I went over to hang out with the fabulous Kate O'Brien today, to help her out on a shoot and to get me some wedding photos!

The conditions were incredibly trying on the day, it was almost about to storm and the winds were pretty much gale force, so by the end of the photos many of us were a bit grumpy!

If you're interested in this kind of wedding shenanigan, click through to have a look at a few more photos.

I thought I'd post a little teaser of moments from our wedding on Saturday. It was an amazing day! We were all on the edge of our seats and hoping for the rain to hold out. Of course, it held out - but the wind was relentless in its quest to tear down all my carefully made pom poms and lanterns and make an absolute mockery of our hair styles.

The above photos were mostly taken by friends and relatives - but the big image was a teaser from my photographer Kate. It so happened that we were merrily having a game of imaginary croquet (well, the jack was imaginary!) and I stood square in some very real and not at all imaginary dog poo.

I promise to update straight away when I receive more pro shots!

Yes I am the poorest blogger in the world, but I'm a little preoccupied :P
I drew this last night as the inside cover page for our wedding guestbook.

I hope people doodle and write their memories and wishes all over the pages!

I've been on a bit of a mission to find cufflinks for the groom and his merry men for the wedding. I uncovered a motherlode of rad cufflinks for non-traditional grooms/men (or if your traditional groom wants to use his sleeve to rebel a little!) All prices are in USD.

Nerd Groom

Left to right: Pac Man Cufflinks by beaujangles, $48; Arcade Token Cufflinks by dmented, $35; Shadow Storm Trooper Helmet Cufflinks by Cufflinks, $27.99.

Steampunk Groom

Left to right: Steampunk Watch Cufflinks by Rivkasmom, $55; Vintage Typewriter Key Cufflinks by KeysAndMemories, $20; Steampunk Watch Parts Cufflinks by edmdesigns, $55.

Stylish Groom

Left to right: Snakeskin / Silver Cufflinks by depd, $60; Palm Wood Cufflinks by lotusjewelrystudio, $95; Brownie Cufflinks by ChicLinks, $75.

Graphic Groom

Left to right: Fleur de Lis Cufflinks by gurlygirl, $58; Bubbles of Love Cufflinks by deboradestefanis, $38; Awesome Porcelain Octopus Cufflinks by lusterbunny, $25.

Now I just have to decide... :(

So, I was catching up on my poor little neglected google reader (at you-should-go-to-bed o' clock) when I came across Gala's post about the new Fafi for MAC range. I've been excited about this range, because I love Fafi as an artist and I love MAC, so how could they go wrong? Surely it's some kind of divine formula created to part me with my money!

Today I went out with my sister to get beautified (skin peel, facial, shopping etc!) and we were looking around for a lip colour that would suit the bridesmaids and maybe even me for the wedding day. We're going for a coral with depth right in the middle. I bought a couple of Revlon lippies, one a coral colour and the other one of the dark velvet range (I'm hopeless with product names) but I wasn't really happy with either, separate or combined so I was a bit bummed.



Imagine my squees of joy when I see a beautiful kissy pair of lips with the most awesome coral/ peach coloured Lustre Lipstick by MAC in Strawbaby! I think we have a winner! In fact, all of the lip colours are totally wearable and could be in the race to get on our lips on the big day.

I can't wait until March until the Fafi range is released in Australia!

In other wedding related news, my dress and the girls' dresses are coming along beautifully. I wish I could share some pictures with you but it must remain a secret...! I can say that I'm incredibly happy with how everything is coming to life. As a designer, it's my job to bring things from a sketch or a doodle into fruition... but I've never embarked on anything as ambitious as this wedding, let alone the dresses. It's a completely satisfying feeling!

Who knows, I might just get into designing alternative bridal wear ;)

Bernard Maisner's calligraphy is beautiful and sumptuous, I think this style of hand lettering is the direction I'm going to take our wedding stationery in, however, I'm going to give it my own twist. Thanks, Lost at E Minor, for exposing me to Maisner's work!

I love the concept of "Trashing the Dress" but I'm still not sold on trashing mine. Ms. Polka at Polka Dot Bride reports there's now an Australian site for TTD! My dress is going to be a labour of love, and I'm actually thinking of getting it professionally mounted as a wall display later on, butget I wonder just how trashy I have to get my dress..! Ms. Polka assures me that the dresses never get so trashed that a good dry cleaning wouldn't restore them to their former glory, so now my mind is ticking through TTD concepts at a hundred miles an hour.

If you're only a short time reader, I should remind you that my dress is going to be red, and my fiance is going to be wearing a cream/ bone pin striped suit. It would be so awesome if we could work with liquids like red wine and milk or cream (or at least a liquid that can be dyed so as not to be totally damaging to the fabrics in our outfits!). Another idea I've had is to set our shoot in a food fight in the middle of a glorious banquet!

I may just have to speak with our photographer, Kate O'Brien, about these ideas. You should check out the amazing photographs she takes too. I have a feeling a TTD shoot would excite her!

I'm almost sold on hyacinth for my wedding bouquet. I found this lovely picture from floristblogs.com. The bouquet consists of Sweet Pea, Hyacinth, Peony and Roses. This posy is so me it's not funny - kind of vintage looking without being over the top tizzy, and it has a cascade of vines to "lengthen my lines".



My family will probably appreciate the humour in this kind of bouquet as well, since we all love British comedy shows!

1. Hyacinth
2. Gerbera Pocoroco
3. Berzelia Galpini
4. Pepperberry

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.


Apart from the brilliant photography and lighting of these blooms (by ksflower on flickr), I really love these colours together. I want to find a way of using really green things (Gerbera Pocoroco? Berzelia Galpini!?) in my bouquets. They look so fresh!

I'm on the look out for "cascading" or "trailing" bouquets at the moment - can anyone help? I love dodder vine and non-traditional flowers, and the colour scheme (if you didn't already know it from all my blathering) is red, cream, mocha and coffee tones.

Yesterday I went to the flower market with Mum and my sister Michelle, then to look at fabric at Sckafs. I'm really glad we did, we got an awesome quote on flowers and met a fabulous woman at Sckafs Indooroopilly who basically pulled all the fabrics and colours I wanted out of my imagination.


My wedding dress: This is an idea of what we're playing around with. The dress will mostly be red, with ruffled or pleated organza frothing around the over skirt and flowers from the beaded material sprayed around the hem of the over skirt and from the hip up my bodice. I'm not sure if I like the jacquard, or if I'd prefer dupioni. I really like its rough texture.


The bridesmaids: Creams, coffees and mochas. I love the texture of the crumpled velvet ribbon over the other fabrics.


Left: Bridesmaids - the silhouette we're going for. Sckafs had these cool templates you could place over fabric combinations.
Right: An awesome fascinator i found.

I was looking through my google reader last night and came across casasugar's post on ranunculus - I was so happy because I'd bought some purple ranunculus at the flower market in the morning! I also bought yellow and orange poppies. There's nothing like flowers to make you a bit happier - and when you get them direct from the flower markets, they're rather cheap too!


I do wish that poppies could be a bit hardier - they tend to drop petals at the slightest hint of breeze.



I took photos of the flowers so I could play around with them in Illustrator. Stay tuned for upcoming free vector posts ;)

I've been enamoured of anything Victorian in recent months, but at the same time I've also had a lot of Asian influences in my life because I live in Australia and I've lived most of my life being surrounded by Asian culture and art. When I was a young girl, my auntie Katrina gave me a cassette of Cyndi Lauper's "She's So Unusual". From the moment I looked at the cover, I knew I had to have a red wedding dress.And then there are other things, my love of pattern, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and absurdity in general! So, by all these influences combining, I get my very odd desires for the whole schematics of our wedding in April next year.

I've spent some time searching the internet for things that I want to include in the very dramatic and theatrical performance that will be our wedding.