A couple of people have asked me “what’s the dress code?” so I went to Wikipedia and read up on dress styles. I’ve come to the conclusion that the dress code is “informal“. You can read this Wikipedia article for details.

This is not to be confused with casual, though semi-casual may be ok. Some of the bridal party will be in black morning coats, but we don’t expect guests to be this formal. For the ladies, I’d recommend against jeans, but pretty much anything else would go! Suits, summer dresses or cocktail dresses are all fine. This picture shows what my mum will be wearing. If you want to avoid clashing with the bridesmaid or flower girl, don’t wear an orange or gold dress.

Related post: all dressed up.

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.

See also: dress code.

Despite saying earlier that I didn’t want a wedding planner, I’m starting to think that I might need one. Even a simple task like choosing the colour scheme is harder than it sounds!

As things stand right now, the flowers in the chapel are white or ivory, the table decorations are red, Alex will be wearing fuchsia or emerald, the cake is gold, Helen will be wearing yellow, the walls are peach, the carpets are green and pink…

I didn’t notice the oddly coloured carpets when I was there - I only realised what they were like when our venue updated their website with a new gallery.

So, a wedding planner is visiting us next weekend and hopefully she will be able to turn all of this into something much prettier and more co-ordinated.

In previous posts, I was thinking ivory and gold and then lemon and mint.

Tim got home from San Francisco today and we finally got our “new” barbecue out. It was a fairly late engagement party combined with a very late house-warming party, which is what we bought the barbecue for at the end of last year.

With only 5 months to go, lots is going on now. On the other side of the world, my mum has booked the flights and accommodation for my family to stay in Sydney, and has bought her fascinator. Helen is continuing her attempt to find a bridesmaid dress and is looking into day-spas in Sydney for my “hen day”. Tim’s niece has agreed to be our flower girl and Christine and I have been looking at potential dresses for her. I’ve been looking into gift registries and although Myer don’t offer any sort of online service whatsoever, they might still be our best option. Next week, we’re going to Epping to look for flowers.

See also the post about our first engagement party, in England

I found my perfect wedding dress today! Obviously I can’t show you a photo yet since Tim can’t see it before the day, but I can say that it’s a very beautiful ivory-coloured dress. I went dress shopping in Sydney with Christine, my future mother-in-law, and lost count of how many dresses I tried on. I ended up buying the one I’d tried on first!

Today’s dress shopping was more successful than my first attempt. I went to Pronuptia in Ipswich with my mum and sister and the 2 assistants in the shop were very helpful in getting me into 4 different dresses. They have a wonderful area to view the dresses in, with a full wall of mirrors and a platform to stand on. I didn’t find anything perfect, which is probably a good thing since I wouldn’t want to ship it to Sydney. We also had a quick look for ideas for Bridesmaid dresses. Tim and I are not totally decided on a colour theme, but I think gold and ivory could be good.

Tim and I are currently in England for a conference, which gave me the perfect opportunity to go dress shopping with my sister, Helen, who will be my chief bridesmaid. Since we haven’t yet decided on the colour scheme, it’s too soon to be choosing dresses, but I had hoped we could at least get some ideas about the styles we like to make it a little easier when we later need to co-ordinate buying our dresses on separate continents. It didn’t go well. I tried on just one dress in a hopeless shop where the staff didn’t even offer to help. Try getting what feels like a 6kg dress on by yourself! It was very like crawling into an unerected tent and then trying to stand up. All I have decided so far is that I do not like taffeta or sequins.