An update on my last post about the cars. Since the cars will still be there for the photos, we decided that they were worth having. We have hired a 1956 Bentley S1 and a 1963 Jaguar S Type from Classic Bridal Cars.

For the afterparty, Tim and I will travel in the Bentley, and the bridal party will travel in a 16 seater Hummer!

It’s been a while since I blogged, so lots of updates today. Here’s the rest of what’s happened over the last few weeks.

We still have no invitations! They should be with us by Tuesday after repeated unexplained delays from the printer.

The colour mess never really got sorted out but things seem to be tending toward gold and orange which I think will work.

We have booked John Leong as our photographer. Not only does he produce truly beautiful artwork, but he agreed to a contract which gives us full rights over the photos, so we can add them to the wiki if we want to. I’m considering a trash the dress shoot after the wedding too. :)

We’ve booked the favours and make-up artist. I’ll post about the flowers soon once I hear back from the florist we visited this week.

Luckily the house we’re renting has not yet sold, so we don’t need to make plans to move right now. Which is lucky, since we’re running out of time. It’s just over six weeks until the wedding. To complicate things, we’re both going to San Francisco in three weeks time. I’d planned to visit the office before the end of the year and Tim has a staff meeting next month, so we’re both going over together and will be away for 12 days. This essentially means that everything needs to be finalised within the next three weeks!

Buying wedding rings, selecting the music, and writing our vows are the next big things to do.

Ceremony rehearsal: November 20th (early evening)

Stag night: November 20th (late evening)

Hen party: November 21st (2pm onwards)

The wedding: November 23rd (11.30am - 5pm)

The pictures below show what our Flower Girl and Page Boy will be wearing, and the waistcoat and tie that Tim will be wearing. The best man and my dad will be in the same waistcoat, with a different tie. They’ll be wearing morning coats. I have my dress fitting next week but I still need to find shoes and jewellery.

An update on my last post about the afterparty. We’ve now booked the Drawing Room at the Observatory Hotel for the Bridal Party to have High Tea after the reception. It’s also where Tim and I will spend our first night before flying to Queensland.

I’m very excited to say that our honeymoon is now booked. We are going to Hamilton Island, one of the Whitsunday Islands on the Great Barrier Reef.

I don’t know where the nearest post box is. I have no clue what a stamp costs these days. But I’m about to find out. It’s just 3 months to go at the end of this week, which means it’s time for getting the invitations ready. More choices to make - paper, fonts, style, wording…

I checked whether the wording could fit into 140 characters but apparently Twitter has not yet become an acceptable means of distributing wedding invitations.

Even with the rise of green weddings, it seems that paper invitations are still very much expected.

The RSVPs might be tricky if we’re forced to change our address before the wedding.

Invitation image by Paperfish Designs, released under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike License.

We recently had our second meeting with Mark, our celebrant, and we’re in the process of selecting the final wording for the ceremony and deciding whether we want readings, hymns, or any rituals to be included. I like the idea of Unity Candles where our mothers will light a candle each and then Tim and I will take those and use them to light a single candle, signifying a union of our families.

Photo by el__vaquero from flickr is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License.

We went to Myer in Chatswood on Monday to create our gift registry. I was pretty disappointed with their range and we managed to get only 16 things on our list before we gave up.

Unlike many couples, we’re not in the usual situation of already having furnished our home and not needing anything. Neither of us are motivated to go out and shop for that sort of thing, so we’re mostly still using whatever Tim bought when he was at university. And what I bought at uni is at the back of my parents’ garage 10,000 miles away. To give an example, we moved into this house last September and have yet to buy a sofa despite giving away the old one on freecycle before we left Melbourne. So, it ought to be easier than this to find something we both like and need in Myer.

Gift photo by Marta Crowe from flickr available under the Creative Commons Attribution License.

Inside the Mercedes S-Class Super Stretch.

Image from HF Wedding & Hire Cars.

• See updates on the cars and afterparty.

I’ve been thinking a lot about cars today. With the ceremony and reception on the same site, most people won’t see the cars that we arrive in since they’ll be inside the chapel already.

So, instead, we’re going to focus on the “getaway” cars.

It won’t be just Tim and I going away. We’re inviting the whole bridal party to join us in the city.

Because the wedding is early in the day, we’ve decided to have an “afterparty“. It won’t be a party as such, but more of a quite evening in a Sydney pub with just our immediate family. It will give a chance for our families to mingle in a more relaxed atmosphere and prevent an anti-climax after the last dance at 5pm, which seems much too early for the day for end. It also gives us a chance to reflect on the wedding day with my family who I won’t see again for some time since we’re leaving for our honeymoon the following day and they’ll be going back to England.

And it means I get to wear my gorgeous dress for a few more hours. :)

We’ll be taking everyone there in 2 stretch limos; probably the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, pictured above.