Two wedding gowns

Mark and I lived across the road from each other during most of our school years, and we didn't really acknowledge each other until our mid to late teens! So you would not describe this as 'love at first sight'.

The day Mark proposed in August 2001 we had been together for around six years. We had spent the day up at Double Island Point (northern beach of Noosa accessable by 4WD) which was our favourite thing to do at the time. Mark made a tiny black box, with two drawers, the top one had a little yellow paper flower in with a note saying "will you" and the bottom drawer contained a gorgeous ring made of foil, with another note saying "marry me". It was amazing! and all very cute.

We (well I) probably started getting serious about planning our wedding with about 8 months to go. As I organised the whole thing (and I'm sure many groom to be's just say, yes darling, whatever), I feel that if you can survive the planning of a wedding, you can do ANYTHING!!

Planning was hard work, and there were some definite highs and lows. We were rather disappointed when our wedding stationers kept running out of the stationary we had ordered. I made the invitations myself and as they didn't seem to care it made me even more upset. I would never use them again. SO, some of the guests had slightly different invitations.

I had to have two dresses as I couldn't decide which way to go (as you would!). I was very spoilt and got to have a traditional gown, as well as a party dress. Poor Mark nearly fell over when I mentioned the fact, but luckily he got over it and understands my crazy logic. I felt like an ice/snow goddess in the fluffy one! There were a few problems with my second gown, and it had to be couriered back and forth from the Gold Coast one week before the wedding. This was a little stressful, as he still didn't fix the problem. I ended up finding a local dressmaker and she did the best she could.

Our son Jackson (19 months) was our page boy which was very special. Two weeks before the day, Mark, Jackson & I were all as sick as dogs, with a mutant strain of flu that was going around. We had never been so sick in our lives and were pretty much bedridden. Thankfully my mum helped out a lot, looking after Jackson occasionally and doing last minute things. If I could have postponed the wedding one week on I would have. We were still a bit sick on the day, but just had lots of cough medicine, Sudafed etc (not the baby!)..

Unfortunately my grandad was taken to hospital the night before and I wasn't told until that day, so he couldn't make it, which was a real shame. Probably the major low point of it all.

We had six bridesmaids and groomsmen. Our flower girl Halani (my step sister, 2) which was great, although she had the chickenpox!

The colour scheme we decided on was white, silver and pink. Gifts for the bridal party were, girls, bathrobes and earrings and the boys were pewter mugs with their names/nicknames engraved on them. Flowers were white lilys for me and stargazers for the girls.

Our day finally arrived, and what gorgeous, glorious day it was. The weather was absolutely perfect! Despite rain being forecast.

It was surprising how slow the day went, it was great and very exciting. Mark was at his mums house with all the boys and they had a few beers and a BBQ which was just what was required! excellent.

Transport to the ceremony was by three limo's, the seven boys had one, and we had 5 girls in one car and myself and matron of honour in the other. (I wouldn't let my father come in the car with me because I KNEW he would have made me cry!) YES, we had a rather large bridal party..

We were married on Main Beach, Noosa Heads, on a small grassy clearing which seemed to be made just for us. We had the water and sand in the background, so the guests had something lovely to look at whilst we were professing our love for each other...in case they got bored (ha, ha). Mark looked so handsome, very smart and he was in all black with a charcoal tie. Jackson was matching!

Our decorators had arranged 14 chairs with covers and a pink carpet runner covered with rose petals to form an aisle, it was so beautiful. In the background the Offenbach Trio (orchestral) was playing, who were magnificent. They allowed us to choose our own songs which made it really personal. I walked down the aisle to the "Queen of Sheba" and we had "The greatest view" by Silverchair, and "Runaway" by the Corrs played while we were signing the papers. As we are not religious people, we had a celebrant and wrote our own vows, it was very moving, but we held it together.

The majority of our family and friends came from interstate, Newcastle, Sydney, Canberra, Woollongong, Townsville, Gold Coast, so that really meant alot to us that they all made such a HUGE effort to come.

We arranged for the guests to travel to the reception via the "Catalina" which is a ferry and they were taken on an adventure down the river, along with a few beverages! Mark and I travelled via Gondola.

The reception was great, so much fun, but went far too quickly. We had it in a local restaurant on the river so it was very intimate. We had a choice of a chicken or meat dish, and there were canapes passed around to the guests while they were on the grassy area outside the restaurant, prior to us arriving.

We had the tables and chairs all covered in white, with white bows on the chairs. The centrepieces were large hurricane lamps with glass pebbles and goldfish in them, and were surrounded by a white feather boa at the base. We also had tea light candles in small brandy balloon glasses on the tables along with disposable cameras, and star shaped scatters (silver and pink). And yes, there were some shocking photos taken!

We had a DJ who was kind of ordinary, but I guess most DJ's are. We had VERY strict rules for him (not that we are music natzis, or anything) about the sound level and type of music to be played...so I guess he did OK, however, looking back at the wedding DVD, he did play "YMCA" which we requested as a definite NO NO! Oh Well.

Our wedding song was by Something for Kate called "The Astronaut" I got a bit teary at this point. This song was followed by Fat Boy Slim's "Praise You".

The speeches were given by my father, Marks father and the MC (who is a friend of ours). They were great, very funny and touching. Apart from that, we had a fabulous night and ended up kicking on, however one disappointment was that we never got to eat a piece of our cake! And we still don't know one person who ate it!

The restaurant and owner/manager were very accommodating to us and NOTHING was a problem. We often go there for dinner.

We had a videographer tape the day and put it on DVD. It turned out really well. The photographer did a fabulous job and took some very diverse and different shots. We are still trying to sort out the album...