughing at all the 'distressed noises' I had been making in my sleep.

I had already married Zac.

We had a beautiful wedding. It was a perfect day in all its simplicity

And now I'm happy and all is well in the world.

I have my man.

Text from a friend.

The other day I got this text:

"Oh my gosh, total mumzilla. How am I going to survive the next 6 months??"

My reply:

"Breathe, respect, stick to your guns ;)"



Wedding planning; it's not ALL glamorous!

Zac. Pre-wedding jitters.

Eternally grateful to Chris Noonan and his now fiancee Caitlyn (Congrats guys!) who took their camera along and watched Zac get ready.

Can't you just feel the FULL RANGE of emotion?

PS. SUPER proud that my man saw his hairdresser the morning of the wedding. Just for a style, mind you, grooms shouldn't be getting a cut on the day (just saying).

Favourite Memories.

Sneaking up behind Zac down at the reflection pool at UWA.

Walking back down the aisle with my brand-spankin'-new husband and hearing his wacky uncle say , "ZACCY, YOU. ARE. THE. MAN!!"

We still laugh about that.

Having photos on the Jetty with Tasj, the sun in our eyes, my feet severely hurting in heels, eccentric family gathered around us and Tasj stopping everyone and saying, "OH MY GOSH, just a second, you know why I love this photo? There is a bird over there *points* on that pier."

We love creative people.

Our Dads' speeches had everyone in tears (of laughter) and Zac's speech had the ladies in tears (of jealously at him being so sweet and wonderful).

My husband is so, so thoughtful.

When we got back my Nana said that, "It was the wedding of her life", much to the chagrin of her husband of 60 years and my mother (her daughter).

It was a beautiful day.

Daft.

My brain is addled, the last week has been shocking! Sorry for being a bad blogger and not posting... To my one reader, I'm truely sorry! haha!

Did I tell you about the Anthropologie saga? About how my friend in CA is shipping me some presents for my bridesmaids? Well, I ordered them 10/06/10 and they got sent out 2 days later to Ali.

6 days later I check the postal tracking and I realised something horrible. I sent had sent them to the wrong address. It wasn't completely wrong, just 1 word was wrong - I had written "Sea Mist" instead of "Ocean Mist".

As Ali emailed me, "Same body of water, different word, sweetie."

Seriously.

So I emailed and emailed and emailed Anthropologie and they finally got back a week later, letting me know that they had received the package back and would I like to correct the address? At the same time Ali emailed me, "We're going away in 3 days (the 1st of July) for 10 days.. any word on the package?" So I emailed Anthropologie back, Yes Please, OCEAN Mist and Make it Overnight Express.

Well, they didn't send the package for 2 days. Wonderful! *sarcasm*

Ali and I emailed back and forth. Thank God she has a cat and it needed to be fed while she was away, because she organised a friend to take care of it. She sent the package and while it's cutting it fine, they're meant to be arriving this Wednesday. One month later.

Sigh... my brain has turned to mush!

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It seems I'm not the only one, Zac spent last weekend down south with his mates. He went down with a developing cold and the next evening when I spoke to him briefly, he mentioned swimming, the ocean, boating, lack of jumper (it fell in the ocean) and, wait for it....

Sea Biscuiting.

He still has a cold, it has developed into a fully-fledged man-cold.

We also took a trip to the Physiotherapist this morning to get some work done on his shoulder because one of his friends decided it would be great to drag Zac behind the boat at 30 knots. Of course, Zac flew off and landed on the rock hard Indian Ocean, shoulder first.

So he's strapped up, with 2 more sessions to go before Saturday and warned not to lift anything.

Too bad we're moving house on Wednesday and Thursday.

This week is so messed up.

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Excited.

Oh the count down is well and truly on... Sometimes I still feel like I'm marrying Zac in 6 months time, or a years time, but definitely not 2-and-a-half weeks.

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It's a funny thing, being a bride-to-be. On one hand people expect you to be SUPER-DOOPER EXCITED and all you talk about is weddings 24/7. I've known brides like that, there isn't anything wrong with it at all, but as a bystander you do wonder what happened to the rest of their life. Then the other thing is that if you do get super-dooper excited about your wedding, the details, creative things (that require precision) people are very quick to bring out the word "bridezilla" which is like a slap in the face if you're trying to stay normal while planning your wedding.

I am so excited to marry Zac, you have no idea. I'm just so aware that when I'm having a conversation with someone they may not want to hear about my wedding... they may just want to talk about books or religion or boys or friends rather than discuss the intricacies of whether my florist is grumpy or not.

I'm so conscious of showing my over-the-top excitement that I think people think I'm a bit too chilled out about the whole affair.

Except the people closest to me. They know I'm keeping it in. Sarah and Chantelle tried to get it out of me on Friday while having a coffee at Tiger Tiger.

"Sorry," I said, "If I let out my excitement now, I will make a fool of myself and everyone in this cafe will stop and stare at us."

So we're going down south this weekend, all us girls. And we're going to let out my excitement on a Winter Beach somewhere....

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Puppies.

What is even the point of having pets unless you can dress them up for your wedding?

Image #1 via , Image #2 via Image 3&4 via

Seriously, our Alsatian could wear that pearl collar, she is the most delicate sissy-dog I have ever met. Zac's King Charles Cavelier would rock the bowtie, he is so sophisticated, he even drinks coffee. Lattes only though...

Money.

From an email conversation yesterday:

Clare: Also, I've transferred the money from our wedding account to our credit card. Thanks for the reminder babe! What would I do without you?!

Zac: Go bankrupt.

Clare: Touché 

Ribbon.

Remember how I was pining about a certain ribbon a while ago?

Well Zac just called me and guess what? HE WON IT! It's worth $445!!

We are now the proud owners of 45 metres of gorgeously black and white striped ribbon. Some of it will go around my bouquet and Zac's boutonniere, and I'm sure we'll figure out what to do with the rest! Big thanks to Wedding Style Guide for picking Zac to win!

Poor Zac is now wondering why the only thing he has ever won is a darn RIBBON and not a guitar... haha!

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Life is beautiful...

Ninja.

Yesterday we ventured into the city yet again, guess why? To look at suit stuff again.

We always end up at Hugo Boss concession in David Jones.

We always get served by the same young man.

It's embarrassing really, he knows what Zac is going to ask about now, before we even say anything.

So this time we decided to go to Myer instead. But yet again, we are drawn to Hugo Boss. Ridiculous.

So we're flicking through some suits, looking for sizes. Zac takes one to their little change room to try on a jacket and as he comes out, GUESS WHO WE SEE?

That's right. David Jones assistant was in MYER!!! Argh!

So embarrassing. So we high-tail it out of there to David Jones to make sure that we have a shopping experience without looking like Hugo Boss Desperados.

So I visit the Clinique counter at David Jones and then we make our way up to Men's Formalwear.

And we're walking toward Hugo Boss when all of a sudden WE SEE HIM AGAIN!!

We dodge behind Ben Sherman and make our way through Armani Collezione, past Ermenegildo Zegna, Ted Baker and around the corner to Studio Italia to try and see if he's still in Hugo Boss.

And he's gone.

Like a thief in the night. He appears and disappears like a ghost haunting us in our pursuit of white shirts and ties.

Our personal ninja shop assistant. So strange!!

Glitches.

Not everything goes to plan when you're planning anything. What I mean by that poorly constructed sentence is that I love the little glitches that have happened during our planning - the change of venue, a photographer being booked out, Post not having the dress I liked in my size, not printing our invitations back in November.

Each time something has gone wrong, we've found something even better, that suited us more, that worked out better value, something that we absolutely love.

Not everything goes to plan and that's just fine by me!

ps. I have no idea where I got the above image. Let me know if you know where it's from, or if it's yours!

Young.

Earlier this week Zac mentioned that he saw an interview on Sunrise about young married couples. Koshie seemed to be a bit surprised that people would willingly and considerately choose to get married young.

I can relate to the couple in the interview - everybody's reaction to finding out that we are getting married and our age is always the same, "Oh my god!! But you guys are so young!" People have this general idea that getting married at a young age restricts your freedom, you'll never be able to travel, you won't be able to have a chance to get the career you want to have and you won't get to 'experience' life (whatever that means, I think how you choose to experience life is a highly personal thing!)

It's true, we are young compared to the national average and there are certain disadvantages to getting married young - life experience is at a minimum, Zac will still be studying full time for 6 months so only one us will be working full time. We haven't got established careers and we'll be moving out, getting married and living with someone new for the first time in our lives.

Not to mention babies. They just absolutely freak me out. How many methods of contraception can you use at any given point in time? I'll let you know.

That being said, we have been very careful about this decision, we knew we wanted to get married about 2.5 seconds into our first conversation but we waited 3 years because we knew that we wanted to be sure about this person, about how we worked together. We wanted to share a lot of views about all sorts of topics and we wanted to get past that 'honeymoon' phase in dating and have some real doozies of arguments so we could see how we would act under pressure.

We started working on our relationship, talking about topics we would never thought to have talked on before** expectations about what role we would take in a marriage/household management situation, discovering what we bring to our relationship and celebrating our differences rather than trying to make a copy of ourselves.

We have had pre-marital counseling, we discovered some things that we are very strong on, some things that aren't so strongly developed** and why. Talking with an complete stranger with whom we could be comfortable sharing everything, was so refreshing and hearing a different perspective (while it wasn't always right for us) was challenging and fun.

I think there are some very definite advantages to getting married young. I think it's great to move out together into a new house and develop patterns of living that involve another person - it helps that we aren't so independent and stuck in our preferred method of running a household, we get to make those sort of decisions together. Another thing is that we will have a combined income while we are still young. Sure, we might not make the wisest of financial decision but we'll save a heap too. Travelling together is something we're both looking forward to - I prefer to be with someone I know when I experience new things - no matter whether it's NYC or camping at Margaret River. I'm sure there are other benefits, but this is already a long post!

You can watch the interview here, don't worry - it's not very long and the psychologist makes such a funny face when she thinks the camera isn't recording ;)

**Obviously, we're talking about babies and parenting here. ugh.

Brides in the News.

So wrong. Why is it that that these women are driven to crazy by planning their wedding? I say they should go visit Meg to get some sane back.

Headline: "ANGRY BRIDEZILLA TRASHES US BRIDALWEAR SHOP"

Stand Out Quote: Three men later turned up at the store accompanied by the bride-to-be and a huge brawl erupted, in an incident caught on CCTV ... mannequins in the store were picked up and used as weapons.

Headline: "LEANNE WALKER'S DRUG EMPIRE PAID FOR BRIDE'S BIG DAY"

Stand Out Quote: Police said the drug money helped paid for a stretch hummer to come from Melbourne, bridesmaids' dresses and the wedding cake.

Headline: "LESBIAN BRIDE SHARON HANCOX ARRESTED"

Stand Out Quote: Her lawyer, Steve Burnell, said she did not "fully appreciate" that the stiletto was in her hand when she lunged at Mr. Jenkins.

Pranks.

There is a horrible tradition on my Mum's side of the family that I am really hoping doesn't carry through to our wedding day...

Pranking.

My Aunt Katherine, who was working in a lab with rats doing science was greeted on her wedding day with two chauffuers dressed as rats. They whipped off their costumes to reveal suits just before they walked into the church, but golly what a shock!

My Uncle Kevin HATES cats. He woke up the next morning to cats crawling all over his car, someone had tied some bait fish to the engine block.

My Aunt Michelle was blocked in her driveway by two Luigi's (i.e. "Sava da Money") with flannel hats, bonds singlets, work shorts and thongs telling her to "backa away from da car, donna scratch my car wid your car!"

I think she yelled out, "YOU BASTARDS!!!" and ran after them. The whole street came out to watch and laugh and clap. The Luigis had their suits in the trunk too...

The ultimate was my poor mother, who married last. They didn't do anything, but on purpose. My poor mum was fretting about it the whole day, wondering what they would do!

That is why I am being very tight lipped around my extended family when it comes to how the day is running and what is being planned. Hopefully the first exact information they know will come from the invitation! haha :)

It's hard being secretive around my Nana, but she is the worst! She loads the guns and then blames everyone else for firing....

Earring update.

I went into Oroton during my lunch break again on Saturday and bought the second pair of earrings that I posted about (the pearls). They look great, really happy with them.

The gentleman in the store was VERY excited that I was getting married. Here is how the conversation flowed:

me: Hey, I'm trying to decide between a couple of pairs of earrings, but I'm leaning toward--

him: NO! those ones are TOO GAUDY for a wedding, you want to be CLASSIC, CHIC, you don't really want to be looking back in 20 years and asking, "Why did I wear those earrings?"**

me: Uh, yes - that's why I was leaning toward these ones - do you think they are a good size?

him: Yes, absolutely, CLASSIC, CLASSY! What is your dress like?

me: It's an Aurelio Costarella--

him: OH MY GOD, COSTARELLA!! *dying noise* was it expensive?

me: Uh, no, cheaper than some monstrosities I tried on in the bridal stores...

him: Wow, oh that will be amazing. When are you getting married? Where at?

me: July, at The Old Brewery

him: Oh wow - Winter wedding! I think I've only been to 1 Winter wedding and that was when I was like 6 or something. OH MY GOD, THE OLD BREWERY IS SOOOOOO NICE.

me: Thanks

him: So what made you pick July?

me: Well, my fiance is still studying and there is a uni break then, plus we both really like Winter

him: What does he study?

me: He is doing a Jazz degree at WAAPA and an education degree at ECU.

him: ECU? Isn't that AGES away? Does he have to drive far? I study marketing and advertising.

me: The WAAPA campus is in Mt Lawley, so it isn't too bad.

him: Oh cool, JAZZ IS SO COOL. I'm a drummer, but I could never do Jazz, too fast.

me: Yeah, the drummers are insane!

him: So your fiance must be pretty young huh?

me: Yes, *slightly embarrassed* he is 21

him: OH MY GOD - how old are you?

me: *even more embarrassed* I'm 24 - slight cougar

him: NO WAY, that's not a big difference, but you guys are so yooooung!!

me: I know, "young love" and all that. It's pretty sweet. Zac says it's all about the person, rather than the age, though so I'm sticking with that!

him: Oh yes, definitely, and if the GUY is saying that then it's all good and it's all on!

me: Uh yeah, I guess so!

him: Ok, are you a member of the "O Club"?

me: No...

him: Oh you should be, definitely. OH MY GOD!!!! I'LL SIGN YOU UP UNDER YOUR MARRIED NAME!!!

me: Ok....

him: *squeak* how do you spell it?

me: g-a-g-e-l-e-r

him: There all done! Let me know how it all goes!!!!!!

me: thank you :)

I seriously, wasted so much of my lunch break in there. But it is nice when people are excited with you...

**hopefully this isn't what I will be thinking about in 20 years?!?

Etiquette.

I was remembering back to about a week after we got engaged, Zac and I walked in the door after church and my parents had some friends over. Dad and Mum explained that we had just got engaged and Donna said, "Congratulations" to Zac and "Felicitations" to me.

I thought that was pretty cool and she explained that traditional etiquette was to say 'felicitations' to the lady because you wanted to celebrate her happiness, rather than congratulate her on her 'achievement' of advancing up the social and economic ladder.

I had heard of some etiquette do and don't requirements before, but this one was new to me.

Legend.

I keep finding myself saying... "I would totally do that, if our wedding was in Summer..."

This is one of those moments. How sweet would it be to rent heaps of bicycles and BIKE TO YOUR CEREMONY AND RECEPTION? I've heard of people walking, hiring buses, trolleys in San Fransico, but never have I seen bicycles en masse.

photographer via.

I'm not such a fan of the whole attire theming (each to their own) but I am digging the bikes. Apparently they STOPPED TRAFFIC. What legends.

I wonder if the photographer had to be riding a bike to take some of these shots? Mad skills!

Who could resist.

Last night Zachary and I grabbed some floor time. I mentioned that I was thinking of only wearing one band on my left hand, perhaps putting the engagement ring on the right hand. I'm just not a big fan of two rings, looks odd to me.

Anyway.

Monsieur got irritated and insisted that I wear two rings on the same hand, same finger. I asked "Why?"


"Because they kiss each other."


Who can resist an answer like that? Totally illogical and sweet.

GUNS.

The most bad-ass bridal party portrait photo. Ever.


Too bad we've already done the rustic thing or I would be seriously considering setting up something like this for the wedding. How funny are the GUNS!!?

Reminds me of this:images from Green Wedding Shoes and here

599 pt2.

Did I forget to mention that the ENTIRE time we were having that crazy conversation about the fabric, the man was talking to us about his opinion on getting engaged?

man: so what are you buying for?

clare: it's for our engagement party. two long tables etc etc

man (whispers to Zac in front of me): don't do it! you're crazy!

zac: uh, (politely laughs) haha, yeah mate. Women...

man: no seriously, you'll get married and it won't be what you think and you'll end up in Graylands.*

clare and zac: *------*??!? huh?

man (whispering to Zac): get out while you still can!

zac: uh.... -------*?!

man: so I do it for you 599. 40m. a whole bolt.

So the next day I went back, to buy something I didn't think I could afford the previous day.

man: you were in here yesterday?

clare: yes, the tablecloth

man: yes, you're getting married aren't you?

clare: yes, still getting married *polite smile*

man (leans over and whispers): don't do it! Get out while you still can!

clare: uh, do you have any grey or yellow gingham?

man (across the store): AUNTY!!! DO YOU HAVE ANY GINGHAM OVER THERE WITH THE LOW QUALITY COTTON!?

man (whispers): seriously, don't get married you'll end up in Graylands for 3 months. I did!

clare: really!! what happened?

man: so I was engaged to this girl and we don't sleep together before the wedding.

clare: know the feeling

man (leans in over the counter): so I get married, I take her to bed and...

(leans in closer, whispers) she's a lady-boy!

clare: woah!!!!!!!!

man: yeah, so I went crazy, I spent 3 months in Graylands!

man's brother (chirps up from a computer behind the counter): yeah, I blew $50,000 on that wedding and it didn't even last the night! 3 months in Graylands!

*for all of our interstate readers, Graylands is a hospital for people who are mentally unwell.