Out of Town Guests

Seeing as quite a few of our guests are coming from out of town, I wanted to let you all know about a few options you have while you're here.

Firstly, for accommodation, we have organised special rates with Vibe Hotel Gold Coast, which is where the wedding ceremony and reception will be held.  We will be doing all our preparation there and will be staying there ourselves from the 5th to the 7th.

The prices we have for our guests are:
$149 room & breakfast for 1 person in the room
$165 room & breakfast for 2 people in the room

If you want more information on how to get this rate, let one of us know.  However, I still recommend checking Wotif.com, Expedia.com.au etc to see if you can get a better deal.

For entertainment, most people's first thought of the Gold Coast is "theme parks!" and we can help you out there too.  As Dave works for the Warner Village Theme Park group, we can get discounted tickets for entry to Movie World, Sea World, and Wet n Wild.  The discount Dave gets is 20%, but you need to let us know in advance if you want tickets, because he has to go in and buy them himself with his staff ID.  Note that Dream World is NOT included - they are a separate company.

I also recommend seeing the Australian Outback Spectacular show while you're here, although I haven't seen it since they changed the show a few months ago.  Apparently the new show is better than the old one.  Unfortunately, we can't get discounts for that and it's quite expensive, but I think it's worth seeing if you can.

Many of you are only coming for a few days and of course we are going to be flat out organising everything in the week leading up to the wedding, but it would be great if we could catch up with as many of you as possible away from the craziness of the big day itself!  So please let one of us know when you are arriving and leaving, where you're staying, and what your plans are while you're here.  Please also let us know if you need help arranging travel to and from the airport, or help with anything else!  We want you to enjoy yourselves while you're here and are looking forward to seeing you all!

Shoes!

I finally found my shoes the other day.  I was starting to get worried, because I find shoe shopping incredibly difficult.  I'm not one of those girls that loves shoes and has hundreds of pairs.  In fact, I only own about 6 pairs of shoes, and only wear 3 pairs with any regularity - thongs, boots, and sneakers.  I haven't worn heels regularly for about ten years.  I have long, squared-off man feet so I can't wear pointy, dainty, girly shoes.  I usually buy men's sneakers because they fit me better.  So finding wedding shoes was not a prospect I was looking forward to.

So my shoes had to meet several criteria: not too high, not too enclosed, not too expensive, strappy, comfortable, and silver.  And I finally found them!  So, without further ado, I present to you: my wedding shoes!

43 More Sleeps!

I should have started this about 6 weeks ago, sorry everyone! Our wedding is 6 weeks away tomorrow, only 43 more sleeps...I can't believe it's so close, and there's a lot happening between now and then as well. I think the remaining time is going to go very fast.

Most stuff is organised now: Dave has a complete outfit (except I think he needs a new belt, I keep asking him to check...), my dress is organised, and I have my shoes and am waiting for delivery of my choker from DragonWeave Jewelry. Dress fitting is in two weeks. I'm hoping to organise a hair & makeup trial before then so I can test it with my dress and make sure everything is going to look ok.

On the decoration front, we've finalised everything with the ceremony decorator Dream Day Weddings so that we're not standing in front of an ugly door with the sun in our eyes during the ceremony. The venue, Vibe, supplies a lot of stuff and the event co-ordinator, Caroline, has been super-helpful. But the ceremony is in their garden, which backs on to the Titanium bar next door. So we needed a bit of decoration to make it nicer. I received the sand for our Sand Ceremony and centrepieces today (from Coloured Sands), which looks good, except the "natural" sand is a little dark. So I may have to exchange it. I'm waiting for the containers we're going to use to arrive so I can do a test.

The favour boxes have also arrived, so now we just have to figure out what we're putting in them! My vote is for orange-flavoured M&Ms - they are a limited edition and are orange and white which is perfect. But Dave doesn't like them that much and they may not be available by the time we need to buy them. So we're going to look at how expensive orange and white jelly beans from Jelly Belly will be. Otherwise our fall-back option is orange and white sugared almonds.

We met our cake decorator Taya from Deliciously Decadent last week and she sent through some preliminary sketches. The cake is going to be amazing. All I will say here is that it is an asymmetrical 3-tiered (and 3-flavoured) mud cake, decorated in our theme colour, with dragons. I can't wait to see how it turns out!

Think that's all the news for now. Still waiting on a few RSVPs but most people have replied. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone!

Love Jen