Drop Dead Gorgeous

For some reason with Adam I just never wanted to leave his side. When I met him he already had 2 children from a previous marriage, of which his wife had passed away. They were only nearly 3yr old and 1 yr old. We knew that we would be together for the rest of our lives and wanted to start trying for another baby. We felt pregnant almost straight away which was fantastic and we were over the moon. We told both our families and they were so happy for us.

One night Adam came home from work and he was being a little weird but I didn't pick up on what was going on. I was fairly pregnant and he made me sit down while he got the kids ready for bed. Once they were all tucked in he was started going in and out of the house, busy doing something, but I didn't really think much of it. All of a sudden he told me to come outside onto the verandah. There he had the table all set up beautifully, with a candle lit dinner and a huge bunch of flowers in the middle. I was absolutely thrilled! We sat down and started eating. Then all of a sudden Adam asked;

"Will you marry me?"

"Yes you know I will, now lets eat our dinner".

It was the one and only night during my pregnancy that I had actually felt the cold weather. It was obvious that it hadn't really clicked what he had asked me. So, he asked again ...

"No baby, WILL YOU MARRY ME?"

"Of course I will! Now hurry up, I'm cold".

At that point he reached over into the bunch of flowers and pulled on a wooden heart that was in the flowers. It was then I saw a diamond sparkle and I realised what was going on, like "Oh my god". I started crying and said...

"YES!"...

It was such a funny night and we love telling the story

We were engaged on the 28th May 2003, and as I was pregnant we decided to wait until our baby was born before we made any plans. Our son was born on the 5th August 2003. After we had settled down into life with a new born, we decided to set a date.. We were looking at the calender and I said to Adam, "if the day falls on a Saturday why don't we try to get married on the day you proposed or something near that date.". We looked at the calender and the 28th May 2005 fell on a Saturday which was fantastic for us. It gave us plenty of time to plan our wedding and also gave me time to loose my baby weight. Adding to that our son would also be old enough to be part of our day with our other 2 children. It was perfect.

The days leading up to our wedding day were crazy. There was quite a bit to do, and on top of that I still had to look after our 3 children. On the Tuesday before the wedding, I started to get sick. Adam was great and was trying to get me to rest as much as possible (as much as you can with 3 kids). I went to the chemist and loaded up on vitamins and anything I could get my hands on. I woke up on Wednesday feeling great. I couldn't believe it, so I went back to finishing off the last details that I could.

But on Thursday morning I woke up with no voice and feeling just dreadful. I couldn't spend another day in bed as there was still things to do. My mum came over and took the placecards off my hands as names still needed to be written on them. I than decided that rest was a must so that afternoon I was back in bed. Friday arrived, the day before the wedding, and I wasn't feeling any better, I was actually a little worse. But things needed to be done. I packed up my daughters things and my things, then headed over to my mothers house where we would be staying the night and getting ready the following day. Adam wouldn't let me do anything and took everything (the reception stuff) off me that I needed to take to the reception and did it for me, and once again I was in bed.

I woke up at 2am on our wedding day not being able to sleep any longer. I just lay in bed next to my daughter waiting for 5am to come so I could get up and have a shower. She woke up a couple of times asking if it was daytime yet so she could wear her dress.. She was so adorable. 5am came and the house was a hive of activity, my mum, 4 bridesmaids, myself and my daughter were all up and trying to get showers out of the way so we could go to the hairdressers. I still did not have a voice but at least I was feeling better.

The whole morning just flew by and before we knew it I was getting into my dress.. I was very emotional, I didn't expect it as I was so calm in the lead up to the wedding. I made it a rule in the house that "no one was allowed to get emotional in front of me". But everyone did.. The weather outside was just gorgeous, a beautiful Queensland day. Blue skies, sun was shining, and beautiful temperature.

Before I knew it we were in the cars on the way to the church. My daughter sitting beside me. She looked up and me and said "mummy you look beautiful", which bought a tear to my eye, and then replied with "you look goregous to honey". Her response was "yeah, I know". She made me laugh.

The ceremony was so romantic and gorgeous. We married at the Albert Street Uniting Church in Brisbane City. It was short and simple ceremony which is what we wanted. My bridal party and I walked down the aisle to the organ playing Cannon in D for the Bridesmaids, and the Bridal March for myself. My dad was so emotional as we were walking down the aisle, it was very unexpected as I had never seen my dad cry before so it was a truly beautiful moment. I will treasure it always.

Adam was surprised when he saw me, I had him believing all along that what I would be wearing on the day would be completely different to what I was actually wearing. So I completely caught him off guard. There was just so much love between myself and Adam on the wedding day. We just couldn't stop looking at each other. He looked so handsome, It was funny to think after so long of planning our wedding we were now Husband and Wife...

Once we were married we signed the register to the organist playing "the rose" by B. Midler, and than we walked out of the church to "the Wedding March" with the church bells going off for all of Brisbane city to hear. After the ceremony we had a butterfly release, which was completely me. I have loved Butterflies ever since I was a little girl and to have this as part of our day was just magical.

Our Reception was held at the "Hotel Grand Chancellor", also in Brisbane city just up at from the church. I remember the moment we walked thru the doors of the reception as "Mr and Mrs Donaldson" and looking around at the room, with all our guests cheering us on, and the room looked spectacular. The atmosphere was romantic and intimate, which is just what I wanted. We had a star curtain at one end of the room, which was a white curtain with fairy lights behind it, and than on the ceiling we had white sails with pink lights shining thru (it went with our theme of white, pink and silver).

The table had a silver candleabra in the center, with rose petals scattered on the table as well. The placecards were butterflies, that sat on the wine glasses and the bomboniere were butterfly attracting seedlings. It all looked amazing and better than I could have ever imagined. A highlight of the night other than my husbands speech was our Bridal Dance. We had secretly been taking dancing lessons in the months leading up to the wedding. On the night the DJ asked for everyone to come and surround the dance floor to see something truly amazing. We danced to DJ Sammy - Heaven - the candlelit version. It has been our song since the day we met. Everyone applauded once we were finished, they were so surprised and loved our dance. There were definitely a few tears shed.

There wouldn't be anything that was in my control that I would change if we had our time over again. The only thing I would have done was taken better care of myself in the lead up with the hopes that I wouldn't have lost my voice. Everything else was amazing and so much better than I could have ever imagined. Once we had decided on what we wanted, everything was pretty simple to arrange. The most challening thing would have been choosing my gown. There are so many beautiful gowns around these days and it makes the decision so hard. In the end I chose a "Maggie Sottero" Gown from Abbey Brides Queensland. The staff there were fantastic. My dress had little cap sleeves which were detatchable. I wore them for the ceremony and a couple of photo locations and than took them off for the reception. It gave the dress another look, I was so happy with it, and I just wish I could wear it again.

I loved every single moment of planning our wedding. It was an amazing time, and if we could do the day all over again, I would love to. Every single detail of our wedding was thought about and everything came together beautifully.

Having 3 kids, I didn't think we would get a honeymoon by ourselves. Then one day my mother surprised us. She had organised to take time off work to move into our home to look after our 3 beautiful children, so we could go away and share some time to ourselves, which was the first time we have done that since the first day we met. All of our parents pitched in to help out during this time and through out the wedding.

Mum, Dad, and Adam's Mum and Dad if your reading this, words and actions will never describe what this meant to us and we thank you.

Every single wedding supplier and staff member that helped us in the lead up to the wedding and on our wedding day were truly amazing people. Nothing was ever too much bother for anyone. From the bottom of our hearts we thank each and every person that took part in our wedding day. It means the world to us that they could all be part of our day.