About Me:

Hello PW! My name is Mel and I'm a 22 y/o bride from Fort Worth, Texas. I'm married to Chris, a 23 y/o electrician from Queensland, Australia. I joined PW in January of this year. I was planning most of my Mackay, Queensland wedding from 8000 miles away in Texas while I awaited the approval of my Intention to Marry Visa (which would allow me to get back to Queensland and be married.)PW proved the perfect distraction and support-system as I sat around the house 24/7 planning away, hoping to hear some news.

When I landed in Queensland, visa in-hand, on May 14th it was only 7 short weeks before our wedding; I had DIY projects to start, invitations to finish, a house to move into, fittings in Brisbane to fly to, meetings with the chef, coordinator and florist to attend, it was never-ending! Even admist all the chaos that is my life now, I've missed PW and being a constant part of the community. Our wedding felt like a real success, a dream even and a lot of that was thanks to all the princess here with your constant support and advice. I'll be popping in and out for sure, you won't have a chance to miss me. ;)

My PW Persona:

If you want an honest opinon or constructive criticism, I am your girl. I won't say I like something if I don't and I won't tell you you look good in something if I think you could look better in something else. I try to treat all the PW brides with the honesty I afford to only my sisters and best friends. They always come to me before a night out to see if I approve of the dress or if they need advice on some drama because they know I'll tell it like it is, and I can only hope that principle, an honest opinion, would be appreciated more than a white-lie here on PW, especially when it comes to a girl's wedding. If I say something you didn't want to hear or that rubbed you the wrong way, I am sorry! PM me and we'll talk it out. I am not that girl trolling the forum trying to stir things up, ever. I love you girls!

Three words to describe our wedding dream would have been:

"whimsical", "romantic", and "original." After working for David's Bridal for a couple years, I felt like I had seen it all. Nothing typical wowed me anymore. I credit that experience in the industry as the biggest reason that our wedding ended up being as different as it was. 

We saved money by:

We were constantly asking, "Do we want __________ because that's the way it's been at every wedding we've ever been to, or do we want __________ because we truly love it?" This question helped to eliminate a lot of unnecessary expenses like a huge guest list, wedding limo, full dinner menu, etc. Biggest save was that we incorporated almost every decorative aspect of the ceremony into our reception decor; we hung the large peony-feather pomanders around the arches on the patio and the smaller vine-pomanders that lined the aisle were placed onto trumpet vases. A huge save was incorporating feathers and vine and silk flowers instead of large live flower arrangements; the only live flowers in the entire wedding were in my bouquet and a few spray roses in the bm purses and vine pomanders. We also used the same chair covers at the reception as at the ceremony. All of these things helped cut our florist bill down from AUD$4000 (if we'd used live flowers and separate centrepieces) to AUD$1800 for everything.

We made our own boutonnieres from blue swarovski crystal beads, pink glass beads,wire, and finished them using velour ribbon. I don't have a large picture but this pic of my bridesmaid and her husband is a pretty good one of one we made:

Some of our professional pictures for your perusal ;):

Chris and I met on Okcupid.com in July of 2006; this is our love story.

I have kept pen pals for as long as I can remember, so when I joined Okcupid.com it wasn't with love in mind. There were a lot of fun questionnaires and personality profilers to play with and the matching system fascinated me because it didn’t just point you to people you might find great love with, but also people you might make great friends with. My scores with most people usually ranged in about the 75-85 percent mark at the highest. One day I got curious…I wanted to see who had the highest scores with me out of any location. My jaw dropped when I was pointed towards a seriously hot *Australian* man with a match of 94% out of a possible 95% who seemed to have so much in common with me. I never thought he’d message me back because he was definitely way out of my league and I couldn’t see why he would be interested in talking to someone like me. To my surprise, he sent back a message that seemed really interested to get to know me! We began exchanging messages and developed crushes on each other fairly quickly. Over the next 5 months we would send emails upwards of 5000 words on a weekly basis at first and then we graduated to msn chats every chance we got,YouTube video-mail and, eventually, phone calls. There was nothing we disagreed on. We divulged our deepest secrets and most intimate dreams. It got to the point that it was painful to go very long without speaking to him; I knew things had gone too far. I could not keep entertaining ideas of a relationship that was never ever going to happen because he was 8000 miles away!!! But the minute I went to tell him that we needed to stop this, whatever it was, I asked myself why I was so ready to cut off contact with the man of my dreams to try and find someone else who measured up to that standard just because of the inconvenience of distance. Distance is a hurdle to overcome just like anything else and I knew that I would never be able to move past this time in my life if I didn’t give him the chance he deserved. So, I did something rash; I dropped out of school and started working full time to save for a plane ticket to Australia to meet this guy I was so infatuated with. On January 16^th, 2007 we both committed to not see other people until we gave our relationship a valid chance(we consider that as our anniversary today rather than the date of our physical meeting.) And so the journey began…

    I landed in Sydney on June 1^st, 2007 almost a year after that first message was sent. I walked down the ramp from customs and saw Chris on the opposite side of the room about 50 yards away. I wanted to drop my luggage and run to him! That first embrace was so special to me. All I could think was how unreal it was that I was doing the impossible just by holding him, and then I was shocked by how TALL he is!! (At 6’3” he is one of the few men who tower over my 5’9” frame.) The next 6 weeks were a whirlwind of chivalry with 5 star hotel rooms and dinners, meetings with friends and family, trips into the rainforest and rendezvous with kangaroos. (they feel like bunny fur!) There was never an awkward moment between us and he only managed to confirm everything I’d ever believed about him and more.

    Easily the longest time we’ve spent apart since that meeting was the following 5 months. It was the most painful and difficult experience of my life and was a real test for both of us. My next trip to Australia lasted 8 weeks and gave us the opportunity to get to know each other in a different way as I also got to know his family and friends more intimately. We were definitely beginning to come to the end of that “honeymoon phase” of our relationship where everything was unicorns and rainbows, and learned that being together is a lot of work.

    Reading the books “For Men Only” and “For Women Only” as well as “The Five Love Languages” have really helped us have great communication and keep each other’s needs fulfilled. I recommend it to all of you because it revolutionized our relationship and the fact that we’ve NEVER had an argument is a testament to that fact. Which is not to say there is never miscommunication, we have both just really learned to listen to each other and to give and take as needed.

    When Chris came to America to meet my family, it was a 3 month stay and included trips to Hawaii and New York. My family fell in love with him and Chris fell in love with America!! I was honestly surprised at this point that we still weren't engaged because we talked about our wedding and our future in Australia together all the time. It was obvious he planned on marrying me and his reluctance to put that ring on my finger led to an intense discussion about where all of this was leading. When the sermon in church that Sunday was titled "JUST GET MARRIED!" we had a laugh about it all and he promised we would be engaged by the end of the year, but on his terms. I sheepishly agreed and the rest of his stay was so much more enjoyable with that tension out of the air. He left in May '08 and I wasn't far behind him in June of last year.

    My third stint in the land down under was my longest yet at 3 months. I wasn't legally allowed to work, so my days were spent mostly waiting for Chris to come home from work and play with me! We live in a terribly small mining town of about 5000 people and it's really hard to meet people unless I wanted to go out to the pub every night which isn't really my scene anyways. As lonely as the days could be, we'd go into town on the weekends where all of his friends live and I started to find my place in his world. As different as Australia is from America, I was really beginning to believe that I could get used to it all and really be happy there.

Engaged!

However, my heart was sinking as my stay in Queensland was coming to a close and he still hadn’t proposed. Imagine my surprise when he walked into my room one Friday and told me to pack a bag. I was confused! While we do a lot of traveling, we hadn’t planned on going anywhere together that weekend. I asked what was going on and he said that we’re going to Brisbane. Brisbane is the capital city of Queensland and the third largest city in Australia; it's where he meets me each time I come into the country and where we say goodbye each time I leave so it is a very special place for us.  He explains he has a few surprises planned along the way so I should pack a nice dress. The next day as we arrived in Brisbane, I smiled as the taxi pulled up in front of the Hilton, what we think of as our special place. Even when the budget doesn’t permit a stay in the hotel, we always stop for drinks in the Hilton lounge there when we’re in town; it was where we stayed my first time in Brisbane and where we shared our first kiss and exchanged "I love you's" for the first time. This was promising to be a special weekend! As we settled into the room Chris said there had been a problem with his credit card at reception and he needed to go find a bank quickly to sort it out. Because of the early flight that morning, it wasn't long before I fell asleep. I woke up to Chris curling up behind me and suggesting a trip to Starbucks which was in the mall downstairs. I was super excited because it's the only Starbucks in the state and I hadn't had my fix in months!! We spent the rest of the day shopping and he even gifted me with new shoes because when he told me we'd be walking 20 blocks to the river parkland that evening I mentioned that I'd only brought one pair of high-heeled shoes for the weekend to save space. I smiled at my shiny new flats as we walked hand in hand among thousands of others making the trek down to Southbank. Chris told me that it was the first night of the Riverfestival and that I could expect a HUGE fireworks show the likes of which I'd never seen. 

After the fireworks show Chris walked me back to the hotel and I changed into that dress he'd asked me to bring to make our dinner reservation. I had no idea where we were going! When we sat down at the restaurant and I saw the prices on the menu, Chris just smiled and told me not to worry about the cost, this was our last long weekend together (Chris has every other weekend as 4 days off) before I go back and we were going to enjoy it! Of course, at this point I'm putting things together: the expensive hotel, expensive shoes without blinking an eye, an outrageous fireworks show and now a 5 star dinner. Images of him down on one knee flickered through my mind but logic told me that he'd never had a chance to get a ring, we're together 24/7! As our meal came out and we enjoyed some nice wine I begain to wonder if maybe he'd organized something over the phone from something he'd seen online or something....but I decided not to worry about it. If this was the night, it would all work out on it's own!

We stopped for cocktails in the lounge upon arrival to the hotel, a perfect end to a very perfect day. I ordered my favorite, a Scangomotch and Chris had his old standby Mojito. However, Chris seemed a little tense and wouldn't tell me what was up no matter how times I asked if he was alright so I decided to finish my drink upstairs and we could have an early night.

When I opened the door to our room, there was a platter of some kind of dessert on the desk that had "congratulations" spelled out in chocolate sauce and a dozen roses on the bed, Chris told me to close my eyes and my heart started pounding. When I opened them, he was on one knee asking me to marry him!! I squealed out a yes and pulled him up into a hug and a kiss. I kept asking where he got it from, I'm with him all the time! He said that two weeks ago when he'd been about an hour late from work, it wasn't because he'd gotten held back. He hadn't even gone to work that day, he'd driven the 2 hours into town and got a flight to Brisbane where he met with a man at Hardy Brothers and designed this ring for me before flying back the same day with me being nonethewiser. On top of that, there had never been a problem with his credit card that afternoon; he just needed an excuse to pick the ring up from the jeweler!!! Ahhh! How sneaky? :) He handed me the most beautiful bouquet of roses I'd ever laid eyes on and I was just on cloud 9! We ended the night with a glass of champagne and a smile on our faces.

A suprise trip to our special place, a suprise ring I didn't think could exist, it was just so special. When we returned home to Moranbah, Chris's mom decorated the front drive with tealights to greet us and say congratulations. It was really beautiful and was the icing on the cake of a very very special weekend.

    We were engaged on August 30th, 2008 and plan to get married on July 4th, 2009 at the botanic gardens in Mackay. There is a lot of Visa CRAP involved. Basically the Australian customs has told me that I have to stay stateside until my visa application is approved. There's a lot of time constraints involved in the visa process as far as how long it's valid for which is why we haven't applied til now, but let me tell you this much: no matter how stressful you think your wedding is, try planning one from 8000 miles away. It could always be worse ladies, it's can always be worse. ;)

    Chris came to visit me last week (January) to witness my baptism. He was only here for about 2 weeks and even though it'd only been a month since we'd seen each other, it was so surreal to be together again. And now that he's gone again and it hasn't even been a week...gosh I can't believe it hasn't even been a WEEK!...I miss him more than ever. It never gets easier to be apart and it's so painful every time. I'm ready for the day that this back and forth nonsense is over...

And that's our story.

Our invitations were a big hit, but SO tedious to make mainly because of attatching the crystal buttons to the ribbon. We accordian-folded the ribbon, gripped the button in the middle of the folds and secured the buttons using a needle and matching pink thread. We hot-glued the ribbons (just a dot under the buttons) to the center of the invite to keep it from sagging. The best way we found to attatch the ribbon to the back of the invitation-mat was to just use transparent Scotch tape. This also made any mistakes easily correctable. We attatched the rest of the mats using double-sided ribbon adhesive. I would have used more adhesive on the envelope liners (maybe a spray glue?) because they would pull apart when we opened the envelopes. Just a tip. ;)

I would also reccomend making a scale drawing using graph-paper and a ruler if you're doing several layers just so you know what sizes you want to order. Doing that gave me an idea of what size ribbon to order, how much paper to order, and that our buttons would be proportionate to our final product.

We used Envelopments Z-folds and would reccomend them to anyone! We orded through Envelopme.com, paid rush shipping and it was there within 48 hours. SO awesome!

Our Inspiration:

Our not-to-scale Photo-shop mock-up:

What we ordered:

• 5x7 landscape Signature Z-fold in the Graphite Plume pattern
  

• 5x7 envelopes in metallic graphite

• 5x7 envelope liners in metallic rubelite (hot pink)
• 3 layer invitation mat
  • 5x7 metallic cardstock in Caspian
  • 5x7 cardstock in the Aquamarine Regalia pattern
  • 5x7 linen cardstock in white
• RSVP
  • 3.5x5 white linen cardstock RSVP
  • 3.5x5 white linen cardstock Map
  • 3.5x5 metallic cardstock backing in Caspian
  • 4x7 envelopes in Caspian
  • 2x17 vellum bellyband in Plume pattern
• 2x17 vellum bellyband in Plume pattern
  
• Taped cardstock seals in white linen

Jeweled buttons were 1 1/8" in diameter and $1.50 each from rhinestonejewelery.com. SO gorgeous! Top quality.

Font was Ambassador Script Font Family (13 fonts) $50 from myfonts.com.

The Final product:

Files:

Final thoughts:

At the time I was THRILLED with the final product and really felt like our invites set the stage for the feeling of our wedding. I now feel like I could have done something equally beautiful using just one 5x7 Cardstock with the layers instead of the z-fold and saved a LOT of money that could have been used elsewhere. My only invite regret. ;)

My engagement ring is a split-shank solitaire with an internally flawless center stone of 1.05 carats, altogether weighing in at a total of 2 carats set in platinum and white-gold. It's from Hardy Brothers and I couldn't be happier. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Both of our wedding bands were custom made by Greg Neil Showcase Jewllers in Mackay. Mine is White gold with 1 carat of bead-set diamonds, his is white gold with a yellow gold cross.

UPDATE: Final Product

Jewelry was custom, champagne crystals and gold chain by a local designer:

The Dress

Rhianna Royale by Maggie Sottero in light gold/champagne

Shoes

Niesha by J. Renee

Yes, I'm a feather/brooch bouquet bride! Not neccessarily the most original aspect of the wedding but I was pretty happy with it! Only complaint is that the florist used white feathers when there was only champagne and ivory in our wedding. WTH?? lol Was still pretty regardless. The photog didn't have any full pics of it on the website they posted, but I *KNOW* they took some, so hopefully I'll get my hands on a full pic for our album.

Flowers; Lysianthus, Tulip, and various shades of cream and champagne roses. The bouquet was wrapped in stretch ivory lace and finished with a crystal brooch.

The "brooch" I used was actually a set of crystal earrings I found at a local boutique. I turned them upside down and had one on either side of the bouquet. The florist secured them using clear floral pins. I was happy with the final product, but wish I'd been more explicit about my expecatations. My advice is to always be *super specific* with the florist, and even if they say they know exactly what you mean, make sure they have in writing the colours and materials you've chosen. This way if there's a discrepancy there's proof of it. ;)

My "brooch" earring.

UPDATE:

One of my good frinds did my hair for our wedding.  She coloured my hair the week before the wedding and then took home the Rapunzel Rapunzel clip-in hair extensions (which she GIFTED ME!! SO sweet!) to colour to match my hair. Because I have extremely thick hair, we had to use 2 packs of extensions. Using my pics below as inspiration, she ended up creating a style I really loved. She did a mix of "flip-waves" curls using a GHD flat-iron and GHD products. The colour of the extensions was SO perfect and they blended seamlessly into my style.  The end result was exactly what I wanted, I couldn't have been happier.

I've been looking at hairstyles lately. All of these are from the PW gallery, so if it's your hair and you want people to know, let me know so I can say here. :)

I want to look natural at my wedding. No fake nails. No fake tan...and yet. I'm going to have extensions. LOL I'm such a hypocrite! hahaha In my defense, they're *someone's* natural hair! But, in keeping with the "natural" look, I don't want anyone to be able to tell that a curling iron has touched my hair. I know the spiral waves are trendy, and they're fine for someone else, just not for me. If there's curls in my hair, I want it to look like they're natural curls rather than roller curls. These are some faves:

Makeup pics TBD. :)

UPDATE: Final Picture!

We ended up making the little purses from artifical leafy vines and ivy. We cut all the leaves off each plastic vine and organized them from largest to smallest. The largest leaves were pushed into the bottome of the hexaganol shape we'd carved from floral foam, and were filled in from largest-to-smallest, bottom-to-top. The handles were made from the left-over plastic vine before we wrapped them with dried dotty-vine. The florist finished them with pink spray roses, moss, and sprigs of blue hydrangea. Total cost, including an AUD$20 florist charge, was about $AUD25 per purse. If you purchased the flowers yourself (EASY to do in the U.S. just not in rural Australia) I'm sure you could make them for even cheaper by cutting the florist out altogether.

(The bracelets were purchased from a local boutique)

I love my BM! They are each forking over thousands to be in my wedding. I can't believe their sacrifice, they really love me. :)

This is what my line-up will look like:

MOH is the first to pick out her dress, it's a Betsey Johnson and we picked it up on clearance at the outlet. YEAH! It is perrrrfect!

My older sister Kara's dress! I bubble over with joy to see her wear it. I just love it. $110, BJ Outlet; San Marcos Texas:

Little sister Kaitlyn's dress! Love the little bow! Betsey Johnson, $150 on Ebay:

MrsPackyMan shared UniqueVintage.com which ships internationally!! HURRAY! Betsey Johnson doesn't exist in Australia, so we ordered Annette's knock-off dress for $120 plus shipment from the UniqueVintage site.

And, last but not least, Ashleigh's dress is the odd one out. There's no lace, but it's adoreable and doesn't seem to stand out in the crowd. She's a pregnant princess, so this style should be more flattering and comfortable for her tummy. $118 unique-vintage.com, actual sash was purple, not green. We took the flower off! Based off a Sherri Hill style:

Flowers

I haven't decided whether to do bouquets or purse-flowers or pomanders...but I know I LOVE these flowers.

Photo from Offbeatbride.com

I also love this bouquet purse idea...we'll see. :)

Bouquet photos from http://vintageindie.typepad.com/

The Princesses

Amelia, The Best Friend from High School

Ashleigh,The New BFF from Oz

Kaitlyn, The Little Sister

Kara,The Big Sister

Annette,The Future Sister

UPDATE: 

Gotta love how our theme was Lovebirds and there are NO PICTURES of the birdsnests we slaved away on to create or any of the bird aspects at all. HAHA! Oh well. I can't say that I am honestly upset in the slightest. I wish I could show you what we did, but I can't change the fact that we can't so you'll just have to trust me that it all worked out in the end!

I've only just gotten to a point in my wedding where I feel like I have a solid enough plan to share my ideas in one place.

Wedding Theme

Our wedding theme is Love Birds. I know it's not very original, but we really do *love* birds, and everyone knows it. We feed the lorikeets and the cockatoos every day when we're together and plan on having an aviary full of little finches and canaries at our new home.

(Yes, this is a picture of me within 10 minutes of waking up..with no makeup...in my pjs. But I love those little lorries!)

Ceremony Ideas

We are getting married in the Mackay Botanic Gardens at 10am on July 4th. We wanted to avoid the monsoon season at all costs, and by getting married in the morning, we're avoiding peak rain time. We've had to be very flexible after our original financing fell through and we're having to pay for everything ourselves out-of-pocket.

We're steering away from the conventional and will be having an afternoon tea reception. Picture 3 tier serving trays full of tasty treats as centerpieces with scattered feathers and petals and little bird figurines with a bit of moss and ivy here or there. I'm not really having "colors" persay, because there's so many that I'm using. It's more like a color palette I'm trying to stay within. I'd like there to be a sort of indie-vintage feel surrounding the whole day.

We plan on choosing 4 exotic whole-tea-leaves from The Tea Centre in the Brisbane Arcade. We're waffling between setting up a self-serve tea bar where people can simply scoop the tea of their choice into filters and return to their table, or having little tea bowls on each table for people to choose from. I LOVE the idea of the little tea bowls on each table, but if everyone at one table really loves one tea and they run out....there's not going to be much by way of refilling it. So I'll probably be stuck with the tea bar. It could be cute!

We're also going to cut down some branches from whatever tree I find that looks good (manzanitas don't exist in Australia. BOO.) and do the whole tea-light-in-the-tree thing, with a few little birdies in the branches and maybe a nest or two. We won't use them as centerpieces, rather we'll set them up around the room to add ambience. If we do the tea bar, it will probably be featured on that table.

To cut on costs, we really want to keep live flowers to a minimum. I mean, I LOVE flowers, don't get me wrong. My dress is COVERED in them, but I think I'd really regret dropping thousands on flowers a few months down the road when I have nothing but pictures to show for it. For every purchase we make, we are asking ourselves how we can reuse these items later on. Needless to say, we're not spending a lot of money on random expensive decor items.

I don't care about chivari chairs, chairh covers or the shape of the forks and other things like that. No one else is going to remember the chair covers, so I'd rather spend that money on food!

Inspirations:

My beautiful MOH hosted my shower at her mother's home and it was gorgeous! All of the flowers I wanted for my wedding would be out of season when I was in Australia, so she bought ALL of them to decorate at the shower!! It was gorgeous, the food was yummy, the company was beautiful, and I felt truly loved. I really enjoyed myself. :)

DIY Projects (completed or in process)

I am not a professional graphic designer by any means, but I can definitely hold my own in Photoshop. I have made a couple different STDs, but my final decision is this one:

I made the bird vector from a pic of two cuddling lorikeets! I wanted to tie in the tea party somehow as well, and I love the end result with the tea pot. There's still something weird about the text on the pot though...it's not as cohesive as the original. Ah well. They will be printed on round stickers, stuck to brown round cardstock, and made into magnets. Here's the original STD that I've emailed to a few people to edit to their liking, if you'd like the original STD .psd file, pm me!