Wedding

That’s it. We’re married. All the fuss is over.

We had such a wonderful day, and we’re so grateful to everyone who made the trip north to be with us. Thank you.

If you’d like to see more photos of us, you’ll find us all over our official photographer’s website: lizzysawdonphotography.com.au. We can’t believe it’s really us on there.

All Happening

Almost a year and a half since this happened, it's nearly time for Hayden and me to go and get married!

We leave for our Wedding Destination on Thursday, to be ready to greet our small but highly valued group of guests on Friday. By the end of Saturday, we shall be married and on Sunday we'll go straight to our honeymoon on Hinchinbrook Island.

So far, the preparations have gone pretty well - barring my eyebrow crisis of two weeks ago (Me: Can you please make my eyebrows look good for my wedding? Beautician: [peering at me via the scary magnifying mirror] No...No looking good will not be possible for you. Your eyebrows are naturally assymetrical. But come and see me every week up until the day and I might be able to perform a miracle .. of course I cannot promise anything). That aside, I have been very pleased with a couple of last minute additions to our little big event, including an antique cake knife from my Grandma.

Yesterday, however, the brakes of my car decided to pack it in which is really hampering my ability to race crazily all over town for last-minute necessities. I shall have to sit calmly at home and see what I can organise over the phone.

Ms Lily

When we arrived home from New Zealand, those cats were waiting for us at our front door like they had read our flight itinerary. As we took the mother cat and the father cat back across the road to where they are supposed to live, we were already deciding that we would keep one of the kittens. We kept the smaller, fluffier one. We've called her Lily.




Of course, she is already queen of all our house.

Black at the Beach

Sorry if you were wanting to hear me talk about anything other than plants, but well ... I just wanted to show you these black frondy things that gave this gentle beach just south of New Plymouth such a nice old-timey feel. This might sound dumb, but they kind of transported me to a long-ago childhood caravan beach holiday fantasy, and for the first time ever I began to understand why New Zealand's national colour is black. Before this, it seemed much more like a blue and green kind of country to me.

Not Matching

OK, so the garden picture in the last post was mostly by way of an introduction to this one, from another of the special gardens in Hamilton. This one, the Indian Garden, by the way wins Best Small Garden I've Ever Seen 2008.

I didn't mention it in the last post, but also on that day - after our delightful outdoor lunch but before meandering through the Italian Garden - I made Hayden traipse around the shops of Hamilton with me to find a few more key bits and pieces for our wedding.

The unexpected thing I've found with organising this wedding is the number of headaches I've given myself, squinting and turning my head on its side trying to work out if the item I'm holding in the shop matches the outfit I've been carefully and secretly constructing at home. Actually I've found out that I'm not that bad at it (my shoes and bag match perfectly) - but it does require concentration to a degree that often brings on a headache.

That's why I just loved the Indian Garden. I just love the way that there's every different bright colour of flowers growing on top of each other. Indeed, why would the flowers need to match? Completely free non-matching is so much better! What a beautiful relief!

Special Gardens

You know how I really like gardens? (Oh, you didn't know?) Well in Hamilton the botanical gardens, where Hayden and I went after a delightful outdoor lunch at Iguana, have these special sections done up in different styles of the world. This is the Italian one - and as you can see they've put a stack of effort into it.

You can't see it in this picture, but just off to the side there is a fig tree laden with late-summer fruit. I loved it for reminding me of my favourite time in Tuscany, eating figs fresh off the tree after a long hard day in the sun.