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A Simple Wedding - part 2

See Part 1 for the start of the story.....

THE DRESS
About 6 months before the wedding I persuaded my husband to come into Toowoomba to look at some dresses. I said in my previous post that neither of us were very aware of what was “supposed” to be done at weddings, and this included the stupid rule about husbands-to-be not seeing the dress. For goodness sakes, we live in the same tiny house, how was I going to hide it from him!? We couldn’t work out why all the wedding shop attendants were getting so funny about him being there until I mentioned it to a lady at work and found out the reason!

Anyway, I wasn’t terribly keen on wearing a white dress, nor anything overly sequined or lacy. As usual, I was going for simple, but that seemed difficult to explain. I tried on a few white ones and they felt totally wrong. Finally one of the attendants actually listened to me and suggested a nice simple bridesmaid dress. The dress was made to order, so I was able to chose the size and colour. I chose green and cream to match the colours of the tussock grass on the sand dunes around the beach. Even better, it was a third of the price of the white ones I tried on, at under $300.

The dress arrived in a few months and fitted perfectly (lucky because I couldn't find a dress-maker!), but was far too long. I guess it was designed to be worn with high heels. I had no intention of wearing high heels on the beach or at the reception (why torture myself?). I had a pair of gold sandals that I picked up a garage sale for $10, that I thought would be fine. Anyway, the dress needed to be taken up so that it didn’t drag in the sand. Fortunately my mother-in-law sews and has an overlocker, so we headed up to the beach for a visit and she helped me pin the hem to get the right length (anyone who has had their husband try to help will know that most men don’t know how to use pins and its more trouble that its worth). We were both scared to ruin the dress, so I had to be the brave one to cut the excess material from the hem, she then got me started on the overlocker (fortunately on an offcut) and it was a total disaster, so she took over and did a great job with the fiddly thin material. I then went home and took up each of the petticoats with my own sewing machine to suit the final length.

THE GROOM’S OUTFIT
It didn’t seem right for my groom to wear a suit when I had chosen to wear a green dress. He decided on shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, very beach-appropriate! We left this shopping expedition until a few weeks before the wedding so that the summer clothes would be in the shops. What a mission! After looking at every shirt and shorts option in every menswear shop in two west Brisbane shopping centres, we finally found a suitable shirt and shorts (I only had to look in 5-6 shops to find my outfit!!). In hindsight it would have been easier to choose his outfit first and then matched mine, as I could have chosen any colour, oh well, we found something nice in the end.

THE FLOWERS
I asked my mother-in-law if I could have some flowers from her garden for the ceremony. She grows lovely roses, so I was hoping that some of them would be ready, but I was happy to take whatever was available. I would have loved a bouquet of Australian wild flowers, but it was a bad time of year for all the pretty ones in this area. Anyway, I was lucky to get a lovely bunch of roses, which we wrapped in gold ribbon.

THE HAIR AND JEWELLERY
I was growing my hair long anyway, so I just decided to wear it down. No need for a hairdresser to help with that! I very rarely wear makeup these days, but I bought some for the occasion and wore a little bit around my eyes. I hate the feeling of it, especially on a hot day, so I kept it to a minimum. I wore pearl earrings that my husband gave me ages ago and a pearl necklace made for me by my neighbour at the time when I complained to her that I had no idea what necklace to wear with the dress!

A simple wedding in several parts - location, guest list and invitations, accommodation

A simple wedding part 3 - the ceremony

A simple wedding part 4 - the reception

Did you have a simple wedding?  Any tips?  Share your own simple wedding post here.

Comments

  1. Before I got married I always imagined I would wear a blue dress - the colour of the sky just before it turns black. But when I told that to Paul he was horrified. I was so surprised, but it was one of his stipulations that I had to wear a white dress. I guess he had always imagined his bride walking towards him in a white dress, so I gave in.
    I'm glad you got to wear what you wanted though. You look beautiful.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Planning a wedding is certainly a compromise of expectations, often by the time you add in things that family members want as well you hardly get to do anything you wanted!

    ReplyDelete

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