:: Journal Swap ::

Thank you all for your lovely comments on the wedding photos I've posted so far. It's been fun to look through all the photos my family and friends have taken! And wow, Mr LG and I have seen our professional wedding photos. There is no way we can easily choose our favourites for an album - they're amazing!

In non-wedding related news (don't want to inundate you all!) I met up with the lovely Gracie on the weekend. It was fantastic to meet her in person after all the emails, blog comments and snail mail we have sent each other. Back in October Gracie and I did a journal swap together. We chose some journal prompts including first celebrity crush and favourite quotes and used those as inspiration.

Gracie's journal for me -  I loved how pretty it was and how much it reflected her personality.

My journal for Gracie!

Yes, you saw right - that is Taylor Hanson.

Doing the journal swap sparked my creative side and my love for snail mail again. Since joining the blogging world I have gained a few pen pals from various parts of the world, but I would love more! If you'd like to become pen pals, let me know - I'd love to write to you!

:: Wedding Details - The Boys ::

Hello!

I'm back with more wedding photos. After my last wedding post Mr LG asked where the pictures of him were, so I thought I would show you the boys today. I let Mr LG make his own decisions on the boys attire, and I think he chose amazing outfits for his side of the bridal party. My favourite part (apart from their adorable bow ties!) was the pocket squares - Mr LG had white to match my dress and the boys had green to match the girls. The pops of green on their black suits looked amazing!

My brother-in-law was the driver of the boys for the day, so I gave him my camera and told him to take some shots. This one is of Mr LG posing in our front door way.

I love these photos of the boys helping each other get ready!

Here he is at the church, posing for our photographer. This shot was taken by one of my friends.

The boys waiting in the church for everyone to arrive - and on a side note, how cute are the pew decorations? They're a tie-in to my Kitchen Tea decorations.

I hope you all had a fabulous Monday to start your week off!

:: Happy Valentine's Day ::

Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope you all had a wonderful day celebrating everyone and everything that you love. Valentine's Day is a very special day for me because it is also Mr LG's birthday. We celebrated Mr LG's birthday with my family on Sunday. When I asked him what he wanted to do for his birthday, his only response was "cake". One particular cake - my Mum's chocolate cake. And so, we celebrated ... with lots of cake! There was chocolate cake, flourless chocolate cupcakes, chocolate choc chip muffins, lemon slice and caramelised pear cake!

My sister-in-law made some decadent flourless chocolate chip cupcakes. They were gorgeously decorated with a Valentine's Day theme. Baking cupcakes for Valentine's Day has become a tradition for her, and it's one that my stomach and I would like to encourage!

Find her recipe here

Mr LG and I celebrated his birthday together on Valentine's Day by cooking lamb roast (one of his favourites) and relaxing at home. We swapped presents and he gave me the most amazing Valentine's Day present!

Mr LG has decided to start his own Valentine's Day tradition - starting this year, every Valentine's Day I will get a Valentine post card (he knows me so well). I was so touched by what he wrote on the back - I almost cried! Accompanying the post card was some cute hair pins, a chef's pencil set, and a pair of incredible 50s 'rock and roll' shoes!

I have wanted a pair of these shoes since I was a teenager and last week I saw a pair in my size at a local antique store, but talked myself out of them because I didn't "need" them. I was so excited when I opened my present to find them nestled inside the box.

 

I hope Valentine's Day started your week off with a smile.

PS. Thank you all so much for your generous and lovely comments on my wedding dress.

:: Wedding Details - My Dress ::

Thank you all so much for your comments on my last post! Being a Mrs has been fantastic! I'm enjoying living with Mr LG and making a life for ourselves in our little house. I thought I would show you some more phoos of my wedding gown, our drivers for the day were each armed with a camera and I have a few photos from their cameras to show you.

This photo was taken by my sister-in-law in my parents living room. I love the floaty lines of my dress and the flower embellishments. Working with my dress maker was a dream, every time I went to see her she had a new idea or concept that had randomly come to her and I loved every single one. The dress evolved so much during the months - from singlet straps to off-the-shoulder straps, from no flowers to lots of flowers, and my favourite - from all white to hints of a colour called ice which shone purple in some lights, green in some, and grey in others (three of my favourite colours - perfect!). The ice fabric was initially going to be an under layer and at the very last minute my dress maker had a brilliant creative moment and placed some of the fabric on the top. I also love that my Mum kept her Christmas tree up so I could have it in the background of some of my photos.

The back of my dress (please ignore my swimmers tan!). I never thought I'd go for such a low back, but I love the way it looks.

This photo was taken near the end of our photography session. My hair is all bedraggled because it rained so much throughout the day. In fact, some of you may have seen it on the news, but Brisbane flooded two days after our wedding. Our photo venue went under water as well as part of our reception venue, so we were very lucky. By the time the photos were done my dress had soaked up water to my waist line! I rang my Mum on the way to the reception venue and begged for someone to bring me a hair dryer! We ran inside the reception venue and into the toilets and began to blow dry my dress layer by layer (and then my hair)!

I have so many photos I'd love to show you, but I will leave them for another day. This afternoon Mr LG and I are going to our photographers to view our professional photos, we are so excited!

Much love!

:: Mrs Lavender ::

Hello!

I am back from the most wonderful wedding and honeymoon I could've imagined! I can't wait to share all my favourite parts from the past few weeks with you all.

Our wedding was absolutely perfect, it was so amazing to see all our family and friends in one place together to celebrate our special day. Even though it rained all day, for one beautiful hour is stopped raining - the exact time we needed to have our photos taken - how lucky were we? We were blessed with beautiful grey skies and a wonderful old building for the backdrop for our photos and I can't wait to see the final products!

Our day started around 7am and didn't finish 'til midnight. I had so much fun all day and somehow managed not to cry throughout the ceremony. I have cried at every other wedding I've been too, so I thought for sure I'd cry at my own - but I was busy having too much fun! The waterworks came during speeches later, speeches always get me.

I have hundreds of photos to sort through, but I wanted to share with you my favourite photo from the various happy-snappers during the day. This photo was taken by my older brother while he was juggling a large umbrella and various other items. I think the blur makes it perfect.

Much love to you all!

:: Happy New Year! ::

I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and a fabulous New Year! Christmas was a huge day for Mr LG and I. We started the day by opening our presents from each other (he gave me a box filled with crafty things - stamps, ribbons, pens, stickers ... I was in Heaven!) and then headed to his brother's place to spend time with him before going to my parents place for the rest of the day (and night!). We were truly spoilt by our family and friends and our day was filled with love and laughter - what more could we have asked for?

We spent New Years playing Nintendo monopoly with my sister and her boyfriend. I lost ... big time! But, I still had a tonne of fun! I have officially started my holidays and yet, I still feel so busy! My days are filled with wedding crafts and errands while trying to move out of my room. Have any of you tried to move after 17 years of accumulating stuff? Wow, it's a huge task! I'm not generally a hoarder, I'm actually quite good at throwing away/donating things I don't need or use anymore. And yet, I still have SO much stuff! My room currently looks like a bomb has hit it!

It is my 28th birthday in a few days (the 6th) and I can't even begin to think about a way to celebrate it while my wedding 'to do' list still has so many items on it. None of them are huge tasks, but some do take time. My latest project has been stamping cute little brown paper bags for guests to put lollies from our lolly table in.

Can you believe I get married next weekend?! Everything is starting to feel more and more real as we do things like final dress fittings and finalising menus. I can't wait to share the actual day with you all via what will probably be multitudes of photos!

I hope you are all having a fanastic break over the new year!

:: And the winner is ... ::

A big thank you to everyone who entered my Christmas giveaway! Ladies (and gentlemen?) we have our winners!

The winner of this adorable spotty make up bag/pencil case and goodies is Gracie from GracieBellaButterfly!

The winner of the cute tartan make up bag/pencil case is Chloe from Chloe in Reality!

Congratulations ladies! I'll be sending you an email shortly to get your postal addresses.

Thank you all for your generous comments on my wedding invitations. I'm glad you all like them as much as we do! We are currently working on our Orders of Service and a survey for our guests to fill out about us!