THE ONE WITH THE RETURN OF FOOTBALL

Urgh, so it’s back. Football. How on earth am I even saying these words in February?! Is it me, or is football starting earlier and earlier each year?

Last night, a Sunday night, I strolled into my lounge room to find this…

My fiance engrossed in a game of football. On a Sunday night! And what’s worse is that he informs me, in what I can only describe to you as an overly excited tone, that there is a new AFL channel on Foxtel. Awesome. So now, rather than a few games on TV on the weekends, I now have a full on channel dedicated to AFL in my lounge room, giving Ryan the opportunity to watch games 24/7. Nooooo.

Sunday night is still movie night to me. Remember the good old days when every Sunday night there would be a movie on at 8.30pm on channels 7, 9 and 10? What happened to that? I admit, AFL is not entirely to blame for this. There are an abundance of crime shows on Sunday night, all the CSI’s and Law and Orders, but now there is this special AFL channel in the mix, my TV life will never be the same again. 

I love nothing more than relaxing to the max from 4pm on Sunday afternoon in preparation for a week of work ahead. I put my PJs on and lay on the couch watching TV for as long as I possibly can. Not using any energy. Just laying there, slug like. Last night however, I had to find ways to fill some time while Ryan caught the Essendon vs. ‘some other team’ game. And it wasn’t so bad, but I just know as the months go on and the proper AFL season starts and the weather is wintery, I’m not going to be as accommodating with this new channel.

So we have the return of AFL, the return of soccer (or not...is it on year round? I'm unsure) and of course, Ryan has his football season starting in April which sees him training three times a week in addition to his weekly games (not to mention the fact that he has been doing pre season training for about 6 weeks now).

Too much football for me. Bring back the Sunday night rom com. WAGs unite.

Love to you all, 

THE ONE WITH GUEST BLOGGER JENNY HANSON

A girl who says she has never thought about her wedding is lying. She may not have thought about the finer details but she has thought about it.

I have always known I wanted to be married and that I would want a non religious ceremony but I didn’t think I had a clue about the finer details.

How wrong I was.... here’s how it goes.

Four and a half years ago I was working in Dubai and enjoying a night at the balmy and ever so slightly glamorous Rooftop Bar at The Royal Mirage. I met a Welshman called Leigh and we ended up drinking two bottles of Shiraz. It was undoubtedly one of the best nights of my life. He was over on holiday for a week visiting his brother. We ended up spending every day that week together. I cried when he left. We Skyped often and spoke every day and six weeks later I left the UAE and moved to Wales to be with him. We shared an apartment on the water’s edge before getting a house together.

Four years later on a cold but gloriously sunny day in Cardiff he took me back to the water’s edge under the balcony of the apartment we first shared together and asked me if I would be his wife. I cried.

Shortly after this we packed up our worlds and moved to Melbourne. We booked the wedding before we left – Friday September 7^th 2012 in Cardiff, Wales – his homeland. It made the move easier knowing we had such a wonderful event planned – a special time to share with our friends and family.

Leigh and I have always been organised and to a degree a little regimented with a mutual love for routine and structure. I am grateful for this because it turns out planning a wedding on the other side of the world requires somewhat of a military approach to planning and presents challenges. But it’s ok – a spreadsheet for this and a spreadsheet for that helps keep everything in perspective.

Reverting back to my original point about the finer details... turns out for years I have been storing inside my head a wedding box – and when Leigh proposed I subconsciously opened this box and discovered it contained the entire contents of my dream day. No exaggeration. The colour scheme, the menu for the wedding breakfast, the bridesmaid’s dresses, how I pictured Leigh to look, smart in a charcoal grey suit with crisp white shirt and silver grey tie... but there wasn’t a clear image of my dress...all I knew was that I did not want to look like a meringue.

So time passed quickly and I’m six months away from D Day. My Mum had said from the moment we announced we were to wed, that she would like to buy me my dress.

My Mum and I have lived in separate countries since I was 17 years old – regardless of this we have remained very close. I call her every day, text her every few hours and value her opinion above pretty much everybody else I know. So early February she flew to Melbourne to take me shopping... we had three appointments booked and they were nicely spaced apart to accommodate wine before each shop! So off we went to appointment number one... a 10am at Baccini & Hill. We were a little early so we walked past the shop to grab a coffee – stopping only to drool over a dress in the window – a little Grecian like, a healthy amount of bling and certainly nothing I’d ever a) go for and b) look good in.....

Buzzing from our coffee fix we stepped into the shop – for someone like me walking into a shop stocked entirely of dresses and nothing else (apart from accessories to go with said dresses) is beyond daunting. I knew what I didn’t want and conveyed that to the assistant. So whilst I went off and got changed in the rooms, she went off and picked some options... she returned and handed me ‘contestant number 1’... – a little Grecian like, a healthy amount of bling and certainly nothing I’d ever a) go for and b) look good in.....

From the moment I put the dress on and felt the silk georgette glide over my skin....I knew. The bling was clear to see but not a bit “Big fat Gypsy Wedding”, the way it moved when I moved made me look like I was gliding, the fitted waist and ruching showed off my good bits and covered the not so good... in a nutshell I felt like a princess.

Historically I am an impulse shopper. So there was a part of me which wanted to sign on the dotted line right there and then. Mum quickly unearthed the sensible voice in my head and reminded me the right thing to do would be to continue on to the other appointments and then decide from there. So that’s exactly what we did....Mariana Hardwick failed to impress as did another. But how can this be when their gowns are so special? Because in my head I had my dress picked... a little Grecian like, a healthy amount of bling and certainly nothing I’d ever a) go for and b) look good in.....

So we returned to Baccini & Hill and the same assistant from earlier came bounding over to me...if I was on the cusp of a hefty sale I am pretty sure I’d have a spring in my step too. She took ‘the’ dress of the model in the window and we returned to the changing rooms to try it on one more time. It felt even better the second time round only this time round I cried. I’ll be honest – I am a softy and I cry often at anything remotely slushy. Last week whilst laying in bed I spent half an hour on YouTube watching a whole host of marriage proposals – I wasn’t howling but I did well up on more than one occasion – even at the over the top American ones! So tears were no great surprise but they were welcomed, as were my Mum’s. As a moment it was beyond special although it lasted just minutes I will treasure it forever. We both knew this would be the dress I would marry the love of my life in. All I could think of when I stood facing the mirror was what Leigh would think if he saw me in ‘my’ dress.

We did the ‘admin’ and they took measurements and then I took my Mum for a drink – a glass of champagne. Sat in the sunshine with a head full of thoughts, all I kept saying was “wow, that’s that then”.

Jenny x 

THE ONE WITH INSPIRATION BOARDS

As I sit here on my couch in all of my spray tan glory, the Real Housewives of Atlanta in the background and homemade pizza in the oven, I'm pawing my way through hundreds of wedding inspiration boards for a little bit of fun. 

The problem I have is, I cannot decide on a look for our wedding. How can you when there are so many beautiful options, so many ways you can style your venue. I always imagined all white with millions of candle votives but now I'm wondering, do I add some soft colour? Should I go for a super glam look, or a French provincial look? Country table or fine dining? Argh, the options are endless. 

And to make it all the more difficult, these inspriation boards courtesy of Snippet & Ink, are simply adding fuel to the fire!

Parisian Brunch

Romantic Early Spring

Ruby Red & Gravy

Gingerbread & Pear

Pink Pierrot



Black & White Ball

Caramel & Cream

Charcoal & Plum

Shell & Cocoa

Garden Pink & Green

Southern Charm

Romantic Black & White

Lucky in Love

Love & Lilacs

Playful Pink & Blue

Ahhhh, decisions.

Love to you all, 

THE ONE WITH MY SISTER

My sister turned 21 on the weekend. I honestly cannot believe it. It feels like yesterday that she was a little three year old girl who said and did the funniest things and she always had me in stitches.

It’s so strange for me now that Jessie is 21 because I see her as a little girl still. So when she tells me about parties and nights out drinking fabulous cocktails and devouring pizza at 3am to soak up the alcohol, my instant (internal) reaction is “WHAAAAT?” before I remember, she is a grown up now. Accept it. If I’m lucky enough to have a little girl of my own, golly gosh, I will be such a hideously overprotective mother. How did my Mum do it with not one but two daughters? The constant worry I have when I know my sister is out for the night is ridiculous. And I’m just the sister.

You see, Jessie has always been my little angel. There is a ten year age gap between the two of us and when she was born, she became my best friend. I just loved her and cared for her and wanted to be around her more than anything. She was such a little character, always telling jokes and making her own fun from anything and everything. It makes me laugh so much to this day to think of the two of us singing Row Row Row Your Boat because we had a little joke where we wouldn’t look at each other when we sang it, but then if one of us snapped our head around to look at the other person, you had to try and snap your head back at the exact same time. Silly to anyone else, but how we laughed.

The nicknames I had for Jessie have stuck with her for 21 one years. It’s rare that I call her by her actual name, but rather the ridiculous names we came up with when she was just a little girl. Loop, Loopy, Loopalina, Munchican, Munch Head. Variations of all of these things. Jessminda. I did try to get Flubber to stick, purely because the movie Flubber came out when Jess was six years old and she used to dance like Flubber to “do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight, get down tonight” and it was hilarious. However, she HATED me calling her Flubber, so that was one name that was kind of off limits.

Of course during the teenage years, I do recall Jess telling me not to call her any of her names in front of people. I would get yelled at if I called out “Loopy” in front of her friends. “Naaaaat, you’re so annoying”. Ha ha ha.

I feel so happy when I think of my sister growing up and all of the fun we have had over the years. There was a period where we had some great house parties when Jessie was a teenager. Not the kind you might be imagining, but family parties where we had jelly shots, punch and a lot of SingStar. Good times. Jess and I would always be a team (trust me, I never wanted to go up against her because she would ALWAYS win) and we were hard to beat. Jess would sing properly (winning us the points) and I would be more into the performance part, up singing (badly and loudly) and dancing away. All of the aunties and even Mum, would get amongst it, singing out hearts out and having a blast. My Grampa would sit in the next room laughing at how horrendous we all sounded but he loved that all of his daughters and granddaughters were all there with him and that we were all being silly and having so much fun.

Originally when Ryan and I started planning our wedding, I was adamant that I didn’t want to have a bridal party. I thought it would be so nice to be just the two of us and perhaps our parents could be our witnesses. It sounded so romantic. Ryan on the other hand wasn’t keen on this idea. He was really excited at the thought of having his best friend as his best man and told me that our wedding was not a “barn dance”. He was right and now, I cannot imagine ever not having my sister as part of my wedding day. What was I thinking?! So, Jessie is going to be my one and only bridesmaid and I’m super excited to go shopping for her dress and to get our hair and makeup done together. She is such a beautiful girl and I’m so happy to have her by my side. I love that when I told Jess my idea for a hens night (which ladies, I’ve decided I will definitely do in Melbourne after Shanelle suggested it might be a good idea as more people can attend) she was SUPER excited and completely loved it. She has been so wonderful since Ryan proposed, her and Mum have been marking pages in wedding magazines and Jess sends me emails full of wedding inspiration.

And, lucky for Jess, she has had a little bit of practice having been in some wedding previously. I adore this photo of a six year old Jessie (the tiny little one in front, pictured with my Nanna) at my aunty Felicity’s wedding. Cutie pa-tutie. She just looks so innocent.

My sister is the best.

Love to you all,

THE ONE WITH THE CATCH UP

It’s been a few weeks since my last blog on New Year’s Eve and I’d love to tell you that I’ve been ever so busy doing fabulous things, but the truth of the matter is I’ve been really lazy. I’ve literally been laying around on the couch catching up on sleep and bad TV over the Christmas break I had from work. So much so, that I even joked with Shanelle that my couch has a body imprint of me from having spent hours on it for the past few weeks. That’s what holidays are for though, right?! With Ryan away for three weeks, I had the house to myself and it became my little quiet haven. I rarely cooked dinner for myself (who can be bothered cooking for one every night?), the house stayed super neat and tidy for all I did was go from the bed, to the shower, to the couch and back again. Pure relaxing bliss.

Don’t get me wrong, there were the girly catch ups, the dinners with friends, the pool hanging on hot days, a few hours laying on the beach, shopping and I did speed read my way through a fabulous read in a few days, The Help. I’m sure loads of you would have read it or seen the movie, but if you haven’t, I highly recommend it. I literally could not put the damn thing down. I laughed, I cried, I flicked from one page to the next desperate to read how the story went.

Sadly though, it had to come to an end and it was back to work for me and my fabulous little cycle of doing nothing was over. Life is now back to normal. I’m back at work, Ryan is home again (YAY!) and January is coming along quite quickly.

There are a few little things I have brewing this month, such as my save the date cards which are en route from St Louis. I’m just desperate to get them into my hot little hands and send them out as soon as humanly possible. And in addition to that, my FAVOURITE little custom blog designer is currently whipping me up my wedding website to send to all of our family and friends so they can keep informed on the week of our wedding. I tell you what, Miss Sass is just a dream come true and I love her designs and creativity. I tell her what I like and she brings it to life. Um, love her!

Another exciting thing for me is that my lil sis Jessie is turning 21 this month. Very hard for me to believe as I still see her as a little three year old girl. Bless. So, we have a delicious family lunch planned to celebrate and I have a nice little present to give her, which makes me ever so nervous. I really hope she loves it as much as I think she will. So, bring on Mr Wolf for a classic margherita and the cos salad. And for Jess, the potato pizza, a cocktail and the chocolate mousse. My mouth is literally watering as I type this. No joke.

And of course, I have Leanne’s wedding to look forward to in just under three weeks now. Oh em gee. I'm extremely excited to attend this wedding because I feel like I’ve been there every step of the way with the organising and research and the ohhing and ahhing over wedding blogs together. It will be amazing to see how it has all pulled together nicely and of course, I'm excited for us girls to have a fabulous time on the dance floor boogying the night away. Super dooper excited. Oh and P.S. I will be recycling outfits for the weddings I attend this year. This makes Ryan very happy. No more new dresses for me.

Love to you all,

THE ONE WITH NEW YEAR'S EVE

So, it’s New Year’s Eve and I’m sitting at Elwood beach as I write this blog, getting a little tan and relaxing to the max.  I just LOVE the little beach side suburb we live in and the fact I can walk five minutes down the road to the beach.  Comes in super handy when your fiancée is overseas and you have lots of time to catch up on books and magazines.

One of my favourite New Year’s Eves was two years ago when Ryan and I were in Paris. It was below zero, snowing, freezing and SO much fun! We stayed in a lovely hotel in the 7^th arrondissement surrounded by quaint little cafes and exclusive boutiques. I’d love to say that we spent NYE drinking wine, eating scrumptious food and just being all around fabulous, but no, we rugged up and walked the streets for the night with about five billion other people. I’m talking hours and hours on end of walking, seeing the sights, stopping at a few places along the Champs Elysses and  having a drink at a bar every hour or so. And when I say drink, I was having camomile tea in order to warm me up. I was frozen right to the bones. Il fait super froid. Ryan would laugh and laugh at me for being so outrageously uncool with my tea, on New Year’s Eve, in a city that was clearly going crazy with people really kicking up their heels.

We made our way down to the Eiffel Tower for midnight and it was really something special and I’m so happy that we did it. You see, Paris was a quick side trip after we had spent Christmas in Ireland with Ryan’s family. A nice little trip for just the two of us and it was beautiful. J'aime Ryan.

Some Parisian memories…

Midnight kiss at the Eiffel Tower on NYE

Coffee stop

Louvre on New Years Day 2010

Arc de Triomphe

So cold my nose was red



Happy New Year French style

It has been a super fabulous year for me and I'm just so excited to see what 2012 brings. Lots of weddings that's for sure, but hopefully lots of love and happiness for all.

Amour à vous,

THE ONE WITH THE EXHAUSTION

As I write this blog, I'm just home from a few days in Lorne, finding myself completely exhausted and sleepy. I think 2011 has finally caught up with me, and having finished work for the year early this week, my little body shut down and refused to do anything more than nap randomly and eat whatever I fancied. Who knew that I was in such need of some r and r, but r and r is what I had.

Ryan is going home to Ireland on Christmas day for a week, followed by a couple more weeks in the US for work, so bless his little soul, he organised a few nights away for us before Christmas and his dreaded departure. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm excited for him to go back to Ireland and spend time with his family and best friends, but the whole trip is almost four weeks and that just seems such a long time to be away from each other. Pathetic really when I think about Bianca and the long stretches of time she is away from Tyson, months and months of him being in the Middle East with very little contact. Such a strong woman that Bianca.

So Lorne was for me what rehab is for Lindsay Lohan. Lots of rest, lots of time to catch up on a good Marian Keyes novel, lots of tasty food, lots of walking on the beach, lots of napping whenever I felt like it. And it was heaven, pure heaven. I've never been one to have an afternoon nap, yet I found myself sleeping for hours on end throughout the days. I woke up one day, had breakfast, hopped back in bed and promptly fell asleep for a few more hours only to wake up at lunch time for a delicious cheeseburger. What a life eh?!

Something we did realise on this trip of endless sleeping was that when we're at home, we don't often just do nothing. If we have no plans, we'll make some. We'll go shopping, catch up with friends, see a movie, clean out the house, do a stack of washing. We never sit still. Why is it that we don't ever take the time to take care of ourselves? This little trip away has made me think that perhaps afternoon naps and no plans for life are the way forward. Forget about filling my time with fancy commitments. Fluff my pillow and say goodnight, this lady has learnt how to sleep at the drop of a hat and she isn't afraid to do it.

Perfect timing really with it being Christmas and all. Time for the Christmasy traditions and time with family, but then there is the extra week or so of holidays which will be spent laying on the beach with some trashy mags that help me nod off in the sun.

Wishing you and your families a lovely, happy Christmas full of lots of laughter and happy memories.

Oh, and just one more thing. When next in Lorne, you MUST MUST MUST have dinner at Babalu. Ahhhhmazing.

Love to you all,