A Kitchen Tea, A Coffee Date & A Wedding

1. At Elisha's kitchen tea 2. Making a wedding dress out of paper

3. A coffee date with Ally 4. Mr & Mrs Ayton 

5. Me, Elisha & Abby 6. Reception

Thursday evening I attended Elisha's kitchen tea and got the chance to meet a couple of her old school friends, and members of her new family. It was a lovely evening which was spent playing a 'getting to know you game' with toilet paper, I'd never played it before, but it was a lot of fun. A roll of toilet paper was passed around and we were told to tear off as many pieces as we liked. Once everybody had, starting with Elisha, for every square of t.p you had to share a fact about yourself with everyone. It was a great way to start the evening and get into a good comfort zone amongst friendly strangers. And we got into little girl gangs for a paper dress competition where you were given a stack of newspaper and had to make a boss wedding dress out of it. The whole evening made me that much more excited for Elisha to get married on Saturday!

I left my house Saturday morning a little earlier to meet up with one of my lovely friends Alyssa for a morning coffee date at one of my old favourite cafes in Newcastle. I can positively say that I frequented this cafe at least twice a week, not including take away coffees! After raisin toast and coffee, I dropped her home so I could meet her new ferrets. I'm still a little freaked out by them, so I'll have to visit a couple of more times while I work my way up for a full on nurse of them! They are little furry babes though. 

The wedding was on afterwards, and it was a slight 'amazing race' moment trying to get there on time! The ceremony was in a lovely, sunny park/hill reserve and the weather was perfect! Elisha looked beyond stunning in her wedding dress with bright yellow heels. It was exactly how I imagined it! The ceremony was short and sweet, and afterwards Abby & I made a quick stop off to buy shoes before going to the reception so she could ease her high heel regret. The reception was on the waterfront at Newcastle and it was just a casual drinks and canapés type function, which was great. I love laid back, easy weddings.

After Elisha's wedding, I came back to the coast to help out at another wedding my family was catering for, and had dinner at my parents house & then came home to a cup of tea with Luke & an episode of Daria before bed. It was a pretty lovely Saturday!

My Sisters Wedding!

My sister got married on Saturday afternoon, and oh my! It was so super loverrrrly! It was one of my favourite days I've had in such a long, long time! The weekend started Friday afternoon with a family bbq/mini reunion at Rafferty's Resort Lake Macquarie where the wedding festivities were held. I got to see a lot of my cousins & family friends whom I hadn't seen in months. It was such a nice night.

Saturday Luke & I slept in quiet late, well, late considering our apartment was the desired breakfast haven from around 7 in the morning! We kept putting off getting up because we both had way too much whiskey at the bbq & combined with the atmospheric excitement in the apartment I was sure it would make me nauseous. At 9.30 am we got up & had coffee with everyone, & watched my Granny stress over making (very!) last minute alterations to the bridesmaid dress. My cousin Sophie was one of my sister's bridesmaids & she has been living in Europe for the past four months & the day of the wedding was the first time she had seen her dress. Although my sister is usually the resident stress-head, she was very, very relaxed - almost too relaxed - about the whole come together of the wedding!

Luke & I went for a drive to Swansea to get some things for everyone, & on our way into town we saw a burnt out car on the side of the road, and 2 kms down the road another car on fire with nobody around. On our way back the road was heavy with emergency services & there were people everywhere. It was quiet weird. When we got back to the apartment, we had some champagne, glued some bows to bells, & quickly dressed for the wedding. I put my dress on at 2.40 pm and the wedding was at 3 pm! It was all set up so beautifully, the were rose petals for the isle, flags to mark the spot & cute little white chairs.

The ceremony was over just as quickly as it began, and there was a little while before the reception started so we went back to my aunty & uncle's apartment for drinks and a catch up. My cousin Jay, who is possibly one of the biggest babes ever, and who I hadn't seen since Christmas last year, flew out the next day to China to live for 12 months :( However, when he'll be back, Luke & I should be happily settled into Sydney so we'll see each other more thankfully.

The reception started at 6 pm, the second we got there we hit the bar up for some wine to start our evening. Ash (my sister) had bought some stuff off my friend E for her wedding, that she had at hers. The hot spot of the evening was the 'crazy photo booth', and Jay & I went straight over, donned some costumes & did our best Subo ! After a little bit, we sat at our tables & the bridge & groom made their entrance to 'thunderstruck', it was so much fun! On the tables for everyone's name card, we put personalised titles/inside jokes under their names, it was also a bridge for guests who didn't know each other so well. Everything & everybody looked so brilliant & beautiful.