I don’t belong here

So today is my last day in the place I have called my employment for the last 3 plus years. The relief is enormous. Because...I really REALLY don’t belong here. And it shows.

This means I will be incommunicado for the next week or so, as the husband and I move our happy asses down to the coast. I’m sure you’ll survive without me, safe in the knowledge I am taking destiny by the nuts and a-changing it.

Tomorrow the movers come and use an enormous amount of our money to move the contents our tiny tiny flat. Preferable to me standing around with a feather duster, having a nervous breakdown because I just can’t decide where to pack all my Marian Keyes.

Happy Kate to follow...

shoe addict's dream

Life has been a bit hectic, apparently moving your entire life (plus husband and bunny and cat) 700km’s is rather a big deal.

Good news: our wedding DVD is ready. Bad news: Mom still has to courier it to our new address. So at least a two week wait. I am so excited to see it all again, in Real Time instead of superquick Wedding Time. Will let you know the extent of the tears as I revisit the best day of my life so far.

In other news, I saw the coolest thing on Cup of Jo this morning. It’s a website where you can design your own shoes! Called Milk and Honey. Look at what I created in about two minutes:

It’s every shoe addict’s dream! You can literally bring your shoe dreams to life. Ground breaking.

Our wedding: The Dress

Oh how I loved this baby. Like a fat kid loves cake. Like a warthog loves his bendy knees. Like Kate Middleton loves Jenny Packham. Like Victoria Beckham loves suffering for fashion...OK you get the picture. 

Even when she was giving me back fat and was covered in sand and gave me hot flushes that would rival any menopausal Mom.

I knew having a dress with six different layers of material was not a good plan in African midsummer. You heard correctly. Six! Just like I knew waiting 18 months to get married would be less than ideal. But I fell in love at first sight.

This is what she looked like on a model in the brochure:

Thanks Bride & Co.

 And on me:

Thanks Steff

Very different yes?! Proof you must try something on before you decide it’s not for you. Check my Finding the Dress post for more wonderful wisdom on wedding dresses...

Our wedding: Fails

Every single wedding since the beginning of mankind has had some stuff ups, varying in magnitude and consequence.  In fact, these stuff ups happen so frequently on CAMERA that there is a documentary on TLC (the white trash channel) called Happily Ever Laughter.

I thought mine was quite a baddie, until I met the recruiter who got me my new job. His wife had chicken pox on their wedding day. And they couldn’t reschedule because all their family came from Overseas. Then her makeup lady made her look like a clown (a clown with chicken pox) in shades of puce and 3 inch foundation and so she did her own makeup in the end. What a horror.

The following fails occurred on our special day:

1. I had back fat. No seriously. I am not a large girl by any means, but that dress was tight (in strapless wedding dresses: it’s either tight or you show your boobs) and my poor bridesmaids had to use sheer elbow grease to get that zip closed. And the back fat followed. Luckily Steff knew a few things and stuffed all my fat back under the zip. Charming.

2. I could not put on my own shoes. Again, poor bridesmaid had to help and then Nicky had his first (sandy) husbandly duty after our photos on the beach.

3. We forgot to sing the second hymn. And we choose our church cheese SO carefully....it was meant to be a rising rendition of “Morning has broken”. Sadly not.

4. We lost one bridesmaid back in 2011, and then one of Nic’s groomsmen decided his forex trading (read: forex losing) was far more important than his mate’s wedding. The week before the wedding. Siblings and best friends to the rescue.

5. We forgot half of our luggage for the honeymoon. Which meant a trip back to my parent’s house to fetch our things, all prettily lined up on the windowsill and promptly forgotten.

6. The button holding up my train snapped off during a particularly jivey dance. Obviously because I stepped on the train and it couldn’t take the pressure. Back fat and all. Then Nicky stabbed me in the bum trying to pin it back up, love that he is.

Looking at this not inconsiderable list makes me realise nothing, NOTHING can spoil your wedding day. As long as your man turns up and you turn up and you both say yes. The rest...is not important.

From Wedding Inspirasi and Pinterest

why being married is different to being engaged

Married people know that being able to laugh at 

themselves solves more problems than anything else.

I love this post by Jessica Claire for three reasons:

1. The commentary Jessica gives throughout the blog post about why being married is so different to being engaged. I had begun to suspect this in the tiny tiny time I have been married. My love for Nicky just feels different, better, more secure, deeper somehow.

2. This married couple had a professional shoot "just because". And good for them, why should all the fun be over just because the wedding is over?!

3. This photo is very similar to the one below from our wedding. Good taste this lady has.

Our wedding: First Look

Of every decision, every little chosen colour or flower or drink, the BEST thing Nicky and I did on our wedding day was the First Look.

Highly recommended (no pressure).

From the moment I stepped into the car that would take my Dad and I to the church, my day was a blur. A happy, smiling-so-hard-your-cheeks-hurt, loving, colourful blur.

An aside: it is REALLY hard to go to the loo in a wedding dress. Especially a toit mermaid style wedding dress. I missed a dance off between my husband and brother-in-law, a loooong dance off to LMFAO, because I was trying to get in and out of my dress in the bogs. Not ideal.

We had quite a few props for our photos, so our First Look was time to just be with my soon-to-be hubby, have fun and pose like a cat on a couch. We had the shoot at a park with massive old pines. Steff had this vision of me walking up the tree-lined road, with Nicky only turning to see me once I was up close. I remember it all so clearly and with such a warm, smiley feeling.

NOTHING can beat the look on my husband's face at that moment:

OUR PHOTOS!!!

On a Friday. A photography Friday!

Here they are on Steff’s website.

This is one of my favourites:

BIG news

I can finally tell you. By you I mean EVERYONE willing to listen!

We are moving. Relocating. Lifestyle-a-changing.

To Natal.

Oh the happiness! No more Big Smoke, no more bean counting (my fabulous new job is far more dynamic). And possibly a Spaniel or five. And a home big enough to fit all my decor and furniture ideas. And possibly a few more of Mom’s paintings (she is good at the painting, not something I inherited unfortunately).

I will miss the people, the parks, the mountain bike races, Piza Vino, the crazy trannies at Rosebank, the shoes (no heels where I’m going baby)...

I will not miss the traffic, the pollution, the stress, the materialism (hard to drive a Japanese hatch in a world of X5’s), the lack of family.

In 2012 I am getting a whole new life, as well as being a whole new wife. And I'm loving it.

Sunset at Storms River - from our honeymoon