If you're not sure what to share, how about you tell
(a) one thing about your engagment/courtship;
Ok - I'll go with picking the wedding reception place, cause it will make it interesting later. We were living in a city called Wollongong at the time. It is basically situated south of Sydney, on the water, but with an escarpment a few km's in. Very long, narrow area. See photo below. So we were getting married in Wollongong, but went to a place called Robertson for the reception - it is up the mountain (australian's call really small things mountains by the way). On the day we picked the place it was Sept (spring) and beautiful - a bit of warmth, a breeze. We drove up the stone driveway and flower petals blew across in front of us. It is an old monastry, and is just lovely. It was really beautiful day, and we decided it would be a perfect place for a reception - the grounds had extensive gardens, perfect for photos. We were getting married on the 31st August the following year - last day of winter.
http://www.unigames.com.au/eug/images/photos/Wollongong-1.jpeg
(b) one thing about your wedding ceremony;
Ok - the day arrives - it had been raining for days. Overnight it had been torrential. We had 100km winds and torrential rain all day! That morning the driveway was flooded, and my mum had to go out and unblock it. I went to the hairdresser with my sister - we got drenched going in and out. The car that picked me up had to park in the garage. My dressmaker brought a big sheet of plastic around so that I could get to the car dry.
The church leaked... badly. Not many people sat on my hubby's side cause it was so wet. All of the guests were wet. The minister, who lived on site, got so wet through that he had to bring an entire (absolutely entire) change of clothes to put on in the office, having run the 50 or so metres from his house.
We had the Water Music to walk up to (although they played the wrong bit) not that I noticed - cause I just didn't hear anything. My husband was so emotional that the minister had to start the vows again. He made all the female relatives cry - it was really sweet.
(c) one thing about your reception/after party;
So, I told you about the beautiful reception centre. Now there are three ways up the mountain. The first takes about 40 minutes. Half the guests got up. The rest of us got turned away (we had to go and change cars as the cars we had hired weren't going to make it up the mountain in all that rain). The second way takes about 15-20 minutes longer - only one guest went that way after being turned away from the first way. They got turned away again. The last way takes about 2 hours. That is the way we went. Half of the guests got there way before the rest of us. The people who tried the other way came about halfway through. One guest had to stop for petrol halfway up, and there was a blackout so spent the rest of the day there. Another guest had a tree fall on their car at the reception. Another guest had a ute and the back filled with water on the way up. Some guests had to get out and move trees off the road on the way up. We had mud cake!
Now I know this sounds like a complete disaster. But nobody who went to our wedding has every forgotten it. Everyone was wet, but it was a bit of an ice breaker, and so everyone had a great day - they may have drunk a bit more than planned. I knew I couldnt' control the weather, so didn't stress about it. Both of us had an excellent day - we got married! Why wouldn't it be a great day! My advice to people getting married - don't stress about what you can't control - something generally goes wrong at a wedding - as long as you both end up married it's a success!
The other thing - my dad left my mum 5 months before we got married - that was just plain awkward on the day.... I let him come and walk me down the aisle, but didn't let him give a speech. Our minister (my bridesmaids dad) gave a speech instead.
(d) one thing about your honeymoon, if you had one.
It didn't rain.
I didn't know if I felt that way about him and he'd never spoke about his feelings for me. I'd also already had two friendships that progressed into bf/gf but that ended up ruining the friendship so I didn't want to take the risk. Eventually he wrote a really long letter explaining how he felt but still I wasn't sure if I wanted to risk screwing up our friendship. One night a friend of ours got him to call me. He was going through alot at that time, stuff I didn't even realise was happening. During the phonecall I started getting so worried about him, I was in tears because I was so worried. That's when I realised I did love him much more than just a friend. That was the start of our courting and five months later he asked me to marry him.
