The Year of the Vickie

 

This year I was lucky enough to share in one of my best friends in the world getting married to the love of her life… in LONDON! Woohoo!

This is the former Miss Vickie Barr getting married to Dr Nick Hoque at Bromley Temple Salvation Army, Kent, United Kingdom.

Funnily enough (totally unplanned) her and Nick had chosen the exact same colour scheme to Simon and I; pink and orange! We MUST be good friends, either that or trend forecasters because since I got home from her wedding I’ve been seeing bright pink and orange everywhere!

So this is Vickie and Nick. They met while working in a children’s hospital together, Vickie is a play specialist and Nick is a baby doctor. Haha, for some reason in my head ‘baby doctor’ sounded funny, like ‘baby daddy’ or something… Anyway.

This is neither Vickie nor Nick but my bestie Kristy. She was my partner in crime, international woman of mystery and all-round travel buddy when we lived in London together for just over a year 2006/2007. She was also invited to the wedding, although she’s currently living in Canada, without me (waaaa!) But will hopefully be coming back to Australia for mine and Simon’s wedding next year as my Maid of Honour, yipee!

This is the lovely Fiona, we met her through Vickie, she’s English, and became our very good friend whilst we were in London. I think she was just bewitched by our G’Day’s and use of the word ‘Doona’ and didn’t notice that we consumed an awful lot of her time while we resided in her fair country. But she was part of the wedding too, she played the piano (she’s rather super at it) and will hopefully be coming to Australia for mine and Simon’s wedding too!

(BTW, Did you notice KFC had StreetWise Roller Snacks for only 99p while I was there this year? Bargain!)

OK so after the ceremony at Vickie’s home church (the awesome thing about Vickie and Nick is that they come from different culture so they got to have like three weddings but this was The Salvation Army Christian one) they had their reception in London at the AMAZING Kensington Rooftop Gardens. Here’s some of the details;

The table settings, bowls of flowers on mirrors with tea-light candles.

These were the place-cards, they had a fun Monopoly theme which ties in with the fact that their wedding was in London…

And each table had a Monopoly themed name as well. It was fun eating my dinner at Barons Court! I have to say that our table quite possibly had some of the funniest people at the wedding on it including my besties Kristy and Fiona!

Their cake was definitely a stand-out, it had zoo animals all over it! Of course the Monkey (Vickie) and the Tiger (Nick) were at the top. Don’t you just love the way the Rooftop Gardens presented the cake with the lights and the rose petals?!

And their first dance together… Aww… Although my photography wasn’t the best on this day I also like this photo coz it shows us Vickie’s dress. She mentioned that she chose something more conservative than she thought she would but if anyone knows Vickie they know that the boat neckline of this dress is classic Vickie. She has about 5 different dresses with the exact same neckline and about 10 different tops and sweaters! It suits her so perfectly and her cute little figure looked great in this material. I liked the way it was fitted all the way along her waist and her hips and then flared out into princess from there! I also loved the beading detail above the skirt and along the neckline. The shining glory of Vickie is her beautiful Rapunzel-esque blonde hair and although she wore a veil for the ceremony she took it off for the reception. She also wore a beautiful tiara which I loved!

And here’s us girls! The day after the wedding I got up early, went down to the photo shop near Fiona’s place and bought four frames. I gave each of us this photo to remember the day and our special friendship! I’m so glad I did! Everyone says me and Vickie could be sisters, what do you think?

Sadly I didn’t get many photos of the reception venue coz it was raining by the time we got there (which apparently means good fertility, go babies!) but you should really check it out here 

Happy Day!*

The White Wedding Dress

 

I am very lucky to live in the lovely city of Bendigo in Northern Victoria, Australia. Along with all the advantages that come with living in a regional centre (fresh produce, access to beautiful landscapes and country drives etc.) there is a great artistic presence in Bendigo and a fantastic art gallery that regularly holds world class exhibitions.

The latest (no less due to my upcoming nuptials ) is The White Wedding Dress from the V&A Gallery in London.

Simon and I went and visited it recently and it was lovely. I couldn’t take any photos of the actual exhibition as photography is prohibited (along with coffee, so I discovered) but here is a picture of Simon doing the quiz at the end of the exhibition.

And me taking a break on the nice white couch.

The exposed brick is nice isn’t it

However a number of the stores down View St. (the street that the art gallery is on) had white wedding dress tributes in their front windows so I snapped a few of those…

Cute huh?

I also snapped this…

It’s not a white dress or even remotely related to the exhibition but I just liked it

View St overall has a very festive ‘white’ vibe about it at the moment which is lovely. If you would like to visit the exhibition or find out more about it check out here

Call me if you are from out of town and would like to have a coffee when you come to see the exhibition. Although of course we would have to make sure our coffees are finished before proceeding through the exhibition…

Happy Day!***

Montsalvat

 

So I have found my perfect wedding venue!

Sadly it was too expensive…

But Simon and I thoroughly enjoyed having a look through MontSalvat in Eltham, Melbourne and dreaming. We invite you to join us now…

 

This venue is an artists colony complete with cafe, chapel and year-round exhibitions, most recently some native Indonesian tribal masks, fascinating! Sadly I didn’t get any photos of them but I did get photos of this spectacular venue.

Here’s a pic of Simon using the facilities before we get started…

Heehee, Here is the Long Gallery, there was another exhibition in here of pictures inspired from around Mont Salvat, but again, I didn’t get any photos of them…

Continuing on the wedding location discovery…

Here is the entrance to the top of the Great Hall where most of the magic happens, a wedding was set up to happen that afternoon so we got to see what it looked like.

SO pretty! It barely needed any decorating!

This is the stain glass window you get married in front of.

This is the signing table.

This is the piano.

But the top of the Great Hall wasn’t even the best bit!

This is the bottom of the Great Hall where, if you have enough money, you can have your reception. It was something out of my dreams!

This is the GORGEOUS little kitchen, the cooks were already busily preparing the meal for the lucky people that night.

The amazing fireplace.

This stunning antique dresser.

Honestly, I have DREAMT about these tables and bench chairs! Simon walked into this room first while I was still admiring the top and said, ‘Honey, I think you’re gonna want to see this…’ He was right, I have tried and tried to describe these types of tables to him and the bench seats I’ve been saying from day one, it would be great if we could just have big long benches rather than individual seats. And here they were! I have visions of these tables being covered possibly in hessian runners and jars full of flowers something like this…

 

Or this…

But this wasn’t ALL.

The beautiful gardens and quaint little details like this door would make countless places to have photos taken onsite,

Where’s Wally heehee

There is actually another chapel onsite as well but it probably only holds about 50 people, but here are the photos anyway…

Lots of paintings of Jesus on the cross all over the walls…

This pic above is actually one of my favourite photos I took on the day! Yay me!

OK and coming towards the end of our tour now, here is the pool (not for swimming).

And the cafe…

So as I said, this was our perfect dream wedding location. It’s not in the Grampians but it had everything we could ever want (including my dream tables) but it was just out of our price range. So the search for our wedding location continues. If anyone knows where I can hire the long wooden tables with the bench seats, please do let me know, I haven’t really been able to find them anywhere on any of the hire websites.

Also if you would like to check out Mont Salvat for your own wedding or for a tour or just for a coffee or a meal in the lovely cafe take a look at http://www.montsalvat.com.au/

Happy Day! *