Saturday 30 June 2012

Heidi Middleton's Home




Source: Tales of Endearment
Seeing as we are moving into our new place this week, I have been researching interiors to help our house become a home. I came across Heidi Middleton's (one half of Sass & Bide!) house near Sydney from the lovely blog 'Tales of Endearment' (one of my faves!) and oh my! It is beautiful, and full of personality. I wish we could just move in tomorrow. Her house is very white, just like our new place, so this is going to be on our inspiration board! 

Wednesday 27 June 2012

Our Wedding Day




























Source: Marianne Taylor
Our wedding photos by Marianne Taylor are finally here. We are over the moon with them, and we loved looking through them all to relive the day. Our wedding day was just perfect, and went better than planned. The weather was absolutely stunning, which was the biggest surprise as it was raining on the week up to it! Marianne captured our day perfectly, and we were so happy to have her as part of our day.

The main things we wanted for the day were: to ideally get married in Cornwall, to get married at a beautiful venue preferably outside, and for it to be Yellow & Grey. When we first visited our venue, we fell in love straight away. It was everything that we wanted. We instantly felt relaxed, and we knew this was where we wanted to get married. We went for a rustic theme due to getting married in a barn, however we added splashes of yellow and grey to make the decor 'pop'.

Our day was very DIY. I loved every second of creating decor & styling objects for our big day to make it more 'us'. We made about 80% of our big day from making all the stationery, the signs, the table runners and hay bale covers, to the place name holders (I illustrated each individual guest!), table plan, jute string wrapped vases, CD's & home made strawberry jam favours, the bridesmaids brooches on the cardigans, the pom poms, wool wrapped letters, straw flags, doily menus, painted cake topper & bunting, mustache on sticks, mad-libs guest book sheets, cheese cake flags, string balls, posters and jar labels. I did warn you it was very DIY. 

However, one of my favourite bits was our wedding cake which was made and decorated by my Mum. She should become professional! It tasted amazing!

I am glad I saw everything to the end as it truly finished our day off. When we set our venue up the day before, it just made everything worth it. Seeing it all together. I would not change anything about our wedding day....at all! It truly was perfect. 

Most importantly though, I got to marry my best friend, who is also the most caring, handsome man on this planet. We got to share the day with the people we love the most and we were both so overwhelmed by the response we got from our family and friends. 

This day made me realise how much I LOVE weddings, and you never know where that might lead...

You can see more photos of our big day at Marianne Taylors blog

Tuesday 26 June 2012

Primark A/W 2012


Source: Primark
Since moving to Australia, I have realised how spoilt us Brits are in regards to shopping! Our high street is full of affordable fashion that sometimes you don't realise what you have until its gone! When I moved to Australia, 3 weeks ago I instantly missed the affordable trend led shops that I have under appreciated whilst living in the UK. I came across Primarks A/W 2012 PR shots and was so surprised, as I fell in love with the knitwear and the printed shirts. This makes me miss the British high street even more.

Monday 25 June 2012

Hosier Street, Melbourne



We have managed to get to Melbourne a few times, and we have really enjoyed exploring this city. I love the lifestyle of this city. Its as busy as London, but much more laid back, with the locals relaxing in the cafe culture. I loved walking through the lanes, and I am really looking forward to exploring this city more.

We accidently stumbled across 'Hosier Lane' which was an absolute gem. We both stood in this lane taking in the graffiti art for god knows how long! This is where we saw 'We'll never know if we never go...' which we both thought, was very apt about our situation. The second to last photo, is where my 'second office' is, on the main shopping stretch. My job is split between two offices, and although it is a trek into the city, its quite refreshing to join the rat race once or twice a week.

Update: We signed our lease contract for our new place, and we move in a next Friday! Yay! I can not wait to have a place to call 'home' and to settle. Especially as it will make a lovely little home.

Friday 22 June 2012

Great Ocean Road: Lorne



I am going to have to apologise as this blog is going to turn into a travel journal... I promise to bring a bit more variety onto the blog as soon as we have settled into our new home, and have got our broadband set up. I have missed updating this blog daily, so I will resume as soon as I can! 

We managed the weekend just gone, to do the start of the Great Ocean Road and head down to Lorne. It is absolutely stunning, and it was one of those moments where Alex & I realised how lucky we are to experiencing this. It was raining one second, and sunny the next which created the most beautiful Rainbow's that framed the most beautiful settings. We are really excited to explore the rest of this road, however it might have to wait until we take a few days off... and we might wait for a bit more sunshine!

However for now, you will be inundated with photos from Australia ;) 


Thursday 21 June 2012

Video: First few weeks in Australia



So, I have finally put together this video of our first week or so in Australia. Every spare moment we have is spent on exploring the new country that we live in. We find keeping busy helps take away the fact that we have uprooted and moved to the other side of the world, and that we are very lucky to be here. Doing things that not many people we know would ever get the chance of doing.

 A few of the many things we have learnt whilst being in Australia are:
1. Cadburys chocolate does not taste the same as UK's chocolate... However, this might not be a bad thing!
2. You do not J-walk here...unless you want to get fined
3. Australian TV is much more lenient than the UK's. Its quite comical to watch.
4. McDonalds free WiFi, cuts out after a half hour skype call.

Sunday 10 June 2012

Visual Diary: Our first week in Australia

1. Taking our first wander around Geelong | 2. One of the many wooden characters around Geelong | 3. Me & the husband | 4. A long dusty road | 5. Me & the husband at Bells Beach | 6. Alex at Bells Beach | 7. A beautiful sunrise from our balcony

Saturday 9 June 2012

So we have arrived...




So, we finally made it to Australia last Tuesday morning. The flight wasn't to bad as we slept for most of the journey! However, 22 hours in a plane is a long time though... It all went pretty smoothly until we landed and got to where we were staying for the night and realised that the driver of our taxi had left my hand luggage in the trolley that had all sorts of stuff in, including my apple laptop! LUCKILY.... He drove back and someone had handed it in with nothing missing! What are the chances! So the first few hours in Melbourne were quite stressful to say the least.

We explored St Kilda, Melbourne for the day which was beautiful and we are looking forward to going back when it's slightly sunnier! It's a bit chilly over here at the moment as it's the Australian winter.... however when I say chilly, its about 12 degrees. Ha! We drove down to Geelong the next day to our temporary accommodation for the next 4 weeks which is in such a beautiful location. Its a 2 bed apartment right on the waterfront. Geelong really reminds us of Plymouth, just nicer ha! Geelong is considered a country town, which is supposedly the largest in Victoria, just to give you an idea on the size... It has lots of nice independent shops as well as chains, with the beaches really close.

We met up with a lovely lady who showed us around the area., and helped us look at a few rental properties. We saw some lovely places and we are going to apply for a house in Geelong. It suit us perfectly and it's newly built so has all the mod cons! I'd be happy to not see a peach bathroom again....there are a fair few in Geelong. We liked Torquay but the houses were just to big for the two of us, even if the location is beautiful.

However the Torquay beaches are only 20 minutes away which is nothing really....! I start my new job on Tuesday which I am looking forward to. Will be nice to finally get settled in that aspect of the big move. It's also a bank holiday here this Monday so we have 3 days to get out & explore before I go back to work :)

We have both been struggling with jet lag, and waking up at 3am each night, however we managed to sleep all the way through till 7am this morning, so this was a bonus for us. However 'Rice Bubbles' aka 'Rice Krispies' as they are known in the UK, are a great midnight snack!

We drove to Bells beach this afternoon, which pleased the husband, as he has always wanted to go. There were a few people out enjoying the surf, however I have made Alex promise to not go out by himself to start off with, so he is looking into a local surf club. Its a beautiful location, however I am looking forward to the summer over here when the sun shows it's head!

P.S Saw my first (three in total!) wild kangaroos today... quite an exciting moment for me, even if they are considered vermin here :)

Friday 1 June 2012

Our Wedding Video Teaser



I can not believe it was 2 weeks today that me and Alex got married. Time has flown by trying to sort out our big move to Australia, that I can't keep track of the days. Up above is our wedding video teaser from Luke at Rocking Stone Weddings.

Luke was our last mintue rash decision. We found him through a talented musician Tom James, that we were originally going to hire to play at our big day, and he mentioned a videographer to me. After that I really wanted Luke to capture our day and I was on his website trying to convince Alex that we needed Luke to capture our day. It wasn't until we were finding out we were flying to Australia, that it changed Alex's mind as we both knew our minds wouldn't be 100% focused on the day and that he didn't want us to not see everything. Not only do we think he is a videographer genius, but he just fitted into our day like we had known him since forever and merged in with our friends and family.

We received the video yesterday and even though it is only 1min20 long, he has already captured the morning perfectly. We literally can not wait to see the rest. I also got my first 'you were right all along' from the husband so that was a bonus haha.

I also have some news on Australia. The visas came through on Monday and we are flying tomorrow. I am a mixture of emotions. Mainly nervous and scared and I am dreading saying goodbye to my parents tomorrow. However I know once we are there we will be fine and we can start our adventure. I start my new design job, or stylists as they are known in Australia on the following Monday, so the next time I will post on this blog will be when we are living down under.