Wedding Nerves

I’ve always thought that being invited to a wedding is such a privilege. To be someone that the bride and groom consider special enough to witness their big day (and not to mention the cost of feeding a guest) means so much. But when you are asked to have a role in the wedding, that is extra special. I’ve been completely honoured to be a bridesmaid and chuffed to be asked to do wedding hair but in the last couple of weeks I’ve had two important and completely nerve wreaking roles in friend’s weddings.

 

The first started so innocently, with a request to do a reading. I was thrilled and honoured but apparently missed a key piece of information (to be honest I was pulling the world’s largest splinter out of my toe as she asked me) because it wasn’t so much a reading as a singing. That is right my friends asked me to sing at their wedding.

Now something you need to know about me, I love to sing – alone, in my car, where no one can hear my shockingly limited range and ability to be miles off key. S is about the only person who regularly hears me sing and he must be struck deaf by love because for some reason he thinks I can hold a tune. I know I cannot, so a week before the wedding having discovered that the reading was a singing I was freaking out.

But as luck would have it the song was “Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life” which is a bit more spoken than sung and everyone joined in very strongly enabling me to move the microphone a discrete distance too far away to pick up my voice. Other than the bridal party I was the only friend to have a role in the wedding so it was lovely and once done I could relax and have a ball, playing on the jumping castle (the ultimate wedding accessory) and dancing the night away.

 

But then came my second special request. This request came as a result of a piece of bravado that may have been alcohol induced when I declared that sure I could make a wedding cake – only to be held to it. That feeling when someone says “you know how you said you could make a wedding cake – can you make mine?” yes that feeling, I felt it in spades.

Let me tell you, anyone who moans about how much of a rip-off a wedding cake is, they are a hell of a lot of work and take a lot of ingredients. The cake I made included almost 2kg of butter, 1.5 kg of chocolate, 10 cups of sugar, 1 full cup of whiskey, 5 kilos of fondant, 9 hours of baking time and about a work week (seriously 40 hours) of decorating time. But it was worth it. The end result was really lovely and most importantly the bride and groom were thrilled. Well the bride definitely was with the cake, the groom was just in love with the fact that I made him a jelly shot cake – his request.

So yes, my nerves have been strained by those last two weddings but in such a good way. I'm thrilled that I was able to contribute to my friend's special days and I love that they were thrilled.

P.S Just for the record, my brilliant Mum helped hugely with making the icing flowers but everything on that cake was hand made!

A Danish Wedding

Yesterday was the reason for this trip - the wedding of S's brother. 

The wedding was held in Frederiksborg Castle Church.  The castle is a Danish royal castle and the church is still one used by the royal family, in fact the younger of the two Danish princes married his first wife there.  As you can imagine, it isn't the easiest place to get married in, but the bride's family is from the local village and she was baptised there, so she could get married there.  And to be honest, if you could get married in a stunning royal church, wouldn't you?

It is the first time I've attended a wedding in another country and it was really interesting to see the differences.  The ceremony was quite similar and apart from the hymns was conducted in English for the benefit of the Australians.  The main difference was where people sat/stood at various points and that the couple only said the word "yes", not "I do" or repeated any vows etc.

After the wedding we wandered the grounds of the castle but it was pretty cold so we headed for the reception in a restaurant attached to the church.  It was there that we found out more of the Danish wedding traditions.  When the guests bang their cutlery on the plate the bride and groom had to stand on their chairs and kiss.  When everyone stomped their feet they had to kiss under the table.  If the bride left the room then all the female guests could kiss the groom and vice versa.  And finally at the end of the night, all the women tore bits off the bride's veil for good luck (all I could think was I hope it wasn't expensive - it wasn't, she made it herself) and the guys cut the toes off the grooms socks which apparently the bride is meant to sew on in a year's time.

The other outstanding thing about the wedding was the amount of food and dancing.  Drinks were accompanied by nibblies of puff pastry type normal things and bacon.  Yup, big bits of dry, crispy (cold) bacon.  It was delicious.

Entree was cod with a mustard cream sauce.  Main was venison en croute with red cabbage, spinach tart, potatoes and gravy.  Once you finished your plate they came around with more venison etc for seconds!  Dessert was a strawberry tart with mascapone icecream and then there was the wedding cake.  It was a cornucopia of almond pastry filled with biscuits and chocolates.  Delicious.  But it didn't end there.  At about 1am when the dancing had been going strong (more on that in a sec) a whole range of bread, cold cuts, terrines and cheese was brought out for people to make the traditional open faced sandwiches known as smorgesbrot.  We were super full by the end of the night.

Speeches were made throughout dinner and they were all lovely.  After dessert, we all got up from the tables and moved into the next room for the cutting of the cake.  During that time, the whole reception room was cleared, turning it into a dace floor and the dancing started, hours and hours of it.  Remember that I said the supper was at 1am, well it was after 2am when the bride and groom left!  Now that is a party.

It really was a brilliant thing to be a part of.

A new toy

I have a new app on my phone which means I can take all sorts of interesting looking photos. It is called hipstomatic, and I've had a brilliant time playing with all the settings and seeing what it can do.

Today was the perfect day to try it out as today was my sister's best friends wedding.  Deb is pretty much another little sister to me, so it was a great honour that she had asked me to be a part of the day, not only by attending but by doing the bride and bridesmaid's hair and checking the venue was set up correctly.

Because I was involved with getting the girls ready, I had lots of opportunity to play with my new toy and take some great photos of them getting ready.  Then of course there was the ceremony (gorgeous, I cried as I invariably do at the weddings of people I love) and the reception which provided more opportunities to play.

It was a beautiful wedding of two very happy people and I'm thrilled for them.  But I'm also just a little bit excited that I will have some fun wedding photos to share with them too!

Australia Day

Happy Australia Day everyone!  I hope you spent it celebrating in style, I sure did.  I had a sleep in, went to a BBQ in the park and finished the day eating gelato and playing on swings, all in the best of company.  What more could you want?

Australia Day means different things to different people.  As a pretty damn patriotic Aussie, it has always been special for me, a day to think about all the things that make this country great. In fact, my activities today kind of summed it up.

A sleep in - we work hard in Australia, but we know how to enjoy ourselves too.  We are rabid sports fans, devotes of the beach, lovers of a good time.  Most people I know are extremely committed to their jobs and work some serious hours, but give us time off and the laid back Aussie emerges.

BBQ in the park - I love the community spirit in this country (which I guess is summoned up by the word mateship, although politicians have stolen that word for nefarious means and I don't like it so much any more).  I have the most marvellous group of family and friends who form my community, but it is larger than that.  The response to the floods shows that this whole country of ours is a community, and it is wonderful

Gelato - Australia is a land of immigrants.  In fact I'm first generation Australian on one side.  Any each of those waves of immigrants have brought such richness and vibrancy to this country.  Food is a great example, but there is so much more of our identity that has been forged from the influence of all those nations.

So on Australia Day each year, I get to revel in the enormous luck I had to be born in such a wonderful country.  However 3 years ago Australia Day took on another meaning for me, because on the 26th of January 2008 I got to stand next to my best friend as she married the love of her life.  We all thought they took a risk on the weather given that Australia Day is generally bloody hot (it was 37 today) but it was perfect, in fact the whole day was perfect.

I've said it before, I love a wedding, but watching my best friend get married was really special.  The happiness that those two have brought to each other's lives, the fate of them finding each other, the life they have forged together, all of those things now form a part of Australia Day for me.  So happy anniversary guys to to everyone else, happy Australia Day!

Weddings

So it might be terribly girly of me, but I do love a wedding, yes I really do. Today one of the followers of this blog and a long term friend of mine got married and it was just lovely.

A wedding is such a happy place. Full of love, promises for the future, people who can't stop beaming. Brides always look beautiful, glowing full of love. Grooms always look handsome, serious in the moment they first see their bride, then thrilled the rest of the time. Parents are proud, full of joy and friends, they just radiate the happiness they have for the couple.

This wedding was no exception. Even the weather put on a stunning day for them. All I can say is L3 I wish you a long and happy life together. May today's joy be the set the tone for the future.

Weddings

Gosh I love a wedding. I know I'm not alone in this, and there is good reason, they are just such happy occasions.

Today some friends of mine got married. They are a fantastic couple and we have all been waiting for this day for some time. They were married by another friend of ours, which I think makes it all the more special.

They both looked lovely and so happy. The ceremony was fantastically them. A little bit bookish, a little bit geeky, and totally full of the love they have for each other, not to mention, laughs, tears of joy and the good wishes of all their friends.

The weather was not cooperative, the wet weather option had to be actioned, but it worked perfectly. And being a slightly more public venue, you also get to see how random passers by are just attracted to the sight of a wedding.

All in all, just lovely, can't wait for the reception!!!