Wedding Day Music

Now we all know that our own music preference is very personal, but then so are weddings. So here is the soundtracks we had and what I like, so make it what you will.

Music sets the mood, enhances memories and can help make or break an event such as a wedding.

Ever wanted to have a personal soundtrack, like they do in the movies? This is about as close as most of us will get.
There are many opportunities to utilize a soundtrack on your wedding day, some of these songs will breeze by in the hype of getting ready, while others will have special memories attached to them forever more.

Blessing of the Hands - Ceremony Reading

This was our favourite reading from our wedding ceremony. It strikes all the right notes, we agree with all it promotes, and the words have had a special place in my heart from that day on. The original author is unknown, but please feel free to absorb their inspirational words.

Enjoy

Our Wedding Cake

We had our cake made by Kirstin at Taupo Cakes. After the initial contact, we had lots of back and forth emails discussing ideas and making sure our visions aligned. This was the one aspect of the wedding day everyone else saw before we did. As it was delivered at the reception venue while we were getting ready that morning. It didn't disappoint in appearance or taste.... YUM!

© Ross Herbert Photography

DIY Floral Centerpieces and Head table decorations

DIY Floral Table Centerpieces

To bring some more colour and life to the reception and dining area we made our own floral centerpieces.
After discussing options with our florist (Nikki) from Maggies Flowers, we settled on this design. Something simple but effective, and which Tammy and myself could arrange the day before the wedding.

© Ross Herbert Photography

Eyelash extensions with Tammy - Bridal Makeover Part 2

If you were interested in the previous post about Bridal Makeup, here is Part 2, explaining the pros and cons of each type of eyelash beauty.

A house is framed by its garden, and your hair can frame your face. 

In the same way that lashes will frame your eyes.

Few things makes you look more awake, instantly made-up, and "doe-eyed"

than a good set of dark, thick and long lashes.

Now, the following may not be your everyday beauty routine, but for those special occasions read ahead for some advise from Tammy about opening the windows to your soul.

Bridal Makeover with Tammy - Guest Post

I am fortunate enough to call the talented Tammy one of my best friends, and more recently my bridesmaid. She was kind enough to do, not only my makeup on my wedding day, but also the rest of the bridal party's too, which also included my Mum. She found makeup looks for us all, with varying colour schemes and complexity, looks that were tailored to our specific features and brought out the best in each one of us.

Now I'll hand you over to Tammy, to show an example of my bridal makeup routine, enjoy...

Bouquets and Boutonnieres

I am fortunate enough to call the talented Tammy one of my best friends, and more recently my bridesmaid. She was kind enough to do, not only my makeup on my wedding day, but also the rest of the bridal party's too, which also included my Mum. She found makeup looks for us all, with varying colour schemes and complexity, looks that were tailored to our specific features and brought out the best in each one of us.

Now I'll hand you over to Tammy, to show an example of my bridal makeup routine, enjoy...

DIY Pearl and Lace Hair piece - Guest Blog by Tammy

© Ross Herbert Photography

So for those of you that don’t know me, my name is Tammy and I was entrusted with the task of being one of Erin’s bridesmaids.

Bridal Hair and Accessories

Things are starting to come together now, you have a wonderful fiancé, the dress is getting tailored, and you can now start to envisage what you want to look and feel like on this day you have been thinking about for so long. 

Hear! Hair! Here!

This is what will frame your glowing bridal face when your soon-to-be husband sees you for the first time.
As can be expected I had trawled pinterest in search of my favourite 'do'

It came down to two designs, with a bit of tweaking hair and there.

Introducing my Bridesmaids

These are the best friends, sisters, mothers, or daughters that have been chosen to get you to your big day, to stand beside you physically and emotionally, and witness a changing time in your life.

A lot of work is involved with the planning of a wedding, be it big, small, intimate or extravagant. Each bride-to-be will go through her share ups and downs in the lead up. Many will unknowingly take on tasks well outside their means, and its these women whom they feel they can share their burden.

To share the initial stages of excitement, anticipation and exploring with these women who (hopefully) feel the same way. To advise and confirm wise decisions and expectations (which the groom sometimes cannot relate to). To contribute their time crafting invitations, centrepieces and speeches, and in general to help make their friend's day the best it can be.

Our Wedding Celebrant

A key part of any wedding is the celebrant.

This is one person who can make or break your wedding ceremony. They are there to be an extra support person in the months leading up to the big day. To offer wisdom and inspiration, to stand beside you when you stutter and sweat at the rehearsal. Then finally to whisper encouragement and any forgotten words in your ear and watch you shine on the day itself.

So, it's important to find the right person for the job.

We found the right person in Belinda de Lautour

© Ross Herbert Photography

Suit Up! - Chris talks suits (Guest Groom post)

Weddings are driven by fashion. A bride will spend a lot of effort on her dress - so what can the Groom do in the meantime?

SUIT UP!

Few things are timeless like Men in Suits. At first suits seem simple; just a jacket, shirt & tie, trousers and shiny shoes. But there are actually a lot of options and detail involved with finding the right outfit.

For our wedding I decided to hire suits for myself and the groomsmen. A decent looking suit can be bought from Hallensteins for not much less than the cost of hiring, but hired suits are generally better quality at this price level.
I went through Van Meer for the rentals, who have agents nationwide. Dragging the mates out to try on clothes isn't something we do very often at all!
We got measured up and tried on everything that took our fancy. My initial ideas were for a super formal Morning suit, maybe with a hat and cane to class it up.
The trouble is, jackets with tails look very retro, and make most men appear short. For example, this fellow -whoever he is, the first result on google images - is obviously tall and handsome, but seems to have borrowed his grandfathers church outfit.

Lookin' fine, Grandpa.

Capturing the day - Our Photography

Your memories will fade, but the photos will remain.

Our photographer was a very important decision to us. So careful attention was taken to find, just the right one. Who would capture the day, but also reflect the style and feel we were after.

A photographers style can completely change the way your photos looks.
Photo journalistic and candid shots allow the day to be told like a story.  Moments are captured when the models are not expecting them and movement, moments and emotions are more natural.
The other side is a more formal, structured and somewhat "classic" approach, which you have all seen in your parents photo albums. These are also good to have, as you can capture more individuals in the photo, everyone has their "photo face" on, and it is easy to hang on the wall.
We choose to go with a photographer who balanced both of these styles beautifully, we got so many candid real moments of the day along with the posed photos that helped to highlight our best selves.

Ross Herbert was our photographer and we couldn't be happier with what he produced. We spent a long time looking through his photos deciding what we liked, and anticipating what he might have in store for us. We were pleasantly impressed.

The weather

I know that almost every bride/groom hopes for a gloriously sunny day, with not a cloud in the sky or a breath of wind; and for your friends and family will be out basking in its glow and take home warm memories of the day that was. On the other hand, the boys will be sweating in their suits, the girls may need to slather on some sunblock and everyone's getting a bit hot and bothered. The photographer will be battling the flare of the white dress, as the sun reflects off it and blocks any intricate detail that may be hiding. All the while trying to position everyone to prevent any severe cases of squinting and face shadows. 

However, if you are looking at a gloomy day, look up. The guests may have to run between shelter to avoid the rain, and you might not have the outside ceremony that you always wanted; but you'll have great photos.
Given the right photographer, he can make the rain disappear (not literally of course, but make it appear so). By choosing the right locations, posing and lighting no one will know by looking at your photos that its raining. No one is squinting, no one is sunburnt, and you can get some really dramatic scenes and reflections. Experience is a big factor here, if they can show you their previous "wet" events and how they dealt with it you can have an idea of what to expect. Better yet, make a plan for the worst with them, what ideas for locations or props (cute umbrellas) would they suggest?

When the day comes, hope for something in between, but either way some one will always be happy.

Get organised

The more you know, the more the photographer can anticipate.
A good photographer will move about, without too much notice from anyone, but any prior information is always appreciated. Knowledge of where you are entering from, where you will be standing, where everyone will be seated, who is of most importance, along with any places where they should not be.


A good photographer will see the scenes no-one else will anticipate. Capture the emotion you cannot bottle.
Preserve memories, to make them last a life-time.

“What I like about photographs is that they capture a moment that’s gone forever, impossible to reproduce.”
― Karl Lagerfeld

Keeping Organised: My wedding planning and budgeting tool kit

Until I started planning our wedding properly (more than just ogling pretty dresses and centrepieces) I didn't realise truly how much work would be involved, and all the decisions to be made and kept track of. 

I swear, I have never been so organised... in. my. life. Through planning our wedding my general organisational skills have improved significantly (one of the unexpected bonuses of planning your own wedding.)

I used a lot of new gadgets and tools to accomplish this, and I cannot rave about them enough.

Choosing our Reception Venue - Taupo

Invitations

We made our own invitations from scratch. This was decided by a number of factors:

• Price - It was going to work out about 50% cheaper doing the work ourselves.
• Personalisation- we got to choose the colours, papers, prints, therefore personalised and unique.
• DIY - we learnt a lot of new skills and a bit more about each other.

We went to Craft House which is a store in Wellington that specialises in DIY crafts ie. Scrap booking, invitations, framing, posters etc.

DIY Invitations

Invitations

We made our own invitations from scratch. This was decided by a number of factors:

• Price - It was going to work out about 50% cheaper doing the work ourselves.
• Personalisation- we got to choose the colours, papers, prints, therefore personalised and unique.
• DIY - we learnt a lot of new skills and a bit more about each other.

We went to Craft House which is a store in Wellington that specialises in DIY crafts ie. Scrap booking, invitations, framing, posters etc.

The Dress

The B.W.D..... (Big. White. Dress.)

Its one of the first images that pops into my head as soon as a wedding is mentioned, it's a pretty big deal.
It will be in all of your photos, you may look back and cringe (*cough* 80's shoulders) or it could be elegant and timeless and be passed down from your grandmother.

It didn't take me long to begin researching which dresses I like (and by that I mean, I started before we got engaged *guilty*).

Luckily we live in Wellington and there are numerous wedding stores here.

I had a few things in mind, it needed to be white, but what shade? Ivory, eggshell, cream, platinum?

The Engagement Party

So... we're engaged, now what?

Throw a Party of course!! (any excuse)

Its a pretty exciting point in your lives. Its the first time we have had something to really celebrate that wasn't a birthday or graduation, so we made the most of it!
I highly recommend it. It gave us an opportunity to catch up with friends and family we hadn't seen in years and let them meet each other. These people are going to be in both of your lives now. Best to let them meet and greet now before they are seated at a table together in a years time (or so).

So how did we go about it?

We got engaged!!! - Finding the right moment

So.... Chris purchased my engagement ring in November. I knew when he had picked it up after re-sizing (I wasn't snooping I swear, he just didn't hide it very well). That little purple box sat next to our bed for WEEKS, until I couldn't take it any longer and asked him to hide it properly. Meaning that I wouldn't be checking to see if it had moved or not....

So the next 4 months stretched on, filled with heart stopping moments of...... him tying his shoe laces (i'm sure he did it knowingly), scenic walks, followed by Valentines day, and just when I had let my guard down, (with our 8 year Anniversary exactly 1 month away) he decided that today was the day (18th February).

 

Not engaged.... yet

We got engaged!! - Finding the ring

Ok, so writing this retrospectively the title is a bit much, but you get what i mean.

So now... with the hows, whats and whys. We know the who ;)

Chris and I had been talking about getting engaged for a while, we were both in a happy place, could afford it and wanted to spend the rest of our lives together.

One day in November 2011 Chris piped up and said "Hey lets go look at wedding rings! I won't buy one today, I just want to see what you like" or so we thought... I wasn't going to say no to that kind of offer!
We had intended on looking all over Wellington in chain stores and one-off boutique type places in order to find the most perfect ring we could afford. It didn't really work out like that.

Intro - Who am I?

I have recently got married, and thought this would be as good a time as any to sit-back, reflect and share my experiences with the whole process- the ups and downs, the stress and the things I can recommend or would have done differently.

I married my sweetheart who I met while I was in high school back in 2003. We had been officially dating since March 2004, thus making it almost 9 years until we got hitched.

I don't want to get too mushy over it all, as most of you will know me, and some of you may not.
We have seen our share of ups and down over the last decade, through teenage emotions, school pressure, losing jobs, changing cities, living long-distance, losing loved-ones. To moving in together, building a home, creating more personal jokes than I can keep up with, and growing into the people we need each other to be, whilst cherishing every moment of it all.